The Complete Tawny Man Trilogy: Fool’s Errand, the Golden Fool, Fool’s Fate
Date: 2013-08-01 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction; Fantasy; Epic; Collections & Anthologies; Military; Historical; Contemporary; General
Description: The complete Tawny Man Trilogy by international bestselling author Robin Hobb. ‘In today’s crowded fantasy market Robin Hobb’s books are like diamonds in a sea of zircons’ George R. R. Martin Years have passed since Fitz was tortured by Prince Regal. Now he lives in self-imposed exile far from the court. Even his beloved Molly believes him dead. It is safer that way. But safety remains an illusion. Even though war is over dangerous undercurrents still swirl around the Six Duchies and suddenly young Prince Dutiful disappears just before his crucial diplomatic wedding to shore up the peace. The
Publisher: HarperCollins
Rights: Copyright Robin Hobb 2001

The Complete Tawny Man
Trilogy:

Fool’s Errand
The Golden Fool
Fool’s Fate

Robin Hobb

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Map

Fool’s Errand

The Golden Fool

Fool’s Fate

About the Author

Also by Robin Hobb

Copyright

About the Publisher

MAP

Fool’s Errand

Book One of The Tawny Man

Robin Hobb

DEDICATION

For Ruth and her Stripers,
Alexander and Crusades.

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

ONE : Chade Fallstar

TWO : Starling

THREE : Partings

FOUR : The Hedge-Witch

FIVE : The Tawny Man

SIX : The Quiet Years

SEVEN : Heart of a Wolf

EIGHT : Old Blood

NINE : Dead Man’s Regrets

TEN : A Sword and a Summons

ELEVEN : Chade’s Tower

TWELVE : Charms

THIRTEEN : Bargains

FOURTEEN : Laurel

FIFTEEN : Galeton

SIXTEEN : Claws

SEVENTEEN : The Hunt

EIGHTEEN : Fool’s Kiss

NINETEEN : The Inn

TWENTY : Stones

TWENTY-ONE : Dutiful

TWENTY-TWO : Choices

TWENTY-THREE : The Beach

TWENTY-FOUR : Confrontations

TWENTY-FIVE : Ransom

TWENTY-SIX : Sacrifice

TWENTY-SEVEN : Lessons

TWENTY-EIGHT : Homecoming

TWENTY-NINE : Buckkeep Town

Epilogue

Copyright

ONE

Chade Fallstar

Is time the wheel that turns, or the track it leaves behind?
Kelstar’s Riddle

He came one late, wet spring, and brought the wide world back to my doorstep. I was thirty-five that year. When I was twenty, I would have considered a man of my current age to be teetering on the verge of dotage. These days, it seemed neither young nor old to me, but a suspension between the two. I no longer had the excuse of callow youth, and I could not yet claim the eccentricities of age. In many ways, I was no longer sure what I thought of myself. Sometimes it seemed that my life was slowly disappearing behind me, fading like footprints in the rain, until perhaps I had always been the quiet man living an unremarkable life in a cottage between the forest and the sea.

I lay abed that morning, listening to the small sounds that sometimes brought me peace. The wolf breathed steadily before the softly crackling hearth-fire. I quested towards him with our shared Wit-magic, and gently brushed his sleeping thoughts. He dreamed of running over snow-smooth rolling hills with a pack. For Nighteyes, it was a dream of silence, cold and swiftness. Softly I withdrew my touch and left him to his private peace.

Outside my small window, the returning birds sang their challenges to one another. There was a light wind, and whenever it stirred the trees, they released a fresh shower of last night’s rain to patter on the wet sward. The trees were silver birches, four of them. They had been little more than sticks when I had planted them. Now their airy foliage cast a pleasant light shade outside my bedroom window. I closed my eyes and could almost feel the flicker of the light on my eyelids. I would not get up, not just yet.

I had had a bad evening the night before, and had had to face it alone. My boy, Hap, had gone off gallivanting with Starling almost three weeks ago, and still had not returned. I could not blame him. My quiet reclusive life was beginning to chafe his young shoulders. Starling’s stories of life at Buckkeep, painted with all the skill of her minstrel ways, created pictures too vivid for him to ignore. So I had reluctantly let her take him to Buckkeep for a holiday, that he might see for himself a Springfest there, eat a carris seed-topped cake, watch a puppet show, mayhap kiss a girl. Hap had grown past the point where regular meals and a warm bed were enough to content him. I had told myself it was time I thought of letting him go, of finding him an apprenticeship with a good carpenter or joiner. He showed a knack for such things, and the sooner a lad took to a trade, the better he learned it. But I was not ready to let him go just yet. However, for now I would enjoy a month of peace and solitude, and recall how to do things for myself. Nighteyes and I had each other for company. What more could we need?

Yet no sooner were they gone than the little house seemed too quiet. The boy’s excitement at leaving had been too reminiscent of how I myself had once felt about Springfests and the like. Puppet shows and carris seed cakes and girls to kiss all brought back vivid memories I thought I had long ago drowned. Perhaps it was those memories that birthed dreams too vivid to ignore. Twice I had awakened sweating and shaking with my muscles clenched. I had enjoyed years of respite from such unquiet, but in the past four years, my old fixation had returned. Of late, it came and went, with no pattern I could discern. It was almost as if the old Skill-magic had suddenly recalled me and was reaching to drag me out of my peace and solitude. Days that had been as smooth and alike as beads on a string were now disrupted by its call. Sometimes the Skill-hunger ate at me as a canker eats sound flesh. Other times, it was no more than a few nights of yearning, vivid dreams. If the boy had been home, I probably could have shaken off the Skill’s persistent plucking at me. But he was gone, and so yesterday evening, I had given in to the unvanquished addiction such dreams stirred. I had walked down to the sea cliffs, sat on the bench my boy had made for me, and stretched out my magic over the waves. The wolf had sat beside me for a time, his look one of ancient rebuke. I tried to ignore him. ‘No worse than your penchant for bothering porcupines,’ I pointed out to him.

Save that their quills can be pulled out. What stabs you only goes deeper and festers. His deep eyes glanced past mine as he shared his pointed thoughts.

Why don’t you go hunt a rabbit?

You’ve sent the boy and his bow away.

‘You could run it down yourself, you know. Time was when you did that.’

Time was when you went with me to hunt. Why don’t we go and do that, instead of this fruitless seeking? When will you accept that there is no one out there who can hear you?

I just have to … try.

Why? Is my companionship not enough for you?

It is enough for me. You are always enough for me. I opened myself wider to the Wit-bond we shared and tried to let him feel how the Skill tugged at me. It is the magic that wants this, not me.

Take it away. I do not want to see that. And when I had closed that part of myself to him, he asked piteously, Will it never leave us alone?

I had no answer to that. After a time, the wolf lay down, put his great head on his paws and closed his eyes. I knew he would stay by me because he feared for me. Twice the winter before last, I had over-indulged in Skilling, burning physical energy in that mental reaching until I had been unable even to totter back to the house on my own. Nighteyes had had to fetch Hap both times. This time we were alone.

I knew it was foolish and useless. I also knew I could not stop myself. Like a starving man who eats grass to appease the terrible emptiness in his belly, so I reached out with the Skill, touching the lives that passed within my reach. I could brush their thoughts and temporarily appease the great craving that filled me with emptiness. I could know a little of the family out for a windy day’s fishing. I could know the worries of a captain whose cargo was just a bit heavier than his ship would carry well. The mate on the same ship was worried about the man her daughter wished to marry; he was a lazy fellow for all of his pretty ways. The ship’s boy was cursing his luck; they’d get to Buckkeep Town too late for Springfest. There’d be nothing left but withered garlands browning in the gutters by the time he got there. It was always his luck.

There was a certain sparse distraction to these knowings. It restored to me the sense that the world was larger than the four walls of my house, larger even than the confines of my own garden. But it was not the same as true Skilling. It could not compare to that moment of completion when minds joined and one sensed the wholeness of the world as a great entity in which one’s own body was no more than a mote of dust.

The wolf’s firm teeth on my wrist had stirred me from my reaching. Come on. That’s enough. If you collapse down here, you’ll spend a cold wet night. I am not the boy, to drag you to your feet. Come on, now.

I had risen, seeing blackness at the edges of my vision when I first stood. It had passed, but not the blackness of spirit that came in its wake. I had followed the wolf back through the gathering dark beneath the dripping trees, back to where my fire had burned low in the hearth and the candles guttered on the table. I made myself elfbark tea, black and bitter, knowing it would only make my spirit more desolate, but knowing also that it would appease my aching head. I had burned away the nervous energy of the elfbark by working on a scroll describing the stone game and how it was played. I had tried several times before to complete such a treatise and each time given it up as hopeless. One could only learn to play it by playing it, I told myself. This time I was adding to the text a set of illustrations, to show how a typical game might progress. When I set it aside just before dawn was breaking, it seemed only the stupidest of my latest attempts. I went to bed more early than late.

I awoke to half the morning gone. In the far corner of the yard, the chickens were scratching and gossiping among themselves. The rooster crowed once. I groaned. I should get up. I should check for eggs and scatter a handful of grain to keep the poultry tamed. The garden was just sprouting. It needed weeding already, and I should re-seed the row of fesk that the slugs had eaten. I needed to gather some more of the purple flag while it was still in bloom; my last attempt at an ink from it had gone awry, but I wanted to try again. There was wood to split and stack. Porridge to cook, a hearth to sweep. And I should climb the ash tree over the chicken house and cut off that one cracked limb before a storm brought it down on the chicken house itself.

And we should go down to the river and see if the early fish runs have begun yet. Fresh fish would be good. Nighteyes added his own concerns to my mental list.

Last year you nearly died from eating rotten fish.

All the more reason to go now, while they are fresh and jumping. You could use the boy’s spear.

And get soaked and chilled.

Better soaked and chilled than hungry.

I rolled over and went back to sleep. So I’d be lazy one morning. Who’d know or care? The chickens? It seemed but moments later that his thoughts nudged me.

My brother, awake. A strange horse comes.

I was instantly alert. The slant of light in my window told me that hours had passed. I rose, dragged a robe over my head, belted it, and thrust my feet into my summer shoes. They were little more than leather soles with a few straps to keep them on my feet. I pushed my hair back from my face. I rubbed my sandy eyes. ‘Go see who it is,’ I bid Nighteyes.

See for yourself. He’s nearly to the door.

I was expecting no one. Starling came thrice or four times a year, to visit for a few days and bring me gossip and fine paper and good wine, but she and Hap would not be returning so soon. Other visitors to my door were rare. There was Baylor who had his cot and hogs in the next vale, but he did not own a horse. A tinker came by twice a year. He had found me first by accident in a thunderstorm when his horse had gone lame and my light through the trees had drawn him from the road. Since his visit, I’d had other visits from similar travellers. The tinker had carved a curled cat, the sign of a hospitable house, on a tree beside the trail that led to my cabin. I had found it, but left it intact, to beckon an occasional visitor to my door.

So this caller was probably a lost traveller, or a road-weary trader. I told myself a guest might be a pleasant distraction, but the thought was less than convincing.

I heard the horse halt outside and the small sounds of a man dismounting.

The grey one, the wolf growled low.

My heart near stopped in my chest. I opened the door slowly as the old man was reaching to knock at it. He peered at me, and then his smile broke forth. ‘Fitz, my boy. Ah, Fitz!’

He reached to embrace me. For an instant, I stood frozen, unable to move. I did not know what I felt. That my old mentor had tracked me down after all these years was frightening. There would be a reason, something more than simply seeing me again. But I also felt that leap of kinship, that sudden stirring of interest that Chade had always roused in me. When I had been a boy at Buckkeep, his secret summons would come at night, bidding me climb the concealed stair to his lair in the tower above my room. There he mixed his poisons and taught me the assassin’s trade and made me irrevocably his. Always my heart had beat faster at the opening of that secret door. Despite all the years and the pain, he still affected me that way. Secrets and the promise of adventure clung to him.

So I found myself reaching out to grasp his stooping shoulders and pull him to me in a hug. Skinny, the old man was getting skinny again, as bony as he had been when I first met him. But now I was the recluse in the worn robe of grey wool. He was dressed in royal blue leggings and a doublet of the same with slashed insets of green that sparked off his eyes. His riding boots were black leather, as were the soft gloves he wore. His cloak of green matched the insets in his doublet and was lined with fur. White lace spilled from his collar and sleeves. The scattered scars that had once shamed him into hiding had faded to a pale speckling on his weathered face. His white hair hung loose to his shoulders and was curled above his brow. There were emeralds in his earrings, and another one set squarely in the centre of the gold band at his throat.

The old assassin smiled mockingly as he saw me take in his splendour. ‘Ah, but a Queen’s Counsellor must look the part, if he is to get the respect both he and she deserve in his dealings.’

‘I see,’ I said faintly, and then, finding my tongue, ‘Come in, do, come in. I fear you will find my home a bit ruder than what you have obviously become accustomed to, but you are welcome all the same.’

‘I did not come to quibble about your house, boy. I came to see you.’

‘Boy?’ I asked him quietly as I smiled and showed him in.

‘Ah, well. To me, always, perhaps. It is one of the advantages of age, I can call anyone almost anything I please, and no one dares challenge me. Ah, you have the wolf still, I see. Nighteyes, was it? Up in years a bit now; I don’t recall that white on your muzzle. Come here now, there’s a good fellow. Fitz, would you mind seeing to my horse? I’ve been all morning in the saddle, and spent last night at a perfectly wretched inn. I’m a bit stiff, you know. And just bring in my saddlebags, would you? There’s a good lad.’

He stooped to scratch the wolf’s ears, his back to me, confident I would obey him. And I grinned and did. The black mare he’d ridden was a fine animal, amiable and willing. There is always a pleasure to caring for a creature of that quality. I watered her well, gave her some of the chickens’ grain and turned her into the pony’s empty paddock. The saddlebags that I carried back to the house were heavy and one sloshed promisingly.

I entered to find Chade in my study, sitting at my writing desk, poring over my papers as if they were his own. ‘Ah, there you are. Thank you, Fitz. This, now, this is the stone game, isn’t it? The one Kettle taught you, to help you focus your mind away from the Skill-road? Fascinating. I’d like to have this one when you are finished with it.’

‘If you wish,’ I said quietly. I knew a moment’s unease. He tossed out words and names I had buried and left undisturbed. Kettle. The Skill-road. I pushed them back into the past. ‘It’s not Fitz any more,’ I said pleasantly. ‘It’s Tom Badgerlock.’

‘Oh?’

I touched the streak of white in my hair from my scar. ‘For this. People remember the name. I tell them I was born with the white streak, and so my parents named me.’

‘I see,’ he said noncommittally. ‘Well, it makes sense, and it’s sensible.’ He leaned back in my wooden chair. It creaked. ‘There’s brandy in those bags, if you’ve cups for us. And some of old Sara’s ginger cakes … I doubt you’d expect me to remember how fond you were of those. Probably a bit squashed, but it’s the taste that matters with those.’ The wolf had already sat up. He came to place his nose on the edge of the table. It pointed directly at the bags.

‘So. Sara is still cook at Buckkeep?’ I asked as I looked for two presentable cups. Chipped crockery didn’t bother me, but I was suddenly reluctant to set it out for Chade.

Chade left the study and came to my kitchen table. ‘Oh, not really. Her old feet bother her if she stands too long. She has a big cushioned chair, set up on a platform in the corner of the kitchen. She supervises from there. She cooks the things she enjoys cooking, the fancy pastries, the spiced cakes, and the sweets. There’s a young man named Duff does most of the daily cooking now.’ He was unpacking the saddlebags as he spoke. He set out two bottles marked as Sandsedge brandy. I could not remember the last time I’d tasted that. The ginger cakes, a bit squashed as foretold, emerged, spilling crumbs from the linen he’d wrapped them in. The wolf sniffed deeply, then began salivating. ‘His favourites, too, I see,’ Chade observed dryly, and tossed him one. The wolf caught it neatly and carried it off to devour on the hearthrug.

The saddlebags gave up their other treasures quickly. A sheaf of fine paper, pots of blue, red and green inks. A fat ginger root, just starting to sprout, ready to be potted for the summer. Some packets of spices. A rare luxury for me, a round ripe cheese. And in a little wooden chest, other items, hauntingly strange in their familiarity. Small things I had thought long lost to me. A ring that had belonged to Prince Rurisk of the Mountain Kingdom. The arrowhead that had pierced the Prince’s chest and nearly been the death of him. A small carved box, made by my hands years ago, to contain my poisons. I opened it. It was empty. I put the lid back on the box and set it down on the table. I looked at him. He was not just one old man come to visit me. He brought all of my past trailing along behind him as an embroidered train follows a woman into a hall. When I let him in my door, I had let in my old world with him.

‘Why?’ I asked quietly. ‘Why, after all these years, have you sought me out?’

‘Oh, well.’ Chade drew a chair up to the table and sat down with a sigh. He unstoppered the brandy and poured for both of us. ‘A dozen reasons. I saw your boy with Starling. And I knew at once who he was. Not that he looks like you, any more than Nettle looks like Burrich. But he has your mannerisms, your way of holding back and looking at a thing, with his head cocked just so before he decides whether he’ll be drawn in. He put me so much in mind of you at that age that …’

‘You’ve seen Nettle,’ I cut in quietly. It was not a question.

‘Of course,’ he replied as quietly. ‘Would you like to know about her?’

I did not trust my tongue to answer. All my old cautions warned me against evincing too great an interest in her. Yet I felt a prickle of foreknowledge that Nettle, my daughter whom I had never seen except in visions, was the reason Chade had come here. I looked at my cup and weighed the merits of brandy for breakfast. Then I thought again of Nettle, the bastard I had unwillingly abandoned before her birth. I drank. I had forgotten how smooth Sandsedge brandy was. Its warmth spread through me as rapidly as youthful lust.

Chade was merciful, in that he did not force me to voice my interest. ‘She looks much like you, in a skinny, female way,’ he said, then smiled to see me bristle. ‘But, strange to tell, she resembles Burrich even more. She has more of his mannerisms and habits of speech than any of his five sons.’

‘Five!’ I exclaimed in astonishment.

Chade grinned. ‘Five boys, and all as respectful and deferential to their father as any man could wish. Not at all like Nettle. She has mastered that black look of Burrich’s and gives it right back to him when he scowls at her. Which is seldom. I won’t say she’s his favourite, but I think she wins more of his favour by standing up to him than all the boys do with their earnest respect. She has Burrich’s impatience, and his keen sense of right and wrong. And all your stubbornness, but perhaps she learned that from Burrich as well.’

‘You saw Burrich then?’ He had raised me, and now he raised my daughter as his own. He’d taken to wife the woman I’d seemingly abandoned. They both thought me dead. Their lives had gone on without me. To hear of them mingled pain with fondness. I chased the taste of it away with Sandsedge brandy.

‘It would have been impossible to see Nettle, save that I saw Burrich also. He watches over her like, well, like her father. He’s well. His limp has not improved with the years. But he is seldom afoot, so it seems to bother him little. It is horses with him, always horses, as it always was.’ He cleared his throat. ‘You do know that the Queen and I saw to it that both Ruddy and Sooty’s colt were given over to him? Well, he’s founded his livelihood on those two stud horses. The mare you unsaddled, Ember, I got her from him. He trains as well as breeds horses now. He will never be a wealthy man, for the moment he has a coin to spare, it goes for another horse or to buy more pasturage. But when I asked him how he did, he told me, “well enough.”’

‘And what did Burrich say of your visit?’ I asked. I was proud I could speak with an unchoked voice.

Chade grinned again, but there was a rueful edge to it. ‘After he got over the shock of seeing me, he was most courteous and welcoming. And as he walked me out to my horse the next morning, which one of the twins, Nim I think, had saddled for me, he quietly promised that he’d kill me before he’d brook any interference with Nettle. He spoke the words regretfully, but with great sincerity. I didn’t doubt them from him, so I don’t need them repeated from you.’

‘Does she know Burrich is not her father? Does she know anything of me?’ Question after question sprang to my mind. I thrust them away. I hated the avidity with which I had asked those two, but I could not resist. It was like the Skill-addiction, this hunger to know, finally know these things after all the years.

Chade looked aside from me and sipped his brandy. ‘I don’t know. She calls him Papa. She loves him fiercely, with absolutely no criticism. Oh, she disagrees with him, but it is about things rather than about Burrich himself. I’m afraid that with her mother, things are stormier. Nettle has no interest in bees or candles, but Molly would like to see her daughter follow her in her trade. As stubborn as Nettle is, I think Molly will have to be content with a son or two instead.’ He glanced out the window. He added quietly, ‘We did not speak your name when she was present.’

I turned my cup in my hands. ‘What things do interest her?’

‘Horses. Hawks. Swords. At fifteen, I expected at least some talk of young men from her, but she seems to have no use for them. Perhaps the woman in her hasn’t wakened yet, or perhaps she has too many brothers to have any romantic illusions about boys. She would like to run away to Buckkeep and join one of the guard companies. She knows Burrich was Stablemaster there once. One of the reasons I went to see him was to make Kettricken’s offer of that position again. Burrich refused it. Nettle cannot understand why.’

‘I do.’

‘As do I. But when I visited, I told him that I could make a place for Nettle there, even if he chose not to go. She could page for me, if nothing else, though I am sure Queen Kettricken would love to have her. Let her see the way of a keep and a city, let her have a taste of life at court, I told him. Burrich turned it down instantly, and seemed almost offended that I’d offered it.’

Without intending, I breathed out softly in relief. Chade took another sip of his brandy and sat regarding me. Waiting. He knew my next question as well as I did. Why? Why did he seek out Burrich, why did he offer to take Nettle to Buckkeep? I took more of my own brandy and considered the old man. Old. Yes, but not as some men get old. His hair had gone completely white, but the green of his eyes seemed to burn all the fiercer beneath those snowy locks. I wondered how hard he fought his body to keep the stoop in his shoulders from becoming a curl, what drugs he took to prolong his vigour and what those drugs cost him in other ways. He was older than King Shrewd, and Shrewd was all these many years dead. Bastard royalty of the same lineage as myself, he seemed to thrive on intrigue and strife as I had not. I had fled the court and all it contained. Chade had chosen to stay, and make himself indispensable to yet another generation of Farseers.

‘So. And how is Patience these days?’ I chose my question with care. News of my father’s wife was well wide of what I wished to know, but I could use his answer to venture closer.

‘Lady Patience? Ah, well, it has been some months since I have seen her. Over a year, now that I think of it. She resides at Tradeford, you know. She rules there, and quite well. Odd, when you think of it. When she was indeed queen and wed to your father, she never asserted herself. Widowed, she was well content to be eccentric Lady Patience. But when all others fled, she became queen in fact if not by title at Buckkeep. Queen Kettricken was wise to give her a domain of her own, for she never again could have abided at Buckkeep as less than queen.’

‘And Prince Dutiful?’

‘As like his father as he can be,’ Chade observed, shaking his head. I watched him closely, wondering how the old man intended the remark. How much did he know? He frowned as he continued, ‘The Queen needs to let him out a bit. The folk speak of Dutiful as they did of your father, Chivalry. “Correct to a fault,” they say and almost have the truth of it, I fear.’

There had been a very slight change in his voice. ‘Almost?’ I asked quietly.

Chade gave me a smile that was almost apologetic. ‘Of late the boy has not been himself. He has always been a solitary lad – but that goes with being the sole prince. He has always had to keep his position in mind, always had to take care that he was not seen to favour one companion over another. It has made him introspective. But recently he has shifted to a darker temperament. He is distracted and moody, so caught up in his inner thoughts that he seems completely unaware of what is going on in the lives of those around him. He is not discourteous or uncaring; at least, not deliberately. But …’

‘He’s what, fourteen?’ I asked. ‘He does not sound so different from Hap, of late. I’ve been thinking much the same things about him; that I need to let him out a bit. It’s time he got out and learned something new, from someone other than myself.’

Chade nodded. ‘I think you are absolutely correct. Queen Kettricken and I have reached the same decision about Prince Dutiful.’

His tone made me suspect I had just run my head into the snare. ‘Oh?’ I said carefully.

‘Oh?’ Chade mimicked me, and then leaned forwards to tip more brandy into his glass. He grinned, letting me know the game was at an end. ‘Oh, yes. You’ve no doubt guessed it. We would like to have you come back to Buckkeep and instruct the Prince in the Skill. And Nettle, too, if Burrich can be persuaded to let her go and if she has any aptitude for it.’

‘No.’ I said the word quickly before I could be seduced. I am not sure how definitive my answer sounded. No sooner had Chade broached the idea than desire for it surged in me. It was the answer, the so-simple answer after all these years. Train up a new coterie of Skill-users. I knew Chade had the scrolls and tablets relating to the Skill-magic. Galen the Skillmaster and then Prince Regal had wrongfully withheld them from us, so many years ago. But now I could study them, I could learn more and I could train up others, not as Galen had done, but correctly. Prince Dutiful would have a Skilled coterie to aid and protect him, and I would have an end to my loneliness. There would be someone to reach back when I reached out.

And both my children would know me, as a person if not as their father.

Chade was as sly as ever. He must have sensed my ambivalence. He left my denial hanging alone in the air between us. He held his cup in both hands. He glanced down at it briefly, putting me sharply in mind of Verity. Then he looked up again, his green eyes meeting mine without hesitation. He asked no questions, he made no demands. All he had to do was wait.

Knowing his tactic did not shield me against it. ‘You know I cannot. You know all the reasons I should not.’

He shook his head slightly. ‘Not really. Why should Prince Dutiful be denied his birthright as a Farseer?’ More softly he added, ‘Or Nettle?’

‘Birthright?’ I tried for a bitter laugh. ‘It’s more like a family disease, Chade. It’s a hunger, and when you are taught how to satisfy it, it becomes an addiction. An addiction that can become strong enough eventually to set your feet on the paths that lead past the Mountain Kingdom. You saw what became of Verity. The Skill devoured him. He turned it to his own ends; he made his dragon and poured himself into it. He saved the Six Duchies. But even if there had been no Red Ships to battle, Verity would eventually have gone to the Mountains. That place called him. It is the ordained end for any Skilled one.’

‘I understand your fears,’ he confessed quietly. ‘But I think you are wrong. I believe Galen deliberately instilled that fear in you. He limited what you learned, and he battered fear into you. But I’ve read the Skill-scrolls. I haven’t deciphered all that they tell, but I know it is so much more than simply being able to communicate across a distance. With the Skill, a man can prolong his own life and health. It can enhance a speaker’s powers of persuasion. Your training … I don’t know how far it went, but I’ll wager Galen taught you as little as he could.’ I could hear the excitement building in the old man’s voice, as if he spoke of a hidden treasure. ‘There is so much to the Skill, so much. Some scrolls imply that the Skill can be used as a healing tool, not only to find out exactly what is wrong with an injured warrior, but actually to encourage the healing of those hurts. A strong Skilled one can see through another’s eyes, hear what that other hears and feels. And –’

‘Chade.’ The softness of my voice cut him off. I had known a moment of outrage when he admitted he’d read the scrolls. He’d had no right, I’d thought, and then known that if his Queen gave them to him to read, he had as much right as anyone. Who else should read them? There was no Skillmaster any more. That line of ability had died out. No. I had killed it. Killed off, one by one, the last trained Skill-users, the last coterie ever created at Buckkeep. They had been faithless to their King, so I had destroyed them and the magic with them. The part of me that was rational knew that it was magic better left dead. ‘I am no Skillmaster, Chade. It’s not only that my knowledge of the Skill is incomplete, but that my talent was erratic. If you’ve read the scrolls, then I’m sure you’ve discovered for yourself, or heard from Kettricken, that using elfbark is the worst thing a Skilled one can do. It suppresses or kills the talent. I’ve tried to stay away from it; I don’t like what it does to me. But even the bleakness it brings on is better than the Skill-hunger. Sometimes I’ve used elfbark steadily for days at a time, when the craving is bad.’ I looked away from the concern on his face. ‘Whatever talent I ever had is probably stunted beyond recall now.’

His voice was soft as he observed, ‘It seems to me that your continued craving would indicate the opposite, Fitz. I’m sorry to hear you’ve been suffering; we truly had no idea. I had assumed the Skill-hunger would be like a man’s craving for drink or Smoke, and that after a period of enforced abstinence, the longing would grow less.’

‘No. It does not. Sometimes it lies dormant. Months pass, even years. Then, for no reason I can tell, it stirs to life again.’ I squeezed my eyes shut for an instant. Talking about it, thinking about it was like prodding at a boil. ‘Chade. I know that this is why you came all this way to find me. And you’ve heard me say “no”. Now can we speak of other things? This conversation … pains me.’

For a time he was silent. There was a false heartiness in his voice when he abruptly said, ‘Of course we can. I told Kettricken that I doubted you’d fall in with our plan.’ He gave a brief sigh. ‘I’ll simply have to do the best I can with what I’ve gleaned from the scrolls. Now. I’ve had my say. What would you like to hear about?’

‘You can’t mean that you’ll try to teach Dutiful the Skill from what you’ve read in some old scrolls?’ I was suddenly on the edge of anger.

‘You leave me no choice,’ he pointed out pleasantly.

‘Do you grasp the danger you’d be exposing him to? The Skill draws a man, Chade. It pulls at the mind and heart like a lodestone. He will want to be one with it. If the Prince yields to that attraction, for even an instant while he’s learning, he’ll be gone. And there will be no Skilled one to go after him, to pull him back together and drag him from the current.’

I could tell from the expression on Chade’s face that he had no understanding of what I was telling him. He only replied stubbornly, ‘What I read in the scrolls is that there is danger to leaving one with a strong Skill-talent completely untrained. In some cases, such youngsters have begun to Skill almost instinctively, but with no concept of the dangers or how to control it. I should think that even a little knowledge might be better than to leave the young prince in total ignorance.’

I opened my mouth to speak, then shut it again. I drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘I won’t be drawn into it, Chade. I refuse. Years ago I promised myself. I sat by Will and watched him die. I didn’t kill him. Because I’d promised myself I was no longer an assassin, and no longer a tool. I won’t be manipulated and I won’t be used. I’ve made enough sacrifices. I think I’ve earned this retirement. And if you and Kettricken disagree with that and no longer wish to provide me with coin, well, I can cope with that as well.’

As well to have that out in the open. The first time I’d found a bag of coins by my bed after Starling had visited, I was insulted. I’d hoarded the affront for months until she visited me again. She’d only laughed at me, and told me they weren’t largesse from her for my services, if that’s what I’d thought, but a pension from the Six Duchies. That was when I’d forced myself to admit that whatever Starling knew of me, Chade knew as well. He was the source of the fine paper and good inks she sometimes brought as well. She probably reported to him each time she returned to Buckkeep. I’d told myself it didn’t bother me. But now I wondered if all those years of keeping track of me had been Chade waiting for me to be useful again. I think he read my face.

‘Fitz, Fitz, calm down.’ The old man reached across the table to pat my hand reassuringly. ‘There’s been no talk of anything like that. We are both well aware of not only what we owe you, but also what the whole Six Duchies owes you. As long as you live, the Six Duchies will provide for you. As for Prince Dutiful’s training, put it out of your head. It’s not truly your concern at all.’

Once again, I wondered uneasily how much he knew. Then I steeled myself. ‘As you say, it’s not truly my concern. All I can do is warn you to be cautious.’

‘Ah, Fitz, have you ever known me to be otherwise?’ His eyes smiled at me over the rim of his cup.

I set it aside, but forbidding myself the idea was like tearing a tree up by the roots. Part of it was my fear that Chade’s inexperienced tutelage of the young prince would lead him into danger. But by far the biggest part of my desire to teach a new coterie was simply so that I could furnish myself with a way to satisfy my own craving. Having recognized that, there was no way I could in good conscience inflict this addiction on another generation.

Chade was as good as his word. He spoke no more about Skilling. Instead, we talked for hours of all the folk I had once known at Buckkeep and what had become of them. Blade was a grandfather, and Lacey was plagued with aching joints that had finally forced her to set her endless tatting aside. Hands was the Stablemaster at Buckkeep now. He had married an inland woman with fiery red hair and a temper to match. All of their children had red hair. She kept Hands on a short leash, and according to Chade, he seemed only happier for it. Of late, she was nagging him to return to Farrow, her homeland, and he seemed prone to obey her; thus Chade’s trip to see Burrich and offer him his old position again. So on and on, he peeled calluses away from my memories and brought all the old faces fresh to my mind again. It made me ache for Buckkeep and I could not forbear to ask my questions. When we ran out of folk to gossip about, I walked him about my place as if we were two old aunties visiting one another. I showed him my chickens and my birch trees, my garden and my walks. I showed him my work shed, where I made the dyes and coloured inks that Hap took to market for me. Those, at least, surprised him. ‘I brought you inks from Buckkeep, but now I wonder if your own are not the better.’ He patted my shoulder, just as he once had when I mixed a poison correctly, and the old wash of pleasure at his pride in me rushed through me.

I showed him probably far more than I intended. When he looked at my herb beds, he no doubt marked the preponderance of sedatives and painkillers among my drug plants. When I showed him my bench on the cliffs overlooking the sea, he even said quietly, ‘Yes, Verity would have liked this.’ But despite what he saw and guessed, he spoke no more of the Skill.

We stayed up late that night, and I taught him the basics of Kettle’s stone game. Nighteyes grew bored with our long talk and went hunting. I sensed a bit of jealousy from the wolf, but resolved to settle it with him later. When we set our game aside, I turned our talk to Chade himself and how he fared. He smilingly conceded that he enjoyed his return to court and society. He spoke to me, as he seldom had before, of his youth. He’d led a gay life before his mishandling of a potion had scarred him and made him so ashamed of his appearance that he had retreated into a secretive shadow life as the king’s assassin. In these late years, he seemed to have resumed the life of that young man who had so enjoyed dancing and private dinners with witty ladies. I was glad for him, and spoke mostly in jest when I asked, ‘But how then do you fit in your quiet work for the crown, with all these other assignations and entertainments?’

His reply was frank. ‘I manage. And my current apprentice is proving both quick and adept. The time will not be long before I can set those old tasks completely into younger hands.’

I knew an unsettling moment of jealousy that he had taken another in my place. An instant later, I recognized how foolish that was. The Farseers would ever have need of a man capable of quietly dispensing the King’s Justice. I had declared I would no longer be a royal assassin; that did not mean the need for one had disappeared. I tried to recover my aplomb. ‘Then the old experiments and lessons still continue in the tower.’

He nodded once, gravely. ‘They do. As a matter of fact …’ He rose suddenly from his seat by the fire. Out of long habit reawakened, we had resumed our old postures, him sitting in a chair before the fire and me on the hearth by his feet. Only at that moment did I realize how odd that was, and wonder at how natural it had seemed. I shook my head at myself as Chade rummaged through the saddlebags on the table. He came out with a stained flask of hard leather. ‘I brought this to show to you, and then in all our talk, I nearly forgot it. You recall my fascination with unnatural fires and smokes and the like?’

I rolled my eyes. His ‘fascination’ had scorched us both more than once. I refused the memory of the last time I had witnessed his fire magic: he had made the torches of Buckkeep burn blue and sputter on the night Prince Regal falsely declared himself the immediate heir to the Farseer crown. That night had also seen the murder of King Shrewd and my subsequent arrest for it.

If Chade made that connection, he gave no sign of it. He returned eagerly to the fireside with his flask. ‘Have you a twist of paper? I didn’t bring any.’

I found him some, and watched dubiously as he took a long strip of my paper, folded it lengthwise, and then judiciously tapped a measure of powder down the groove of the fold. Carefully he folded the paper over it, folded it again, and then secured it with a spiralling twist. ‘Now watch this!’ he invited me eagerly.

I watched with trepidation as he set the paper into the fire on the hearth. But whatever it was supposed to do, flash or sparkle or make a smoke, it didn’t. The paper turned brown, caught fire, and burned. There was a slight stink of sulphur. That was all. I raised an eyebrow at Chade.

‘That’s not right!’ he protested, flustered. Working swiftly, he prepared another twist of paper, but this time he was more generous with the powder from the small flask. He set the paper in the hottest part of the fire. I leaned back from the hearth, braced for the effect, but again we were disappointed. I rubbed my mouth to cover a grin at the chagrin on his face.

‘You’ll think I’ve lost my touch!’ he declared.

‘Oh, never that,’ I responded, but it was hard to keep the mirth from my voice. This time the paper he prepared was more like a fat tube, and powder leaked from it as he twisted it closed. I stood up and retreated from the fireplace as he set it onto the flames. But as before, it only burned.

He gave a great snort of disgust. He peered down the dark neck of the small flask, then shook it. With an exclamation of disgust, he stoppered it. ‘Damp got into it somehow. Well. That’s spoiled my show.’ He tossed the flask into the fire, a mark of high dudgeon for Chade. As I sat back down by the hearth, I sensed the keenness of his disappointment and felt a touch of pity for the old man. I tried to take the sting from it. ‘It reminds me of the time I confused the smoke powder with the powdered lancet root. Do you remember that? My eyes watered for hours.’

He gave a short laugh. ‘I do.’ He was silent for a time, smiling to himself. I knew his mind wandered back to our old days together. Then he leaned forwards to set his hand to my shoulder. ‘Fitz,’ he demanded earnestly, his eyes locking with mine. ‘I never deceived you, did I? I was fair. I told you what I was teaching you, from the very beginning.’

I saw then the lump of the scar between us. I put my hand up to cover his. His knuckles were bony, his skin gone papery thin. I looked back into the flames as I spoke to him. ‘You were always honest with me, Chade. If anyone deceived me, it was myself. We each served our king, and did what we must in that cause. I won’t come back to Buckkeep. But it’s not because of anything you did, but only because of who I’ve become. I bear you no ill will, for anything.’

I turned to look up at him. His face was very grave, and I saw in his eyes what he had not said to me. He missed me. His asking me to return to Buckkeep was as much for himself as for any other reason. I discovered then a small share of healing and peace. I was still loved, by Chade at least. It moved me and I felt my throat tighten with it. I tried to find lighter words. ‘You never claimed that being your apprentice would give me a calm, safe life.’

As if to confirm those words, a sudden flash erupted from my fire. If my face had not been turned towards Chade, I suppose I might have been blinded. As it was, a blast like lightning and thunder together deafened me. Flying coals and sparks stung me, and the fire roared suddenly like an angry beast. We both sprang to our feet and scrambled back from the fireplace. An instant later, a fall of soot from my neglected chimney put out most of the hearth fire. Chade and I scurried about the room, stamping out the glowing sparks and kicking pieces of burning flask back onto the hearth before the floor could take fire. The door burst open under Nighteyes’ assault on it. He flew into the room, claws scrabbling for purchase as he slid to a halt.

‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ I assured him, and then realized I was yelling past the ringing in my ears. Nighteyes gave a disgusted snort at the smell in the room. Without even sharing a thought with me, he stalked back into the night.

Chade suddenly slapped me several times on the shoulder. ‘Putting out a coal,’ he assured me loudly. It took us some time to restore order and renew the fire in its rightful place. Even so, he pulled his chair back from it, and I did not sit down on the hearth. ‘Was that what the powder was supposed to do?’ I asked belatedly when we were resettled with more Sandsedge brandy.

‘No! El’s balls, boy, do you think I’d deliberately do that in your hearth? What I’d been producing before was a sudden flash of white light, almost blinding. The powder shouldn’t have done that. Still. I wonder why it did? What was different? Damn. I wish I could remember what I last stored in that flask …’ He knit his brows and stared fiercely into the flames, and I knew his new apprentice would be put to puzzling out just what had caused that blast. I did not envy him the series of experiments that would undoubtedly follow.

He spent the night at my cottage, taking my bed while I made do with Hap’s. But when we arose the next morning, we both knew the visit was at an end. There suddenly seemed to be nothing else to discuss, and little point to talking about anything. A sort of bleakness rose in me. Why should I ask after folk I’d never see again, why should he tell me of the current crop of political intrigues when they had no touch on my life at all? For one long afternoon and evening, our lives had meshed again, but now as the grey day dawned, he watched me go about my homely tasks; drawing water and throwing feed to my poultry, cooking breakfast for us and washing up the crockery. We seemed to grow more distant with every awkward silence. Almost I began to wish he had not come.

After breakfast, he said he must be on his way and I did not try to dissuade him. I promised him he should have the game scroll when it was finished. I gave him several vellums I had written on dosages for sedative teas, and some roots for starts of the few herbs in my garden that he did not already know. I gave him several vials of different coloured ink. The closest he came to trying to change my mind was when he observed that there was a better market for such things in Buckkeep. I only nodded, and said I might send Hap there sometimes. Then I saddled and bridled the fine mare and brought her around for him. He hugged me goodbye, mounted, and left. I watched as he rode down the path. Beside me, Nighteyes slipped his head under my hand.

You regret this?

I regret many things. But I know that if I went with him and did as he wishes, I would eventually regret that much more. Yet I could not move from where I stood, staring after him. It wasn’t too late, I tempted myself. One shout, and he’d turn about and come back. I clenched my jaws.

Nighteyes flipped my hand with his nose. Come on. Let’s go hunting. No boy, no bows. Just you and I.

‘Sounds good,’ I heard myself say. And we did, and we even caught a fine spring rabbit. It felt good to stretch my muscles and prove that I could still do it. I decided I was not an old man, not yet, and that I, as much as Hap, needed to get out and do some new things. Learn something new. That had always been Patience’s cure for boredom. That evening as I looked about my cottage, it seemed suffocating rather than snug. What had been familiar and cosy a few nights ago now seemed threadbare and dull. I knew it was just the contrast between Chade’s stories of Buckkeep and my own staid life. But restlessness, once awakened, is a powerful thing.

I tried to think when I had last slept anywhere other than my own bed. Mine was a settled life. At harvest time each year, I took to the road for a month, hiring out to work the hay fields or the grain harvest or as an apple picker. The extra coins were welcome. I had used to go into Howsbay twice a year, to trade my inks and dyes for fabric for clothing and pots and things of that ilk. The last two years, I had sent the boy on his fat old pony. My life had settled into routine so deeply that I had not even noticed it.

So. What do you want to do? Nighteyes stretched and then yawned in resignation.

I don’t know, I admitted to the old wolf. Something different. How would you feel about wandering the world for a bit?

For a time, he retreated into that part of his mind that was his alone. Then he asked, somewhat testily, Would we both be afoot, or do you expect me to keep pace with a horse all day?

That’s a fair question. If we both went afoot?

If you must, he conceded grudgingly. You’re thinking about that place, back in the Mountains, aren’t you?

The ancient city? Yes.

He did not oppose me. Will we be taking the boy?

I think we’ll leave Hap here to do for himself for a bit. It might be good for him. And someone has to look after the chickens.

So I suppose we won’t be leaving until the boy comes back?

I nodded to that. I wondered if I had taken complete leave of my senses.

I wondered if we would ever come back at all.

TWO

Starling

Starling Birdsong, minstrel to Queen Kettricken, has inspired as many songs as she has written. Legendary as Queen Kettricken’s companion on her quest for Elderling aid during the Red Ship War, she extended her service to the Farseer throne for decades during the rebuilding of the Six Duchies. Gifted with the knack of being at home in any company, she was indispensable to the Queen in the unsettled years that followed the Cleansing of Buck. The minstrel was trusted not only with treaties and settlements between nobles, but with offers of amnesty to robber bands and smuggler families. She herself made songs of many of these missions, but one can be sure that she had other endeavours, carried out in secret for the Farseer reign, and far too sensitive ever to become the subject of verse.

Starling kept Hap with her for a full two months. My amusement at his extended absence changed first to irritation and then annoyance. The annoyance was mostly with myself. I had not realized how much I had come to depend on the boy’s strong back until I had to bend mine to the tasks I’d delegated to him. But it was not just the boy’s ordinary chores that I undertook during that extra month of his absence. Chade’s visit had awakened something in me. I had no name for it, but it seemed a demon that gnawed at me, showing me every shabby aspect of my smallholding. The peace of my isolated home now seemed idle complacency. Had it truly been a year since I had shoved a rock under the sagging porch step and promised myself I’d mend it later? No, it had been closer to a year and a half.

I put the porch to rights, and then not only shovelled out the chicken house but washed it down with lye-water before gathering fresh reeds to floor it. I fixed the leaking roof on my work shed, and finally cut the hole and put in the greased skin window I’d been promising myself for two years. I gave the cottage a more thorough spring-cleaning than it had had in years. I cut down the cracked ash-limb, dropping it neatly through the roof of the freshly cleaned chicken-house. I re-roofed the chicken-house. I was just finishing that task when Nighteyes told me he heard horses. I clambered down, picked up my shirt and walked around to the front of the cottage to greet Starling and Hap as they came up the trail.

I do not know if it was our time apart, or my newly-seeded restlessness, but I suddenly saw Hap and Starling as if they were strangers. It was not just the new garb Hap wore, although that accentuated his long legs and broadening shoulders. He looked comical upon the fat old pony, a fact I am sure he appreciated. The pony was as ill suited to the growing youth as the child’s bed in my cottage and my sedate life style. I suddenly perceived that I could not rightfully ask him to stay home and watch the chickens while I went adventuring. In fact, if I did not soon send him out to seek his own fortune, the mild discontent I saw in his mismatched eyes at his homecoming would soon become bitter disappointment in his life. Hap had been a good companion for me; the foundling I had taken in had, perhaps, rescued me as much as I had rescued him. It would be better far for me to send this young man out into the world while we both still liked one another rather than wait until I was a burdensome duty to his young shoulders.

Not just Hap had changed in my eyes. Starling was vibrant as ever, grinning as she flung a leg over her horse and slid down from him. Yet as she came towards me with her arms flung wide to hug me, I realized how little I knew of her present life. I looked down into her merry dark eyes and noted for the first time the crowsfeet beginning at the corners. Her garb had become richer over the years, the quality of her mounts better, and her jewellery more costly. Today her thick dark hair was secured with a clasp of heavy silver. Clearly, she prospered. Three or four times a year, she would descend on me, to stay a few days and overturn my calm life with her stories and songs. For the days she was there, she would insist on spicing the food to her taste, she would scatter an overlay of her possessions upon my table and desk and floor, and my bed would no longer be a place to seek when I was exhausted. The days that immediately followed her departure would remind me of a country road with dust hanging heavy in the air in the wake of a puppeteer’s caravan. I would have the same sense of choked breath and hazed vision until I once more settled into my humdrum routine.

I hugged her back, hard, smelling both dust and perfume in her hair. She stepped away from me, looked up into my face and immediately demanded, ‘What’s wrong? Something’s different.’

I smiled ruefully. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ I promised, and we both knew that it would be one of our late night conversations.

‘Go wash,’ she agreed. ‘You smell like my horse.’ She gave me a slight push, and I stepped clear of her to greet Hap.

‘So, lad, how was it? Did a Buckkeep Springfest live up to Starling’s tales?’

‘It was good,’ he said neutrally. He gave me one full look, and his mismatched eyes, one brown, one blue, were full of torment.

‘Hap?’ I began concernedly, but he shrugged away from me before I could touch his shoulder.

He walked away from me, but perhaps he regretted his surly greeting, for a moment later he croaked, ‘I’m going to the stream to wash. I’m covered in road dust.’

Go with him. I’m not sure what’s wrong, but he needs a friend.

Preferably one that can’t ask questions, Nighteyes agreed. Head low, tail straight out, he followed the boy. In his own way, he was as fond of Hap as I was, and had had as much to do with his raising.

When they were almost out of eyeshot, I turned back to Starling. ‘Do you know what that was about?’

She shrugged, a twisted smile on her lips. ‘He’s fifteen. Does a sullen mood have to be about anything at that age? Don’t bother yourself over it. It could be anything: a girl at Springfest that didn’t kiss him, or one that did. Leaving Buckkeep or coming home. A bad sausage for breakfast. Leave him alone. He’ll be fine.’

I looked after him as he and the wolf vanished into the trees. ‘Perhaps I remember being fifteen a bit differently from you,’ I commented.

I saw to her horse and Clover the pony while Starling went into the cottage, reflecting as I did so that no matter what my mood, Burrich would have ordered me to see to my horse before I wandered off. Well, I was not Burrich, I thought to myself. I wondered if he held the same line of discipline with Nettle and Chivalry and Nim as he had with me, and then wished I had asked Chade the rest of his children’s names. By the time the horses were comfortable, I was wishing that Chade had not come. His visit had stirred too many old memories to the surface. Resolutely, I pushed them away. Bones fifteen years old, the wolf would have told me. I touched minds with him briefly. Hap had splashed some water on his face, and strode off into the woods, muttering and walking so carelessly that there was no chance they’d see any game. I sighed for them both, and went into the cottage.

Inside, Starling had dumped the contents of her saddlebags on the table. Her discarded boots were lying across the doorsill; her cloak festooned a chair. The kettle was just starting to boil. She stood on a stool before my cupboard. As I came in, she held out a small brown crock to me. ‘Is this tea any good still? It smells odd.’

‘It’s excellent, when I’m in enough pain to choke it down. Come down from there.’ I set my hands to her waist and lifted her easily, though the old scar on my back gave a twinge as I set her on the floor. ‘Sit. I’ll make the tea. Tell me about Springfest.’

So she did, while I clattered out my few cups, cut slices from my last loaf, and put the rabbit stew to warm. Her tales of Buckkeep were the kind I had become accustomed to hearing from her: she spoke of minstrels who had performed well or badly, gossiped of lords and ladies I had never known, and condemned or praised food from various nobles’ tables where she had guested. She told each tale wittily, making me laugh or shake my head as it called for, with nary a pang of the pain that Chade had wakened in me. I supposed it was because he had spoken of the folk we had both known and loved, and told his stories from that intimate perspective. It was not Buckkeep itself or city life that I pined for, but for my childhood days and the friends I had known. In that I was safe; it was impossible to return to that time. Only a few of those folk even knew that I still lived, and that was as I wished it to be. I said as much to Starling: ‘Sometimes your tales tug at my heart and make me wish I could return to Buckkeep. But that is a world closed to me now.’

She frowned at me. ‘I don’t see why.’

I laughed aloud. ‘You don’t think anyone would be surprised to see me alive?’

She cocked her head and stared at me frankly. ‘I think there would be few, even of your old friends, who would recognize you. Most recall you as an unscarred youth. The broken nose, the slash down your face, even the white in your hair might alone be disguise enough. Then, you dressed as a prince’s son; now you wear the garb of a peasant. Then, you moved with a warrior’s grace. Now, well, in the mornings or on a cold day, you move with an old man’s caution.’ She shook her head with regret as she added, ‘You have taken no care for your appearance, nor have the years been kind to you. You could add five or even ten years to your age, and no one would question it.’

This blunt appraisal from my lover stung. ‘Well, that’s good to know,’ I replied wryly. I took the kettle from the fire, not wanting to meet her eyes just then.

She mistook my words and tone. ‘Yes. And when you add in that people see what they expect to see, and they do not expect to see you alive … I think you could venture it. Are you considering a return to Buckkeep, then?’

‘No.’ I heard the shortness of the word, but could think of nothing to add to it. It did not seem to bother her.

‘A pity. You miss so much, living alone like this.’ She launched immediately into an account of the Springfest dancing. Despite my soured mood, I had to smile at her account of Chade beseeched to dance by a young admirer of sixteen summers. She was right. I would have loved to have been there.

As I prepared food for all of us, I found my mind straying to the old torment of ‘what if’. What if I had been able to return to Buckkeep with my queen and Starling? What if I had come home to Molly and our child? And always, no matter how I twisted the pretence, it ended in disaster. If I had returned to Buckkeep, alive when all believed me executed for practising the Wit, I would have brought only division at a time when Kettricken was trying to reunify the land. There would have been a faction who would have favoured me over her, for bastard though I was, I was a Farseer by blood when she reigned only by virtue of marriage. A stronger faction would have been in favour of executing me again, and more thoroughly.

And if I had gone back to Molly and the child, returned to carry her off to be mine? I suppose I could have, if I had no care for anyone but myself. She and Burrich had both given me up for dead. The woman who had been my wife in all but name, and the man who had raised me and been my friend had turned to one another. He had kept a roof over Molly’s head, and seen that she was fed and warm while my child grew within her. With his own hands, he had delivered my bastard. Together they had kept Nettle from Regal’s men. Burrich had claimed both woman and child as his own, not only to protect them, but to love them. I could have gone back to them, to make them both faithless in their own eyes. I could have made their bond a shameful thing. Burrich would have left Molly and Nettle to me. His harsh sense of honour would not have allowed him to do otherwise. And ever after, I could have wondered if she compared me to him, if the love they had shared was stronger and more honest than …

‘You’re burning the stew,’ Starling pointed out in annoyance.

I was. I served us from the top of the pot, and joined her at the table. I pushed all pasts, both real and imagined, aside. I did not need to think of them. I had Starling to busy my mind. As was customary, I was the listener and she was the teller of tales. She began a long account of some upstart minstrel at Springfest who had not only dared to sing one of her songs, with only a verse or two changed, but then had claimed ownership of it. She gestured with her bread as she spoke, and almost managed to catch me up in the story. But my own memories of other Springfests kept intruding. Had I lost all content in the simple life I had created for myself? The boy and the wolf had been enough for me for many years. What ailed me now?

I went from that to yet another discordant thought. Where was Hap? I had brewed tea for the three of us, and portioned out food for three as well. Hap was always ravenous after any sort of a task or journey. It was distracting that he could not get past his bad mood to come and join us. As Starling spoke on, I found my eyes straying repeatedly to his untouched bowl of stew. She caught me at it.

‘Don’t fret about him,’ she told me almost testily. ‘He’s a boy, with a boy’s sulky ways. When he’s hungry enough, he’ll come in.’

Or he’ll ruin perfectly good fish by burning it over a fire. The wolf’s thought came in response to my Wit questing towards him. They were down by the creek. Hap had made a temporary spear out of a stick, and the wolf had simply plunged into the water to hunt along the undercut banks. When the fish ran thick, it was not difficult for him to corner one there, to plunge his head under the water and seize it in his jaws. The cold water made his joints ache, but the boy’s fire would soon warm him. They were fine. Don’t worry.

Useless advice, but I pretended to take it. We finished eating, and I cleared the dishes away. While I tidied, Starling sat on the hearth by the evening fire, picking at her harp until the random notes turned into the old song about the miller’s daughter. When everything was put to rights, I joined her there with a cup of Sandsedge brandy for each of us. I sat in a chair, but she sat near the fire on the floor. She leaned back against my legs as she played. I watched her hands on the strings, marking the crookedness where once her fingers had been broken, as a warning to me. At the end of her song, I leaned down and kissed her. She kissed me back, setting the harp aside and making a more thorough job of it.

She stood then and took my hands to pull me to my feet. As I followed her into my bedroom, she observed, ‘You’re pensive tonight.’

I made some small sound of agreement. Sharing that she had bruised my feelings earlier would have seemed snivelling and childish. Did I want her to lie to me, to tell me that I was still young and comely when obviously I was not? Time had had its way with me. That was all, and to be expected. Even so, Starling kept coming back to me. Through all the years, she’d kept returning to me and into my bed. That had to count for something. ‘You were going to tell me about something?’ she prompted.

‘Later,’ I told her. The past clutched at me, but I put its greedy fingers aside, determined to immerse myself in the present. This life was not so bad. It was simple and uncluttered, without conflict. Wasn’t this the life I had always dreamed of? A life in which I made my decisions for myself? And I was not alone, really. I had Nighteyes and Hap, and Starling, when she came to me. I opened her vest and then her blouse to bare her breasts while she unbuttoned my shirt. She embraced me, rubbing against me with the unabashed pleasure of a purring cat. I clasped her to me and lowered my face to kiss the top of her head. This, too, was simple and all the sweeter that it was. My freshly-stuffed mattress was deep and fragrant as the meadow grass and herbs that filled it. We tumbled onto it. For a time, I stopped thinking at all, as I tried to persuade both of us that despite appearances I was a young man still.

A while later, I lingered in the hinterlands of sleep. Sometimes I think there is more rest in that place between wakefulness and sleep than there is in true sleep. The mind walks in the twilight of both states, and finds the truths that are hidden alike by daylight and dreams. Things we are not ready to know abide in that place, awaiting that unguarded frame of mind.

I came awake. My eyes were open, studying the details of my darkened room before I realized that sleep had fled. Starling’s wide-flung arm was across my chest. In her sleep, she had kicked the blanket away from both of us. Night hid her careless nakedness, cloaking her in shadows. I lay still, hearing her breathe and smelling her sweat mixed with her perfume, and wondered what had wakened me. I could not put my finger on it, yet neither could I close my eyes again. I slid out from under her arm and stood up beside my bed. In the darkness I groped for my discarded shirt and leggings.

The coals of the hearth fire gave hesitant light to the main room, but I did not linger there. I opened the door and stepped barefoot into the mild spring night. I stood still for a moment, letting my eyes adjust, and then made my way away from the cottage and garden and down to the stream bank. The path was cool hard mud underfoot, well packed by my daily trips to fetch water. The trees met overhead, and there was no moon, but my feet and my nose knew the way as well as my eyes did. All I had to do was follow my Wit to my wolf. Soon I picked out the orange glow of Hap’s dwindled fire, and the lingering scent of cooked fish.

They slept by the fire, the wolf curled nose to tail and Hap wrapped around him, his arm around Nighteyes’ neck. Nighteyes opened his eyes as I approached, but did not stir. I told you not to worry.

I’m not worried. I’m just here. Hap had left some sticks of wood near the fire. I added them to the coals. I sat and watched the fire lick along them. Light came up with the warmth. I knew the boy was awake. One can’t be raised with a wolf without picking up some of his wariness. I waited for him.

‘It’s not you. Not just you, anyway.’

I didn’t look at Hap, even when he spoke. Some things are better said to the dark. I waited. Silence can ask all the questions, where the tongue is prone only to ask the wrong one.

‘I have to know,’ he burst out suddenly. My heart seized up at the question to come. In some corner of my soul, I had always dreaded him asking it. I should not have let him go to Springfest, I thought wildly. If I had kept him here, my secret would never have been threatened.

But that was not the question he asked.

‘Did you know that Starling is married?’

I looked at him then, and my face must have answered for me. He closed his eyes in sympathy. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I should have known you didn’t. I should have found a better way to tell you.’

And the simple comfort of a woman who came to my arms when she would, because she desired to be with me, and the sweet evenings of tales and music by the fire, and her dark merry eyes looking up into mine were suddenly guilty and deceptive and furtive. I was as foolish as I had ever been, no, even stupider, for the gullibility of a boy is fatuousness in a man. Married. Starling married. She had thought no one would ever want to marry her, for she was barren. She had told me that she had to make her own ways with her songs, for there would never be a man to care for her, nor children to provide for her old age. Probably, when she had told me those things, she had believed they were true. My folly had been in thinking that truth would never change.

Nighteyes had risen and stretched stiffly. Now he came to lie down beside me. He set his head on my knee. I don’t understand. You are ill?

No. Just stupid.

Ah. Nothing new there. Well, you haven’t died from that so far.

But sometimes it has been a near thing. I took a breath. ‘Tell me about it.’ I didn’t want to hear it, but I knew he had to tell it. Better to get it over with.

Hap came with a sigh, to sit on the other side of Nighteyes. He picked up a twig from the ground beside him and teased the fire with it. ‘I don’t think she meant for me to find out. Her husband doesn’t live at Buckkeep. He travelled in to surprise her, to spend Springfest with her.’ As he spoke, the twig caught fire. He tossed it in. His fingers wandered to idly groom Nighteyes.

I pictured some honest old farmer, wed to a minstrel in the quiet years of his life, perhaps with children grown from an earlier marriage. He loved her, then, to make a trip to Buckkeep to surprise her. Springfest was traditionally for lovers, old and new.

‘His name is Dewin,’ Hap went on. ‘And he’s some sort of kin to Prince Dutiful. A distant cousin or something. He’s a tall man, always dressed very grand. He wore a cloak, twice as big around as it need be, collared with fur. And he wears silver on both wrists. He’s strong, too. At the Springfest dancing, he lifted Starling right up and swung her around, and all the folk stood back to watch them.’ Hap was watching my face as he spoke. I think he found my obvious dismay comforting. ‘I should have known you didn’t know. You wouldn’t cuckold a grand man like that.’

‘I wouldn’t cuckold any man,’ I managed to say. ‘Not knowingly.’

He sighed as if relieved. ‘So you’ve taught me.’ Boyishly, his mind instantly reverted to how it had affected him. ‘I was upset when I saw them kiss. I’d never seen anyone except you and Starling kiss like that. I thought she was betraying you, and then when I heard him introduced as her husband …’ He cocked his head at me. ‘It really hurt my feelings. I thought then that you knew and didn’t care. I thought that perhaps all these years you had taught me one thing, and done another. I wondered if you thought me so dull I’d never discover it, if you and Starling laughed about it as if it were a joke for me to be so stupid. It built up in my mind until I began to question everything you’d ever taught me about anything.’ He looked back at the fire. ‘It felt horrible, to be so betrayed.’

I was glad to hear him sort it out this way. Better far that he consider only what it meant to him, rather than how it could cut me. Let him follow his own thoughts where they would lead. My own mind was moving in another direction, creaking like an old cart dragged out of a shed and newly greased for spring. I resisted the turning of the wheels that led me to an inevitable conclusion. Starling was married. Why not? She’d had nothing to lose and all to gain. A comfortable home with her grand lord, some minor title no doubt, wealth and security for her old age, and for him, a lovely and charming wife, a celebrated minstrel, and he could bask in her reflected glory and enjoy the envy of other men.

And when she wearied of him, she could take to the road as minstrels always did, and have a fling with me, and neither man ever the wiser. Neither? Could I assume there were only two of us?

‘Did you think you were the only one she bedded?’

A direct spoken lad, Hap. I wondered what questions he had asked Starling on the ride home.

‘I suppose I didn’t think about it at all,’ I admitted. So many things were easier to live with if you didn’t give them much thought. I suppose I had known that Starling shared herself with other men. She was a minstrel; they did such things. So I had excused my bedding with her to myself, and indirectly to Hap. She never spoke of it, I never asked, and her other lovers were hypothetical beings, faceless, and bodiless. They were certainly not husbands, however. She was vowed to him, and him to her. That made all the difference to me.

‘What will you do now?’

An excellent question. One I had been carefully not considering. ‘I’m not sure,’ I lied.

‘Starling said that it was none of my business; that it hurt no one. She said that if I told you, I’d be the cruel one, hurting you, not her. She said that she’d always been careful not to hurt you, that you’d had enough pain in your life. When I said that you had a right to know, she said you had a greater right not to know.’

Starling’s clever tongue. She’d left him no way to feel right about himself. Hap looked at me now, his mismatched eyes loyal as a hound’s, and waited for me to pass judgement on him. I told him the truth. ‘I’d rather know the truth from you than have you watch me be deceived.’

‘Have I hurt you, then?’

I shook my head slowly. ‘I’ve hurt myself, boy.’ And I had. I’d never been a minstrel; I had no right to a minstrel’s ways. Those who make a living with their fingers and tongues have flintier hearts than the rest of us, I suppose. Sooner a kindly wolverine than a faithful minstrel, so the saying goes. I wondered if Starling’s husband paid heed to it.

‘I thought you would be angry. She warned me that you might get angry enough to hurt her.’

‘Did you believe that?’ That stung as sharply as the revelation.

He took a quick breath, hesitated again, then said quickly, ‘You’ve a temper. And I’ve never had to tell you something that might hurt you. Something that might make you feel stupid.’

Perceptive lad. More so than I had thought. ‘I am angry, Hap. I’m angry at myself.’

He looked at the fire. ‘I feel selfish, because I feel better now.’

‘I’m glad you feel better. I’m glad things are easy between us again. Now. Set all that aside and tell me about the rest of Springfest. What did you think of Buckkeep Town?’

So he talked and I listened. He’d seen Buckkeep and Springfest with a boy’s eyes, and as he spoke I realized how greatly both castle and town had changed since my days there. From his descriptions, I knew the city had managed to grow, clawing out building space from the harsh cliffs above it, and expanding out onto pilings. He described floating taverns and mercantiles. He talked, too, of traders from Bingtown and the islands beyond it, as well as those from the Out Islands. Buckkeep Town had increased its stature as a trade port. When he spoke of the Great Hall of Buckkeep and the room where he had stayed as Starling’s guest, I recognized that a great deal had changed up at the keep as well. He spoke of carpets and fountains, rich hangings on every wall, and cushioned chairs and glittering chandeliers. His descriptions put me more in mind of Regal’s fine manor at Tradeford than the stark fortress I had once called home. I suspected Chade’s influence there as much as Kettricken’s. The old assassin had always been fond of fine things, not to mention comfort. I had already resolved never to return to Buckkeep. Why should it be so daunting to learn that the place I recalled, that grim stronghold of black stone, did not really even exist any more?

Hap had other tales, too, of the towns they had passed through on their way to Buckkeep and back again. One he told me put a cold chill in my belly. ‘I got scared near to death one morning at Hardin’s Spit,’ he began, and I did not recognize the name of the village. I had known, dimly, that many folk who had fled the coast during the Red Ship years had returned to found new towns, not always on the ashes of the old. I nodded as if I knew of the place. Probably the last time I had been through it, it had been no more than a wide place in the road. Hap’s eyes were wide as he spoke, and I knew he had, for the moment, forgotten all about Starling’s deception.

‘It was on our way to Springfest. We had spent the night at the inn there, Starling singing for our supper and a room, and they were all so kind and well spoken to us there that I thought Hardin’s Spit a very fine place. In the common room, when Starling was not singing, I heard angry talk about a Witted one who had been taken for magicking cows so they would not yield, but I paid little attention to it. It just seemed men talking too loud after too much beer. The inn gave us an upstairs room. I woke up early, much too early for Starling, but I could not sleep any more. So I sat by the window and watched the folk come and go in the streets below. Outside, in the square, folk began to gather. I thought it might be a market or a Spring fair. But then they dragged a woman out there, all bruised and bloody. They tied her to a whipping post, and I thought they would flog her. Then I noticed that some of those gathered had brought full baskets of stones. I woke Starling and asked her what it was all about, but she bid me be quiet, there was nothing either of us could do about it. She told me to come away from the window, but I did not. I could not. I could not believe it could happen; I kept thinking someone would come and make them all stop. Tom, she was tied there, helpless. Some man came up and read from a scroll. Then he stood back, and they stoned her.’

He stopped speaking. He knew that in the villages there were harsh punishments for horse thieves and murderers. He’d heard of floggings and hangings. But he’d never had to watch one. He swallowed in the silence between us. Cold crept through me. Nighteyes whined, and I set a hand to him.

It could just as well be you.

I know.

Hap took a deep breath. ‘I thought I should go down there, that someone should do something, but I was too scared. I was shamed to be so scared, but I couldn’t make myself move. I just stood there and watched, and the stones hit her. And she kept trying to hide her head in her arms. I felt sick. Then I heard a sound such as I had never heard before, as if a river rushed through the air. The morning sky dimmed, as if storm clouds were blowing in, but there was no wind. It was crows, Tom, a flood of black birds. I’d never seen so many, cawing and screeching, just as they do when they find an eagle or a hawk and set out to roust it. Only they weren’t after an eagle. They rose out of the hills behind the town and filled the sky, like a black blanket flapping on a clothesline. Then they suddenly fell on the crowd, diving and cawing. I saw one land in a woman’s hair and strike at her eyes with his beak. People were running in every direction, screaming and slapping at the birds. They spooked a team and the horses went crazy, dragging their waggon right through the crowd. Everyone was screaming. Even Starling got up to come to the window. Soon the streets were empty of everything save the birds. They perched everywhere, on roofs and window ledges, and they filled the trees so that the branches drooped with their weight. The woman who had been tied, the Witted one, she was gone. Just the bloody ropes were left there, tied to the post. Then all at once, all the birds just lifted and took flight. And then they were gone.’ His voice dropped to a hush. ‘Later that morning, the innkeeper said that he deemed she had just turned into a bird and flown off with the others.’

Later, I told myself. Later I would tell him that wasn’t true, that she might have called the birds down to help her escape but that not even Witted ones could change their shapes like that. Later I would tell him he was not a coward for not going down there, that they would only have stoned him alongside her. Later. This story he was telling now was like poison running from a wound. Best to let it drain unhindered.

I picked up the trail of his words again. ‘… And they call themselves Old Blood. The innkeeper said they’ve begun to have high ideas of themselves. They’d like to come to power, he says, like they did in the days when the Piebald Prince ruled. But if they do, they’ll take vengeance on us all. Those that don’t have the Wit-magic will be their slaves. And if any try to defy them, they’ll be thrown to the Witted ones’ beasts.’ His voice died away to a whisper. He cleared his throat. ‘Starling told me that that was stupid, that Witted folk aren’t like that. She said that mostly they just want to be left alone to live quietly.’

I cleared my throat. I was surprised at the rush of gratitude I felt towards Starling. ‘Well. She’s a minstrel. They know many kinds of folk, and have many odd corners of knowledge. So you can believe what she told you.’

He had given me far too much to think about. I could scarcely keep my mind on the rest of his tales. He was intrigued by some wild story that Bingtown was hatching dragons and that soon towns could buy a Bingtown dragon for a watch beast. I assured him that I had seen real dragons, and that such tales were not to be believed. More realistic were the rumours that Bingtown’s war with Chalced might spread to the Six Duchies. ‘Would a war come here?’ he wanted to know. Young as he was, he had only vague but frightening memories of our war with the Red Ships. Still, he was a boy, and a war seemed as interesting an event as Springfest.

‘Sooner or later, there is always war with Chalced,’ I quoted the old proverb to him. ‘Even when we are not at war with Chalced, there are always border skirmishes and a certain amount of piracy and raiding. Don’t let it worry you. Shoaks and Rippon Duchies always take the brunt of it, with relish. Shoaks Duchy would like nothing better than to carve themselves another chunk out of the Duke of Chalced’s lands.’

So the conversation moved to safer and more prosaic news of his Springfest. He told of jugglers who hurled flaming clubs and bare blades hand to hand, recounted the best jests from a bawdy puppet show he’d seen, and told me of a pretty hedgewitch named Jinna who had sold him a charm against pickpockets and promised some day to visit us here. I laughed aloud when he told me that within the hour, the charm had been plucked from him by a sneak-thief. He’d eaten pickled fish and liked it very much until he had too much wine one evening and vomited them together. He swore he’d never be able to eat it again. I let him talk on, glad he was finally taking pleasure in sharing his Buckkeep adventures with me. Yet, every story he told me showed me more plainly that my simple life was no longer suitable for Hap. It was time I found him an apprenticeship and let him strike out on his own.

For an instant, it was like standing on the lip of an abyss. I must turn Hap over to a master who could teach him a true trade, and I must set Starling out of my life as well. I knew that if I turned her out of my bed, she would not humble herself to come back to me as a friend. All the simple comfort of their companionship of the last few years would vanish. Hap’s voice pattered on, his words falling around me like a soft rain. I would miss the boy.

I felt the warm weight of the wolf’s head as he set it on my knee. He stared steadily into the fire. Once you dreamed of a time when it would be only you and me.

A Wit-bond leaves very little room for polite deception. I never expected to hunger so for the company of my own kind, I admitted.

A brief lambent glance from his deep eyes. Only we are our own kind. That has always been the problem with the links we sought to forge with others. They were wolves or they were human. But they were never our own kind. Not even those who call themselves Old Blood are as deeply twined as we.

I knew he spoke true. I set my hand to his broad skull and silked his ear through my fingers. I did not think at all.

He could not let it be. Change comes upon us again, Changer. I can feel it at the edge of the horizon, almost smell it. It is like a bigger predator come into our hunting territory. Do not you feel it?

I feel nothing.

But he heard the lie and sighed out a heavy breath.

THREE

Partings

The Wit is a dirty magic, most often afflicting the children of an unclean household. Although it is often blamed on having congress with beasts, there are other sources for this low magic. A wise parent will not allow his child to play with puppies or kittens that are still at suckle, nor permit his offspring to sleep where an animal sleeps. A child’s sleeping mind is most vulnerable to invasion by the dreams of a beast, and hence to taking the tongue of an animal as the language of his heart. Often this foul magic will afflict generations of a household due to their filthy habits, but it is not unknown for a Wit-child to appear suddenly in the midst of families of the best blood. When this happens, the parents must harden their hearts and do what must be done, for the sake of all the family’s children. They should look, too, amongst their servants to see whose malice or carelessness is the source of this contagion, and the offender should be dealt with accordingly.

Sarcogin’s Diseases and Afflictions

Shortly before the first dawn birds began to call, Hap drowsed off again. I sat for a brief time by his fire, watching him. The anxiety was smoothed from his face. Hap was a calm and simple boy who had never enjoyed conflict. He was not a boy for secrets. I was glad that his telling me about Starling had put him at peace with himself. My own route to peace would be a rockier path.

I left him sleeping in the early sunlight by the dying fire. ‘Keep watch over him,’ I told Nighteyes. I could feel the aching in the wolf’s hips, echoing the gnawing pain in my scarred back. Nights in the open were not gentle to either of us any more. Yet, I would have gladly lain down on the cold damp earth rather than go back to my cottage and confront Starling. Sooner is usually better than later when it comes to facing unpleasantness, I told myself. Walking like a very old man, I returned to the cottage.

I stopped at the hen-house for eggs. My flock was already up and scratching. The rooster flew to the top of the mended roof, flapped his wings twice and crowed lustily. Morning. Yes. One I dreaded.

Inside the cottage, I poked up the fire and put the eggs to boil. I took out my last loaf of bread, the cheese that Chade had brought, and tea herbs. Starling was never an early riser. I had plenty of time to think of what I would say, and what I would not say. As I put the room to rights, mostly picking up her scattered belongings, my mind wandered back over the years we had shared. Over a decade it had been, of knowing one another. Of thinking I knew her, I corrected myself. Then I damned myself for a liar. I did know her. I picked her discarded cloak from the chair. Her scent was trapped in its good wool. A very fine quality, I told myself. Her husband provided her with the best. The sharpest part of this was that what Starling had done did not surprise me. I was ashamed only of myself, that I had not foreseen it.

For six years after the Cleansing of Buck, I had moved alone through the world. I made no contact with anyone who had known me at Buckkeep. My life as a Farseer, as Prince Chivalry’s bastard, as Chade’s apprentice assassin, was dead to me. I became Tom Badgerlock, and entered wholeheartedly into that new life. As I had long dreamed, I travelled, and my decisions were shared only with my wolf. I found a sort of peace within myself. This is not to say that I didn’t miss those I had loved at Buckkeep. I did, sometimes savagely. But in missing them, I also discovered my freedom from my past. A hungry man can long for hot meat and gravy without disdaining the simple pleasures of bread and cheese. I put together a life for myself, and if it lacked much of what had been sweet in my old life, it also provided simple pleasures the old life had long denied me. I had been content.

Then, one foggy morning about a year after I had settled into the cottage near the ruins of Forge, the wolf and I returned from a hunt to find change waiting in ambush for us. A yearling deer was heavy on my shoulders, making my old arrow scar ache and twinge. I was trying to decide if the comfort of a long soak in hot water was worth the pain of hauling the buckets and the wait for the water to heat when I heard the unmistakable sound of a shod hoof against stone. I eased our kill to the ground, and then Nighteyes and I ghosted a wide circle around the hut. There was nothing to see but a horse, still saddled, tied to a tree near my door. The rider was likely within our home. The horse flicked her ears as we sidled closer, aware of me, but not yet certain of alarm.

Hang back, my brother. If the horse scents wolf, she will neigh. If I go very softly, I might get close enough to see inside before she gives any warning.

Silent as the fog that cloaked us both, Nighteyes withdrew into a swirl of grey. I circled to the back of our cottage and then glided down to stand close to one wall. I could hear the intruder inside. A thief? I heard the clack of crockery, and the sound of water being poured. A thump was someone tossing a log on my fire. I knit my brows in puzzlement. Whoever it was, he seemed to be making himself at home. An instant later, I heard a voice lift in the refrain of an old song, and my heart turned over in me. Despite the years that had passed, I recognized Starling’s voice.

The howling bitch, Nighteyes confirmed for me. He’d caught her scent. As always, I winced wryly at how the wolf thought of the minstrel.

Let me go first. Despite knowing who it was, I was still wary as I approached my own door. This was no accident. She’d tracked me down. Why? What did she want of me?

‘Starling,’ I said as I opened the door. She spun to confront me, teapot in hand. Her eyes travelled me swiftly, then met my eyes and, ‘Fitz!’ she exclaimed happily, and lunged at me. She embraced me, and after a moment, I put my arms around her as well. She hugged me hard. Like most Buck women, she was small and dark, but I felt her wiry strength in her embrace.

‘Hello,’ I said uncertainly, looking down at the top of her head.

She tilted her face up at me. ‘Hello?’ she said incredulously. She laughed aloud at my expression. ‘Hello?’ She leaned away from me to set the teapot on the table. Then she reached up, seized my face between her hands and pulled me down to be kissed. I had just come in from the damp and the cold. The contrast between that and her warm mouth on mine was astonishing, as amazing as having a woman in my arms. She held me close and it was as if life itself embraced me again. Her scent intoxicated me. Heat rushed through me and my heart raced. I took my mouth from hers. ‘Starling,’ I began.

‘No,’ she said firmly. She glanced over my shoulder, then took both my hands and tugged me towards the sleeping alcove off the main room. I lurched after her, drunken with surprise. She halted by my bed and unbuttoned her shirt. When I just stared at her dumbly, she laughed and reached up to untie the laces of mine. ‘Don’t talk yet,’ she warned me. And she lifted my chilled hand and set it on one of her bared breasts.

At that moment, Nighteyes shouldered the door open and came into the cabin. Cold billowed into the warm room as fog. For an instant, he just looked at us. Then he shook the moisture from his coat. It was Starling’s turn to freeze. ‘The wolf. I’d almost forgotten … you still have him?’

‘We are still together. Of course.’ I started to lift my hand from her breast, but she caught my hand and held it there.

‘I don’t mind. I suppose.’ She looked uncomfortable. ‘But does he have to … be here?’

Nighteyes gave another shake. He looked at Starling and away. The chill in the room was not just from the door standing open. The meat will be cold and stiff if I wait for you.

Then don’t wait, I suggested, stung.

He drifted back outside into the fog. I sensed him closing his mind to us. Jealousy, or courtesy, I wondered. I crossed the room and shut the door. I stood by it, troubled by Nighteyes’ reaction. Starling’s arms came around me from behind and when I turned to her embrace, she was naked and waiting. I made no decision. That joining had happened between us in much the same way as night falls upon the land.

Thinking back on it, I wondered if she had planned it that way. Probably not. Starling had taken that part of my life with no more thought than she would give to picking a berry by the roadside. It was there, it was sweet, why not have it? We had become lovers with no declaration of love, as if our bedding was inevitable. Did I love her, even now, after all the years of her coming and going from my life?

Thinking such thoughts was as eerie as handling the artefacts Chade had brought from my old life. Once, such thoughts had seemed so important to me. Questions of love and honour and duty … I loved Molly, did Molly love me? Did I love her more than I loved my king, was she more important to me than my duty? As a youth, I had agonized over those questions, but with Starling, I had never even asked them until now.

Yet as ever, the answers were elusive. I loved her, not as a person carefully chosen to share my life, but as a familiar part of my existence. To lose her would be like losing the hearth from the room. I had come to rely on her intermittent warmth. I knew that I had to tell her that I could not continue as before. The dread I felt reminded me of how time had dragged and how I had clenched my soul against the healer digging the arrowhead from my back. I felt the same stiff apprehension of great pain to come.

I heard the rustling of my bedding as she awoke. Her footfall was light on the floor behind me. I did not turn to her as I poured the water over the tea. I suddenly could not look at her. Yet she did not come to me nor touch me. After a pause, she spoke.

‘So. Hap told you.’

‘Yes,’ I replied evenly.

‘And you’re determined to let it ruin everything between us.’

There seemed no answer to that.

Anger surged into her voice. ‘You’ve changed your name, but after all these years, you’ve not changed your ways. Tom Badgerlock is just as strait-laced a prude as FitzChivalry Farseer was.’

‘Don’t,’ I warned her, not of her tone but of that name. We had always taken great pains that Hap knew me only as Tom. I knew it was no accident that she spoke that name aloud now, but a reminder that she held my secrets.

‘I won’t,’ she assured me, but it was a knife sheathed. ‘I but remind you that you lead two lives, and you lead them very well. Why begrudge that to me?’

‘I don’t think of it that way. This is the only life I have now. And I but try to do by your husband as I would wish another man to do by me. Or will you tell me that he knows of me, and does not care?’

‘Exactly the opposite. He does not know, and therefore does not care. And if you look at it carefully, you will see it comes out to exactly the same thing.’

‘Not for me.’

‘Well, for a time it was the same for you. Until Hap saw fit to ruin it. You’ve inflicted your stiff standards on yet another young man. I hope you take great pride in knowing you’ve raised another moralistic, judgemental prig like yourself.’ Her words slapped me as she began to slam about the room, throwing her things together. I finally turned to look at her. Her colour was very high, her hair tousled from sleep. She wore only my shirt. The hem of it grazed her thighs. She halted when I turned to look at her and stared back at me. She drew herself up, as if to be sure I must see all I was refusing. ‘What does it hurt?’ she demanded.

‘Your husband, if he ever gets word of it,’ I said quietly. ‘Hap gave me to understand he’s a noble of some kind. Gossip can do more damage to that kind of man than a knife. Consider his dignity, the dignity of his house. Don’t make him some old fool taken with a lively younger woman …’

‘Old fool?’ She looked perplexed. ‘I don’t … Hap told you he was old?’

I felt off balance. ‘He said he was a grand man …’

‘Grand, yes, but scarcely old. Quite the opposite.’ She smiled oddly, caught between pride and embarrassment. ‘He’s twenty-four, Fitz. A fine dancer and strong as a young bull. What did you think, that I’d pastured myself out to warm some elderly lord’s bed?’

I had. ‘I thought –’

She was suddenly almost defiant, as if I had belittled her. ‘He’s handsome and he’s charming, and he could have had his pick of any number of women. He chose me. And in my own way, I do, truly, love him. He makes me feel young and desirable and capable of real passion.’

‘What did I make you feel?’ I asked unwillingly, my voice low. I knew I was inviting more pain but I couldn’t stop myself.

That puzzled her for a moment. ‘Comfortable,’ she said at last, with no thought for my feelings. ‘Accepted and valued.’ She smiled suddenly, and her expression cut me. ‘Generous, giving you what no one else would. And more. Worldly and adventurous. Like a bright songbird come to visit a wren.’

‘You were that,’ I conceded. I looked away from her, towards the window. ‘But no more, Starling. Never again. Perhaps you think my life a poor thing, but it is mine. I won’t steal the crumbs from another man’s table. I have that much pride.’

‘You can’t afford that kind of pride,’ she said bluntly. She pushed her hair back from her face. ‘Look around you, Fitz. A dozen years on your own, and what do you have? A cottage in the forest, and a handful of chickens. What do you have for brightness or warmth or sweetness? Only me. Perhaps it’s only a day or two of my life, here and there, but I’m the only real person in your life.’ Her voice grew harder. ‘Crumbs from another man’s table are better than starving. You need me.’

‘Hap. Nighteyes.’ I pointed out coldly.

She dismissed them. ‘An orphan boy I brought you and a decrepit wolf.’

That she should disparage them so not only affronted me, it forced me to face how differently we perceived things. I suppose that if we had lived together, day in and day out, such disagreements would have manifested themselves long ago. But the interludes we had shared had not been ones of philosophical discussions, or even practical considerations. We had come together at her convenience, to share my bed and my table. She had slept and eaten and sung and watched me at my tasks in a life she didn’t share. The minor disagreements we had were forgotten between one visit and the next. She had brought me Hap as if he were a stray kitten, and given no thought since then as to what we might have become to one another. This quarrel was not only ending what we had shared, but exposing that we had truly shared very little at all. I felt twice devastated by it. Bitter words from a past life came back to me. The Fool had warned me: ‘She has no true affection for Fitz, you know, only for being able to say she knew FitzChivalry.’ Perhaps, despite all the years we’d shared, that was still true.

I held my tongue for fear of all I might say; I think she mistook my silence for a wavering in my resolve. She suddenly took a deep breath. She smiled at me wearily. ‘Oh, Fitz. We need one another in ways neither of us likes to admit.’ She gave a small sigh. ‘Make breakfast. I’m going to get dressed. Things always seem worst in the morning on an empty stomach.’ She left the room.

A fatalistic patience came over me. I set out the breakfast things as she dressed. I knew I had reached my decision. It was as if Hap’s words last night had extinguished a candle inside me. My feelings for Starling had changed that completely. We sat at table together, and she tried to make all seem as it had before, but I kept thinking, ‘this is probably the last time I’ll watch how she swirls her tea to cool it, or how she waves her bread about as she talks.’ I let her talk, and she kept her words to inconsequential things, trying to fix my interest on where she planned to go next, and what Lady Amity had worn to some occasion. The more she talked, the farther away she seemed from me. As I watched her, I had the strangest sense of something forgotten, something missed. She took another piece of cheese, alternating bites of it and the bread.

A sudden realization trickled through me like a drop of cold water down the spine. I interrupted her.

‘You knew Chade was coming to see me.’

A fraction of a second too late, she lifted her brows in surprise. ‘Chade? Here?’

These were habits of mind I thought I had discarded. Ways of thinking, taught to me painstakingly by a skilled mentor in the hours between dusk and dawn during the years of my youth. It was a way of sifting facts and assembling them, a training that let the mind make swift leaps to conclusions that were not conjectures. Begin with a simple observation. Starling had not commented on the cheese. Any cheese was a luxury for the boy and me, let alone a fine ripe cheese like this one. She should have been surprised to see it on my table, but she was not. She had said nothing of the Sandsedge brandy last night. Because neither had surprised her. I was both astonished and pleased, in a horrified way, at how swiftly my mind leapt from point to point, until I suddenly looked down on the inevitable landscape the facts formed. ‘You’ve never offered to take Hap anywhere before this. You took the boy off to Buckkeep so that Chade could see me alone.’ One possible conclusion from that chilled me. ‘In case he had to kill me. There would be no witnesses.’

‘Fitz!’ she rebuked me, both angry and shocked.

I almost didn’t hear her. Once the pebbles of thought had started bounding, the avalanche of conclusions was bound to follow. ‘All these years. All your visits. You’ve been his eyes on me, haven’t you? Tell me. Do you check on Burrich and Nettle several times a year as well?’

She looked at me coldly, denying nothing. ‘I had to seek them out. To give Burrich the horses. You wanted me to do that.’

Yes. My mind raced on. The horses would have served as a perfect introduction. Any other gift, Burrich would have refused. But Ruddy was rightfully his, a gift from Verity. All those years ago, Starling had told him that the Queen had sent Sooty’s colt as well, in token of services done for the Farseers. I looked at her, waiting for the rest. She was a minstrel. She loved to talk. All I need do was provide the silence.

She set her bread down. ‘When I am in that area, I visit them, yes. And when I return to Buckkeep, if Chade knows I have been there, he asks after them. Just as he asks after you.’

‘And the Fool? Do you know his whereabouts as well?’

‘No.’ The answer was succinct, and I believed it true. But she was a minstrel, and for her the power of a secret was always in the telling of it. She had to add, ‘But I think that Burrich does. Once or twice, when I have visited there, there have been toys about, far finer than anything Burrich could afford for Nettle. One was a doll that put me very much in mind of the Fool’s puppets. Another time, there was a string of wooden beads, each carved like a little face.’

That was interesting, but I did not let it show in my eyes. I asked her directly the question that was foremost on my mind. ‘Why would Chade consider me a threat to the Farseers? It is the only reason I know that might make him think he must kill me.’

Something akin to pity came into her face. ‘You truly believe that, don’t you? That Chade could kill you. That I would help by luring the boy away.’

‘I know Chade.’

‘And he knows you.’ The words were almost an accusation. ‘He once told me that you were incapable of entirely trusting anyone. That wanting to trust, and fearing to, would always divide your soul. No. I think the old man simply wanted to see you alone so he could speak freely to you. To have you to himself, and to see for himself how you were doing, after all your years of silence.’

She had a minstrel’s way with words and tone. She made it seem as if my avoiding Buckkeep had been both rude and cruel to my friends. The truth was that it had been a matter of survival.

‘What did Chade talk about with you?’ she asked, too casually.

I met her gaze steadily. ‘I think you know,’ I replied, wondering if she did.

Her expression changed and I could see her mind working. So. Chade hadn’t entrusted the truth of his mission to her. However, she was bright and quick and had many of the pieces. I waited for her to put it together.

‘Old Blood,’ she said quietly. ‘The Piebald threats.’

There have been many times in my life when I have been shocked and have had to conceal it. That time, I think, was most difficult for me. She watched my face carefully as she spoke. ‘It is a trouble that has been brewing for a time, and looks to be coming to a boil now. At Springfest, on the Night of the Minstrels, where all vie to perform for their monarch, one minstrel sang the old song about the Piebald Prince. You recall it?’

I did. It told of a princess carried off by a Witted one in the form of a piebald stallion. Once they were alone, he took his man’s shape and seduced her. She gave birth to a bastard son, mottled dark and light just as his sire had been. By treachery and spite, her bastard came to the throne, to rule cruelly with the aid of his Witted cohorts. The entire kingdom had suffered, until, so the song said, his cousin, of pure Farseer blood, had rallied six nobles’ sons to his cause. At the summer solstice, when the sun stood at noon and the Piebald Prince’s powers were weakest, they fell upon him and slew him. They hanged him, then chopped his body to pieces, and then burned the pieces over water, to wash his spirit far away lest it find a home in some beast’s body. The song’s method of dealing with the Piebald Prince had become the traditional way to be surely rid of Witted ones. Regal had been very disappointed that he had not been able to serve me so.

‘Not my favourite song,’ I said quietly.

‘Understandably. However, Slek sang it well, to much applause, more than his voice truly merits. He has that quaver at the end of his notes that some find endearing, but in truth is the sign of a voice with poor control …’ She suddenly realized she was wandering from her topic. ‘Feelings run high against the Witted these days. The Witted ones have been restless of late, and one hears wild tales. I have heard that in one village where a Witted man was hanged and burned, all the sheep died four days later. Just dropped in the fields. Folk said it was his family’s revenge. But when they went for vengeance against his kin, they found them long gone. There was a scroll left tacked to the door of their house. All it said was, “You deserved it.” There have been other incidents as well.’

I met her eyes. ‘So Hap told me,’ I admitted.

She nodded curtly. She rose from the table and stepped clear of it. A minstrel to the bone, she had a story to tell, and demanded a stage for it. ‘Well. After Slek sang “The Piebald Prince”, another minstrel came forwards. He was very young, and perhaps that was why he was so foolish. He doffed his cap to Queen Kettricken, and then said he would follow “The Piebald Prince” with another song, of more recent vintage. When he said he had heard it first in a hamlet of Witted folk, muttering ran through the crowd. All have heard rumours of such places, but never have I heard someone claim to have been to one. When the mutter died, he launched into a song I had never heard before. The tune was derivative, but the words were new to me, as raw as his voice.’ She cocked her head at me and regarded me speculatively. ‘This song was of Chivalry’s Bastard. It touched on all he had done before his Witted taint was revealed. He even stole a phrase or two from my song of “Antler Island Tower”, if you can believe the gall of that! Then, this song went on that this “Farseer’s son with Old Blood blessed, of royal blood and wild, the best” had not died in the Pretender’s dungeon. According to this song, the Bastard had lived, and been true to his father’s family. The minstrel sang that when King Verity went off to seek the Elderlings, the Bastard rose from his grave to rally to his rightful King’s aid. The minstrel sang a stirring scene of how the Bastard called Verity back through the gates of death, to show him a garden of stone dragons that could be wakened to the Six Duchies cause. That, at least, had the ring of truth to it. It made me sit up and wonder, even if his voice was growing hoarse by then.’ She paused, waiting for me to speak, but I had no words. She shrugged, then observed caustically, ‘If you wanted a song made of those days, you might have thought of me first. I was there, you know. In fact, it was why I was there. And I am a far better minstrel than that boy was.’ There was a quiver of jealous outrage in her voice.

‘I had nothing to do with that song, as I’m sure you must realize. I wish no one had ever heard it.’

‘Well, you’ve little enough to worry about there.’ She said the words with deep satisfaction. ‘I’d never heard it before that day, nor since. It was not well made, the tune did not fit the theme, the words were ragged, the –’

‘Starling.’

‘Oh, very well. He gave the song the traditional heroic ending. That if ever the Farseer crown demanded it, the truehearted Witted Bastard would return to aid the kingdom. At the end of the song, some of the Springfest crowd yelled insults at him and someone said he was likely Witted himself and fit for burning. Queen Kettricken commanded them to silence, but at the end of the evening, she gave him no purse as she did the other minstrels.’

I kept silent, passing no judgement on that. When I did not rise to her bait, Starling added, ‘Because he had vanished when it came time for her to reward those who had pleased her. She called his name first, but no one knew where he had gone. His name was unfamiliar to me. Tagsson.’

Son of Tag, grandson of Reaver, I could have told her. And both Reaver and Tag had been very able members of Verity’s Buckkeep guard. My mind reached back through the years to find Tag’s face as he knelt before Verity in the Stone Garden before the gates of death. Yes, so I supposed it had looked to him, Verity stepping out from the stark black Skill-pillar and into the uncertain circle of the firelight. Tag had recognized his king, despite all hardship had done to Verity. He had proclaimed his loyalty to him, and Verity had sent him on his way, bidding him return to Buckkeep and tell all there that the rightful king would return. In thinking back on it, I was almost certain that Verity had arrived at Buckkeep before the soldier did. Dragons a-wing are a deal faster than a man on foot.

I had not known Tag had recognized me as well. Who could ever have foreseen he would pass on that tale, let alone that he would have a minstrel for a son?

‘I see that you know him,’ Starling said quietly.

I glanced at her to find her eyes reading my face greedily. I sighed. ‘I know no Tagsson. I’m afraid my mind wandered back to something you said earlier. The Witted have grown restless. Why?’

She lifted an eyebrow at me. ‘I thought you would better know than I.’

‘I lead a solitary life, Starling, as well you know. I’m in a poor position to hear tidings of any kind, save what you bring me.’ It was my turn to study her. ‘And this was information you never shared with me.’

She looked away from me and I wondered: had she decided to keep it from me? Had Chade bid her not speak of it to me? Or had it been crowded from her mind by her stories of nobles she had played for, and acclaim she had received? ‘It isn’t a pretty tale. I suppose it began a year and a half ago … perhaps two. It seemed to me then that I began to hear more often of Witted ones being found out and punished. Or killed. You know how people are, Fitz. For a time after the Red Ship War, I am sure they had their glut of killing and blood. But when the enemy is finally driven far from your shore, and your houses are restored and your fields begin to yield and your flocks to increase, why then it becomes time to find fault with your neighbours again. I think Regal wakened a lust for blood sport in the Six Duchies, with his King’s Circle and justice by combat. I wonder if we shall ever be truly free of that legacy?’

She had touched an old nightmare. The King’s Circle at Tradeford, the caged beasts and the smell of old blood, trial by battle … the memory washed through me, leaving sickness in its wake.

‘Two years ago … yes,’ Starling continued. She moved restlessly about the room as she considered it. ‘That was when the old hatred of Witted folk flared up again. The Queen spoke out against it, for your sake I imagine. She is a beloved queen, and she has wrought many changes during her rule, but in this, tradition runs too deep. The folk in the village think, well, what can she know of our ways, Mountain-bred as she is? So although Queen Kettricken did not countenance it, the hounding of the Witted went on as it always has. Then, in Trenury in Farrow, about a year and a half ago, there was a horrifying incident. As the story came to Buckkeep, a Witted girl had a fox as her beast, and she cared not where it hunted so long as the blood ran every night.’

I interrupted her. ‘A pet fox?’

‘Not exactly common. It was even more suspect that the girl who had this fox was neither of noble blood nor wealthy. What business had a farmer’s child with such a beast? The rumours spread. The poultry flocks of the village folk near Trenury suffered the most, but the final blow was when something got into Lord Doplin’s aviary and made dinner of his songbirds and imported Rain Wild fowl. He sent his huntsmen after the girl and fox said to be at the root of it, and they were run down, not gently, and brought before Lord Doplin. She swore it was none of her fox’s doing, she swore she was not Witted, but when the hot irons were put to the fox, it is said that she screamed as loudly as the beast did. Then, to close the circle of his proof, Doplin had the nails drawn from the girl’s fingers and toes, and the fox likewise shrieked with her.’

‘A moment.’ Her words dizzied me. I could imagine it too well.

‘I shall finish it swiftly. They died, slowly. But the next night, more of Doplin’s songbirds were slain, and an old huntsman said it was a weasel, not a fox, for a weasel but drinks the blood whereas a fox would have taken the birds to pieces. I think it was the injustice of her death, as much as the cruelty of it that roused the Witted against him. The next day, Doplin’s own dog snapped at him. Doplin had both his dog and his dog-boy put down. He claimed that when he walked through his stables, every one of his horses went wild-eyed at his passage, laying back ears and kicking their stall walls. He had two stable boys hanged over water and burned. He claimed flies began to flock to his kitchen, so that he found them daily dead in his food and that …’

I shook my head at her. ‘That is the wildness of a man’s uneasy conscience, not the work of any Witted ones I have ever known.’

She shrugged. ‘In any case, the folk cried out to the Queen for justice when over a dozen of his lesser servants had been tortured or killed. And she sent Chade.’

I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms on my chest. So. The old assassin was still the bearer of the Farseer justice. I wondered who had accompanied him to do the quiet work. ‘What happened?’ I asked, as if I did not know.

‘Chade made a simple solution to it all. By the Queen’s order, he forbade Doplin to keep horse, hawk or hound, or beast or bird of any kind in his manor. He cannot ride, hawk, or hunt in any form. Chade even forbade him and all who live in his keep the eating of any flesh or fish for a year.’

‘That will make for a dreary holding.’

‘It is said among the minstrels that no one guests with Doplin any more unless they must, that his servants are few and surly, and that he has lost his stature with the other nobles since his hospitality has become such a threadbare welcome. And Chade forced him to pay blood-gold, not only to the families of the slain servants, but to the family of the fox-girl.’

‘Did they take it?’

‘The servants’ families did. It was only fair. The fox-girl’s family was gone, dead or fled, no one could or would say. Chade demanded that the blood money for her be given to the Queen’s counting-man, to be held for the family.’ She shrugged. ‘It should have settled it. But from that time to now, the incidents have multiplied. Not just the scourings for Witted ones, but the revenge the Witted wreak in turn on their tormentors.’

I frowned. ‘I don’t see why any of that would provoke further uprisings among the Witted. It seems to me Doplin was justly punished.’

‘And some say more severely than he deserved, but Chade was unrelenting. Nor did he stop with that. Shortly after that, all six Dukes received scrolls from Queen Kettricken, saying that to be Witted was no crime, save that a Witted one used it for evil ends. She told the Dukes that they must forbid their nobles and lords to execute Witted ones, save that their crimes had been proven against them as surely as any ordinary man’s crimes. The edict did not sit well, as you can imagine. Where it is not ignored, proof of a man’s guilt is always ample after his death. Instead of calming feelings, the Queen’s declaration seemed to wake all the old feelings against the Witted ones.

‘But among the Witted, it has seemed to rally them to defiance. They do not suffer their blood to be executed without a fight. Sometimes they are content merely to free their own before they can be killed, but often enough they strike back in vengeance. Almost any time there is an execution of a Witted one, some evil swiftly befalls those responsible. Their cattle die or diseased rats bite their children. Always it has to do with animals. In one village, the river fish they depended on simply did not migrate that year. Their nets hung empty and the folk went hungry.’

‘Ridiculous. Folk claim happenstance is malice. The Witted do not have the kind of powers you are ascribing to them.’ I spoke with great surety.

She gave me a disdainful look. ‘Then why do the Piebalds claim credit for such acts, if the work is not theirs?’

‘The Piebalds? Who are the Piebalds?’

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. ‘No one knows. They do not announce themselves. They leave messages pegged to inn doors or trees, and send missives to the nobles. They always sing the same tune with different words: “Such a one was killed unjustly, for no crime but merely for possessing Old Blood magic. Now our wrath falls on you. When the Piebald Prince returns, he will have no mercy on you.” And it is signed with no name, but only an image of a piebald stallion. It makes folk furious.

‘The Queen has refused to send out her guard to hunt them down. So now the gossip among some of the nobility is that Queen Kettricken herself is at fault for the increased executions of Witted ones, for her punishing of Lord Doplin has made them think they have the right to their perverted magic.’ At my scowl, she reminded me, ‘A minstrel but repeats what she has heard. I do not create the rumours, nor put words in people’s mouths.’ She came closer to me and from behind me, set her hands on my shoulders. She bent down, her cheek by mine. Gently, she added, ‘After all the years we have been together, surely you know by now that I do not consider you tainted.’ She kissed my cheek.

Our current conversation had almost driven my resolve from my mind. Nearly, I took her in my arms. Instead, I stood, awkwardly, for she was right behind my chair. When she tried to embrace me, I chilled my heart. I set her at arm’s length from me. ‘You are not mine,’ I told her quietly.

‘Nor am I his!’ She blazed at me suddenly. Her dark eyes shone with her anger. ‘I belong to myself, and I shall decide who shares my body. It hurts nothing for me to be with both of you. I will not get pregnant by either of you. If any man could get me with child, it would have happened long ago. So what does it matter whose bed I share?’

She was quick-witted and words served her tongue far better than mine. I had no clever reply. So I echoed her own words. ‘I, too, belong to myself, and I decide who will share my body. And I will not share it with another man’s wife.’

I think then that she finally believed it. I had set her belongings in a neat pile beside the hearth. She flung herself to her knees beside it. Snatching up her saddle pack, she began to stuff it furiously. ‘I don’t know why I ever bothered with you,’ she muttered.

Mishap, true to his name, chose that moment to enter the cabin. The wolf was at his heels. At the sight of Starling’s angry face, Hap turned to me. ‘Should I leave?’ he asked baldly.

‘No!’ Starling spat the word. ‘You get to stay. I’m the one he’s throwing out. Thanks to you. You might ponder a moment or two, Hap, on what would have become of you if I had left you digging in that village garbage heap. I deserved gratitude from you, not this betrayal!’

The boy’s eyes went wide. Nothing she had ever done, not even how she had deceived me, angered me as much as witnessing her hurt him. He gave me a stricken look, as if he expected I, too, would turn on him. Then he bolted out of the door. Nighteyes gave me a baleful look, then spun to follow him.

I’ll come soon. Let me finish this first.

Better you had never started it.

I let his rebuke hang unanswered, for there was no good reply to it. Starling glared up at me, and as I glowered back, I saw something almost like fear pass over her face. I crossed my arms on my chest. ‘Best you were gone,’ I said tightly. The wary look in her eye was as great an insult to me as the abuse she had flung at Hap. I left the cabin and went to fetch her horse. A fine horse and a fine saddle, doubtless both gifts from a fine young man. The animal sensed my agitation and pranced restlessly as I saddled her. I took a breath, gathered control over myself and set my hand to the horse. I sent calmness to her. In doing so, I calmed myself. I stroked her sleek neck. She turned to whuffle her nose against my shirt. I sighed. ‘Take care of her, would you? For she takes no care with herself.’

I had no bond with the creature, and my words were only reassuring sounds to her. I sensed in return her acceptance of my mastery. I led her to the front of the cottage and stood outside, holding her reins. In a moment, Starling appeared on the porch. ‘Can’t wait for me to leave, can you?’ she observed bitterly. She threw her pack across the saddle, unsettling the horse once more.

‘That’s not true and you know it,’ I replied. I tried to keep my voice level and calm. The pain I had been denying broke through my humiliation at how gullible I had been, and my anger that she had used me so. Our bond had not been a tender, heartfelt love; rather it had been a companionship that had included the sharing of our bodies and the trust of sleeping in one another’s arms. The betrayal of a friend differs from the treachery of a lover only in the degree of pain, not the kind. I suddenly knew I had just lied to her; I desperately wanted her to leave. Her presence was like an arrow standing in a wound; it could not be healed until she was gone.

Nevertheless, I tried to think of some significant words, something that would salvage the good part of what we had shared. But nothing came to me, and in the end I stood dumbly by as she snatched the reins from my hand and mounted. She looked down on me from the animal’s back. I am sure she felt some pain, but her face showed only her anger that I had thwarted her will. She shook her head at me.

‘You could have been someone. Regardless of how you were born, they gave you every chance of making something of yourself. You could have mattered. But this is what you chose. Remember that. You chose this.’

She tugged the horse’s head around, not so badly as to injure her mouth, but rougher than she needed to be. Then she kicked the horse to a trot and rode away from me. I watched her go. She did not look back. Despite my pain I felt, not the regret of an ending, but the foreboding of a beginning. A shiver ran over me, as if the Fool himself stood at my elbow and whispered words at my ear. ‘Do not you sense it? A crossroads, a vertex, a vortex. All paths change from here.’

I turned, but there was no one there. I glanced at the sky. Dark clouds were hastening from the south; already the tips of the trees were stirring with the oncoming squall. Starling would begin her journey with a drenching. I told myself I took no satisfaction in that, and went looking for Hap.

FOUR

The Hedge-Witch

There was a hedge-witch in those parts, Silva Copperleaf by name, whose charms were of such a strength that their potency lasted not just from year to year, but continued to protect the folk who possessed them for generations. It is said that she made for Baldric Farseer a marvellous sieve such that it purified all waters that passed through it. This was a great boon for a king so often threatened by poisoners.

Above the gate of the walled town of Eklse, she hung a charm against pestilence, and for many years the grain bins were free of rats and the stables clean of fleas and other vermin. The town prospered under this protection, until the town elders foolishly built a second gate in their walls, to admit more trade. This opened a way for pestilence to enter the town, and all there perished from the second wave of the Blood Plague.

Selkin’s Travels in the Six Duchies

High summer found Hap and me just as it had found us for the last seven years. There was a garden to tend, poultry to mind, and fish to salt and smoke against winter’s need. Day followed day in its round of chores and meals, sleeping and waking. Starling’s departure, I told myself, had effectively quenched the restlessness that Chade’s visit had sparked. I had spoken to Hap, in a desultory way, of putting him out to an apprenticeship. With an enthusiasm that surprised me, he told me of a cabinetmaker in Buckkeep whose work he had greatly admired. I balked at that, having no desire to visit Buckkeep Town, but I think he suspected I could not pay such a high prentice fee as a fine workman like Gindast could demand. In that, he was likely correct. When I asked him of any other woodworkers he had noticed, he stoutly replied that there was a boatbuilder in Hammerby Cove whose work was often praised. Perhaps we might try there. This was a far humbler master than the cabinetmaker in Buckkeep. I uneasily wondered if the boy was not tailoring his dreams to the depths of my pockets. His apprenticeship would determine the course of his life’s work. I didn’t want my lack of coin to condemn him to a trade he found merely tolerable.

Yet despite the boy’s interest, the apprenticeship remained a topic for late night talks by the hearth and little more. Oh, I set aside the small store of coins that remained to me against a prentice fee. I even told the boy that we would make do with fewer eggs for meals if he wished to let the hens set some. There was always a market for chickens, and whatever he got for them he could save towards his fee. Even then, I wondered if it would be enough to buy him a good place. Willing hands and a strong back could buy a lad an apprenticeship, it was true, but the better artisans and craftsmen usually demanded a fee before they would take a likely boy into their shops. It was the way of Buck. The secrets of a man’s trade and the good livelihood he made at it were not to be carelessly given to strangers. If parents loved their children, they either raised them in their own trades, or paid well to see them apprenticed to those who had mastered other arts. Despite the humbleness of our fortunes, I was determined to see Hap well placed. That, I told myself, was why I delayed, to muster more coin. It was not that I dreaded parting with the boy. Only that I wished to do well by him.

The wolf did not ask me about the journey I had earlier proposed. I think that, in his heart, he was relieved to see it postponed. There were days when I felt that Starling’s words had made an old man of me. Years had done that in truth to the wolf. I suspected he was very old for his kind, though I had no idea how long a wild wolf usually lived. I wondered, sometimes, if our bond did not lend him an unnatural vitality. Once it even crossed my mind that perhaps he used up my years to lengthen his own. Yet that thought came not with any resentment that he might borrow my days but with hope that we might still have a good long span together. For once the boy was apprenticed out, whom else did I have in the world besides Nighteyes?

For a time, I wondered if Chade might come to call again, now that he knew the way, but the long days of summer simmered away and the trail to our cabin remained empty. I went to market with the boy twice, taking fledged chickens and my inks and dyes and such roots and herbs as I thought might be unusual there. Nighteyes was as pleased to remain at home, for he disliked not only the long walk to the trade crossroads but the dust and noise and confusion of the crowded market. I felt much the same about it but forced myself to go anyway. We did not do as well as I had hoped, for folk at the small market we frequented were more accustomed to trade in goods than to buy with coin. Still, I was pleasantly surprised at how many folk recalled Tom Badgerlock, and commented that it was good to see me come to market again.

It was the second time we went to market that we chanced to meet Hap’s hedge-witch from Buckkeep. We had set our wares out on the tail of our pony cart in the market. Midway through the morning, she found us there, exclaiming with pleasure at seeing Hap again. I stood quietly to one side, watching them talk. He had told me Jinna was pretty, and so she was, but I confess I was startled to find her closer to my age than his. I had supposed her a girl who had turned his head when they met in Buckkeep. Instead she was a woman nearing her middle years, with hazel eyes, a scattering of freckles, and curly hair that shaded from auburn to brown. She had the round and pleasant figure of a mature woman. When he told her that her charm against pickpockets had been stolen from him before the day was out, she laughed aloud, an open hearty laugh. Then she calmly replied to him that that was exactly how the charm was intended to work. His purse had been protected when the thief took the charm instead of it.

When Hap glanced about to include me in the conversation, her eyes had already found me. She was regarding me with that expression parents usually reserve for possibly dangerous strangers. When I smiled and nodded to Hap’s introduction and offered her good day, she relaxed visibly and her smile expanded to include me. She stepped closer as she did so, peering up at my face, and I realized her eyesight was not keen.

She had brought her wares to market, and spread her mat in the shadow of our cart. Hap helped her arrange her charms and potents, and the two of them made a merry day of our marketing after that, exchanging news since Springfest. I listened in as Hap told her of his apprenticeship plans. When he spoke to Jinna, it became very clear to me just how much he had wished for the cabinetmaker in Buckkeep rather than the boatbuilder in Hammerby Cove. I found myself pondering if there was yet some way it might be arranged, not only the higher fee but for someone other than myself to negotiate the apprenticeship on his behalf. Could Chade be persuaded to help me in such an endeavour? From there my mind wandered to what the old man might ask of me in return. I was deep in such thoughts when Hap’s elbow in my ribs jolted me from my wandering.

‘Tom!’ he protested, and I instantly perceived that in some way I had embarrassed him. Jinna was looking at both of us expectantly.

‘Yes?’

‘See, I told you it would be fine with him,’ Hap crowed.

‘Well, I do thank you, as long as you are sure it would be no trouble,’ Jinna replied. ‘It’s a long road, with inns both far-spaced and expensive to one such as myself.’

I nodded my agreement to the statement, and in the next few minutes of conversation, I realized that Hap had extended the hospitality of our cottage to her the next time she happened to pass our way. I sighed privately. Hap loved the novelty of our occasional guests, but I still regarded any new stranger as a potential risk. I wondered how long I would have to live before my secrets were so old that they no longer mattered.

I smiled and nodded as they conversed, but added little. Instead, I found myself studying her as Chade had taught me but I found nothing to suggest she was anything other than the hedge-witch she claimed to be.

Which is to say that I knew very little of her at all. Hedge-witches and wizards are fairly common at any market, fair or festival. Unlike the Skill, common folk attach no awe to hedge-magic. Unlike the Wit, it does not mark the practitioner for execution. Most folk seem to regard it with both tolerance and scepticism. Some of those who claim the magic are complete and unapologetic charlatans. These are the ones who pull eggs from the ears of the gullible, tell fortunes of vast riches and lofty marriages for milkmaids, and sell love potions that are mostly lavender and chamomile, and peddle luck charms made from dismembered rabbits. They are harmless enough, I suppose.

Jinna was not, however, one of those. She had no friendly patter of talk to attract the passing folk, nor was she dressed in the gaudy veils and jewellery that such frauds usually affected. She was clad as simply as a forester, her tunic shades of green over brown buckskin trousers and soft shoes. The charms she had set out for sale were concealed within the traditional bags of coloured fabric: pink for love charms, red to rouse lagging passions, green for good crops, and other colours whose significance I did not know. She offered packets of dried herbs as well. Most were ones I knew and they were correctly labelled as to their virtues: slippery elm bark for sore throats, raspberry leaves for morning sickness and the like. Mixed amongst the herbs were fine crystals of something which Jinna claimed increased their potency. I suspected salt or sugar. Several pottery dishes on her mat held polished discs of jade or jasper or ivory, inscribed with runes for luck or fertility or peace of mind. These were less expensive than the constructed charms, for they were merely general good wishes, though for an extra copper or two Jinna would ‘hone’ the pocket stone to the individual customer’s desire.

She did a fairly lively trade as the long morning ventured towards afternoon. Several times customers enquired about the covered charms, and at least three made purchases with good silver. If there was a magic to the gadgets she sold them, it was one that neither my Wit nor my Skill could detect. I caught a glimpse of one of the charms; it was an intricate assembly of glittering beads and small rods of wood and, I thought, a tuft of feathers. She sold it to a man wishing to attract good fortune to himself and his home as he sought a wife. He was a broad man, muscled as a ploughman and homely as a sod roof. He looked about my age, and I silently wished him well in his quest.

The market was well into its day when Baylor arrived. He came with his cart and ox, and six trussed piglets to sell. I did not know the man well, despite the fact that he was as close to a neighbour as Hap and I had. He lived in the next vale and ran his hogs there. I seldom saw him. In the autumn, we sometimes made a trade, a slaughter-pig in exchange for chickens or labour or smoked fish. Baylor was a little man, skinny but strong, and ever suspicious. He gave us a glare for a greeting. Then, despite the close quarters, he forced his cart into place alongside ours. I did not welcome his company. The Wit gives one an empathy for other living creatures. I had learned to shield myself from it, but could not close it off completely. I knew that his ox was rubbed raw by the badly-fitting harness, and felt the terror and discomfort of the immobilized and sun-scorched piglets in the cart.

So it was as much self defence as neighbourliness for me to greet him with, ‘Good to see you again, Baylor. Fine litter of piglets. Best get some water into them to make them lively, and they should fetch a good price.’

He gave them a careless glance. ‘No sense stirring them up, or taking the chance they’ll get loose. Like as not they’ll be meat before the day is out anyway.’

I took a breath, and with an effort kept from speaking. The Wit is more curse than gift, I sometimes think. Perhaps the hardest part of possessing it is witnessing so completely the casual cruelty of humans. Some speak of the savagery of beasts. I will ever prefer that to the thoughtless contempt some men have towards animals.

I was willing to let our conversation end, but he came to inspect our trade goods. He made a small disparaging noise, as if surprised we had bothered to come to market at all. Then, catching my eye, he observed heavily, ‘These are good piglets, but there were three more in the litter. One was bigger than these.’

Then he paused, waiting. His eyes never left my face. Uncertain of what he expected, I replied, ‘Sounds like a nice, big litter.’

‘Aye. It was. Until the three disappeared.’

‘A shame,’ I rejoined. When he kept his stare on me, I added, ‘Lost while ranging with the sow, were they?’

He nodded. ‘One day there were ten. The next day, seven.’

I shook my head. ‘A shame.’

He took a step closer to me. ‘You and the boy. You wouldn’t have happened to see them? I know sometimes my sow ranges almost to your stream.’

‘I haven’t.’ I turned to Hap. The boy had an apprehensive look on his face. I noticed that Jinna and her customer had fallen silent, their interest caught by Baylor’s intent tone. I hated to be the centre of such attention. I felt the blood begin to rise in me, but I pleasantly asked my boy, ‘Hap, have you seen any sign of three of Baylor’s piglets?’

‘Not so much as a track or a pile of dung,’ he replied gravely. He held himself very still when he spoke, as if a sudden movement could precipitate danger.

I turned back to Baylor. ‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘Well.’ He observed heavily, ‘That’s strange, isn’t it? I know you and your boy and that dog of yours range all about those hills. I would have thought you’d have seen something.’ His remark was oddly pointed. ‘And if you saw them, you’d know them for mine. You’d know they weren’t strays, free for the taking.’ His eyes had never left my face.

I shrugged, trying to keep my calm. But now other folk were pausing in their business, watching and listening. Baylor’s eyes suddenly ranged round the audience, and then came back to me.

‘So you’re sure you haven’t seen my pigs? Not found one stuck or hurt somewhere? Not found it dead and used it for dog meat?’

It was my turn to glance about. Hap’s face had gone red. Jinna looked distinctly uncomfortable. My anger surged that this man would dare to accuse me of theft, no matter how indirect his words were. I took a breath and managed to hold my temper. In a low, gratingly civil voice, I replied, ‘I haven’t seen your pigs, Baylor.’

‘You’re sure?’ He took a step closer to me, mistaking my courtesy for passivity. ‘Because it strikes me odd, three disappearing all at once. A wolf might take one, or one the sow might misplace, but not three. You haven’t seen them?’

I had been leaning on the tail of the cart. I stood up straight, to my full height, my feet set solidly wide. Despite my effort at control, I could feel my chest and neck growing tight with anger.

Once, long ago, I had been beaten badly, to the point of death. Men seem to react to that experience in one of two ways. Some become cowed by it, never to offer physical resistance again. For a time, I had known that abject fear. Life had forced me to recover from it: I had learned a new reaction. The man who becomes most efficiently vicious first is most likely to be the man left standing. I had learned to be that man. ‘I’m getting tired of that question,’ I warned him in a low growl.

In the busy market, a quiet circle surrounded us. Not only Jinna and her customer were silent, but across the way the cheese merchant stared at us, and a baker’s boy with a tray full of fresh wares stood silent and gawking. Hap was still, eyes wide, face gone to white and red. But most revealing was the change in Baylor’s face. If a snarling bear had suddenly towered over him, he could not have looked more cowed. He fell back a step, and looked aside at the dust. ‘Well. Of course if you haven’t seen them, well, then –’

‘I haven’t seen them,’ I spoke forcefully, cutting him off. The sounds of the market had retreated into a distant hum. I saw only Baylor. I stalked a step closer.

‘Well.’ He backed another pace, and dodged around his ox so the beast was between us. ‘I didn’t think you had, of course. You’d have chased them back my way, for certain. But I wanted to let you know about it. Odd, isn’t it, for three to go missing at once? Thought I’d let you know, in case you’d had chickens disappearing.’ From conciliating his voice went suddenly to conspiring. ‘Like as not we’ve had Witted ones about in our hills, thieving my beasts as only they can. They wouldn’t have to chase it down, just spell the sow and the piglets and walk right off with them. Everyone knows they can do that. Like as not –’

My temper flared. I managed to divert it into words. I spoke quietly, biting off each word. ‘Like as not the piglets fell down a creek bank and were swept away, or got separated from the sow. There’s fox and cats and wolverine in those hills. If you want to be sure of your stock, keep a better watch on them.’

‘I had a calf go missing this spring,’ the cheese merchant suddenly said. ‘Cow strayed off pregnant, and came home two days later, empty as a barrel.’ He shook his head. ‘Never found a trace of that calf. But I did find a burnt-out firepit.’

‘Witted ones,’ the baker’s boy chimed in sagely. ‘They caught one over to Hardin’s Spit the other day, but she got away. No telling where she is now. Or where she was!’ His eyes gleamed with the joy of his suspicions.

‘Well, that explains it then,’ Baylor exclaimed. He shot a triumphant look my way, then hastily looked aside from my expression. ‘That’s the way of it then, Tom Badgerlock. And I only wanted to warn you, as neighbours do for one another. You keep good watch on those chickens of yours.’ He nodded judiciously, and across the way, the cheese merchant nodded as well.

‘My cousin was there, at Hardin’s Spit. He saw that Wit whore just sprout feathers and fly. The ropes fell away from her and off she went.’

I didn’t even turn my head to see who spoke. The normal movement and noise of the market had resumed around us, but now the gossip hummed with jolly hatred of the Witted. I stood isolated, the warm summer sun beating down on my head just as it did on the hapless piglets in Baylor’s cart. The surging of my heart was like a shaking inside me. The moment in which I might have killed him had passed like a fever breaking. I saw Hap wipe sweat from his brow. Jinna put a hand on his shoulder and said something quietly to him. He shook his head, his lips white. Then he looked at me and gave me a shaky smile. It was over.

But the gossip in the market went on. All around me, the market chuckled along, healed by the prospect of a common enemy. It made me queasy, and I felt small and shamed that I did not shout out at the injustice of it all. Instead, I took up Clover’s lead. ‘Mind our trade, Hap. I’m going to water the pony.’

Hap, still silent and grave, nodded to me. I felt his eyes on me as I led Clover away. I took my time at the task and when I came back, Baylor made a point of smiling and greeting me. All I could manage was a nod. It was a relief when a butcher bought all Baylor’s piglets on condition that he deliver them to the man’s shop. As the sore ox and the miserable piglets left, I let out a sigh. My back ached with the tension I’d been holding.

‘Pleasant fellow,’ Jinna observed quietly. Hap laughed aloud, and even I broke a sour smile. Later we shared our hard-boiled eggs, bread and salt fish with her. She had a pouch of dried apples and a smoked sausage. We made a picnic of it, and when I laughed at some jest of Hap’s, she made me blush by saying, ‘You look a vicious man when you scowl, Tom Badgerlock. And when you knot your fists, I’d not want to know you. Yet when you smile or laugh aloud, your eyes put the lie to that look.’

Hap snickered to see me flush, and the rest of the day passed in good companionship and friendly barter. As the market day wound to a close, Jinna had done well for herself. Her supply of charms had dwindled measurably. ‘Soon it will be time to go back to Buckkeep Town, and turn my hand to making. It suits me better than the selling, though I do like travelling about and meeting new folk,’ she observed as she packed up what was left of her wares.

Hap and I had exchanged most of our goods for things we could use at home, but had gained little in actual coin for his apprenticeship fee. He tried to keep the disappointment from his face but I saw the shadow of worry in his eyes. What if our coins were not sufficient even for the boatbuilder? What then of his apprenticeship? The question haunted me as well.

Yet neither of us voiced it. We slept in our cart to save the cost of an inn and left the next morning for home. Jinna came by to bid us farewell and Hap reminded her of his offer of hospitality. She assured him she would remember, but her eyes caught at mine as she did so, as if uncertain of how truly welcome she would be. Perforce I must nod and smile and add my hope that we would see her soon.

We had a fine day for the journey home. There were high clouds and a light wind to keep the summer day from being oppressive. We nibbled at the honeycomb that Hap had received for one of his chickens. We talked of nothing: that the market was much larger than the first time I had been there, that the town had grown, that the road was more travelled than it had been last year. Neither of us spoke of Baylor. We passed the fork in the road that once would have taken us to Forge. Grass grew on that trail. Hap asked if I thought folk would ever settle there again. I said I hoped not, but that sooner or later, the iron ore would bring someone with a short memory there. From there, we progressed to tales of what had happened at Forge and the hardships of the Red Ship war. I told them all as tales I had heard from another, not because I enjoyed the telling of them, but because it was history the boy should know. It was something everyone in the Six Duchies should always recall, and again I resolved to make an attempt at a history of that time. I thought of my many brave beginnings, of the stacked scrolls that rolled about on the shelves above my desk and wondered if I would ever complete any of them.

An abrupt question from Hap broke me rudely from my musing.

‘Was I a Red Ship bastard, Tom?’

My mouth hung ajar. All my old pain at that word shone fresh in Hap’s mis-matched eyes. Mishap, his mother had named him. Starling had found him, a scavenging orphan that no one in his village would claim. That was as much as I knew of him. I forced honesty. ‘I don’t know, Hap. You could have been raider-born.’ I used the kinder term.

He stared straight ahead now, walking steadily as he spoke. ‘Starling said I was. I’m an age to be one, and it might be why no one save you would take me in. I’d like to know. I’d like to know who I am.’

‘Oh,’ I finally said into the dangling silence.

He nodded hard, twice. His voice was tight when he added, ‘When I said I’d have to tell you about her, Starling said I had the same Forged heart as my raping father.’

I suddenly wished he were smaller, so I could catch him up mid-stride and hug him. Instead, I put my arm around his shoulders and forced him to a halt. The pony ambled along without us. I didn’t make him meet my eyes nor did I let my voice become too grave. ‘I’m going to give you a gift, son. This is knowledge it took me twenty years to gain, so appreciate that I’m giving it to you while you’re young.’ I took a breath. ‘It doesn’t matter who a man’s father is. Your parents made a child, but it’s up to you to make the man you’ll be.’ I held his gaze for a moment. Then, ‘Come on. Let’s go home.’

We walked on, my arm across his shoulders for a time, until he reached up to clap me on the shoulder. I let him go then, to walk on his own and silently finish his thinking. It was the best I could do for him. My thoughts of Starling were not charitable.

Night caught us before we reached the cottage, but there was a moon and both of us knew the road. The old pony meandered along placidly and the clopping of her hooves and the creaking of the two-wheeled cart made an odd sort of music. A summer rain began to fall, damping the dust and cooling the night. Not far from home, Nighteyes came nonchalantly to meet us, as if mere chance had brought him out upon the road. We journeyed companionably together, the boy in silence, the wolf and I in the effortless communion of the Wit. We absorbed the other’s experiences of the day like an in-drawn breath. He could not grasp my worry for the boy’s future.

He can hunt and he can fish. What more does he need to know? Why send one of our own off to another pack, to learn their ways? We are diminished by the loss of his strength. We grow no younger, you and I.

My brother, that is perhaps the strongest reason why he should go. He must begin to make his own way in the world, so that when the time comes for him to take a mate, he can provide well for her and their children.

What of you and me? We will not help him in that providing? We will not watch the cubs while he hunts, or bring back our kill to share? Are we not pack with him?

Among human pack, this is the way of it. It was an answer I had given him many times in our years together. I knew how he interpreted it. It was a human custom that made no sense, and he need not waste time trying to understand it.

What of us, then, when he is gone?

I’ve told you. Perhaps we shall travel again.

Ah, yes. Leave a cosy den and a predictable food supply. That makes as much sense as sending the boy away.

I let his thought hang unanswered, for he was right. Perhaps the restlessness Chade had stirred in me had been the last gasping of my youth. Perhaps I should have bought that wife-finding charm from Jinna. From time to time I had considered the idea of looking for a wife, but it seemed too perfunctory a way to take a mate. Some did so, I knew, merely seeking out a woman or man who had similar goals and no excessively irritating habits. Such partnerships often grew into loving relationships. But having once experienced a relationship not only founded on years of knowing one another but blessed with the heady intoxication of genuine love, I did not think I could ever settle for anything else. It would not be fair to ask another woman to live in Molly’s shadow. In all the years that Starling had intermittently shared herself with me, I had never thought to ask her to marry me. That thought gave me pause for a moment: had Starling ever hoped that I would? Then the moment of wondering passed and I smiled grimly to myself. No. Starling would have found such an offer baffling, if not laughable.

The last part of our journey was darker, for the track to our cottage was narrow and overshadowed on both sides by trees. Rain dripped from the leaves. The cart jounced along. ‘Should have brought a lantern,’ Hap observed, and I grunted agreement. Our cottage was a darker hummock in the shadowed hollow we called home.

I went inside and kindled a fire and put our traded goods away. Hap took a light and settled the pony. Nighteyes immediately sighed down onto the hearth, as close to the fire as he could get without singeing his coat. I put on the kettle and added the few coins we had gained to Hap’s small hoard. It wasn’t going to be enough, I grudgingly admitted. Even if Hap and I hired ourselves out the rest of the summer to bring in hay and other crops, it still wouldn’t be enough. Nor could we both work that way, unless we were resigned to our own chickens and garden perishing from neglect. Yet if only one of us hired out, it might be another year, perhaps longer, before we had saved enough.

‘I should have started saving for this years ago,’ I observed sourly as Hap came in from outside. He set the lantern on its shelf before dropping into the other chair. I nodded at the pot on the table and he poured himself a cup of tea. The stacked coins on the table were a pitiful wall between us.

‘Too late to think that way,’ he observed as he took up his cup. ‘We have to start from where we are.’

‘Exactly. Do you think you and Nighteyes could manage here for the rest of the summer while I hired out?’

He met my gaze levelly. ‘Why should you be the one to hire out? The money would go for my apprenticeship.’

I experienced an odd little shift in perception. Because I was ‘bigger and stronger and could earn more’ was no longer true. His shoulders were as wide as mine, and in any test of endurance, his young back would probably hold out better. He grinned sympathetically as he saw me grasp what he already knew. ‘Perhaps because it is something that I’d like to give you,’ I said quietly, and he nodded, understanding what those words really meant.

‘You’ve already given me more than I could ever pay back. Including the ability to go after this for myself.’

Those were the words we went to bed on, and I was smiling as I closed my eyes. There is monstrous vanity in the pride we take in our children, I told myself. I had bumbled along with Hap, never really giving much thought to what I was or was not teaching him about being a man. Then one evening, a young man meets my eyes and tells me that he can fend for himself if he needs to, and I feel the warm flush of success. The boy had raised himself, I told myself, but I still smiled as I fell asleep.

Perhaps my expansive mood left me more open than usual, for I Skill-dreamed that night. Such dreams occasionally came to me, more taunting my addiction than assuaging it, for they were uncontrollable things that offered brief glimpses with none of the satisfaction of full contact. Yet this dream was tantalizing with possibility, for I felt that I rode with an individual mind rather than sampling the stray thoughts of a crowd.

It seemed as much memory as vision. In the dream, I ghosted through the Great Hall at Buckkeep. Scores of elegant folk decked out in their finest clothes filled the hall. Music wafted through the air and I glimpsed dancers, but I moved slowly through standing folk conversing with one another. Some turned to greet me as I passed, and I murmured my responses, but my eyes never lingered on their faces. I did not wish to be here; I could not have been more uninterested. For a moment, my eye was caught by a fall of gleaming bronze hair. The girl’s back was to me. Several rings rode on the slender hand that lifted to nervously tug her collar straight. As if she felt my gaze, she turned. She had caught my eyes on her, and she blushed pink as she curtseyed deeply to me. I bowed to her, proffered some greeting and moved on through the crowd. I could feel her looking after me; it annoyed me.

Even more annoying was to see Chade, so tall and elegant as he stood on the dais beside and slightly behind the Queen’s chair. He, too, had been watching me. He bent now to whisper something in her ear, and her eyes came unerringly to me. A small gesture of her hand beckoned me to join them there. My heart sank. Would I never have time that was my own, to do as I pleased? Bleakly and slowly, I moved to obey her.

Then the dream changed, as dreams will. I sprawled on a blanket before a hearth. I was bored. It was so unfair. Below, they danced, they ate, and here I was … A ripple in the dream. No. Not bored, simply not engaged with anything. Idly I unsheathed my claws and inspected them. A bit of bird down was caught under one of them. I freed it, then cleaned my whole paw thoroughly before dozing off before the fire again.

What was that? Amusement tinged the sleepy thought from Nighteyes but to reply to him would have required more effort than I was willing to make. I grumbled at him, rolled over and burrowed back into sleep.

In the morning I wondered at my dream but briefly, dismissing it as a mixture of errant Skill and my own boyhood memories of Buckkeep mingling with my ambitions for Hap. As I did the morning chores, the dwindling firewood stack caught my attention. It needed replenishing, not only for the sake of summer’s cooking and night comfort, but to begin a hoard against winter’s deep cold. I went in to breakfast, thinking I would attend to it that day.

Hap’s neatly packed carry-sack leaned beside the door. The lad himself had a freshly washed and brushed air to him. He grinned at me, suppressed excitement in his smile as he dolloped porridge into our bowls. I sat down at my place at the table and he took his place opposite me. ‘Today?’ I asked him, trying to keep reluctance from my voice.

‘I can’t start sooner,’ he pointed out pleasantly. ‘At market, I heard the hay was standing ready at Cormen. That’s only two days from here.’

I nodded slowly, at a loss for words. He was right. More than right, he was eager. Let him go, I counselled myself, and bit back my objections. ‘I suppose there’s no sense in delaying it,’ I managed to say. He took this as both encouragement and an endorsement. As we ate, he speculated that he could work the hay at Cormen, and then perhaps go on to Divden and see if there was more work to be had there.

‘Divden?’

‘Three days past Cormen. Jinna told us about it, remember? She said their barley fields looked like an ocean when the wind stirred the growing grain. So I thought I might try there.’

‘Sounds promising,’ I agreed. ‘And then you’d come home?’

He nodded slowly. ‘Unless I heard of more work.’

‘Of course. Unless you heard of more work.’

In a few short hours, Hap was gone. I’d made him pack extra food, and take some of the coins with him in case of extreme need. He’d been impatient with my caution. He’d sleep by the roadside, he told me, not in inns. He told me that Queen Kettricken’s patrols kept the highwaymen down, and that robbers would not bother with poor prey like himself. He assured me that he would be fine. At Nighteyes’ insistence, I asked him if he wouldn’t take the wolf with him. He smiled indulgently at this, and paused at the door to scratch Nighteyes’ ears. ‘It might be a bit much for the old fellow,’ he suggested gently. ‘Best he stays here where you two can look after one another until I get back.’

As we stood together and watched our boy walk down the lane to the main road, I wondered if I had ever been so insufferably young and sure of myself, but the ache in my heart had the pleasant afterglow of pride.

The rest of the day was oddly difficult to fill. There was work to be done, but I could not settle into it. Several times I came back to myself, realizing I was simply staring off into the distance. I walked to the cliffs twice, for no more reason than to look out over the sea, and once to the end of our lane to look up and down the road in both directions. There was not even dust hanging in the air. All was still and silent as far as I could see. The wolf trailed me disconsolately. I began half a dozen tasks and left them all half-done. I found myself listening, and waiting, without knowing for what. In the midst of splitting and stacking firewood, I halted. Carefully not thinking, I raised my axe and drove it into the splitting block. I picked up my shirt, slung it over my sweaty shoulder and headed towards the cliffs.

Nighteyes was suddenly in front of me. What are you doing?

Taking a short rest.

No, you’re not. You’re going down to the cliffs, to Skill.

I rubbed the palms of my hands down the sides of my trousers. My thoughts were formless. ‘I was just going there for the breeze.’

Once you’re there, you’ll try to Skill. You know you will. I can feel your hunger as plainly as you do. My brother, please. Please don’t.

His thought rode on a keening whine. Never had I seen him so desperate to dissuade me. It puzzled me. ‘Then I won’t, if it worries you so.’

I wrenched my axe out of the chopping block and went back to work. After a time, I became aware I was attacking the wood with ferocity far beyond the task’s need. I finished splitting the tumble of logs and began the tedious chore of stacking it so it would dry and yet shed rain. When that was done, I picked up my shirt. Without thinking, I turned towards the sea cliffs. Instantly the wolf was blocking my path.

Don’t do this, brother.

I already told you I wouldn’t. I turned aside from him, denying the frustration I felt. I weeded the garden. I hauled water from the stream to replenish the kitchen barrel. I dug a new pit, moved the privy, and filled the old pit with clean earth. In short, I burned through work as a lightning fire burns through a summer meadow. My back and arms ached, not just with weariness but with the complaints of old injuries, and still I dared not be still. The Skill-hunger tugged at me, refusing to be ignored.

As evening came, the wolf and I went fishing for our supper. Cooking for one person seemed foolish, yet I forced myself to set out a decent meal and to eat it. I tidied up and then sat down. The long hours of the evening stretched before me. I set out vellum and inks, but could not settle to the task of writing anything. My thoughts would not order themselves. I finally dragged out the mending and began doggedly to patch, sew or darn every garment that needed it.

Finally, when my work began to blear before my eyes, I went to bed. I lay on my back, my arm flung over my face, and tried to ignore the fishhooks that were set and dragging at my soul. Nighteyes dropped beside the bed with a sigh. I trailed my other arm over the side of the bed, resting my hand on his head. I wondered when we had crossed the line from solitude to loneliness.

It’s not loneliness that eats at you like this.

There seemed nothing to say to that. I passed a difficult night. I forced myself out of bed shortly after dawn. For the next few days, I spent the mornings cutting alder for the smokehouse, and the afternoons catching fish to smoke. The wolf gorged himself on entrails, but still watched greedily as I salted the slabs of red fish and hung them on hooks over the slow fire. I put more green alder on to thicken the smoke and shut the door tightly. Late one afternoon, I was at the rain barrel, washing slime, scales and salt from my hands when Nighteyes suddenly turned his head towards the lane.

Someone comes.

Hap? Hope surged in me.

No.

I was surprised at the strength of my disappointment. I felt an echo of the same from the wolf. We were both staring down the shaded lane when Jinna came in sight. She paused a moment, unnerved perhaps by the intensity of our gazes, then lifted a hand in greeting. ‘Hello, Tom Badgerlock! Here I am, to take up your offer of hospitality.’

A friend of Hap’s. I explained to Nighteyes. He still hung back and regarded her warily as I went to meet her.

‘Welcome. I didn’t expect to see you so soon,’ I said, and then heard the awkwardness of my words. ‘An unexpected pleasure is always the most welcome,’ I added to mend the moment, and then realized that such a gallantry was just as inappropriate. Had I completely forgotten how to deal with people?

But Jinna’s smile put me at ease. ‘Seldom do I hear such honesty harnessed with such fair words, Tom Badgerlock. Is that water cool?’

Without waiting for an answer, she strode up to the rain barrel, unknotting the kerchief at her throat as she did so. She walked like a woman used to the road, weary at the end of the day, but not overly taxed by her journey. The bulging pack high on her back was a natural part of her. She damped her kerchief and wiped the dust from her face and hands. Moistening it more generously, she wiped the back of her neck and her throat. ‘Oh, that’s better,’ she sighed gratefully. She turned to me with a smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. ‘At the end of a long day’s walk, I envy folk like you with a settled life and a place to call your own.’

‘I assure you, folk like me just as often wonder if life would not be sweeter as travellers. Won’t you come in and be comfortable? I was just about to start the evening meal.’

‘Many thanks.’ As she followed me to the door of the cabin, Nighteyes shadowed us at a discreet distance. Without turning to look at him directly, she observed, ‘A bit unusual, a wolf as a watchdog.’

I often lied to people, insisting that Nighteyes was merely a dog that looked like a wolf. Something told me this would be an insult to Jinna. I gave her the truth. ‘I adopted him as a cub. He’s been a good companion to me.’

‘So Hap told me. And that he does not like to be stared at by strangers, but will come to me when he’s made up his mind about me. And as usual, I’m telling a tale by starting in the middle. I passed Hap upon the road a few days ago. He was in high spirits, with every confidence that he will find work and do well. I do believe he will; the boy has such a friendly, engaging manner that I cannot imagine anyone not welcoming him. He assured me again of a warm welcome here, and of course he spoke true.’

She followed me into my cabin. She slung her pack to the floor and leaned it up against the wall, then straightened and stretched her back with a relieved groan. ‘Well. What are we cooking? You may as well let me help, for I’m never content to sit still in a kitchen. Fish? Oh, I’ve a wonderful herb for fish. Have you a heavy pot with a tight-fitting lid?’

With the ease of the naturally gregarious, she took over half the dinner chores. I had not shared kitchen tasks with a woman since my year among the Witted folk, and even then, Holly had been a near-silent companion at such times. Jinna talked on, clattering pots and pans and filling my small home with her bustle and friendly gossip. She had the rare knack of coming into my territory and handling my possessions without me feeling displaced or uneasy. My feelings bled over to Nighteyes. He soon ventured into the cabin, and assumed his customary attentive post by the table. She was unruffled by his intent stare, and accepted his adeptness at catching the fish trimmings she tossed his way. The fish was soon simmering in a pot with her herbs. I raided my garden for young carrots and fresh greens while she fried thick slabs of bread in lard.

It seemed that dinner appeared on the table with no real effort from anyone. Nor had she neglected to prepare bread for the wolf as well, though I think Nighteyes ate it more out of sociability than hunger. The poached fish was moist and savoury, spiced as much with her conversation as the herbs. She did not chatter endlessly, but her stories encouraged responses, and she listened with as much appreciation as she gave to the food. The dishes were cleared from the table with as little effort. When I brought out the Sandsedge brandy, she exclaimed delightedly, ‘Now, this is the perfect end to a good meal.’

She took her brandy to the hearth. Our cooking fire had burned low. She added another piece of wood, more for light than warmth, and settled herself on the floor beside the wolf. Nighteyes didn’t even twitch an ear. She sipped her brandy, gave an appreciative sigh, then gestured with her cup. My scroll-cluttered desk was just visible through the open door of my study. ‘I knew you made inks and dyes, but from what I see, you employ them as well. Are you a scribe of some kind?’

I gave a desultory shrug. ‘Of sorts,’ I admitted. ‘I do not attempt the fancy work, though I do simple illustration. My lettering is no better than passable. For me, there is a satisfaction in taking knowledge and committing it to paper, where it is accessible to all.’

‘To any who can read,’ Jinna amended my words.

‘That is true,’ I conceded.

She cocked her head at me and smiled. ‘I don’t think I approve.’

I was startled, not just that she disagreed with such a thing, but that she could do it so pleasantly. ‘Why not?’

‘Perhaps knowledge should not be available to all. Perhaps it should be earned, parcelled out from master to worthy student only, rather than committed to paper where anyone who chances upon it may claim it for himself.’

‘I confess to some of the same doubts myself,’ I replied, thinking of the Skill-scrolls that Chade now studied. ‘And yet I have known of cases in which a master died an untimely death, and all she knew went with her, before it could be passed on to her chosen pupil. Generations of knowledge were lost in one death.’

She was silent for a time. ‘Tragic,’ she admitted at last. ‘For though masters of a skill may share a great deal of knowledge, each has his own secrets, destined only for his own apprentices.’

‘Consider someone such as yourself,’ I went on, pushing my advantage in the discussion. ‘You practise a trade that is as much an art, woven of secrets and skills shared only by those others who practise hedge-magic. You have no apprentice at all that I have seen. Yet I would wager there are aspects of your magic that are yours alone, ones that would die with you if you perished tonight.’

She looked at me for a still moment, then took another sip of her brandy. ‘There’s a chill thought to dream on,’ she replied wryly. ‘Yet there is this also, Tom. I have no letters. I could not put my knowledge in such a form, unless someone such as yourself aided me. And then I would not be certain if you had truly put down what I know, or what you thought I had told you. That is half of teaching an apprentice: making sure the youngster learns what you said, not what she thinks you said.’

‘Very true,’ I had to agree. How often I had thought I understood Chade’s directions, only to come to disaster when I tried to mix the concoction on my own? Another little ripple of uneasiness went through me, as I thought of Chade trying to teach Prince Dutiful from the scrolls. Would he teach what some forgotten Skillmaster had committed to paper, or only his understanding of it? I pulled my thoughts back from the unsettling notion. I had no duty there. I had warned him; that was as much as I could do.

Conversation lagged after that, and Jinna soon sought rest in Hap’s bed. Nighteyes and I went out to shut up the chickenhouse for the night and make our evening round of our smallholding. All was well and calm in the peaceful summer night. I cast one longing look towards the cliffs. The waves would be lace-edged silver tonight. I forbade it to myself and felt Nighteyes’ relief at my decision. We added more green alder branches to the slow fire in the smokehouse. ‘Bedtime,’ I decided.

On nights such as this, we used to hunt together.

That we did. It would be a good night for hunting. The moon will make the game restless and easy to see.

Nevertheless, he followed me as I turned back towards the hut. Regardless of how well we both recalled it, neither of us were the young wolves we once had been. Our bellies were full, the hearth was warm, and rest might ease the dull ache in Nighteyes’ haunches. Dreams of hunting would have to suffice tonight.

I awoke to the morning sounds of Jinna ladling water into a kettle. When I came out into the kitchen, she had already set the kettle to boil over the stirred fire. She looked over her shoulder as she was slicing bread. ‘I hope you don’t feel that I’ve made myself too much at home,’ she offered.

‘Not at all,’ I replied, but it did feel a bit odd. By the time I had seen to my animals and returned with the day’s eggs, hot food was steaming on the table. When we had eaten, she helped with the tidying up.

She offered me thanks for the hospitality, and added, ‘Before I go, perhaps we might do a bit of trading. Would you consider a charm or two from my stock in exchange for some of your yellow and blue inks?’

I found that I was glad to delay her leaving, not only because her company was pleasant, but because I had always been intrigued by hedge-magic. Here was an opportunity, perhaps, for a closer look at the tools of her trade. We went first to my workbench in the shed, where I packaged up pots of yellow, blue, and a small quantity of red ink for her. As I sealed the pots with wooden stoppers and wax, she explained that using colours on some of her charms seemed to increase their efficacy, but that this was an area in which she was still making discoveries. I nodded to her words, but much as I longed to, I refrained from asking more details. It did not seem polite.

When we returned to the house, she set the pots of dye on the table, and opened her own pack. She spread a number of her bagged charms on the table. ‘What will you choose, Tom Badgerlock?’ she asked with a smile. ‘I have charms for verdant gardens, for hunter’s luck, for healthy babes – that’s small use to you, let me put that one back. Ah. Here’s one you might find useful.’

She whisked the cover off a charm. As she did so, Nighteyes let out a low growl. His hackles stood as he stalked to the door and nosed it open. I found myself backing away from the object she revealed. Short rods of wood marked with shrieking black symbols were fastened to each other at chaotic angles. Ominous beads were dangerously interspersed with them. A few tortured tufts of fur, twisted and fixed with pitch clung to it. The object both offended and distressed me. I would have fled if I had dared take my eyes off it. I abruptly felt the wall of the cabin against my back. I pressed against it, knowing that there was a better path to escape, but unable to think what it was.

‘I beg your pardon.’ Jinna’s gentle words came from a vast distance. I blinked, and the object was gone, mantled in cloth and hidden from my sight. Outside the door, Nighteyes’ low growl rose to a whistling whine and ceased. I felt as if I had surfaced from deep waters. ‘It had not occurred to me,’ Jinna apologized as she thrust the charm deep into her pack. ‘It’s intended to keep predators away from chickenhouses and sheep-pens,’ she explained.

I got my breath back. Her gaze did not meet mine. Apprehension hung like a miasma between us. I was Witted, and now she knew it. How would she employ that knowledge? Would she merely be disgusted? Frightened? Scared enough to bring destruction down on me? I imagined Hap returning to a burned-out cabin.

Jinna suddenly looked up and met my eyes as if she had overheard my thoughts. ‘A man is as he is made. A man can’t help how he’s made.’

‘That’s so,’ I muttered in response, shamed at how relieved I felt. I managed to step away from the wall and towards the table. She didn’t look at me. She rooted through her pack as if the incident had never occurred.

‘So, then, let’s just find you something a bit more appropriate.’ She sorted through her bagged charms, stopping sometimes to pinch at the contents to freshen her memory of what was inside. She chose one in a green pouch and placed it on the table. ‘Will you take one to hang near your garden, to encourage your green things to prosper?’

I nodded mutely, still recovering from my fear. Moments ago, I would have doubted the power of her charms. Now I almost feared their potency. I clenched my teeth as she unveiled the garden charm, but as I stared at it, I felt nothing. When I met her eyes, I found sympathy there. Her gentle smile was reassuring.

‘You’ll have to give me your hand so I can tune it to you. Then we’ll take it outside and adjust it for your garden. Half this charm is for the garden, and half for the gardener. It’s that which is between the gardener and his bit of soil that makes a garden. Give me your hands.’

She seated herself at my table and held her own hands out to me, palms up. I took the chair opposite hers and, after an awkward hesitation, placed my palms on top of hers.

‘Not that way. A man’s life and ways are told in the palms of his hands, not the backs.’

Obediently, I turned my hands over. In my apprentice days, Chade had taught me to read hands, not to tell fortunes, but to tell a man’s past. The calluses of a sword differed from those of a scribe’s pen or a farmer’s hoe. She bent close over my hands, staring at them intently. As she scanned my palms, I wondered if her eyes would discover the axe I had once borne, or the oar I had wielded. Instead, she studied my right hand intently, frowned, then transferred her gaze to my left. When she looked up at me, her face was a picture. The smile that twisted her face was a rueful one.

‘You’re an odd one, Tom, and no mistake! Were they not both at the ends of your arms, I’d say these were the hands of two different men. It’s said that your left hand tells what you were born with, and your right hand what you have made of yourself, but even so, such differences in a man’s two hands I’ve seldom seen! Look what I see in this hand. A tender-hearted boy. A sensitive young man. And then … Your lifeline stops short on your left hand.’ As she spoke, she let go of my right hand. She set her forefinger to my left palm, and her nail traced a tickling line to where my life ended. ‘Were you Hap’s age, I’d be fearing I was looking at a young man soon to die. But as you’re sitting there across from me, and your right hand bears a nice long lifeline, we’ll go by it, shall we?’ She released my left hand, and took my right in both of hers.

‘I suppose so,’ I conceded uncomfortably. It was not only her words that made me ill at ease. The simple warm pressure of her hands gripping mine had made me suddenly aware of Jinna as a woman. I was experiencing a very adolescent response to it. I shifted in my chair. The knowing smile that flickered over her face discomfited me even more.

‘So. An avid gardener, I see, one devoted to the knowing of many herbs and their uses.’

I made a neutral noise. She had seen my garden, and could be speculating based on what grew there. She studied my right hand a bit more, sweeping her thumb across it to smooth the lesser lines away, and then cupping my fingers in her own and encouraging my hand to close slightly to deepen the folds. ‘Left or right, it’s not an easy hand to read, Tom.’ She frowned to herself, and compared the two again. ‘By your left hand, I’d say you’d had a sweet and true love in your short life. A love that ended only in your death. Yet here in your right hand, I see a love that wends its way in and out of all your many years. That faithful heart has been absent for a time, but is soon to return to you again.’ She lifted her clear hazel eyes to mine to see if she had scored true. I shrugged one shoulder. Had Hap been telling her tales of Starling? Scarcely what I would call a faithful heart. When I said nothing, she returned her attention to my hands, her gaze going from one to the other. She frowned slightly, raising a furrow between her brows. ‘Look here. See this? Anger and fear, shackled together in a dark chain … it follows your lifeline, a black shadow over it.’

I pushed aside the uneasiness her words roused in me. I leaned forwards to look into my own hand. ‘It’s probably just dirt,’ I offered.

She gave a small snort of amusement and shook her head again. But she did not return to her ominous peering. Instead she covered my hand with her own and met my eyes. ‘Never have I seen two palms so unlike on the same man. I suspect that sometimes you wonder if you even know who you are yourself.’

‘I’m sure every man wonders that from time to time.’ It was oddly difficult to meet her near-sighted gaze.

‘Hm. But you, perhaps, have more honest reason to wonder it than others. Well,’ she sighed. ‘Let me see what I can do.’

She released my hands, and I drew them back. I rubbed them together under the table as if to erase the tickling of her touch. She took up her charm, turned it several times, and then unfastened a string. She changed the order of the beads on the string, and added an extra brown bead from her pack. She re-tied the string, and then took out the pot of yellow ink I had traded her. Dipping a fine brush in it, she outlined several black runes on one of the dowels, bending close over it to peer at her work. She spoke as she worked. ‘When next I come to visit, I expect you to tell me this has been your best year ever for plants that bear their fruits above ground where the sun ripens them.’ She blew on the charm to dry the ink, then put away both pot and brush. ‘Come, now, we have to adjust this to the garden.’

Outside, she sent me to find and cut a forked branch at least as tall as myself. When I returned with it, I found she had dug a hole at the southeast corner of my garden plot. I set the pole in it as she directed, and filled in the hole. She hung the charm from the right fork of the branch. When the wind stirred it, the beads rattled gently and a small bell chimed. She tapped the bell with a fingertip. ‘It discourages some birds.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome. This is a good spot for one of my charms. It pleases me to leave it here. And when next I come, I shall be interested to see how well it has worked for you.’

It was the second time she had mentioned visiting again. The ghost of my court manners nudged me. ‘And when next you come, you shall find yourself as welcome as you were this time. I shall look forward to your visit.’

The smile she gave me dimpled her cheeks more deeply. ‘Thank you, Tom. I shall certainly stop here again.’ She cocked her head at me and spoke with sudden frankness. ‘I know you are a lonely man, Tom. That won’t always be so. I could tell that, at first, you doubted the power of my charms. You still doubt the truth of what I can see in the palm of a man’s hand. I don’t. Your one true love is stitched in and out and through your life. Love will return to you. Don’t doubt that.’

Her hazel eyes met mine so earnestly that I could neither laugh nor frown at her. So I nodded mutely. As she shouldered her pack and strode off down the lane, I watched her go. Her words tugged at me, and hopes long denied struggled to grow. I thrust them away from me. Molly and Burrich belonged to one another now. There was no place for me in their lives.

I squared my shoulders. I had chores to do, wood to stack, fish to put by, and a roof to mend. It was another fine summer day. Best use it while I had it, for while summer smiles, winter is never far away.

FIVE

The Tawny Man

There is some indication, in the earliest accounts of the territories that eventually became the Six Duchies, that the Wit was not always a despised magic. These accounts are fragmentary, and the translations of these old scrolls are often disputed, but most of the master scribes will agree that at one time there were settlements where the preponderance of folk were born with the Wit and actively practised its magic. Some of these scrolls would indicate that these folk were the original inhabitants of the lands. This may be the source of the name that the Witted people apply to themselves: Old Blood.

In those times, the lands were not so settled. Folk relied more on hunting and the collecting of wild bounty than on harvesting what they had themselves planted. Perhaps in those days a bond between a man and a beast did not seem so uncanny, for folk provided for themselves much as the wild creatures did.

Even in more recent histories, accounts of Witted folk being slain for their magic are rare. Indeed, that these executions are recorded at all would seem to indicate that they were unusual, and hence noteworthy. It is not until after the brief reign of King Charger, the so-called ‘Piebald Prince’ that we find the Wit referred to with loathing and an assumption that its practice merits death. Following his reign, there are accounts of widespread slaughter of Witted folk. In some cases, entire villages were put to death. After that time of carnage, either those of Old Blood were rare, or too wary to admit that they carried the Wit-magic.

Beautiful summer days followed, one after another, like blue and green beads on a string. There was nothing wrong with my life. I worked in my garden, I finished the repairs to my long-neglected cottage, and in the early mornings and the summer twilight, I hunted with the wolf. I filled my days with good and simple things. The weather held fine. I had the warmth of the sun on my shoulders as I laboured, the swiftness of wind against my cheeks when I walked the sea cliffs in the evening, and the richness of the loamy earth in my garden. Peace but waited for me to give myself up to it. The fault was in me that I held back from it.

Some days, I was almost content. The garden grew well, the pea pods swelling fat, the beans racing up their trellis. There was meat to eat as well as some to set by, and daily the cottage became more snug and tidy. I took pride in what I accomplished. Yet sometimes I would find myself standing by Jinna’s charm in the garden, idly spinning the beads on it as I gazed towards the lane. Waiting. It was not so bad to wait for Hap to return when I was not so aware of waiting. But waiting for the boy’s return became an allegory for my whole life. When he did come back, what then? It was a question I had to ask myself. If he had succeeded, he would return only to leave again. It was what I should hope for. If he had not succeeded in earning his prentice fee, then I would have to rack my wits for another way to gain the money. And all the while, I would be waiting still. Waiting for Hap to return would transform itself into waiting for Hap to leave. Then what? Then … something more, my heart suggested, then it would be time for something more, but I could not put my finger on what stirred this restlessness in my soul. At the moments when I became conscious of that suspension, all of life chafed against me. Then the wolf would heave himself to his feet with a sigh and come to lean against me. A thrust of his muzzle would put his broad-skulled head under my hand.

Stop longing. You poison today’s ease, reaching always for tomorrow. The boy will come back when he comes back. What is there to grieve over in that? There is nothing wrong with either of us. Tomorrow will come soon enough, one way or another.

I knew he was right, and I would, usually, shake it off and go back to my chores. Once, I admit, I walked down to my bench overlooking the sea. But all I did was sit down on it and stare out across the water. I did not attempt to Skill. Perhaps, after all the years, I was finally learning that there was no comfort for loneliness in such reaching.

The weather continued fine, each morning a cool, fresh gift. Evenings, I reflected as I took slabs of fish from their hooks inside the smoker, were more precious than gifts. They were rest earned and tasks completed. They were satisfaction, when I let them be. The fish were done to my liking, a hard shiny red on the outside, but enough moisture left trapped within to keep a good flavour. I dropped the last slab into a net bag. There were already four such bags hanging from the rafters in the cottage. This would finish what I knew we needed for the winter. The wolf followed me inside and watched me climb up on the table to hang the fish. I spoke over my shoulder to him. ‘Shall we get up early tomorrow and go looking for a wild pig?’

I didn’t lose any wild pigs. Did you?

I looked down at him in surprise. It was a refusal, couched as humour, but a refusal all the same. I had expected wild enthusiasm. In truth, I myself had little appetite for such a strenuous hunt as a pig would demand. I had offered it to the wolf in the hopes of pleasing him. I had sensed a certain listlessness in him of late, and suspected that he mourned Hap’s absence. The boy had been a lively hunting companion for him. I feared that in comparison, I was rather dull. I know he felt my query as I gazed at him, but he had retreated into his own mind, leaving only a distracted haze of thoughts.

‘Are you well?’ I asked him anxiously.

He turned his head sharply towards the door. Someone comes.

‘Hap?’ I jumped down to the floor.

A horse.

I had left the door ajar. He went to it and peered out, ears pricked. I joined him. A moment passed, and then I heard the steady thudding of hoofbeats. Starling?

Not the howling bitch. He did not disguise his relief that it was not the minstrel. That stung a bit. Only recently had I fully realized how much he had disliked her. I said nothing aloud, nor did I form the thought towards him, but he knew. He cast me an apologetic glance, then ghosted out of the house.

I stepped out onto the porch and waited, listening. A good horse. Even at this time of day, there was life in its step. As horse and rider came into view, I took breath at the sight of the animal. The quality of her breeding shouted from her every line. She was white. Her snowy mane and tail flowed as if she had been groomed but moments before. Silky black tassels bound in her mane complemented the black and silver of her harness. She was not a large mare, but there was fire in the way she turned a knowing eye and a wary ear towards the invisible wolf that flanked her through the woods. She was alert without being afraid. She began to lift her hooves a bit higher, as if to assure Nighteyes that she had plenty of energy either to fight or flee.

The rider was fully worthy of the horse. He sat her well, and I sensed a man in harmony with his mount. His garments were black, trimmed in silver, as were his boots. It sounds a sombre combination, did not the silver run riot as embroidery round his summer cloak, and silver-edged white lace at his cuffs and throat. Silver bound his fair hair back from his high brow. Fine black gloves coated his hands like a second skin. He was a slender youth, but just as the lightness of his horse prompted one to think of swiftness, so did his slimness call to mind agility rather than fragility. His skin was a sun-kissed gold, as was his hair, and his features were fine. The tawny man approached silently save for the rhythmic striking of his horse’s hooves. When he drew near, he reined in his beast with a touch, and sat looking down on me with amber eyes. He smiled.

Something turned over in my heart.

I moistened my lips, but could find no words, nor breath to utter them if I had. My heart told me one thing, my eyes another. Slowly the smile faded from his face and his eyes. A still mask replaced it. When he spoke, his voice was low, his words emotionless. ‘Have you no greeting for me, Fitz?’

I opened my mouth, then helplessly spread wide my arms. At the gesture that said all I had no words for, an answering look lit his face. He glowed as if a light had been kindled in him. He did not dismount but flung himself from his horse towards me, a launch aided by Nighteyes’ sudden charge from the wood towards him. The horse snorted in alarm and crow-hopped. The Fool came free of his saddle with rather more energy than he had intended, but, agile as ever, he landed on the balls of his feet. The horse shied away, but none of us paid her any attention. In one step, I caught him up. I enfolded him in my arms as the wolf gambolled about us like a puppy.

‘Oh, Fool,’ I choked. ‘It cannot be you, yet it is. And I do not care how.’

He flung his arms around my neck. He hugged me fiercely, Burrich’s earring pressing cold against my neck. For a long instant, he clung to me like a woman, until the wolf insistently thrust himself between us. Then the Fool went down on one knee in the dust, careless of his fine clothes as he clasped the wolf about his neck. ‘Nighteyes!’ he whispered in savage satisfaction. ‘I had not thought to see you again. Well met, old friend.’ He buried his face in the wolf’s ruff, wiping away tears. I did not think less of him for them. My own ran unchecked down my face.

He flowed to his feet, every nuance of his grace as familiar to me as the drawing of breath. He cupped the back of my head and in his old way, pressed his brow to mine. His breath smelled of honey and apricot brandy. Had he fortified himself against this meeting? After a moment he drew back from me but kept a grip on my shoulders. He stared at me, his eyes touching the white streak in my hair and running familiarly over the scars on my face. I stared just as avidly, not just at how he had changed, his colouring gone from white to tawny, but at how he had not changed. He looked as callow a youth as when I had last seen him near fifteen years ago. No lines marred his face.

He cleared his throat. ‘Well. Will you ask me in?’ he demanded.

‘Of course. As soon as we’ve seen to your horse,’ I replied huskily.

The wide grin that lit his face erased all years and distance between us. ‘You’ve not changed a bit, Fitz. Horses first, as it ever was with you.’

‘Not changed?’ I shook my head at him. ‘You are the one who looks not a day older. But all else …’ I shook my head helplessly as I sidled towards his horse. She high-stepped away, maintaining the distance. ‘You’ve gone gold, Fool. And you dress as richly as Regal once did. When first I saw you, I did not know you.’

He gave a sigh of relief that was half a laugh. ‘Then it was not as I feared, that you were wary of welcoming me?’

Such a question did not even deserve an answer. I ignored it, advancing again on the horse. She turned her head, putting the reins just out of my reach. She kept the wolf in view. I could feel the Fool watching us with amusement. ‘Nighteyes, you are not helping and you know it!’ I exclaimed in annoyance. The wolf dropped his head and gave me a knowing glance, but he stopped his stalking.

I could put her in the barn myself if you but gave me the chance.

The Fool cocked his head slightly, regarding us both quizzically. I felt something from him; the thinnest knife-edge of shared awareness. I almost forgot the horse. Without volition, I touched the mark he had left upon me so long ago; the silver fingerprints on my wrist, long faded to a pale grey. He smiled again, and lifted one gloved hand, the finger extended towards me, as if he would renew that touch. ‘All down the years,’ he said, his voice going golden as his skin, ‘you have been with me, as close as the tips of my fingers, even when we were years and seas apart. Your being was like the hum of a plucked string at the edge of my hearing, or a scent carried on a breeze. Did not you feel it so?’

I took a breath, fearing my words would hurt him. ‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘I wish it had been so. Too often I felt myself completely alone save for Nighteyes. Too often I’ve sat at the cliff’s edge, reaching out to touch anyone, anywhere, yet never sensing that anyone reached back to me.’

He shook his head at that. ‘Had I possessed the Skill in truth, you would have known I was there. At your very fingertips, but mute.’

I felt an odd easing in my heart at his words, for no reason I could name. Then he made an odd sound, between a cluck and a chirrup, and the horse immediately came to him to nuzzle his outstretched hand. He passed her reins to me, knowing I was itching to handle her. ‘Take her. Ride her to the end of your lane and back. I’ll wager you’ve never ridden her like in your life.’

The moment her reins were in my hands, the mare came to me. She put her nose against my chest, and took my scent in and out of her flaring nostrils. Then she lifted her muzzle to my jaw and gave me a slight push, as if urging me to give in to the Fool’s temptation. ‘Do you know how long it has been since I was astride any kind of a horse?’ I asked them both.

‘Too long. Take her,’ he urged me. It was a boy’s thing to do, this immediate offering to share a prized possession, and my heart answered it, knowing that no matter how long or how far apart we had been, nothing important had changed between us.

I did not wait to be invited again. I set my foot to the stirrup and mounted her, and despite all the years, I could feel every difference there was between this mare and my old horse, Sooty. She was smaller, finer-boned, and narrower between my thighs. I felt clumsy and heavy-handed as I urged her forwards, then spun her about with a touch of the rein. I shifted my weight and took in the rein and she backed without hesitation. A foolish grin came over my face. ‘She could equal Buckkeep’s best when Burrich had the stables prime,’ I admitted to him. I set my hand to her withers, and felt the dancing flame of her eager little mind. There was no apprehension in her, only curiosity. The wolf sat on the porch watching me gravely.

‘Take her down the lane,’ the Fool urged me, his grin mirroring mine. ‘And give her a free head. Let her show you what she can do.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Malta. I named her myself. I bought her in Shoaks, on my way here.’

I nodded to myself. In Shoaks, they bred their horses small and light for travelling their broad and windswept plains. She’d be an easy keeper, requiring little feed to keep her moving day after day. I leaned forwards slightly. ‘Malta,’ I said, and she heard permission in her name. She sprang forwards and we were off.

If her day’s journey to reach my cabin had wearied her, she did not show it. Rather it was as if she had grown restive with her steady pace and now relished the chance to stretch her muscles. We flowed beneath the overarching trees, and her hooves making music on the hard-packed earth woke a like song in my heart.

Where my lane met the road, I pulled her in. She was not even blowing; instead she arched her neck and gave the tiniest tug at her bit to let me know she would be glad to continue. I held her still, and looked both up and down the road. Odd, how that small change in perspective altered my whole sense of the world around me. Astride this fine animal, the road was like a ribbon unfurled before me. The day was fading, but even so I blinked in the gentling light, seeing possibilities in the blueing hills and the mountains edging into the evening horizon. The horse between my thighs brought the whole world closer to my door. I sat her quietly, and let my eyes travel a road that could eventually take me back to Buckkeep, or indeed to anywhere in the entire world. My quiet life in the cabin with Hap seemed as tight and confining as an outworn skin. I longed to writhe like a snake and cast it off, to emerge gleaming and new into a wider world.

Malta shook her head, mane and tassels flying, awakening me to how long I had sat and stared. The sun was kissing the horizon. The horse ventured a step or two against my firm rein. She had a will of her own, and was as willing to gallop down the road as to walk sedately back to my cabin. So we compromised; I turned her back up my lane, but let her set her own pace. This proved to be a rhythmic canter. When I pulled her in before my cabin, the Fool peered out the door at me. ‘I’ve put the kettle on,’ he called. ‘Bring in my saddle pack, would you? There’s Bingtown coffee in it.’

I stabled Malta beside the pony and gave her fresh water and such hay as I had. It was not much; the pony was an adept forager, and did not mind the scrubby pasturage on the hillside behind the cabin. The Fool’s sumptuous tack gleamed oddly against the rough walls. I slung his saddle pack over my shoulder. The summer dusk was thickening as I made my way back to my cabin. There were lights in the windows and the pleasant clatter of cooking pots. As I entered to set the packs on my table, the wolf was sprawled before the fire drying his damp fur and the Fool was stepping around him to set a kettle on the hook. I blinked my eyes, and for an instant I was back in the Fool’s hut in the Mountains, healing from my old injury while he stood between the world and me that I might rest. Then as now he created reality around himself, bringing order and peace to a small island of warm firelight and the simple smell of hearth-bread cooking.

He swung his pale eyes to meet mine, the gold of them mirroring the firelight. Light ran up his cheekbones and dwindled as it merged with his hair. I gave my head a small shake. ‘In the space of a sundown, you show me the wide world from a horse’s back, and the soul of the world within my own walls.’

‘Oh, my friend,’ he said quietly. No more than that needed to be said.

We are whole.

The Fool cocked his head to that thought. He looked like a man trying to recall something important. I shared a glance with the wolf. He was right. Like sundered pieces of crockery that snick back together so precisely that the crack becomes invisible, the Fool joined us and completed us. Whereas Chade’s visit had filled me with questions and needs, the Fool’s presence was in itself an answer and a satisfaction.

He had made free with my garden and my pantry. There were new potatoes and carrots and little purple-and-white turnips simmering in one pot. Fresh fish layered with basil steamed and rattled a tight-fitting lid. When I raised my brows to that, the Fool merely observed, ‘The wolf seems to recall my fondness for fresh fish.’ Nighteyes set his ears back and lolled his tongue out at me. Hearthcakes and blackberry preserves rounded out our simple meal. He had ferreted out my Sandsedge brandy. It waited on the table.

He dug through his pack and produced a cloth bag of dark beans shining with oil. ‘Smell this,’ he demanded, and then put me to crushing the beans while he filled my last available pot with water and set it to boil. There was little conversation. He hummed to himself and the fire crackled while pot lids tapped and occasional escaping drips steamed away on the fire. The pestle against the mortar made a homely sound as I ground the aromatic beans. We moved for a space in wolf time, in the contentment of the present, not worrying about what had passed or what was to come. That evening remains for me always a moment to cherish, as golden and fragrant as brandy in crystal glasses.

With a knack I’ve never attained, the Fool made all the food ready at once, so that the deep brown coffee steamed alongside the fish and the vegetables, while a stack of hearthcakes held their warmth under a clean cloth. We sat down to the table together, and the Fool set out a slab of the tender fish for the wolf, who dutifully ate it though he would have preferred it raw and cold. The cabin door stood open on a starry night; the fellowship of shared food on a pleasantly mild evening filled the house and overflowed.

We heaped the dirty dishes aside to deal with later, and took more coffee out onto the porch. It was my first experience of the foreign stuff. The hot brown liquid smelled better than it tasted, but sharpened the mind pleasantly. Somehow we ended up walking down to the stream together, our cups warm in our hands. The wolf drank long there of the cool water, and then we strolled back, to pause by the garden. The Fool spun the beads on Jinna’s charm as I told him the tale of it. He flicked the bell with a long fingertip, and a single silver chime spun spreading into the night. We visited his horse, and I shut the door on the chicken-house to keep the poultry safe for the night. We wandered back to the cabin and I sat down on the edge of the porch. Without a word, the Fool took my empty cup back into the house.

When he returned, Sandsedge brandy brimmed the cup. He sat down beside me on one side; the wolf claimed a place on the other side, and set his head on my knee. I took a sip of the brandy, silked the wolf’s ears through my fingers and waited. The Fool gave a small sigh. ‘I stayed away from you as long as I could.’ He offered the words like an apology.

I lifted an eyebrow to that. ‘Any time that you returned to visit me would not have been too soon. I often wondered what had become of you.’

He nodded gravely. ‘I stayed away, hoping that you would finally find a measure of peace and contentment.’

‘I did,’ I assured him. ‘I have.’

‘And now I have returned to take it away from you.’ He did not look at me as he said those words. He stared off into the night, at the darkness beneath the crowding trees. He swung his legs like a child, and then took a sip of his brandy.

My heart gave a little lurch. I had thought he had come to see me for my own sake. Carefully I asked, ‘Chade sent you then? To ask me to come back to Buckkeep? I already gave him my answer.’

‘Did you? Ah.’ He paused a moment, swirling the brandy in his cup as he pondered. ‘I should have known that he would have been here already. No, my friend, I have not seen Chade in all these years. But that he has already sought you out but proves what I already dreaded. A time is upon us when the White Prophet must once more employ his Catalyst. Believe me, if there were any other way, if I could leave you in peace, I would. Truly I would.’

‘What do you need of me?’ I asked him in a low voice. But he was no better at giving me a straight answer now than when he had been King Shrewd’s Fool and I was the King’s bastard grandson.

‘I need what I have always needed from you, ever since I discovered that you existed. If I am to change time in its course, if I am to set the world on a truer path than it has ever followed before, then I must have you. Your life is the wedge I use to make the future jump from its rut.’

He looked at my disgruntled face and laughed aloud at me. ‘I try, Fitz, indeed I do. I speak as plainly as I can, but your ears will not believe what they hear. I first came to the Six Duchies, and to Shrewd’s court all those years ago, to seek a way to fend off a disaster. I came not knowing how I would do it, only that I must. And what did I discover? You. A bastard, but nonetheless an heir to the Farseer line. In no future that I had glimpsed had I seen you, yet when I recalled all I knew of the prophecies of my kind, I discovered you, again and again. In sideways mentions and sly hints, there you were. And so I did all that I could to keep you alive, which mostly was bestirring you to keep yourself alive. I groped through the mists with no more than a snail’s glinting trail of prescience to guide me. I acted, based on what I knew I must prevent, rather than what I must cause. We cheated all those other futures. I urged you into danger and I dragged you back from death, heedless of what it cost you in pain and scars and dreams denied. Yet you survived, and when all the cataclysms of the Cleansing of Buck were done, there was a trueborn heir to the Farseer line. Because of you. And suddenly it was as if I were lifted onto a peak above a valley brimmed with fog. I do not say that my eyes can pierce the fog; only that I stand above it and see, in the vast distance, the peaks of a new and possible future. A future founded on you.’

He looked at me with golden eyes that seemed almost luminous in the dim light from the open door. He just looked at me, and I suddenly felt old and the arrow scar by my spine gave me a twist of pain that made me catch my breath for an instant. A throb like a dull red foreboding followed it. I told myself I had sat too long in one position; that was all.

‘Well?’ he prompted me. His eyes moved over my face almost hungrily.

‘I think I need more brandy,’ I confessed, for somehow my cup had become empty.

He drained his own cup and took mine. When he rose, the wolf and I did also. We followed him into the cabin. He rucked about in his pack and took out a bottle. It was about a quarter empty. I tucked the observation away in my mind; so he had fortified himself against this meeting. I wondered what part of it he had dreaded. He uncorked the bottle and refilled both our cups. My chair and Hap’s stool were by the hearth, but we ended up sitting on the hearthstones by the dying fire. With a heavy sigh the wolf stretched out between us, his head in my lap. I rubbed his head, and caught a sudden twinge of pain from him. I moved my hand down him to his hip joints and massaged them gently. Nighteyes gave a low groan as the touch eased him.

How bad is it?

Mind your own business.

You are my business.

Sharing pain doesn’t lessen it.

I’m not sure about that.

‘He’s getting old.’ The Fool interrupted our chained thoughts.

‘So am I,’ I pointed out. ‘You, however, look as young as ever.’

‘Yet I’m substantially older than both of you put together. And tonight I feel every one of my years.’ As if to give the lie to his own words, he lithely drew his knees up tight to his chest and rested his chin upon them as he hugged his own legs.

If you drank some willow bark tea, it might ease you.

Spare me your swill and keep rubbing.

A small smile bowed the Fool’s mouth. ‘I can almost hear you two. It’s like a gnat humming near my ear, or the itch of something forgotten. Or trying to recall the sweet taste of something from a passing whiff of its fragrance.’ His golden eyes suddenly met mine squarely. ‘It makes me feel lonely.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, not knowing what else I could say. That Nighteyes and I spoke as we did was not an effort to exclude him from our circle. It was that our circle made us one in a fundamental way we could not share.

Yet once we did, Nighteyes reminded me. Once we did, and it was good.

I do not think that I glanced at the Fool’s gloved hand. Perhaps he was closer to us than he realized, for he lifted his hand and tugged the finely-woven glove from it. His long-fingered, elegant hand emerged. Once, a chancing touch of his had brushed his fingers against Verity’s Skill-impregnated hands. That touch had silvered his fingers, and given him a tactile Skill that let him know the history of things simply by touching them. I turned my own wrist to look down at it. Dusky grey fingerprints still marked the inside of my wrist where he had touched me. For a time, our minds had been joined, almost as if he and Nighteyes and I were a true Skill coterie. But the silver on his fingers had faded, as had the fingerprints on my wrist and the link that had bonded us.

He lifted one slender finger as if in a warning. Then he turned his hand and extended his hand to me as if he proffered an invisible gift on those outstretched fingertips. I closed my eyes to steady myself against the temptation. I shook my head slowly. ‘It would not be wise,’ I said thickly.

‘And a Fool is supposed to be wise?’

‘You have always been the wisest creature I’ve known.’ I opened my eyes to his earnest gaze. ‘I want it as I want breath itself, Fool. Take it away, please.’

‘If you’re sure … no, that was a cruel question. Look, it is gone.’ He gloved the hand, held it up to show me and then clasped it with his naked one.

‘Thank you.’ I took a long sip of my brandy, and tasted a summer orchard and bees bumbling in the hot sunshine among the ripe and fallen fruit. Honey and apricots danced along the edges of my tongue. It was decadently good. ‘I’ve never tasted anything like this,’ I observed, glad to change the subject.

‘Ah, yes. I’m afraid I’ve spoiled myself, now that I can afford the best. There’s a good stock of it in Bingtown, awaiting a message from me to tell them where to ship it.’

I cocked my head at him, trying to find the jest in his words. Slowly it sank in that he was speaking the plain truth. The fine clothes, the blooded horse, exotic Bingtown coffee and now this … ‘You’re rich?’ I hazarded sagely.

‘The word doesn’t touch the reality.’ Pink suffused his amber cheeks. He looked almost chagrined to admit it.

‘Tell!’ I demanded, grinning at his good fortune.

He shook his head. ‘Far too long a tale. Let me condense it for you. Friends insisted on sharing with me a windfall of wealth. I doubt that even they knew the full value of all they pressed upon me. I’ve a friend in a trading town, far to the south, and as she sells it off for the best prices such rare goods can command, she sends me letters of credit to Bingtown.’ He shook his head ruefully, appalled at his good fortune. ‘No matter how well I spend it, there always seems to be more.’

‘I am glad for you,’ I said with heartfelt sincerity.

He smiled. ‘I knew you would be. Yet, the strangest part perhaps is that it changes nothing. Whether I sleep on spun gold or straw, my destiny remains the same. As does yours.’

So we were back to that again. I summoned all my strength and resolve. ‘No, Fool,’ I said firmly. ‘I won’t be pulled back into Buckkeep politics. I have a life of my own now, and it is here.’

He cocked his head at me, and a shadow of his old jester’s smile widened his lips. ‘Ah, Fitz, you’ve always had a life of your own. That is, precisely, your problem. You’ve always had a destiny. As for it being here …’ He shied a look around the room. ‘Here is no more than where you happen to be standing at the moment. Or sitting.’ He took a long breath. ‘I haven’t come to drag you back into anything, Fitz. Time has brought me here. It’s carried you here as well. Just as it brought Chade, and other twists to your fortunes of late. Am I wrong?’

He was not. The entire summer had been one large kink in my smoothly coiling life. I didn’t reply but I didn’t need to. He already knew the answer. He leaned back, stretching his long legs out before him. He nibbled at his ungloved thumb thoughtfully, then leaned his head back against the chair and closed his eyes.

‘I dreamed of you once,’ I said suddenly. I had not been planning to say the words.

He opened one cat-yellow eye. ‘I think we had this conversation before. A long time ago.’

‘No. This is different. I didn’t know it was you until just now. Or maybe I did.’ It had been a restless night, years ago, and when I awakened the dream had clung to my mind like pitch on my hands. I had known it was significant, and yet the snatch of what I had seen had made so little sense, I could not grasp its significance. ‘I didn’t know you had gone golden, you see. But now, when you leaned back with your eyes closed … You – or someone – were lying on a rough wooden floor. Your eyes were closed; you were sick or injured. A man leaned over you. I felt he wanted to hurt you. So I …’

I had repelled at him, using the Wit in a way I had not for years. A rough thrust of animal presence to shove him away, to express dominance of him in a way he could not understand, yet hated. The hatred was proportionate to his fear. The Fool was silent, waiting for me.

‘I pushed him away from you. He was angry, hating you, wanting to hurt you. But I pressed on his mind that he had to go and fetch help for you. He had to tell someone that you needed help. He resented what I did to him, but he had to obey me.’

‘Because you Skill-burned it into him,’ the Fool said quietly.

‘Perhaps,’ I admitted unwillingly. Certainly the next day had been one long torment of headache and Skill-hunger. The thought made me uneasy. I had been telling myself that I could not Skill that way. Certain other dreams stirred uneasily in my memory. I pushed them down again. No, I promised myself. They were not the same.

‘It was the deck of a ship,’ he said quietly. ‘And it’s quite likely you saved my life.’ He took a breath. ‘I thought something like that might have happened. It never made sense to me that he didn’t get rid of me when he could have. Sometimes, when I was most alone, I mocked myself that I could cling to such a hope. That I could believe I was so important to anyone that he would travel in his dreams to protect me.’

‘You should have known better than that,’ I said quietly.

‘Should I?’ The question was almost a challenge. He gave me the most direct look I had ever received from him. I did not understand the hurt I saw in his eyes, nor the hope. He needed something from me, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I tried to find something to say, but before I could, the moment seemed to pass. He looked away from me, releasing me from his plea. When his eyes came back to mine, he changed both his expression and the subject.

‘So. What happened to you after I flew away?’

The question took me aback. ‘I thought … but you said you had not seen Chade for years. How did you know how to find me, then?’

By way of answer, he closed his eyes, and then brought his left and right forefingers together to meet before him. He opened his eyes and smiled at me. I knew it was as much answer as I would get.

‘I scarcely know where to begin.’

‘I do. With more brandy.’

He flowed effortlessly to his feet. I let him take my empty cup. I set a hand on Nighteyes’ head and felt him hovering between sleep and wakefulness. If his hips still troubled him, he was concealing it well. He was getting better and better at holding himself apart from me. I wondered why he concealed his pain from me.

Do you wish to share your aching back with me? Leave me alone and stop borrowing trouble. Not every problem in the world belongs to you. He lifted his head from my knee and with a deep sigh stretched out more fully before the hearth. Like a curtain falling between us, he masked himself once more.

I rose slowly, one hand pressed against my back to still my own ache. The wolf was right. Sometimes there was little point to sharing pain. The Fool refilled both our cups with his apricot brandy. I sat down at the table and he set mine before me. His own he kept in his hand as he wandered about the room. He paused before Verity’s unfinished map of the Six Duchies on my wall, glanced into the nook that was Hap’s sleeping alcove and then leaned in the door of my bedchamber. When Hap had come to live with me, I had added an additional chamber that I referred to as my study. It had its own small hearth, as well as my desk and a scroll rack. The Fool paused at the door to it, then stepped boldly inside. I watched him. It was like watching a cat explore a strange house. He touched nothing, yet appeared to see everything. ‘A lot of scrolls,’ he observed from the other room.

I raised my voice to reach him. ‘I’ve been trying to write a history of the Six Duchies. It was something that Patience and Fedwren proposed years ago, back when I was a boy. It helps to occupy my time of an evening.’

‘I see. May I?’

I nodded. He seated himself at my desk, and unrolled the scroll on the stone game. ‘Ah, yes, I remember this.’

‘Chade wants it when I am finished with it. I’ve sent him things, from time to time, via Starling. But up until a month or so ago, I hadn’t seen him since we parted in the Mountains.’

‘Ah. But you had seen Starling.’ His back was to me. I wondered what expression he wore. The Fool and the minstrel had never got along well together. For a time, they had made an uneasy truce, but I had always been a bone of contention between them. The Fool had never approved of my friendship with Starling, had never believed she had my best interests at heart. That didn’t make it any easier to let him know he had always been right.

‘For a time, I saw Starling. On and off for, what, seven or eight years. She was the one who brought Hap to me about seven years ago. He’s just turned fifteen. He’s not home right now; he’s hired out in the hopes of gaining more coin for an apprenticeship fee. He wants to be a cabinetmaker. He does good work, for a lad; both the desk and the scroll rack are his work. Yet I don’t know if he has the patience for detail that a good joiner must have. Still, it’s what his heart is set on, and he wants to apprentice to a cabinetmaker in Buckkeep Town. Gindast is the joiner’s name, and he’s a master. Even I have heard of him. If I had realized Hap would set his heart so high, I’d have saved more over the years. But –’

‘Starling?’ His query reined me back from my musings on the boy.

It was hard to admit it. ‘She’s married now. I don’t know how long. The boy found it out when he went to Springfest at Buckkeep with her. He came home and told me.’ I shrugged one shoulder. ‘I had to end it between us. She knew I would when I found out. It still made her angry. She couldn’t understand why it couldn’t continue, as long as her husband never found out.’

‘That’s Starling.’ His voice was oddly non-judgemental, as if he commiserated with me over a garden blight. He turned in the chair to look at me over his shoulder. ‘And you’re all right?’

I cleared my throat. ‘I’ve kept busy. And not thought about it much.’

‘Because she felt no shame at all, you think it must all belong to you. People like her are so adept at passing on blame. This is a lovely red ink on this. Where did you get it?’

‘I made it.’

‘Did you?’ Curious as a child, he unstopped one of the ink bottles on my desk and stuck in his little finger. It came out tipped in scarlet. He regarded it for a moment. ‘I kept Burrich’s earring,’ he suddenly admitted. ‘I never took it to Molly.’

‘I see that. I’m just as glad you didn’t. It’s better that neither of them know I survived.’

‘Ah. Another question answered.’ He drew a snowy kerchief from inside his pocket and ruined it by wiping the red ink from his finger. ‘So. Are you going to tell me all the events in order, or must I pry bits out of you one at a time?’

I sighed. I dreaded recalling those times. Chade had been willing to accept an account of the events that related to the Farseer reign. The Fool would want more than that. Even as I cringed from it, I could not evade the notion that somehow I owed him that telling. ‘I’ll try. But I’m tired, and we’ve had too much brandy, and it’s far too much to tell in one evening.’

He tipped back in my chair. ‘Were you expecting me to leave tomorrow?’

‘I thought you might.’ I watched his face as I added, ‘I didn’t hope it.’

He accepted me at my word. ‘That’s good, then, for you would have hoped in vain. To bed with you, Fitz. I’ll take the boy’s cot. Tomorrow is soon enough to begin to fill in nearly fifteen years of absence.’

The Fool’s apricot brandy was more potent than the Sandsedge, or perhaps I was simply wearier than usual. I staggered to my room, dragged off my shirt and dropped into my bed. I lay there, the room rocking gently around me, and listened to his light footfalls as he moved about in the main room, extinguishing candles and pulling in the latch string. Perhaps only I could have seen the slight unsteadiness in his movements. Then he sat down in my chair and stretched his legs towards the fire. At his feet, the wolf groaned and shifted in his sleep. I touched minds gently with Nighteyes; he was deeply asleep and welling contentment.

I closed my eyes, but the room spun sickeningly. I opened them a crack and stared at the Fool. He sat very still as he stared into the fire, but the dancing light of the flames lent their motion to his features. The angles of his face were hidden and then revealed as the shadows shifted. The gold of his skin and eyes seemed a trick of the firelight, but I knew they were not.

It was hard to realize he was no longer the impish jester who had both served and protected King Shrewd for all those years. His body had not changed, save in colouring. His graceful, long-fingered hands dangled off the arms of the chair. His hair, once as pale and airy as dandelion fluff, was now bound back from his face and confined to a golden queue. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the chair. Firelight bronzed his aristocratic profile. His present grand clothes might recall his old winter motley of black and white, but I wagered he would never again wear bells and ribbons and carry a rat-headed sceptre. His lively wit and sharp tongue no longer influenced the course of political events. His life was his own now. I tried to imagine him as a wealthy man, able to travel and live as he pleased. A sudden thought jolted me from my complacency.

‘Fool?’ I called aloud in the darkened rooms.

‘What?’ He did not open his eyes but his ready reply showed he had not yet slipped towards sleep.

‘You are not the Fool any more. What do they call you these days?’

A slow smile curved his lips in profile. ‘What do who call me when?’

He spoke in the baiting tone of the jester he had been. If I tried to sort out that question, he would tumble me in verbal acrobatics until I gave up hoping for an answer. I refused to be drawn into his game. I rephrased my question. ‘I should not call you Fool any more. What do you want me to call you?’

‘Ah, what do I want you to call me now? I see. An entirely different question.’ Mockery made music in his voice.

I drew a breath and made my question as plain as possible. ‘What is your name, your real name?’

‘Ah.’ His manner was suddenly grave. He took a slow breath. ‘My name. As in what my mother called me at my birth?’

‘Yes.’ And then I held my breath. He spoke seldom of his childhood. I suddenly realized the immensity of what I had asked him. It was the old naming magic: if I know how you are truly named, I have power over you. If I tell you my name, I grant you that power. Like all direct questions I had ever asked the Fool, I both dreaded and longed for the answer.

‘And if I tell you, you would call me by that name?’ His inflection told me to weigh my answer.

That gave me pause. His name was his, and not for me to bandy about. But, ‘In private, only. And only if you wished me to,’ I offered solemnly. I considered the words as binding as a vow.

‘Ah.’ He turned to face me. His face lit with delight. ‘Oh, but I would,’ he assured me.

‘Then?’ I asked again. I was suddenly uneasy, certain that somehow he had bested me yet again.

‘The name my mother gave me, I give now to you, to call me by in private.’ He took a breath and turned back to the fire. He closed his eyes again but his grin grew even wider. ‘Beloved. She called me only “Beloved”.’

‘Fool!’ I protested.

He laughed, a deep rich chuckle of pure enjoyment, completely pleased with himself. ‘She did,’ he insisted.

‘Fool, I’m serious.’ The room had begun to revolve slowly around me. If I did not go to sleep soon, I would be sick.

‘And you think I am not?’ He gave a theatrical sigh. ‘Well, if you cannot call me Beloved, then I suppose you should continue to call me Fool. For I am ever the Fool to your Fitz.’

‘Tom Badgerlock.’

‘What?’

‘I am Tom Badgerlock now. It is how I am known.’

He was silent for a time. Then, ‘Not by me,’ he replied decisively. ‘If you insist we must both take different names now, then I shall call you Beloved. And whenever I call you that, you may call me Fool.’ He opened his eyes and rolled his head to look at me. He simpered a lovesick smile, then heaved an exaggerated sigh. ‘Good night, Beloved. We have been apart far too long.’

I capitulated. Conversation was hopeless when he got into these moods. ‘Goodnight, Fool.’ I rolled over in my bed and closed my eyes. If he made any response, I was asleep before he uttered it.

SIX

The Quiet Years

I was born a bastard. The first six years of my life, I spent in the Mountain Kingdom with my mother. I have no clear recollections of that time. At six, my grandfather took me to the fort at Moonseye, and there turned me over to my paternal uncle, Verity Farseer. The revelation of my existence was the personal and political failure that led my father to renounce his claim to the Farseer throne and retire completely from court life. My care was initially given over to Burrich, the Stablemaster at Buckkeep. Later, King Shrewd saw fit to claim my loyalty, and apprentice me to his court assassin. With the death of Shrewd, by the treachery of his youngest son Regal, my loyalty passed to King Verity. Him I followed and served until the time I witnessed him pour his life and essence into a dragon of carved stone. Thus was Verity-as-Dragon animated, and thus were the Six Duchies saved from the depredations of the Red Ship Raiders of the Out Islands, for Verity-as-Dragon led the ancient Elderling dragons as they cleansed the Six Duchies of the invaders. Following that service to my king, injured in both body and spirit, I withdrew from court and society for fifteen years. I believed I would never return.

In those years, I attempted to write a history of the Six Duchies, and an accounting of my own life. In that time, I also obtained and studied various scrolls and writings on a wide variety of topics. The disparity of these pursuits was actually a concerted effort on my part to track down the truth. I strove to find and examine the pieces and forces that had determined why my life had gone as it had. Yet the more I studied and the more I entrusted my thoughts to paper, the more truth eluded me. What life showed me, in my years apart from the world, was that no man ever gets to know the whole of a truth. All I had once believed of all my experiences and myself, time alone illuminated anew. What had seemed clearly lit plunged into shadow, and details I had considered trivial leapt into prominence.

Burrich the Stablemaster, the man who raised me, once warned me ‘When you cut pieces from the truth to avoid sounding like a fool, you end up sounding like a moron instead.’ I have discovered that to be true, from first hand experience. Yet even without deliberately attempting to cut and discard pieces of a story, years after giving a full and just accounting of an event, a man may discover himself a liar. Such lies happen not by intent, but purely by virtue of the facts he was not privy to at the time he wrote, or by being ignorant of the significance of trivial events. No one is pleased to discover himself in such a strait, but any man who claims never to have experienced it is but stacking one lie on top of another.

My efforts at writing a history of the Six Duchies were based on oral accounts and the old scrolls that I had had access to. Even as I set pen to paper, I knew I might be perpetuating another man’s error. I had not realized that my efforts to recount my own life might be subject to the same flaw. The truth, I discovered, is a tree that grows as a man gains access to experience. A child sees the acorn of his daily life, but a man looks back on the oak.

No man can return to being a boy. But there are interludes in a man’s life when, for a time, he can recapture the feeling that the world is a forgiving place and that he is immortal. I have always believed that was the essence of boyhood: believing that mistakes could not be fatal. The Fool brought that old optimism out in me again, and even the wolf seemed puppyish and fey for the days he was with us.

The Fool did not intrude into our lives. I made no adaptations or adjustments. He simply joined us, setting his schedule to ours and making my work his own. He was invariably stirring before I was. I would awake to find the door of my study and my bedroom door open, and like as not the outside door open as well. From my bed, I would see him sitting cross-legged like a tailor on my chair before my desk. He was always washed and dressed to face the day. His elegant clothes disappeared after that first day, replaced with simple jerkins and trousers, or the evening comfort of a robe. The moment I was awake, he was aware of my presence, and would lift his eyes to mine before I spoke. He was always reading, either the scrolls and documents that I had painstakingly acquired, or those composed by me. Some of those scrolls were my failed attempts at a history of the Six Duchies. Others were my disjointed efforts to make sense of my own life by setting it onto paper. He would lift an eyebrow to my wakefulness, and then carefully restore the scroll to precisely where it had been. Had he chosen to do so, he could have left me ignorant of his perusal of my journals. Instead, he showed his respect by never questioning me about what he had read. The private thoughts that I had committed to paper remained private, my secrets sealed behind the Fool’s lips.

He dropped effortlessly into my life, filling a place that I had not perceived was vacant. While he stayed with me, I almost forgot to miss Hap, save that I hungered so to show the boy off to him. I know I spoke often of him. Sometimes the Fool worked alongside me in the garden or as I repaired the stone and log paddock. When it was a task for one man, such as digging the new postholes, he perched nearby and watched. Our talk at such times was simple, relating to the task at hand, or the easy banter of men who have shared a boyhood. If ever I tried to turn our talk to serious matters, he deflected my questions with his drollery. We took turns on Malta, for the Fool bragged she could jump anything, and a series of makeshift barriers across my lane soon proved this was so. The spirited little horse seemed to enjoy it as much as we did.

After our evening meal, we sometimes walked the cliffs, or clambered down to stroll the beaches as the tide retreated. In the changing of the light, we hunted rabbits with the wolf, and came home to set a hearth-fire more for cheer than warmth. The Fool had brought more than one bottle of the apricot brandy, and his voice was as fine as ever. Evenings were his turn to sing, and talk, and tell stories, both amazing and amusing. Some seemed to be drawn from his own adventures; others were obviously folklore acquired along the way. His graceful hands were more articulate than the puppets he once had fashioned, and his mobile face could portray every character in the tales he told.

It was only in the late evening hours, when the fire had burned to coals and his face was more shadow than shape that he led my talk where he would go. That first evening, in a quiet voice mellowed by brandy, he observed, ‘Have you any idea how hard it was for me to let Girl on a Dragon carry me off and leave you behind? I had to believe that the wheels were in motion, and you would live. It taxed my faith in myself to the utmost to fly off and leave you there.’

‘Your faith in yourself?’ I demanded, feigning insult. ‘Had you no faith in me?’

The Fool had spread Hap’s bedding on the floor before the hearth, and we had abandoned our chairs to sprawl in the dubious comfort there. The wolf, his nose on his paws, dozed on my left side while on my right, the Fool leaned on his elbows, chin propped in his hands. He gazed into the fire, his lifted feet waving vaguely.

The last flames of the fire danced merrily in his eyes. ‘In you? Well. I shall say only that I took great comfort in the wolf at your side.’

In that, his confidence was not misplaced, the wolf observed wryly.

I thought you were asleep.

I’m trying to be.

The Fool’s voice was almost dreamy as he went on, ‘You had survived every cataclysmic event that I had ever glimpsed for you. So I left you, forcing myself to believe that there was a period of quiet in store for you. Perhaps, even, a time of peace.’

‘There was. After a fashion.’ I took a breath. I nearly told him of my death watch by Will. Almost, I told him of how I had reached through Will with the Skill-magic, finally to seize control of Regal’s mind and work my will on him. I let the breath out. He didn’t need to hear that; I didn’t need to relive it. ‘I found peace. A bit at a time. In pieces.’ I grinned foolishly to myself. Odd, the small things that are amusing when one has had enough to drink.

I found myself speaking of my year in the Mountains. I told him how we had returned to the valley where the hot springs flowed, and of the simple hut I had built against the coming of winter. The seasons turn more quickly in the high country. One morning the leaves of birch trees are veined in yellow, and the alder has gone red in the night. A few more nights, and they are bare-fingered branches reaching towards a cold blue sky. The evergreens hunch themselves against the oncoming winter. Then the snow comes, to cloak the world in forgiving white.

I told him of hunting the days away with Nighteyes as my sole companion. Healing and peace were the most elusive of the prey I stalked. We lived simply, as predators with no loyalties save to one another. That absolute solitude was the best balm for the wounds I had taken to both my body and my soul. Such injuries do not truly heal but I learned to live with my scars, much as Burrich once learned to tolerate his game leg. We hunted deer and rabbit. I came to accept that I had died, that I had lost my life in every way that mattered. Winter winds blew around our small shelter, and I understood that Molly was no longer mine. Brief things were those winter days, pauses of sunlight on glittering white snow before the long, blue-fingered dusks returned to draw the deep nights close to us. I learned to cushion my loss with the knowledge that my little daughter would grow up in the shelter of Burrich’s good right arm, much as I myself had.

I had tried to rid myself of my memories of Molly. The stabbing pain of recalling her abused trust of me was the brightest gem in a glittering necklace of painful memories. As much as I had always longed to be freed of my duties and obligations, being released from such bonds was as much a severing as an emancipation. As the brief days of winter alternated with the long, cold nights, I numbered to myself those I had lost. Those who still knew I lived did not even take up the fingers of one hand. The Fool, Queen Kettricken, the minstrel Starling, and through those three, Chade: those were the four who knew of my existence. A few others had seen me alive, amongst them Hands the Stablemaster and one Tag Reaverson, a guardsman, but the circumstances of those brief meetings were such that any tales of my survival were unlikely to be believed.

All others who had known me, including those who had loved me best, believed me dead. Nor could I return to prove them wrong. I had been executed once for practising Wit-magic. I would not chance a more thorough death. Yet even if that taint could be lifted from my name, I could not return to Burrich and Molly. To do so would destroy all of us. Even if Molly had been able to tolerate my beast-magic and my many deceptions of her, how could any of us untangle her subsequent marriage to Burrich? To confront Burrich with his usurpation of my wife and my child would destroy him. Could I found future happiness on that? Could Molly?

‘I tried to comfort myself with the thought that they were safe and happy.’

‘Could not you reach out with the Skill, to assure yourself of that?’

The shadows of the room had deepened and the Fool’s eyes were fixed on the fire. It was as if I recounted my history to myself.

‘I could claim I learned the discipline to leave them to their privacy. In truth, I think I feared it would drive me mad, to witness love shared between them.’

I watched the fire as I spoke of those days, yet I felt the Fool’s eyes turn to me. I did not turn towards him. I did not want to see pity there. I had grown past the need for anyone’s pity.

‘I found peace,’ I told him. ‘A bit at a time, but it came to me. There was a morning when Nighteyes and I were returning from a dawn hunt. We’d had a good hunt, and taken a mountain goat that the heavy snows of winter had pushed down from the heights. The hill was steep as we worked our way down, the gutted carcass was heavy, and the skin of my face was stiff as a mask from the cold burning down from the clear blue sky. I could see a thin tendril of smoke rising from my chimney, and just beyond my hut, the foggy steam rose off the nearby hot springs. At the top of the last hill, I paused to catch my breath and stretch my back.’

It all came back so clearly to me. Nighteyes had halted beside me, panting clouds. I’d swathed my lower face in the edge of my cloak; now it was half-frozen to my beard. I looked down, and knew that we had meat for days, our small cabin was tight against winter’s cold clench, and we were nearly home. Cold and weary as I was, satisfaction was still uppermost in my mind. I hefted my kill to my shoulders. Almost home, I told Nighteyes.

Almost home, he had echoed. And in the sharing of that thought, I sensed a meaning that no man’s voice could have put into it. Home. A finality. A place to belong. The humble cottage was home now, a comforting destination where I expected to find all I needed. As I stood staring down at it, I felt a twinge of conscience as for some forgotten obligation. It took me a moment to grasp what was missing. The whole of a night had passed and I had not once thought of Molly. Where had my yearning and sense of loss gone? What sort of shallow fellow was I, to let go of that mourning and think only of the dawn’s hunting? Deliberately I turned my thoughts to the place and the people who were once encompassed in the word home.

When I wallow in something dead to reawaken the savour of it, you rebuke me.

I turned to look at Nighteyes but he refused the eye contact. He sat in the snow, ears pricked forwards towards our hut. The unpleasant little winter wind stirred his thick ruff, but could not penetrate to his skin.

Meaning? I pressed him, though his meaning was perfectly clear.

You should leave off sniffing the carcass of your old life, my brother. You may enjoy unending pain. I do not. There is no shame in walking away from bones, Changer. He finally swivelled his head to stare at me from his deep-set eyes. Nor is there any special wisdom in injuring oneself over and over. What is your loyalty to that pain? To abandon it will not lessen you.

Then he had stood, shaken his coat free of snow, and trotted resolutely down the snowy hillside. I had followed him more slowly.

Finally I glanced over at the Fool. He looked at me but his eyes were unreadable in the darkness. ‘I think that was the first bit of peace I found. Not that I take any credit for discovering it. Nighteyes had to point it out to me. Perhaps to another man it would have been obvious. Leave old pains alone. When they cease coming to call, do not invite them back.’

His voice was very soft in the dim room. ‘There is nothing dishonourable about abandoning pain. Sometimes peace is most quickly found when a man simply stops avoiding it.’ He shifted slightly in the dark. ‘And you never again lay awake all night, staring at darkness and thinking of them.’

I snorted softly. ‘I wish. But the most I can say is that I stopped deliberately provoking that melancholy. When summer finally came and we moved on, it was like leaving a cast-off skin.’ I let a silence follow my words.

‘So you left the Mountains and came back to Buck.’

He knew I had not; it was just his little prod to get me talking again.

‘Not right away. Nighteyes didn’t approve, but I felt I could not leave the Mountains until I had retraced some of our journey there. I went back to the quarry, back to where Verity had carved his dragon. I stood on the spot. It was just a flat, bare place hemmed by the towering quarry walls under a slate-grey sky. There was no sign of all that had happened there, just the piles of chips and a few worn tools. I walked through our campsite. I knew the flattened tents and the possessions scattered about had once been ours, but most of them had lost their significance. They were greying rags, sodden and slumped. I found a few things I took with me … the pieces for Kettle’s stone game, I took those.’ I took a breath. ‘And I walked down to where Carrod had died. His body was as we had left it, gone to bones and bits of mouldering cloth. No animals had disturbed it. They don’t like the Skill-road, you know.’

‘I know,’ he admitted quietly. I felt he had walked with me through that abandoned quarry.

‘I stood a long time looking at those bones. I tried to remember Carrod as he had been when I first met him, but I couldn’t. But looking at his bones was like a confirmation. It all had truly happened, and it all was truly finished. The events and the place, I could walk away from. I could leave it behind now and it could not get up and follow me.’

Nighteyes groaned in his sleep. I set a hand on his side, glad to feel him so near in both touch and mind. He had not approved of me visiting the quarry. He had disliked journeying along the Skill-road, even though my ability to retain my sense of self against its siren call had increased. He was even more disgruntled when I insisted I must return to the Stone Gardens as well.

There was a small sound, the chink of the bottle against the cup’s lip as the Fool replenished our brandy. His silence was an invitation for me to speak on.

‘The dragons had gone back to where we first found them. I visited them there. The forest was gradually taking them back again, grass sprouting tall around them and vines creeping over them. They were just as beautiful and just as haunting as when we first discovered them there. And just as still.’

They had broken holes in the forest canopy when they had left their slumbers and arisen to fight for Buck. Their return had been no gentler, and thus sunlight fell in shafts, penetrating the lush growth to gild each gleaming dragon. I walked amongst them, and as before, I felt the ghostly stir of Wit-life within the deeply slumbering statues. I found King Wisdom’s antlered dragon; I dared to set my bare hand to his shoulder. I felt only the finely-carved scales, cold and hard as the stone they had been carved from. They were all there: the boar dragon, the winged cat, all the widely divergent forms carved by both Elderlings and Skill coteries.

‘I saw Girl on a Dragon there.’ I smiled at the flames. ‘She sleeps well. The human figure is sprawled forwards now, her arms twined lovingly around the neck of the dragon she bestrides still.’ Her I had feared to touch; I recalled too clearly her hunger for memories, and how I had fed her with mine. Perhaps I feared as much to regain what I once had willingly given her. I slipped past her silently, but Nighteyes stalked past her, hackles abristle, showing every white tooth he possessed in a snarl. The wolf had known what I truly sought.

‘Verity,’ the Fool said softly, as if confirming my unspoken thought.

‘Verity,’ I agreed. ‘My king.’ I sighed and took up my tale.

I had found him there. When I saw Verity’s turquoise hide gleaming in the dappling summer shade, Nighteyes sat down and curled his tail tidily around his forefeet. He would come no closer. I felt the silence of his thoughts as he carefully granted me the privacy of my mind. I approached Verity-as-Dragon slowly, my heart thundering in my throat. There, in a body carved of Skill and stone, slept the man who had been my king. For his sake, I had taken hurts so grievous that both my mind and my body would bear the scars until the day I died. Yet as I drew near to the still form, I felt tears prick my eyes, and knew only longing for his familiar voice.

‘Verity?’ I asked hoarsely. My soul strained towards him, word, Wit and Skill seeking for my king. I did not find him. I set my hands flat to his cold shoulder, pressed my brow against that hard form, and reached again, recklessly. I sensed him then, but it was a far and thin glimpse of what he had been. As well to say one touches the sun when one cups a dapple of forest light in the palm of a hand. ‘Verity, please,’ I begged him, and reached yet again with every drop of the Skill that was in me.

When I came to myself, I was crumpled beside his dragon. Nighteyes had not moved from where he kept his vigil. ‘He’s gone,’ I told him, uselessly, needlessly. ‘Verity’s gone.’

I bowed my head to my knees and I wept then, mourning my king as I never had the day his human body had vanished into his dragon form.

I paused in my telling to clear my throat. I drank a bit of the Fool’s brandy. I set down my cup and found the Fool looking at me. He had moved closer to hear my hoarse words, and the firelight gilded his skin, but could not reveal what was behind his eyes.

‘I think that was when I fully acknowledged that my old life was completely reduced to ashes. If Verity had remained in some form I could reach, if he had still existed to partner me in the Skill, then I think some part of me would have wanted to remain FitzChivalry Farseer. But he did not. The end of my king was also the end of me. When I rose and walked away from the Stone Garden, I knew I truly had what I had longed for all those years: the chance to determine for myself who I was, and a time in which to live my own life as I chose. From now on, I alone would make my decisions.’

Almost. The wolf derided me. I ignored him to speak to the Fool. ‘I stopped at one more place before we left the Mountains. I think you will recall it. The pillar where I saw you change.’

He nodded silently and I spoke on.

When we came to the place where a tall Skill-stone stood at a crossroads, I halted, beset by temptation. Memories washed over me. The first time I had come here, it had been with Starling and Kettle, with the Fool and Queen Kettricken, searching for King Verity. Here we had paused, and in a flash of waking-dream, I had seen the verdant forest replaced with a teeming market-place. Where the Fool had perched upon a stone pillar, a woman stood, like him in white skin and near-colourless eyes. In that other place and time, she had been crowned with a wooden circlet carved with rooster heads and decorated with tail feathers. Like the Fool, her antics had held the crowd’s attention. All that I had glimpsed in a moment, like a brief glance through some otherworldly window. Then, in the blinking of an eye, it had all changed back, and I had seen the stunned Fool topple from his precarious perch. Yet he seemed to have shared that brief vision of another time and folk.

The mystery of that moment was what drew me back to the place. The black monolith that presided over that circle of stones stood impervious to moss or lichen, the glyphs carved in its faces beckoning me to destinations unknown. I knew it now for what it was, as I had not when I had first encountered one of the Skill-gates. I circled it slowly. I recognized the symbol that would take me back to the stone quarry. Another, I was almost sure, would bear me back to the deserted Elderling city. Without thinking, I lifted a finger to trace the rune.

Despite his size, Nighteyes can move swiftly and near silently. He seized my wrist in his jaws as he sprang between me and the obelisk. I fell with him to keep his teeth from tearing my flesh. We finished with me on my back on the ground. He stood beside but not quite over me, still gripping my wrist in his jaws. You will not do that.

‘I didn’t intend to use the stone. Only to touch it.’

It is not a thing to trust. I have been inside the blackness within the stone. If I must follow you there again, for the sake of your life, then you know I would. But do not ask me to follow you there for puppy curiosity.

Would you mind if I went to the city for a short time, alone?

Alone? You know there is no true ‘alone’ for either of us any more.

I let you go alone to try a time with the wolf pack.

It is not at all the same, and you know it.

I did. He released my wrist and I stood and brushed myself off. We spoke no more about it. That is one of the best things about the Wit. There is absolutely no need for long and painfully-detailed discussions to be sure of understanding one another. Once, years ago, he had left me to run with his own kind. When he had returned, it was his unspoken assertion that he belonged more with me than he did with them. In the years since, we had grown ever closer. As he had once pointed out to me, I was no longer completely a man, nor was he completely a wolf. Nor were we truly separate entities. This was not a case of him overriding my decision. It was more like debating with myself as to the wisdom of an action. Yet in that brief confrontation, we both faced what we had avoided considering. ‘Our bond was becoming deeper and more complicated. Neither of us was certain of how to deal with it.’

The wolf lifted his head. His deep eyes stared into mine. We shared the misgiving, but he left the decision to me.

Should I tell the Fool where we had gone next and all we had learned? Was my experience among the Old Blood folk completely mine to share? The secrets I held protected many lives. For myself, I was willing to put my entire existence trustingly in the Fool’s hands. But did I have the right to share secrets that were not exclusively mine?

I don’t know how the Fool interpreted my hesitation. I suspect he took it for something other than my own uncertainty.

‘You are right,’ he declared abruptly. He lifted his cup and drained off the last of his brandy. He set the cup firmly on the floor, then rotated one graceful hand, to halt it with one slender forefinger held aloft in a gesture long familiar to me. Wait, it bid me.

As if drawn by a puppeteer’s strings, he flowed fluidly to his feet. The room was in darkness, yet he crossed it unerringly to his pack. I heard him rustling through it. A short time later, he returned to the fireside with a canvas sack. He sat down close beside me, as if he were about to reveal secrets too intimate even for darkness to share. The sack in his lap was worn and stained. He tugged open the draw-stringed mouth of it, and pulled out something wrapped in beautiful cloth. I gasped as he undid the folds of it. Never had I seen so liquid a fabric, nor so intricate a design worked in such brilliant colours. Even in the muted light of the dying fire, the reds blazed and the yellows simmered. With that length of textile, he could have purchased the favour of any lord.

Yet this wondrous cloth was not what he wished to show me. He unwound it from what it protected, heedless of how the glorious stuff pooled to the rough floor beside him. I leaned closer, holding my breath, to see what greater wonder it might reveal. The last supple length of it slithered away. I leaned closer, puzzled, to be sure of what I was seeing.

‘I thought I had dreamed that,’ I said at last.

‘You did. We did.’

The wooden crown in his hands showed the wear of years. Gone were the bright feathers and paint that had once lent it colour. It was a simple thing of wood, skilfully carved, but austere in its beauty.

‘You had it made?’ I guessed.

‘I found it,’ he returned. He took a breath, then said shakily, ‘Or perhaps it found me.’

I waited for him to say more but he did not. I put out a hand to touch it, and he made a tiny motion as if to keep it to himself. An instant later, he relented. He held it out to me. As I took it into my hands, I realized that in sharing this he offered me far more of himself, even more than the sharing of his horse. I turned the ancient thing in my hands, discovering traces of bright paint still trapped in the graven lines of the rooster heads. Two of the heads still possessed winking gem eyes. Holes in the brim of the crown showed where each tail feather would have been set. I did not know the wood it was carved from. Light but strong, it seemed to whisper against my fingers, hissing secrets in a tongue I did not know.

I proffered it back to him. ‘Put it on,’ I said quietly.

He took the crown. I saw him swallow. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked me quietly. ‘I have tried it upon my head, I will admit. Nothing happened. But with us both here, the White Prophet and his Catalyst … Fitz, it may be that we tempt a magic neither one of us understands. Time and again, I have searched my memory, but in no prophecy I was ever taught did I find mention of this crown. I have no idea what it signifies, or if it signifies anything at all. You recall your vision of me; I have only the haziest of memories of it, like a butterfly of a dream, too fragile to recapture yet wondrous in its flight.’

I said nothing. His hands, as golden as they had once been white, held the crown before him. In silence, we dared ourselves, curiosity warring with caution. In the end, given who we were, there could only be one outcome. A slow, reckless grin spread over his face. Thus, I recalled, had he smiled the night he set his Skilled fingers to the carven flesh of Girl on a Dragon. Recalling the agony we had inadvertently caused, I knew a sudden moment of apprehension. But before I could speak, he lifted the crown aloft and set it upon his head. I caught my breath.

Nothing happened.

I stared at him, torn between relief and disappointment. For an instant, silence held between us. Then he began to snicker. In an instant, laughter burst from both of us. The tension broken, we both laughed until the tears streamed down our cheeks. When our mirth subsided, I looked at the Fool, still crowned with wood, still my friend as he had always been. He wiped tears from his eyes.

‘You know, last month my rooster lost most of his tail to a scuffle with a weasel. Hap picked up the feathers. Shall we try them in the crown?’

He lifted it from his head and regarded it with mock regret. ‘Tomorrow, perhaps. And perhaps I shall steal some of your inks as well, and re-do the colours. Do you recall them at all?’

I shrugged. ‘I’d trust your own eye for that, Fool. You always had a gift for such things.’

He bowed his head with grave exaggeration to my compliment. He twitched the fabric from the floor and began to rewrap the crown. The fire was little more than embers now, casting a ruddy glow over both of us. I looked at him for a long moment. In this light, I could pretend his colouring had not changed, that he was the white-skinned jester of my boyhood, and hence, that I was still as young as he was. He glanced over at me, caught my eyes on him, and stared back at me, a strange avidity in his face. His look was so intense I glanced aside from it. A moment later, he spoke.

‘So. After the Mountains, you went …?’

I picked up my brandy cup. It was empty. I wondered how much I had drunk, and suddenly knew it was more than enough for one evening. ‘Tomorrow, Fool. Tomorrow. Give me a night to sleep on it, and ponder how best to tell it.’

One long-fingered hand closed suddenly about my wrist. As always, his flesh was cool against mine. ‘Ponder, Fitz. But as you do so, do not forget …’ Words seemed suddenly to fail him. His eyes gazed once more into mine. His tone changed to a quiet plea. ‘Tell me all you can, in good conscience. For I never know what it is I need to hear until I have heard it.’

Again, the fervour of his stare unnerved me. ‘Riddles,’ I scoffed, trying to speak lightly. Instead, the word seemed to come out as a confirmation of his own.

‘Riddles,’ he agreed. ‘Riddles to which we are the answers, if only we can discover the questions.’ He looked down at his grip on my wrist, and released me. He rose suddenly, graceful as a cat. He stretched, a sinuous writhing that looked as if he unfastened his bones from his joints and then put himself together again. He looked down on me fondly. ‘Go to bed, Fitz,’ he told me as if I were a child. ‘Rest while you can. I need to stay up a bit longer and think. If I can. The brandy has quite gone to my head.’

‘Mine as well,’ I agreed. He offered a hand and I took it. He drew me easily to my feet, his strength, as always, surprising in one so slightly built. I staggered a step sideways and he moved with me, then caught my elbow, righting me. ‘Care to dance?’ I jested feebly as he steadied me.

‘We already do,’ he responded, almost seriously. As if he bid farewell to a dance partner, he pantomimed a courtly bow over my hand as I drew my fingers from his grip. ‘Dream of me,’ he added melodramatically.

‘Good night,’ I replied, stoically refusing to be baited. As I headed towards my bed, the wolf rose with a groan and followed me. He seldom slept more than an arm’s reach from my side. In my room, I let my clothes drop where they would before pulling on a nightshirt and falling into bed. The wolf had already found his place on the cool floor beside it. I closed my eyes and let my arm fall so that my fingers just brushed his ruff.

‘Sleep well, Fitz,’ the Fool offered. I opened my eyes a crack. He had resumed his chair before the dying fire and smiled at me through the open door of my room. ‘I’ll keep watch,’ he offered dramatically. I shook my head at his nonsense and flapped a hand in his direction. Sleep swallowed me.

SEVEN

Heart of a Wolf

One of the most basic misunderstandings of the Wit is that it is a power given to a human that can be imposed on a beast. In almost all the cautionary tales one hears about the Wit, the story involves an evil person who uses his power over animals or birds to harm his human neighbours. In many of these stories, the just fate of the evil magicker is that his beast servants rise up against him to bring him down to their level, thus revealing him to those he has maligned.

The reality is that Wit-magic is as much a province of animals as of humans. Not all humans evince the ability to form the special bond with an animal that is at the heart of the Wit. Nor does every animal have the full capacity for that bond. Of those creatures that possess the capacity, an even smaller number desire such a bond with a human. For the bond to form, it must be mutual and equal between the partners. Among Witted families, when the youngster comes of age, he is sent forth on a sort of quest to seek an animal companion. He does not go out, select a capable beast and then bend him to his will. Rather the hope is that the human will encounter a like-minded creature, either wild or domestic, that is interested in establishing a Wit-bond. Simply put, for a Wit-bond to be established, the animal must be as gifted as the human. Although a Witted human can achieve some level of communication with almost any animal, no bond will be formed unless the animal shares a like talent and inclination.

Yet in any relationship there is always the capacity for abuse. Just as a husband may beat his wife, or a wife pare her husband’s soul with belittlement, so may a human dominate his Wit partner. Perhaps the most common form of this is when a Witted human selects a beast partner when the creature is far too young to realize the magnitude of that life decision. Rarer are the cases in which animals debase or dictate to their bond fellow, but they are not unknown. Among the Old Blood, the common ballad of Roving Greyson is said to be derived from a tale of a man so foolish as to bond with a wild gander, and ever after spent his life in following the seasons as his bird did.

Badgerlock’s Old Blood Tales

Morning came, too bright and too early, on the third day of the Fool’s visit. He was awake before me, and if the brandy or the late night held any consequences for him, he did not betray them. The day already promised to be hot, so he had kept the cook fire small, just enough to boil a kettle for porridge. Outside, I turned the chickens out for the day, and took the pony and the Fool’s horse out to an open hillside facing the sea. I turned the pony loose but picketed Malta. She gave me a reproachful look at that, but went to grazing as if the tufty grass were exactly what she desired. I stood for a time, overlooking the calm sea. Under the bright morning sun, it looked like hammered blue metal. A very light breeze came off it and stirred my hair. I felt as if someone had spoken words aloud to me and I echoed them. ‘Time for a change.’

A changing time, the wolf echoed me in return. And yet that was not quite what I had said, but it felt truer. I stretched, rolling my shoulders, and letting the little wind blow away my headache. I looked at my hands held out before me, and then stared at them. They were a farmer’s hands, tough and callused, stained dark with earth and weather. I scratched at my bristly face; I had not taken the care to shave in days. My clothes were clean and serviceable, yet like my hands they were stained with the marks of my daily work, and patched besides. All that had seemed comfortable and set a moment before suddenly seemed a disguise, a costume donned to protect me through my quiet years of rest. I suddenly longed to break out of my life and become, not Fitz as I had been, but Fitz as he might have been, had I not died to the world. A strange shiver ran over me. I was reminded, suddenly, of a summer morning in my childhood when I had watched a butterfly twitch and tear its way out of its chrysalis. Had it felt so, as if the stillness and translucency that had wrapped and protected it had abruptly become too confining to bear?

I took a deep breath and held it, then sighed it out. I expected my sudden discontent to disperse with it, and most of it did. But not all. A changing time, the wolf had said. ‘So. What are we changing into, then?’

You? I don’t know. I know only that you change, and sometimes it frightens me. As for me, the change is simpler. I grow old.

I glanced over at the wolf. ‘So do I,’ I pointed out.

No. You do not. You are ageing, but you are not getting old as I am getting old. This is true and we both know it.

There seemed little point in denying it. ‘So?’ I challenged him, bravado masking my sudden uneasiness.

So we approach a time of decision. And it should be something we decide, not something that we let happen to us. I think you should tell the Fool about our time among the Old Blood. Not because he will or can decide for us, but because we both think better when we share thoughts with him.

This was a carefully-structured thought from the wolf, an almost too-human reasoning from the part of me that ran on four legs. I went down on one knee suddenly beside him and flung my arms around his neck. Frightened for no reason I dared name, I hugged him tight, as if I could pull him inside my chest and hold him there forever. He tolerated it for a moment, then flung his head down and bucked clear of me. He leapt away from me, then stopped. He shook himself all over to settle his rumpled coat, then stared out over the sea as if surveying new hunting terrain. I drew a breath and spoke. ‘I’ll tell him. Tonight.’

He gave me a glance over his shoulder, nose held low and ears forwards. His eyes were alight. A flash of his old mischief danced there. I know you will, little brother. Don’t fear.

Then, in a leap of grace that belied his dog’s years, he whipped away from me and became a grey streak that vanished suddenly amongst the scrubby brush and tussocky grasses of the gentle hillside. My eyes could not find him, so clever was he, but my heart went with him as it always did. My heart, I told myself, would always be able to find him, would always find a place where we still touched and merged. I sent the thought after him, but he made no reply to it.

I returned to the cottage. I gathered the day’s eggs from the chickenhouse and took them in. The Fool coddled eggs in the coals on the hearth while I brewed tea. We carried our food outside into the blue morning, and the Fool and I broke our fasts sitting on the porch. The wind off the water didn’t reach my little vale. The leaves of the trees hung motionless. Only the chickens clucked and scratched in the dusty yard. I had not realized how prolonged my silence had been until the Fool broke it. ‘It’s pleasant here,’ he observed, waving his spoon at the surrounding trees. ‘The stream, the forest, the beach cliffs nearby. I can see why you prefer it to Buckkeep.’

He had always possessed a knack for turning my thoughts upside down. ‘I’m not sure that I prefer it,’ I replied slowly. ‘I never thought of comparing the two and then choosing where I would live. The first time I spent a winter here, it was because a bad storm caught us, and in seeking shelter under the trees, we found an old cart track. It led us to an abandoned cottage – this one – and we came inside.’ I shrugged a shoulder. ‘We’ve been here ever since.’

He cocked his head at me. ‘So, with all the wide world to choose from, you didn’t choose at all. You simply stopped wandering one day.’

‘I suppose so.’ I nearly halted the next words that came to my lips, for they seemed to have no bearing on the topic. ‘Forge is just down the road from here.’

‘And it drew you here?’

‘I don’t think so. I did go back to it, to look at the ruins and recall it. No one lives there now. Usually, a place like that, folk would have scavenged the ruins. Not Forge.’

‘Too many evil memories associated with that place,’ the Fool confirmed. ‘Forge was just the beginning, but folk remember it the best, and gave its name to the scourge that followed. I wonder how many folk were Forged, all told?’

I shifted uneasily, then rose to take the Fool’s empty dish. Even now, I did not like to recall those days. The Red Ships had raided our shores for years, stealing our wealth. It was only when they began to steal the humanity of our people that we had risen in full wrath against them. They had begun that evil at Forge, kidnapping village folk and returning them to their kin as soulless monsters. Once, it had been my task to track down and kill Forged ones; one of many quiet, nasty tasks for the King’s assassin. But that was years ago, I told myself. That Fitz no longer existed. ‘It was a long time ago,’ I reminded the Fool. ‘It’s over and done with now.’

‘So some say. Others disagree. Some still cling to their hatred of the Outislanders and say that even the dragons we sent them were too merciful. Others, of course, say we should put that war behind us, as Six Duchies and Outislanders have always moved from war to trade. On my way here, there was tavern talk that Queen Kettricken seeks to buy both peace and a trade alliance with the Outislanders. I’ve heard it said she will marry Prince Dutiful off to an Out Islands narcheska, to cement the treaty bond she has proposed.’

‘Narcheska?’

He lifted his eyebrows. ‘A sort of princess, I assume. At the very least, a daughter of some powerful noble.’

‘Well. So.’ I tried not to show how this news unsettled me. ‘It will not be the first time that diplomacy was secured in such a way. Consider how Kettricken came to be Verity’s wife. To confirm our alliance with the Mountain Kingdom was the intent of that marriage. Yet it worked out to be far more than that.’

‘It did indeed,’ the Fool replied agreeably, but his neutral words left me pondering.

I took our bowls inside and washed them out. I wondered how Dutiful felt about being used as barter to secure a treaty, then pushed the thought from my mind. Kettricken would have raised him in the Mountain way, to believe that the ruler was always the servant of the people. Dutiful would be, well, dutiful, I told myself. No doubt he would accept it without question, just as Kettricken had accepted her arranged marriage to Verity. I noted that the water barrel was nearly empty already. The Fool had always been ardent in his washing and scrubbing, using three times as much water as any other man I knew. I picked up the buckets and went back outside. ‘I’m going to fetch more water.’

He hopped nimbly to his feet. ‘I’ll come along.’

So he followed me down the dapple-shaded path to the stream, and to the place I had dug out and lined with stone so that I could fill my buckets more easily. He took the opportunity to splash his hands clean, and to drink deeply of the cold, sweet water. When he straightened up, he looked around suddenly. ‘Where is Nighteyes?’

I stood up with the buckets, their weight balancing one another. ‘Oh, he likes to go off on his own sometimes. He –’

Then pain lanced through me. I dropped my brimming buckets, and clutched at my throat for an instant before I realized the discomfort was not my own. The Fool’s gaze met mine, his golden skin gone sallow. I think he felt a shadow of my fear. I reached for Nighteyes, found him, and set off at a run.

I followed no path through the forest, and the underbrush caught at me, seeking to bar my headlong flight. I crashed through it, heedless of my clothes and skin. The wolf could not breathe; his tortured gasping taunted my body’s frantic gulping of air. I struggled to keep his panic from becoming my own. I drew my knife as I ran, ready for whatever enemy had attacked him. But when I burst from the trees into the clearing near the beaver pond, I saw him writhing alone by the shore. With one paw, he was clawing at his mouth; his jaws were stretched wide. Half of a large fish lay on the pebbled shore beside him. He backed jerkily in circles, shaking his head from side to side, trying to dislodge what choked him.

I threw myself to my knees beside him. ‘Don’t fight me!’ I begged him, but I do not think he could heed me. Red panic drenched his thoughts. I tried to put an arm around him to steady him, but he flung himself clear of me. He shook his head wildly, but could not clear his throat. I launched myself at him, throwing him to the ground. I landed on his ribs, and inadvertently saved his life. The press of my body on his chest pushed the fish clogging his throat up into his mouth. Heedless of his teeth, I reached into his mouth and clawed it free. I flung it from us. I felt him gasp in a breath. I lifted my body off his. He staggered to his feet. I felt I did not have the strength to stand.

‘Choking on fish!’ I exclaimed shakily. ‘I might have known! Teach you to be so greedy in your gulping.’

I took a deep breath of my own, relieved beyond words. However, my relief was short-lived. The wolf stood, took two staggering steps, then collapsed brokenly to the ground. He was no longer choking, but pain blossomed heavily inside him.

‘What is it? What’s wrong with him?’ the Fool demanded behind me. I had not even been aware that he had followed me. I had no time for him now. I scrabbled over to my companion. Fearfully I set a hand to him, and felt that touch amplify our bond. Pain squeezed him, deep in his chest. It hurt so that he could scarcely breathe. His heart thundered unevenly in his ears. His parted eyelids revealed only the roll of his eyes. His tongue sprawled limply from his mouth.

‘Nighteyes! My brother!’ I shouted the words, but I knew he scarcely heard them. I reached after him, willing my strength to him, and felt an unbelievable thing. He evaded me. He drew back from my reaching, refusing, as much as his weakness allowed him, that link we had shared so long. As he concealed his thoughts, I felt him slipping away from me into a greyness I could not penetrate.

It was intolerable.

‘No!’ I howled, and flung my awareness after his. When I could not make that grey barrier yield to my Wit, I Skilled into it, heedlessly and instinctively using every magic I possessed to reach him. And reach the wolf I did. I was suddenly with him, my consciousness meshed with his in a way I had never known before. His body was my own.

Long years ago, when Regal had killed me, I had fled the battered husk of my own flesh and taken shelter within Nighteyes. I shared residence with the wolf in his body, perceiving his thoughts, seeing the world through his eyes. I had ridden with him, a passenger in his life. Eventually, Burrich and Chade had called us both back to my graveside, and restored me to my own cold flesh.

This was not that. No. Now I had made his body my own, my human awareness overpowering his wolfness. I settled into him and forced calm upon his frenzied struggling. I ignored his distaste for what I did; it was necessary, I told him. If I did not do this, he would die. He stopped resisting me, but it was not concession. Instead, it was as if he disdainfully abandoned what I had taken from him. I would worry about it later. Offending him was the least of my concerns. It was strange to be in his body that way, rather like donning another man’s clothing. I was aware of every piece of him, nails to tail-tip. Air poured strangely over my tongue, and even in my distress, the scents of the day spoke sharply to me. I could smell the sweat of my Fitz self near by, and I was dimly aware of the Fool crouching over that body, shaking it. I had no time for that now. I had discovered the source of this body’s pain. It centred in my shuddering heart. My forcing calm on the wolf had already aided him somewhat, but the limping, uneven beat of his blood spoke ominously of something gone savagely wrong.

Peering down into a cellar is very different from climbing down inside it and looking around. It is a poor explanation, but the best I can offer. From feeling the wolf’s heart, I suddenly became the wolf’s heart. I did not know how I did it; it was as if I leaned desperately against a locked door, knowing my salvation was on the other side, and that door suddenly gave way. I became his heart and knew my function in his body, and knew, also, that my function was impeded. Muscle had grown thin with age, and weary. As heart, I steadied myself and sought feebly for a more even beat. When I achieved that, the press of pain eased, and I went to work.

Nighteyes had retreated to some far corner of our awareness. I let him sulk there, focusing only on what I must do. To what can I compare what I did? Weaving? Building a brick wall? Perhaps it was more like darning the worn heel of a sock. I sensed that I constructed, or rather reconstructed that which had become weakened. I also knew that it was not I, Fitz, that did this, but rather that as part of a wolf’s body, I guided that body through a familiar dance. With my focus, it did its task more swiftly. That was all, I told myself uneasily, yet I sensed that somewhere, someone must pay for this hastening of the body’s work.

When I felt the work was complete, I stepped back. I was ‘heart’ no longer, but felt with pride its new strength and steadiness. Yet, with that awareness came a sudden jolt of fear. I was not in my own body; I had no idea what had been happening to my own body all the while I had been within Nighteyes. I had no concept of how much time had passed. In perplexity, I reached for Nighteyes, but he held himself aloof from me.

I only did this to help you, I protested.

He kept his silence. I could not tell his thoughts clearly, but his emotions were plain. He was as insulted and affronted as I had ever felt him.

Fine, then, I told him icily. Have it your way. Angrily I withdrew.

At least, I attempted to withdraw. Suddenly everything was very confusing. I knew I had to go somewhere, but ‘somewhere’ and ‘go’ were not concepts that seemed to apply. It recalled me somewhat to the sensation of being caught unprepared in the full flood of Skill. That river of magic could tatter an inexperienced user’s self to threads, could unfurl a man across the waters of consciousness until he had no self-awareness left. This was different, in that I did not feel spread out and tattering, but trapped in a tangle of myself, bobbing in the current with nowhere to anchor myself save in Nighteyes’ body. I could hear the Fool calling my name, but that did me no good, for I heard his voice with Nighteyes’ ears.

You see, the wolf observed woefully. See what you have done to us? I tried to warn you, I tried to keep you out.

I can correct it, I asserted wildly. We both knew that I did not lie so much as frantically strive that my thought be true.

I divorced myself from his body. I gave up his senses, refused touch and sight and hearing, denied the dust on my tongue and the scent of my nearby body. I pulled my awareness free of his, but then hung there, suspended. I did not know how to get back into my own body.

Then I felt something, a tiny twitch, smaller than if someone had plucked a thread from my shirt. It reached for me, crawling out to me from my true body. To clutch at it was like snatching after a sunbeam. I struggled wildly to grasp it, then subsided back into my formless self, feeling that my snatching at it had only dispersed that faint sending. I held my awareness still and small, waiting as a cat lurks beside a mouse hole. The twitching came again, faint as moonlight through leaves. I forced myself to keep still, forced calmness on myself as I allowed it to find me. Like fine gold thread, it touched me at last. It probed me, and when it was sure of me, it picked at me, pulling me unevenly towards itself. The tug was insistent, yet it had no more strength than a hair. I could do nothing to aid it without destroying it. Instead, I must hang suspended, fearing that the touch would break, as it drew me uncertainly away from the wolf and towards myself. Faster it drew me, and then suddenly I could flow of my own volition.

I abruptly knew the cramped form of my own body. I poured into myself, horrified at how cold and stiff the physical confines of my soul had become. My eyes were sticky and dry from being open and unblinking. At first, I could see nothing. Nor could I speak, for my mouth and throat were likewise dried to leather. I tried to roll over, but my muscles were cramped and unyielding. I could do no more than writhe feebly. Yet even my pain was a blessing, for it was my own, the sensation of my own flesh connecting to my own mind. I gave a hoarse croak of relief.

The Fool’s cupped hands trickled water over my lips and eventually down my throat. Sight came back to me, blurry at first, but enough to reveal that the sun was far past the noon. I had been out of my body for hours. After a time, I could sit up. I reached immediately for Nighteyes. He sprawled beside me still. He did not sleep. His state of unconsciousness was deeper than that. By touching him, I could sense him as a tiny mote of awareness, buried deep. I felt the steady throb of his pulse and knew immense satisfaction. I nudged at his awareness.

Go away! He was still angry with me. I could not care. His lungs worked, his heart beat steadily now. Exhausted as he was, disoriented as I was, still it was all worth it if his life had been saved.

A time later, I located the Fool. He knelt beside me, his arm around my shoulders. I had not been aware of him steadying me. I wobbled my head to look at him. His face sagged with weariness and his brow was creased with pain, but he managed a lop-sided smile. ‘I did not know if I could do it. But it was the only thing I could think of to try.’

After a few moments, his words made sense to me. I looked down at my wrist. His fingerprints were renewed there; not silver as they were the first time he Skill-touched me, but a darker shade of grey than they had been for some time. The thread of awareness that linked us had become one strand stronger. I was appalled at what he had done.

‘Thank you. I suppose.’ I offered the words ungraciously. I felt invaded. I resented that he had touched me in such a way, without my consent. It was childish, but I had not the strength to reach past it just then.

He laughed aloud at me, but I could hear the edge of hysteria in it. ‘I did not think you would like it. Yet, my friend, I could not help myself. I had to do it.’ He drew ragged breath. His voice was softer as he added, ‘And so it begins again, already. Scarcely two days am I at your side, and fate reaches for you. Will this always be the cost for us? Must I always dangle you over death’s jaws in an effort to lure this world into a better course?’ His grip on my shoulders tightened. ‘Ah, Fitz. How can you continually forgive what I do to you?’

I could not forgive it. I did not say so. I looked away from him. ‘I need a moment to myself. Please.’

A bubble of silence met my words. Then, ‘Of course.’ He let his arm fall away from my shoulders and abruptly stood clear of me. It was a relief. His touch on me had been heightening the Skill-bond between us. It made me feel vulnerable. He did not know how to reach across it and plunder my mind, but that did not lessen my fear. A knife to my throat was a threat, even if the hand that held it had only the best of intentions.

I tried to ignore the other side of that coin. The Fool had no concept of how open he was to me just then. The sense of it taunted me, tempting me to attempt a fuller joining. All I would have to do is bid him lay his fingers once more on my wrist. I knew what I could have done with that touch. I could have swept across and into him, known all his secrets, taken all his strength. I could have made his body an extension of my own, used his life and his days for my own purpose.

It was a shameful hunger to feel. I had seen what became of those who yielded to it. How could I forgive him for making me feel it?

My skull throbbed with the familiar pain of a Skill-headache, while my body ached as if I had fought a battle. I felt raw to the world, and even his friend’s touch chafed me. I lurched to my feet and staggered towards the water. I tried to kneel by the stream’s edge, but it was easier to lie on my belly and suck water up into my parched mouth. Once my thirst was assuaged, I splashed my face. I rubbed the water over my face and hair, and then knuckled my eyes until tears ran. The moisture felt good and my vision cleared.

I looked at the slack body of my wolf, and then glanced at the Fool. He stood small, his shoulders rounded, his mouth pinched tight. I had hurt him. I felt regret at that. He had intended only good, yet a stubborn part of me still resented what he had done. I sought for some justification to cling to that stupidity. There was none. Nevertheless, sometimes knowing one has no right to be angry does not disperse all the anger. ‘That’s better,’ I said, and shook the water from my hair, as if I could convince us both that only my thirst had troubled me. The Fool made no reply.

I took a double handful of water to the wolf, and sat by him, to let it trickle over his still-lolling tongue. After a bit, he stirred feebly, enough to pull his tongue back into his mouth.

I made another effort for the Fool. ‘I know that you did what you did to save my life. Thank you.’

He saved both our lives. He spared us continuing in a way that would have destroyed us both. The wolf did not open his eyes, but his thought was strong with passion.

However, what he did –

Was it worse than what you did to me?

I had no answer for that. I could not be sorry that I had kept him alive. Yet –

It was easier to speak to the Fool than follow that thought. ‘You saved both our lives. I had gone … somehow, I had gone inside Nighteyes. With the Skill, I think.’ A flash of insight broke my words. Was this what Chade had spoken of to me, that the Skill could be used to heal? I shuddered. I had imagined it as a sharing of strength, but what I had done – I pushed the knowledge away. ‘I had to try and save him. And … I did help him. But then I could not find my way out of him. If you hadn’t drawn me back …’ I let the words trail off. There was no quick way to explain what he had rescued us from. I knew now, with certainty, that I would tell him the tale of our year among the Old Blood. ‘Let’s go back to the cabin. There is elfbark there, for tea. And I need rest as much as Nighteyes does.’

‘And I, also,’ the Fool acceded faintly.

I glanced over him, noting the grey pallor of fatigue that drooped his face and the deep lines clenched in his brow. Guilt washed through me. Untrained and unaided, he had used the Skill to pull me back into my own body. The magic was not in his blood as it was in mine; he had no hereditary predilection for it. All he had possessed was the ancient Skill-marks on his fingers, the memento of his accidental brush against Verity’s Skill-encrusted hands. That, and the feeble bond we had once shared through that touch were his only tools as he had risked himself to draw me back. Neither fear nor ignorance had stopped him. He had not known the full danger of what he did. I could not decide if that made his act less brave or more so. And all I had done was rebuke him for it.

I recalled the first time that Verity had used my strength to further his own Skill. I had collapsed from the drain of it. Yet the Fool still stood, swaying slightly, but he stood. And he made no complaint of the pain that must be playing hammer and tongs on his brain. Not for the first time, I marvelled at the toughness that resided in his slender body. He must have sensed my eyes on him, for he turned his gaze to mine. I attempted a smile. He answered it with a wry grimace.

Nighteyes rolled onto his belly, then lurched to his feet. Wobbly as a new foal, he tottered to the water and drank. Satisfying his thirst made both of us feel better, yet my legs still trembled with weariness.

‘It’s going to be a long walk back to the cabin,’ I observed.

The Fool’s voice was neutral, yet almost normal as he asked, ‘Can you make it?’

‘With some help.’ I held my hand up to him and he came to take it and draw me to my feet. He held my arm and walked beside me, but I think he leaned on me more than I did on him. I set my teeth and my resolve, and did not reach out to him through that Skill-link that hung between us like a silver chain. I could resist that temptation, I told myself. Verity had. So could I.

The Fool broke the sun-dappled silence of the forest. ‘I thought you were having a seizure at first, as used to fell you. But then you lay so still … I feared you were dying. Your eyes were open and staring. I could not find your pulse. But every now and then, your body would twitch and gasp in some air.’ He paused. ‘I could get no response from you. It was the only thing I could think of to do, to plunge in after you.’

His words horrified me. I was not sure that I wanted to know what my body did when I was out of it. ‘It was probably the only way to save my life.’

‘And mine,’ he said quietly. ‘For despite what it costs either of us, I must keep you alive. You are the wedge I must use, Fitz. And for that, I am sorrier than I can ever say.’

He turned his head as he spoke to me. The openness of that golden gaze combined with the bond between us, gold and silver twining. I recognized and rejected a truth I did not want to know.

Behind us, the wolf paced slowly, his head hanging.

EIGHT

Old Blood

‘… And I trust the hounds will reach you in good health along with this missive. If it be otherwise, please have a bird sent me with such tidings, that I may advise you as to their care. In closing, I ask that you please pass on my regards to Lord Chivalry Farseer. Inform him, with my greetings, that the colt he entrusted to my care still suffers from too abrupt a weaning from his dam. In nature, he is skittish and suspicious, but we shall hope that gentle treatment and patience coupled with a firm hand will cure him of this. He has also a stubborn streak, most vexatious to his trainer, but this, I believe, we may attribute to his sharing his sire’s temperament. Discipline may supplant it with strength of spirit. I remain, as always, his most humble servant.

My best wishes also to your mistress and children, Tallman, and I look forward, when next you come to Buckkeep, to settling our wager regarding my Vixen’s tenacity on a scent as opposed to your Stubtail.’

– Burrich, Stablemaster, Buckkeep

From a missive sent to Tallman, Stablemaster, Withywoods

By the time we reached the cabin, darkness threatened the edges of my vision. I gripped the Fool’s slender shoulder and steered him towards the door. He stumbled up the steps. The wolf followed us. I pushed the Fool towards a chair and he dropped into it. Nighteyes went straight to my bedchamber and clambered up onto my bed. He made a brief show of rucking up the blankets, then settled into it and dropped into a limp sleep. I quested towards him with the Wit, but found him closed to me. I had to be content with watching the rhythmic rise and fall of his ribs as I built up the fire and put a kettle on to boil. Each step of the simple task required all my concentration. The thundering of pain in my head demanded I simply drop in my tracks, yet I could not allow myself to do that.

At the table, the Fool had pillowed his head on his arms, the picture of misery. As I took down my supply of elfbark, he rolled his head to watch me. The Fool made a face at his bitter memory of the dark, dried bark. ‘So you keep a supply at hand, do you?’ His question came out as a croak.

‘I do,’ I conceded, measuring out the bark. I began to grind it with a mortar and pestle. As soon as some was powdered, I dipped my finger into it and touched it to the side of my tongue. I felt a brief easing of the pain.

‘And you use it often?’

‘Only when I must.’

He took a deep breath and let it out. Then he stood reluctantly, and found mugs for both of us. When the water boiled, I prepared a strong pot of elfbark tea. The drug would ease the headache of Skilling, but leave behind both a jittery restlessness and a morose spirit. I had heard tales that the slave owners of Chalced gave it to their slaves, to increase their stamina at the same time that it drained their will to escape. Using elfbark is said to become a habit, but I have never found it so. Perhaps regular forced use of it could create a craving, but my own use of it has always been as a remedy. It is also said to extinguish the ability to Skill in the young, and to cripple its growth for older Skill-users. That I might have considered a blessing, but my experience has been that elfbark can deaden the ability to Skill without easing the craving to do so.

I poured two mugs of it after the bark had steeped, and sweetened both with honey. I thought of going to the garden for mint. It seemed much too far away. I set a mug before the Fool and took a seat across from him.

He lifted his mug in a mocking toast. ‘To us: the White Prophet and his Catalyst.’

I lifted mine. ‘The Fool and the Fitz,’ I amended his words, and touched my mug to his.

I took a sip. The elfbark spread bitterness all through my mouth. As I swallowed it, I felt my throat tighten in its wake. The Fool watched me drink, then took a mouthful of his own. He grimaced at it, but almost immediately, the lines in his brow relaxed somewhat. He frowned at his mug. ‘Is there no other way to get the benefit of this?’

I grinned sourly. ‘I was desperate enough, once, to simply chew the bark. It cut the insides of my cheeks to ribbons and left my mouth so puckered with bitterness I could scarcely drink water to get rid of the taste.’

‘Ah.’ He added another liberal dollop of honey to his, drank from the mug, and scowled.

A little silence fell. The edge of uneasiness hovered between us still. No apology would clear it, but perhaps an explanation would. I glanced over at the wolf sleeping on my bed. I cleared my throat. ‘Well. After we left the Mountain Kingdom, we journeyed back to the borders of Buck.’

The Fool lifted his eyes to mine. He propped his chin on one hand and looked at me, giving me his absolute and silent attention. He waited as I found my words. They did not come easily. Slowly I strung together for him the tale of those days.

Nighteyes and I had not hurried our journey. It took us the better part of a year of wandering by a very roundabout path through the Mountains, and across the wide plains of Farrow before we returned to the vicinity of Crowsneck in Buck. Autumn had just begun her warnings when we reached the low-roofed log-and-stone cabin built into the rise of the forested hill. The great evergreens stood impervious to autumn’s threats, but frost had just touched the leaves of the small bushes and plants that grew on the mossy roof, outlining some in yellow and blushing others to red. The wide door stood open to the cool afternoon, and a ripple of near-invisible smoke rose from the squat chimney. There was no need to knock or call. The Old Blood folk within knew we were there, as surely as I could sense that both Rolf and Holly were within. Unsurprised, Black Rolf came to the threshold. He stood in the cavernous dark of his cabin and frowned out at us.

‘So, you’ve finally realized you need to learn what I can teach you,’ he greeted us. The stink of bear hung about the place, making both Nighteyes and me uneasy. Yet I still had nodded.

He laughed aloud, and his welcoming grin divided the forest of his black beard. I had forgotten the size of the hulking man. He lumbered out and engulfed me in a friendly hug that nearly cracked my ribs. Almost, I felt the thought he sent to Hilda, the bear that was his bond-animal.

‘Old Blood welcomes Old Blood,’ Holly emerged to greet us gravely. Rolf’s wife was as slender and quiet as I recalled her. Her Wit beast, Sleet, rode on her wrist. The hawk fixed me with one bright eye, then took flight as she drew closer to us. She smiled and shook her head to watch him go. Her greeting was more restrained than Rolf’s, yet somehow warmer. ‘Well met and welcome,’ she offered us. She turned her head slightly and sent us a sideways glance from her dark eyes. A quick smile lit her face even as she ducked her head to conceal it. She stood beside Rolf, as slight as he was broad. She preened her short, sleek hair back from her face. ‘Come within and share food,’ she invited.

‘And then we shall take a walk, find a good place for your den, and start building it,’ Rolf offered, blunt and direct as always. He glanced up through the forest roof at the overcast sky. ‘Winter draws nigh. You were foolish to delay so long.’

And as simply as that, we became part of the Witted folk that lived in the area outlying Crowsneck. They were forest-dwellers, going into the town only for those things they could not make for themselves. They kept their magic concealed from the town-dwellers, for to be Witted was to invite the rope and the blade to your door. Not that Rolf and Holly or any of the others referred to themselves as Witted. That was the epithet flung by those that both hated and feared Beast magic; it was a taunt to be hung by. Amongst themselves, they spoke of their kind as Old Blood, and pitied any children born to them who could not bond with an animal, mind and spirit, as ordinary folk might pity a child born blind or deaf.

There were not many of the Old Blood; no more than five families, spread far and wide in the forests about Crowsneck. Persecution had taught them not to dwell too closely together. They recognized one another, and that was enough community for them. Old Blood families generally practised the solitary trades that permitted them to live apart from ordinary folk and yet close enough to barter and enjoy the benefits of a town. They were woodcutters and fur-trappers, and the like. One family lived with their otters near a clay bank, and made exquisitely graceful pottery. One old man, bonded with a boar, lived amply on the coin the richer folk of the town paid him for the truffles he foraged. By and large, they were a peaceful folk, a people who accepted their roles as members of the natural world without disdain. It could not be said that they felt the same about humanity in general. From them, I heard and sensed much disapproval for folk that lived cheek by jowl in the towns and thought of animals as mere servants or pets, ‘dumb’ beasts. They disparaged, too, those of Old Blood who lived amongst ordinary folk and denied their magic to do so. Often it was assumed I came of such a family, and it was difficult to dispel such ideas without revealing too much of the truth about myself.

‘And did you succeed in that?’ the Fool asked quietly.

I had the uneasy feeling he was asking the question because he knew I had not. I sighed. ‘In fact, that was the most difficult line I walked. In the months that passed, I wondered if I had not made a great error in coming back amongst them. Years before, when I had first met them, Rolf and Holly had known that my name was Fitz. They had known, too, of my hatred for Regal. From that knowledge to identifying me as Fitz the Wit Bastard was a tiny step. I knew that Rolf took it, for he attempted to talk of it with me one day. I told him flatly that he was mistaken, that it was a great and unfortunate coincidence both of name and bond-beast that had caused me a great deal of trouble in my lifetime. I was so adamant on the point that even that blunt soul soon realized he would never badger me into admitting otherwise. I lied, and he knew I lied, but I made it clear that it must be taken as truth between us, and so we left it. Holly, I am certain, knew as much but never spoke of it. I did not think the others in the community made the connection. I introduced myself as Tom, and so they all called me, even Holly and Rolf. Fitz, I prayed, would stay dead and buried.’

‘So they knew.’ The Fool confirmed his suspicion. ‘That group, at least, knew that Fitz, Chivalry’s bastard, did not die.’

I shrugged a shoulder. It surprised me that the old epithet still stung as it did, even from his lips. Surely I had grown past that. Once, I had thought of myself only as ‘the bastard’. But I had long ago got past that and realized that a man was what he made of himself, not what he was born. I recalled suddenly how the hedge-witch had puzzled over my disparate palms. I resisted the impulse to look at my own hands and instead poured us both more of the elfbark brew. Then I rose to rummage through my larder to see what I could find to drive the bitter taste from my mouth. I picked up the Sandsedge brandy, then determinedly set it back again. Instead, I found the last of the cheese, a bit hard but still flavourful, and half a loaf of bread. We had not eaten since breaking our fast that morning. Now that my headache was quieting, I found myself ravenously hungry. The Fool shared my appetite, for as I whittled hunks off the cheese, he sliced thick slabs off the bread.

My story hung unfinished in the air between us.

I sighed. ‘There was little I could do about what they knew or didn’t know, save deny it. Nighteyes and I needed what they knew. They alone could teach us what we had to learn.’

He nodded, and stacked cheese on top of bread before biting into it. He waited for me to continue.

The words came to me slowly. I did not like to recall that year. Nonetheless, I learned much, not just from Rolf’s deliberate teaching, but by simple exposure to the Old Blood community. ‘Rolf was not the best of teachers. He was short-tempered and impatient, especially around meal-times, much inclined to cuff and growl, and sometimes roar his frustration at a slow student. He simply could not grasp how completely ignorant I was of Old Blood ways and customs. I suppose by his lights I was as ill-mannered as a deliberately rude child. My “loud” Wit-conversations with Nighteyes spoiled hunting for other bonded predators. I had never known that we must announce our presence through the Wit if we shifted territory. In my days at Buckkeep, I had never even known that community existed among the Witted ones, let alone that they had customs of their own.’

‘Wait,’ the Fool interrupted me. ‘Then you are saying that Witted ones can share thoughts with each other, just as thoughts can be exchanged through the Skill.’ He seemed very excited at the idea.

‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘It’s not like that. I can sense if another Witted one is speaking with his bond-beast … if they are careless and free in their conversing, as Nighteyes and I used to be. Then I will be aware of the Wit being used, even though I am not privy to the thoughts they share. It’s like the humming of a harp string.’ I smiled ruefully. ‘That was how Burrich kept guard on me, to be sure I was not indulging in the Wit, once he was aware I had it. He kept his own walls firm against it. He did not use it, and he tried to screen himself from the beasts that reached towards him with it. For a long time, that kept him ignorant of my use of it. He had set Wit-walls, similar to the Skill-walls that Verity taught me to set. But once he realized I was Witted, I think he lowered them, to oversee me.’ I paused at the Fool’s puzzled gaze. ‘Do you understand?’

‘Not completely. But enough to take your meaning. But … can you overhear another Witted one’s beast speaking to that Witted one, then?’

I shook my head again, then nearly laughed at his baffled look. ‘It seems so natural to me, it is difficult to put it into words.’ I pondered a bit. ‘Imagine that you and I shared a personal language, one that only we two could interpret.’

‘Perhaps we do,’ he offered with a smile.

I continued doggedly. ‘The thoughts that Nighteyes and I share are our thoughts, and largely incomprehensible to anyone who overhears us using the Wit. That language has always been our own, but Rolf taught us to direct our thoughts specifically to one another, rather than flinging our Wit wide to the world. Another Witted one might be aware of us if he were specifically listening for us, but generally, our communication now blends with all the Wit-whispering of the rest of the world.’

The Fool’s brow was furrowed. ‘So only Nighteyes can speak to you?’

‘Nighteyes speaks most clearly to me. Sometimes, another creature, not bonded to me, will share thoughts with me, but the meaning is usually hard to follow; rather like trying to communicate with someone who speaks a foreign but similar language. There can be much hand waving and raised voices repeating words and gesturing. One catches the gist of the meaning with none of the niceties.’ I paused and pondered. ‘I think it is easier if the animal is bonded to another Witted one. Rolf’s bear spoke to me once. And a ferret. And between Nighteyes and Burrich … it must have been oddly humiliating to Burrich, but he let Nighteyes speak to him when I was in Regal’s dungeons. The understanding was imperfect, but it was good enough that Burrich and he could plot together to save me.’

I wandered for a time in that memory, then pulled myself back to my tale. ‘Rolf taught me the basic courtesy of the Old Blood folk but he did not teach us gently; he was as prone to chastise before we were aware of our errors as afterward. Nighteyes was more tolerant of him than I was, perhaps because he was more amenable to a pack hierarchy. I think it was more difficult for me to learn from him, for I had grown accustomed to a certain amount of adult dignity. Had I come to him younger, I might have accepted more blindly the roughness of his teaching. My experiences of the last few years had left me violent towards any person who showed aggression towards me. I think the first time I snarled back at him after he shouted at me for some error, it shocked him. He was cold and distant with me for the remainder of the day, and I perceived I must bow my head to his rough ways if I were to learn from him. And so I did, but it was like learning to control my temper all over again. As it was, I was often hard-pressed to quell my anger towards him. His impatience with my slowness frustrated me as much as my “human thinking” baffled him. On his worst days, he reminded me of the Skillmaster Galen, and he seemed as narrow-minded and cruel as he spoke spitefully of how badly educated I had been amongst the unBlooded. I resented that he should speak so of folk that I regarded as my own. I knew, too, that he thought me a suspicious and distrustful man who never completely lowered all my barriers to him. I held back much from him, that is true. He demanded to know of my upbringing, of what I could recall of my parents, of when I had first felt my Old Blood stir in me. None of the sparse answers I gave him pleased him, and yet I could not go into detail without betraying too much of whom and what I had been. The little I did tell him provoked him so much that I am sure a fuller tale would have disgusted him. He approved that Burrich had prevented me from bonding young, and yet condemned all his reasons for doing so. That I had still managed to form a bond with Smithy despite Burrich’s watchfulness convinced him of my deceitful nature. Repeatedly, he came back to my wayward childhood as the root of all my problems in finding my Old Blood magic. Again, he reminded me of Galen disparaging the Bastard for trying to master the Skill, the magic of Kings. Among a folk where I had thought finally to find acceptance, I discovered that yet again I was neither fish nor fowl. If I complained to Nighteyes at how he treated us, Rolf would snarl at me to stop whimpering to my wolf and apply myself to learning better ways.’

Nighteyes learned more easily and often the wolf was the one to convey finally to me what Rolf had failed to rattle into me. Nighteyes also sensed more strongly than I did how much Rolf pitied him. The wolf did not react well to that, for Rolf’s pity was based on the notion that I did not treat Nighteyes as well as I should. He took it amiss that I had been almost a grown man and Nighteyes little more than a cub at the time of our bonding. Over and over, Rolf rebuked me for treating Nighteyes as less than an equal, a distinction that both of us disputed.

The first time Rolf and I butted heads over it was in the fashioning of our winter home. We selected a site convenient to Rolf and Holly’s home, yet isolated enough that we would not intrude on one another. That first day, I began to build a cabin, whilst Nighteyes went hunting. When Rolf dropped by, he rebuked me for forcing Nighteyes to live in a dwelling that was entirely human. The structure of his own home incorporated a natural cave in the hillside, and was designed to be as much bear den as man-house. He insisted that Nighteyes should dig a den into the hill-face, and that I must then build my hut to incorporate it. When I conferred on this with Nighteyes, he replied that he had been accustomed to human dwellings since he was a pup, and he saw no reason why I should not do all the work to make a comfortable place for both of us. When I conveyed this to Rolf, he vented his temper at both of us explosively, telling Nighteyes he found nothing humorous in his surrendering his nature for the selfish comfort of his partner. It was so far from what either of us felt about the situation that we very nearly left Crowsneck right then. Nighteyes was the one who decided we must stay and learn. We followed Rolf’s directions, and Nighteyes laboriously excavated a den for himself and I built my hut around the mouth of it. The wolf spent very little time in the den, preferring the warmth of my fireside, but Rolf never discovered that.

Many of my disagreements with Rolf shared those same roots. He saw Nighteyes as too humanized, and shook his head at how little of wolf there was in me. Yet at the same time he warned us both that we had twined ourselves too tightly together, that he could find no place where he could sense one of us and not the other. Perhaps the most valuable thing Rolf taught us was how to separate from one another. Through me, he conveyed to Nighteyes the need that each of us had for privacy in matters such as mating or grieving. I had never been able to convince the wolf that the need for such a sundering existed. Again, Nighteyes learned it more swiftly and better than I did. When he so desired, he could vanish completely from my senses. I did not enjoy the sensation of being isolated from him. I felt halved by it, and sometimes as less than a half, and yet we both saw the wisdom of it, and strove to perfect our abilities in that area. Yet no matter how satisfied we were with our progress, Rolf remained adamant that even in our separations, we still shared a unity so basic that neither of us were even aware of it any more. When I tried to shrug it off as inconsequential, he became almost incensed.

‘And when one of you dies, what then? Death comes to all of us, sooner or later, and it cannot be cheated. Two souls can not long abide in one body before one takes control and the other becomes but a shadow. It is a cruelty, no matter which becomes the stronger. Hence, all Old Blood traditions shun such greedy snatching at life.’ Here Rolf frowned at me most severely. Did he suspect I had already side-stepped my death once by such a ruse? He could not, I promised myself. I returned his gaze guilelessly.

He knit his dark brows ominously. ‘When a creature’s life is over, it is over. It perverts all nature to extend it. Yet Old Blood alone knows the true depth of agony when two souls that have been joined are parted by death. So it must be. You must be able to separate into yourselves when that time comes.’ He beetled his heavy brows at us as he spoke. Nighteyes and I both grew still of thought, considering it. Even Rolf finally seemed to sense how much it distressed us. His voice grew gruffer, yet kinder. ‘Our custom is not cruel, at least no crueller than it must be. There is a way to keep a remembrance of all that has been shared. A way to keep the voice of the other’s wisdom and the love of the other’s heart.’

‘So one partner could go on living within the other?’ I asked, confused.

Rolf shot me a disgusted look. ‘No. I have just told you, we do not do that. When your time comes to die, you should separate yourself from your partner and die, not seek to leech onto his life.’

Nighteyes made a brief whistle of whine. He was as confused as I was. Rolf seemed to concede that he was teaching a difficult concept, for he stopped and scratched his beard noisily. ‘It’s like this. My mother is long dead and gone. But I can recall still the sound of her voice singing me a lullaby, and hear the warnings she would give when I tried to do something foolish. Right?’

‘I suppose so,’ I conceded. This was another sore spot between Rolf and me. He had never accepted that I had no memories of my natural mother, although I had spent the first six years of my life with her. At my lukewarm response, he narrowed his eyes.

‘As can most folks,’ he went on more loudly, as if sound alone could persuade me. ‘And that is what you can have when Nighteyes is gone. Or what he can keep of you.’

‘Memories,’ I agreed quietly, nodding. Even discussing Nighteyes’ death was unsettling.

‘No!’ Rolf exclaimed. ‘Not just memories. Anyone can have memories. But what a bonded one leaves behind for his partner is deeper and richer than memories. It’s a presence. Not living on in the other’s mind, not sharing thoughts, decisions, and experiences. But just – being there. Standing by. So now you understand,’ he informed me heavily.

No, I started to say, but Nighteyes leaned heavily against my leg, so I simply made a sound that might have been agreement. And over the next month, Rolf instructed us in his dogged way, bidding us separate, and then allowing us to come back together, but only in a thin, insubstantial way. I found it completely unsatisfactory. I was convinced we were doing something wrong, that this could not be the comfort and ‘being’ that Rolf had spoken about. When I expressed my doubts to Rolf, he surprised me by agreeing with me, but then went on to declare that we were still far too intertwined, that the wolf and I must separate even more. And we gave heed to him and sincerely tried, but held our own counsel as to what we would actually do when death came for one of us.

We never voiced our obstinacy, but I am sure Rolf was aware of it. He took great pains to ‘prove’ to us the error of our ways, and the examples he showed us were truly wrenching. A careless Old Blood family had let swallows nest in their eaves where their infant son could not only hear their familial twitterings but watch their coming and goings. And that was all he did, even now as a grown man of about thirty. In Buckkeep Town, folk would have called him simple, and so he was, but when Rolf bade us reach towards him more discriminatingly with the Wit, the reason was clear to us both. The boy had bonded, not just to a swallow, but to all swallows. In his mind he was a bird, and his dabbling in mud and fluttering hands and snapping after insects were the work of his bird’s mind.

‘And that’s what comes of bonding too young,’ Rolf told us darkly.

There was one other pair he showed us, but only from a distance. On an early morning when mist lay heavy in the vales, we lay on our bellies on the lip of a dell and made no sound nor thought amongst ourselves. A white hind drifted through the fog towards a pond, walking not with a deer’s true caution but with a woman’s languid grace. I knew her partner must be close by, concealed in the mist. The deer lowered her muzzle to the water and drank long slow draughts of the coolness. Then she slowly lifted her head. Her large ears swivelled forwards. I felt the tentative brush of her questing. I blinked, trying to focus on her, while the wolf made a small, questioning whine in the back of his throat.

Rolf rose abruptly, showing himself disdainfully. He coldly refused the contact. I sensed his disgust as he strode away, but we remained, staring down at her. Perhaps she sensed ambivalence, for she watched us with a very undeerlike boldness. An odd moment of vertigo washed over me. I squinted, trying to make the shape before me resolve into the two that my Wit told me were there.

When I was Chade’s apprentice, he used several exercises to teach me to see what my eyes truly beheld, not what my mind expected to see. Most were simple drills, to look at a tangle of line and decide if it were knotted or merely flung down, or to glance at a jumble of gloves and know which ones lacked mates. A more peculiar trick he showed me was to write the name of a colour in a mismatched ink, the word ‘red’ painted in bright blue letters. To read a list of such colours, correctly saying the printed word rather than the colour of the inked letters, took more concentration than I had expected it would.

And so I rubbed my eyes and looked again and saw only a deer. The woman had been an expectation of my mind, based on my Wit. Physically, she was not there. Her presence inside the hind distorted my Wit-sense of the deer. I shuddered away from the wrongness of it. Rolf had left us behind. In confusion, Nighteyes and I hastened after Rolf as he strode away from the sheltered dell and the quiet pool. Some time and distance later, ‘What was that?’ I asked him.

He rounded on me, affronted by my ignorance. ‘What was that? That was you, a dozen years hence, if you do not mend your ways. You saw her eyes! That was no deer down there, but a woman in the skin of a hind. It’s what I wanted you to see. The wrongness of it. The complete perversion of what should have been shared trust.’

I looked at him quietly, waiting. I think he had expected me to concur with his judgement, for he made a deep noise in his throat. ‘That was Delayna, who slipped through the ice into Marple Pond and drowned two winters ago. She ought to have died right then, but no, she clung to Parela. The hind either hadn’t the heart or the strength to oppose her. Now there they are, a deer with the mind and heart of a woman, and Parela with scarcely a thought to call her own. It goes against all nature, it does. Ones like Delayna are at the root of all the evil talk the unBlooded wag on about us. She’s what makes them want to hang us and burn us over water. She deserves such treatment.’

I looked away from his vehemence. I’d come too close to that fate myself to believe anyone could deserve it. My body had lain cold in my grave for days while I’d shared Nighteyes’ flesh and life. I was certain then that Rolf suspected as much of me. I wondered then, if he so despised me, why he taught me at all. As if he had caught some whiff of my thought, he added gruffly, ‘Anyone untaught can do a wrong thing. But after he’s been taught, there’s no excuse to repeat it. None at all.’

He turned and strode off down the path. We trailed after him. Nighteyes’ tail stuck out straight behind him. Rolf muttered to himself as he stumped along. ‘Delayna’s greed destroyed them both. Parela’s got no life as a deer. No mate, no young, when she dies, she’ll just stop, and Delayna with her. Delayna couldn’t accept death as a woman, but she won’t accept life as a deer, either. When the bucks call, she won’t let Parela answer them. She probably thinks she’s being faithful to her husband or some such nonsense. When Parela dies and Delayna with her, what will either of them have gained, save a few years of existence that neither of them could call complete?’

I could not argue with him. The wrongness I had sensed still crawled along my spine. ‘Yet.’ I struggled to make myself admit this to the Fool. ‘Yet privately I wondered if any save those two could fully understand the decision that had been made. If perhaps, despite how it appeared to us, it felt right to them.’

I paused for a time in my telling. The story of those two always disturbed me. If Burrich had not been able to call me back from the wolf and into my own body, would we have become as they did? If the Fool had not been nearby today, would Nighteyes and I dwell in one body even now? I did not speak the thought aloud. I knew the Fool would have already made that leap. I cleared my throat.

‘Rolf taught us a great deal in the year we were there, but even as we learned the techniques of the magic we shared, Nighteyes and I stopped short of accepting all the customs of the Old Blood folk. The secrets we learned, I felt we had a right to, simply by virtue of what we were, but I did not feel bound to accept the rules Rolf attempted to impose on us. Perhaps I would have been wiser to dissemble, but I was tired to death of deception, and the layers of lies that must be woven to protect it. So I held myself back from that world, and Nighteyes consented to be held back with me. So it was that we observed their community, but never engaged fully in the lives of the Old Blood folk.’

‘And Nighteyes, too, held back from them?’ The Fool’s question was gentle. I tried not to think that there might be a hidden rebuke in it, a questioning as to whether I was the one who had held him back for my own selfish reasons.

‘He felt as I did. The knowledge of the magic that is in us by our blood: this was something they owed to us. And when Rolf dangled it over us as a reward to be given only when we accepted the yoke of his rules – well, that is a form of exclusion, my friend.’ I glanced over at the grey wolf curled in my blankets. He slept deeply, paying the price of my interference with his body.

‘Did no one extend a simple friend’s hand to you there?’ The Fool’s question drew me back to my story. I considered it.

‘Holly tried to. I think she pitied me. She was shy and solitary by nature; it was something we had in common. Sleet and his mate had a nest in a great tree on the hillside above Rolf’s house, and Holly herself was wont to spend hours perched on a woven platform not far below Sleet’s nest. She was never talkative to me, but showed me many small kindnesses, including the gift of a featherbed, a side-product of Sleet’s kills.’ I smiled to myself. ‘And she taught me the many skills of living on my own, all I had never learned while I lived in Buckkeep Castle and others saw to my needs. There is a genuine pleasure to making leavened bread, and she taught me to cook, beyond Burrich’s travelling stews and porridges. I was ragged and worn when I first arrived there. She demanded all my clothes, not to mend, but to teach me the proper care of them. I sat by her fire, and learned to darn socks without lumping them, how to turn the hems on cuffs before they frayed hopelessly …’ I shook my head, smiling at the memories.

‘And no doubt Rolf was pleased to see your heads bent together so cosily and so often?’ The Fool’s tone asked the other question. Had I given Rolf reason to be jealous and spiteful?

I drank the last of the lukewarm elfbark tea and leaned back in my chair. The familiar melancholy of the herb was stealing over me. ‘It was never like that, Fool. You can laugh if you wish, but it was more like finding a mother. Not that she was that much older than I, but the gentleness and acceptance and the wishing me well. But,’ I cleared my throat, ‘you are right. Rolf was jealous, though he never put it into words. He would come in from the cold, to find Nighteyes sprawled on his hearth, and my hands full of yarn from some project of Holly’s needles, and he would immediately find some other task that she must do for him. Not that he treated her badly, but he took pains to make it clear she was his woman. Holly never spoke of it to me, but in a way I think she did it for the purpose, to remind him that however many years they had been together, she still had a life and a will of her own. Not that she ever tried to raise the pitch of his jealousy.

‘In fact, before the winter was over, she had made efforts to bring me into the Old Blood community. At Holly’s invitation, friends came to call, and she took great pains to introduce me to all of them. Several families had marriageable daughters, and these ones seemed to visit most often when I, too, was invited to share a meal with Rolf and Holly. Rolf drank and laughed and became expansive when guests called, and his enjoyment of these occasions was evident. He often observed aloud that this was the merriest winter he could recall in many a year, from which I deduced that Holly did not often open her home to so many guests. Yet she never made her efforts to find me a companion too painfully evident. It was obvious that she considered Twinet my best match. She was a woman but a few years older than me, tall and dark-haired with deep blue eyes. Her companion beast was a crow, as merry and mischievous as she was. We became friends, but my heart was not ready for anything more than that. I think her father more resented my lack of ardour than Twinet did, for he made several ponderous comments to the effect that a woman would not wait forever. Twinet, I sensed, was not as interested in finding a mate as her parents supposed. We remained friends throughout the spring and into summer. Ollie, Twinet’s father, gossiping to Rolf, precipitated my departure from the Old Blood community at Crowsneck. He had told his daughter that she must either stop seeing me, or press me to declare my intent. In response, Twinet had strongly expressed her own intent, which was not to marry anyone who did not suit her, let alone “a man so much younger than myself, both in years and heart. For the sake of making grandchildren, you’d have me bed with someone raised among the unBlooded, and carrying the taint of Farseer blood.”

‘Her words were carried back to me, not by Rolf, but by Holly. She spoke them softly to me, her eyes downcast as if shamed to utter such rumour. But when she looked up at me, so calmly and gently waiting for my denial, my ready lies died on my lips. I thanked her quietly for making me privy to Twinet’s feelings about me, and told her that she had given me much to ponder. Rolf was not there. I had come to their home to borrow his splitting maul, for summer is the time to make ready winter firewood. I left without asking for the loan of it, for both Nighteyes and I immediately knew that we would not be wintering amongst the Old Blood. By the time the moon appeared, the wolf and I had once more left Buck Duchy behind us. I hoped that our abrupt departure would be seen as a man’s reaction to a courtship gone bad rather than the Bastard fleeing those who had recognized him.’

Silence fell. I think the Fool knew that I had spoken aloud to him my most lingering fear. The Old Blood had knowledge of my identity, of my name, and that gave them power over me. What I would never admit to Starling, I explained plainly to the Fool. Such power over a man should not reside with those who do not love him. Yet they had it, and there was nothing I could do about it. I lived alone and apart from the Old Blood folk, but not a moment passed for me that I was not distantly aware of my vulnerability to them. I thought of telling him Starling’s story of the minstrel at Springfest. Later, I promised myself. Later. It was as if I wished to hide danger from myself. I felt suddenly morose and sour. I glanced up to find the Fool’s eyes on my face.

‘It’s the elfbark,’ he said quietly.

‘Elfbark,’ I conceded irritably, but could not convince myself that the hopelessness that swept through me was completely the after-effect of the drug. Did not at least some of it stem from the pointlessness of my own life?

The Fool got up and paced the room restlessly. He went from door to hearth to window twice, and then diverted to the cupboard. He brought the brandy and two cups back to the table. It seemed as good an idea as any. I watched him pour.

I know we drank that evening and well into the night. The Fool took over the talking. I think he tried to be amusing and lighten my mood, but his own spirits seemed as damped as mine. From anecdotes of the Bingtown Traders, he launched into a wild tale of sea-serpents that entered cocoons to emerge as dragons. When I demanded to know why I had not seen any of these dragons, he shook his head. ‘Stunted,’ he said sadly. ‘They emerged in the late spring, weak and thin, like kittens born too soon. They may yet grow to greatness, but for now the poor creatures feel shamed at their frailty. They cannot even hunt for themselves.’ I well recall his look of wide-eyed guilt. His golden eyes bored into me. ‘Could it be my fault?’ he asked softly, senselessly at the end of his tale. ‘Did I attach myself to the wrong person?’ Then he filled his glass again and drank it down with a purposefulness that reminded me of Burrich in one of his black moods.

I don’t remember going to bed that night, but I do recall lying there, my arm flung across the sleeping wolf, drowsily watching the Fool. He had taken out a funny little instrument that had but three strings. He sat before the fire and strummed it, plucking discordant notes that he smoothed with the words of a sad song in a language I had never heard. I set my fingers to my own wrist. In the darkness, I could feel him there. He did not turn to look at me, but awareness prickled between us. His voice seemed to grow truer in my ears, and I knew he sang the song of an exile longing for his homeland.

NINE

Dead Man’s Regrets

The Skill is often said to be the hereditary magic of the Farseer line, and certainly it seems to flow most predictably in those bloodlines. It is not unknown, however, for the Skill to crop up as a latent talent almost anywhere in the Six Duchies. In earlier reigns, it was customary for the Skillmaster who served the Farseer monarch at Buckkeep regularly to seek out youngsters who showed potential for the Skill. They were brought to Buckkeep, instructed in the Skill if they showed strong talent, and encouraged to form coteries: mutually chosen groups of six that aided the reigning monarch as required. Although there is a great dearth of information on these coteries, almost as if scrolls relating to them were deliberately destroyed, oral tradition indicates that there were seldom more than two or three coteries in existence at any time, and that strong Skill-users have always been rare. The procedure Skillmasters used for locating children with latent talent is lost to time. King Bounty, father to King Shrewd, discontinued the practice of building coteries, perhaps believing that restricting knowledge of the Skill to the exclusive use of princes and princesses would increase the power of those who did possess it. Thus it was that when war came to the shores of the Six Duchies in the reign of King Shrewd, there were no Skill coteries to aid the Farseer reign in the defence of the kingdom.

I awoke in the night with a jolt. Malta. I had left the Fool’s mare picketed out on the hillside. The pony would come in, and likely had even put herself within the barn, but I had left the horse out there, all day, with no water.

There was only one thing to do about it. I arose silently and left the cabin, not closing the door behind me lest the shut of it awaken the Fool. Even the wolf I left sleeping as I walked out into the dark alone. I stopped briefly at the barn. As I suspected, the pony had come in. I touched her gently with my Wit-sense. She was sleeping and I left her where she was.

I climbed the hill to where I had picketed the horse, glad that I was not walking in the true dark of a winter night. The stars and the full moon seemed very close. Even so, my familiarity with my path guided me more than my eyes. As I came up on Malta, the horse gave a rebuking snort. I untied her picket line and led her down the hill. When the stream cut our path on its way to the sea, I stopped and let her drink.

It was a beautiful summer night. The air was mild. The chirring of night insects filled the air, accompanied by the sound of the horse sucking water. I let my gaze wander, filling myself with the night. Dark stole the colours of the grass and trees, but somehow their stark shades of black and grey made the landscape seem more intricate. The moisture in the cooler air awoke all the summer scents that had dozed by day. I opened my mouth and drew in a deep breath, tasting the night more fully. I gave myself up to my senses, letting go of my human cares, taking this moment of now and letting it stretch eternally around me. My Wit unfurled around me and I became one with the night splendour.

There is a natural euphoria to the Wit. It is both like and unlike the Skill. With the Wit, one is aware of all the life that surrounds one. It was not just the warmth of the mare nearby me that I sensed. I knew the scintillant forms of the myriad insects that populated the grasses, and felt even the shadowy life force of the great oak that lifted its limbs between the moon and me. Just up the hillside, a rabbit crouched motionless in the summer grasses. I felt its indistinct presence, not as a piece of life located in a certain place, but as one sometimes hears a single voice’s note within a market’s roar. But above all, I felt a physical kinship with all that lived in the world. I had a right to be here. I was as much a part of this summer night as the insects or the water purling past my feet. I think that old magic draws much of its strength from that acknowledgement: that we are a part of that world, no more, but certainly no less than the rabbit.

That rightness of unity washed through me, laving away the nastiness of the Skill-greed that had earlier befouled my soul. I took a deeper breath, and then breathed it out as if it were my last, willing myself to be part of this good, clean night.

My vision wavered, doubled, and then cleared. For a pent breath of time, I was not myself, was not on the summer hillside near my cabin, and I was not alone.

I was a boy again, escaped from confining stone walls and tangling bedclothes. I ran lightshod through a sheep pasture dotted with tufts of ungrazed weeds, trying vainly to keep up with my companion. She was as beautiful as the star-dotted night, her tawny coat spangled with darkness. She moved as unobtrusively as night herself did. I followed her, not with human eyes, but with the Wit-bond that joined us. I was drunk with love of her and love of this night, intoxicated with the heady rush of this wild freedom. I knew I had to go back before the sun rose. She knew, just as strongly, that we did not, that there was no better time than now to make our escape.

And in my next breath, that knowing was gone. The night still bloomed and beckoned around me, but I was a grown man, not a boy lost in the wonder of his first Wit-bond. I did not know who my senses had brushed, or where they were, nor why we had meshed our awarenesses so completely. I wondered if he had been as cognizant of me as I was of him. It did not matter. Wherever they were, whoever they were, I wished them well in their night’s hunting. I hoped their bond would last long and be deep as their bones.

I felt a questioning tug at the lead rope. Malta had quenched her thirst and had no wish to stand still while the insects feasted on her. I became aware that my own warm body had attracted a swarm of little blood-suckers as well. She swished her tail and I waved my hand about my head before we set off down the hill once more. I stabled her, and slipped softly back into the cabin, to seek out my own bed for the rest of the night. Nighteyes had stretched out, leaving me less than half the bed, but I did not mind. I stretched out beside him, and set my hand lightly on his ribs. The beating of his heart and the movement of his breath were more soothing than any lullaby. As I closed my eyes, I felt more at peace than I had in weeks.

I awoke easily and early the next morning. My interlude on the hillside seemed to have rested me more than sleep. The wolf had not fared so well. He still slept heavily, a healing sleep. I felt a twinge of conscience over that, but pushed it aside. Whatever I had done to his heart seemed to tax the resources of the rest of his body, but surely that was better than letting him die. I surrendered the bed to him and left him sleeping.

The Fool was not about, but the door was left standing open, a fair indication that he had gone out. I set a small fire, put on the kettle, and then took some time with washing up and shaving. I had just smoothed my hair back behind my ears when I heard the Fool’s footsteps on the porch. He entered with a basket of eggs on his arm. When I looked up from drying my face, he stopped in his tracks. A wide grin spread slowly over his face.

‘Why, it’s Fitz! A bit older, a bit more worn, but Fitz all the same. I had wondered what you looked like under that thatch.’

I glanced back into the mirror. ‘I suppose I don’t take much pains with my appearance any more.’ I grimaced at myself, then dabbed at a spot of blood. As usual, I had nicked myself where the old scar from my time in Buckkeep’s dungeons seamed my face. Thank you, Regal. ‘Starling told me that I look far older than my years. That I could return to Buckkeep Town and never fear that anyone would recognize me.’

The Fool made a small sound of disgust as he set the eggs on the table. ‘Starling is, as usual, wrong on both counts. For the number of years and lives you have lived, you look remarkably young. It’s true that experience and time have changed your features; folk recalling the boy Fitz would not see him grown to a man in you. Yet, some of us, my friend, would recognize you even if you were flayed and set afire.’

‘Now there’s a comforting thought.’ I set the mirror down and turned to the task of making breakfast. ‘Your colour has changed,’ I observed a moment later as I broke eggs into a bowl. ‘But you yourself don’t look a day older than the last time I saw you.’

The Fool was filling the teapot with steaming water. ‘It’s the way of my kind,’ he said quietly. ‘Our lives are longer, so we progress through them more slowly. I’ve changed, Fitz, even if all you see is the colour of my flesh. When last you saw me, I was just approaching adulthood. All sorts of new feelings and ideas were blossoming in me, so many that I scarce could keep my mind on the tasks at hand. When I recall how I behaved, well, even I am scandalized. Now, I assure you, I am far more mature. I know that there is a time and place for everything, and that what I am destined to do must take full precedent over anything I might long to do for myself.’

I poured the beaten eggs into a pan and set them at the fire’s edge. I spoke slowly. ‘When you speak in riddles, it exasperates me. Yet when you try to speak clearly of yourself, it frightens me.’

‘All the more reason why I should not speak of myself at all,’ he exclaimed with false heartiness. ‘Now. What be our tasks for the day?’

I thought it out as I stirred the setting eggs and pushed them closer to the fire. ‘I don’t know,’ I said quietly.

He looked startled at the sudden change in my voice. ‘Fitz? Are you all right?’

I myself could not explain the sudden lurch in my spirits. ‘Suddenly, it all seems so pointless. When I knew Hap was going to be here for the winter, I always took care to provide for us both. My garden was a quarter that size when the boy first came to me, and Nighteyes and I hunted day to day for our meat. If we did not hunt well and went empty for a day or so, it did not seem of much consequence. Now, I look at all I have already set by and think, if the boy is not here, if Hap is wintering with a master while he starts to learn his trade, why, then I already have plenty for both Nighteyes and me. Sometimes it seems that there’s no point to it. And then I wonder if there’s any point left to my life at all.’

A frown divided the Fool’s brows. ‘How melancholy you sound. Or is this the elfbark I’m hearing?’

‘No.’ I took up the shirred eggs and brought them to the table. It was almost a relief to speak the thoughts I’d been denying. ‘I think it was why Starling brought Hap to me. I think she saw how aimless my life had become, and brought me someone to give shape to my days.’

The Fool set down plates with a clatter, and dished food onto them in disgusted splats. ‘I think you give her credit for thinking of something beyond her own needs. I suspect she picked up the boy on an impulse, and dumped him here when she wearied of him. It was just lucky for both of you that you helped each other.’

I said nothing. His vehemence in his dislike for Starling surprised me. I sat down at the table and began eating. But he had not finished.

‘If Starling meant for anyone to give shape to your days, it was herself. I doubt that she ever imagined you might need anyone’s companionship other than hers.’

I had an uncomfortable suspicion he was right, especially when I recalled how she had spoken of Nighteyes and Hap on her last visit.

‘Well. What she thought or didn’t think scarcely matters now. One way or another, I’m determined to see Hap apprenticed well. But once I do –’

‘Once you do, you’ll be free to take up your own life again. I’ve a feeling it will call you back to Buckkeep.’

‘You’ve “a feeling”?’ I asked him dryly. ‘Is this a Fool’s feeling, or a White Prophet’s feeling?’

‘As you never seemed to give credence to any of my prophecies, why should you care?’ He smiled archly at me and began eating his eggs.

‘A time or three, it did seem as if what you predicted came true. Though your predictions were always so nebulous, it seemed to me that you could make them mean anything.’

He swallowed. ‘It was not my prophecies that were nebulous, but your understanding of them. When I arrived, I warned you that I had come back into your life because I must, not because I wanted to. Not that I didn’t want to see you again. I mean only that if I could spare you somehow from all we must do, I would.’

‘And what is it, exactly, that we must do?’

‘Exactly?’ he queried with a raised eyebrow.

‘Exactly. And precisely,’ I challenged him.

‘Oh, very well, then. Exactly and precisely what we must do. We must save the world, you and I. Again.’ He leaned back, tipping his chair onto its back legs. His pale brows shot towards his hairline as he widened his eyes at me.

I lowered my brow into my hands. But he was grinning like a maniac and I could not contain my own smile. ‘Again? I don’t recall that we did it the first time.’

‘Of course we did. You’re alive, aren’t you? And there is an heir to the Farseer throne. Hence, we changed the course of all time. In the rutted path of fate, you were a rock, my dear Fitz. And you have shifted the grinding wheel out of its trough and into a new track. Now, of course, we must see that it remains there. That may be the most difficult part of all.’

‘And what, exactly and precisely, must we do to ensure that?’ I knew his words were bait for mockery, but as ever, I could not resist the question.

‘It’s quite simple.’ He ate a bite of eggs, enjoying my suspense. ‘Very simple, really.’ He pushed the eggs around on his plate, scooped up a bite, then set his spoon down. He looked up at me, and his smile faded. When he spoke, his voice was solemn. ‘I must see that you survive. Again. And you must see that the Farseer heir inherits the throne.’

‘And the thought of my survival makes you sad?’ I demanded in perplexity.

‘Oh, no. Never that. The thought of what you must go through to survive fills me with foreboding.’

I pushed my plate away, my appetite fled. ‘I still don’t understand you,’ I replied irritably.

‘Yes, you do,’ he contradicted me implacably. ‘I suppose you say you don’t because it is easier that way, for both of us. But this time, my friend, I will lay it cold before you. Think back on the last time we were together. Were there not times when death would have been easier and less painful than life?’

His words were shards of ice in my belly, but I am nothing if not stubborn. ‘Well. And when is that ever not true?’ I demanded of him.

There have been very few times in my life when I have been able to shock the Fool into silence. That was one of them. He stared at me, his strange eyes getting wider and wider. Then a grin broke over his face. He stood so suddenly he nearly overset his chair, and then lunged at me to seize me in a wild hug. He drew a deep breath as if something that had constricted him had suddenly sprung free. ‘Of course that is true,’ he whispered by my ear. And then, in a shout that near deafened me, ‘Of course it is!’

Before I could shrug free of his strangling embrace, he sprang apart from me. He cut a caper that made motley of his ordinary clothes, and then sprang lightly to my tabletop. He flung his arms wide as if he once more performed for all of King Shrewd’s court rather than an audience of one. ‘Death is always less painful and easier than life! You speak true. And yet we do not, day to day, choose death. Because ultimately, death is not the opposite of life, but the opposite of choice. Death is what you get when there are no choices left to make. Am I right?’

Infectious as his fey mood was, I still managed to shake my head. ‘I have no idea if you are right or wrong.’

‘Then take my word for it. I am right. For am I not the White Prophet? And are not you my Catalyst, who comes to change the course of all time? Look at you. Not the hero, no. The changer. The one who, by his existence, enables others to be heroes. Ah, Fitz, Fitz, we are who we are and who we ever must be. And when I am discouraged, when I lose heart to the point of saying, “but why cannot I leave him here, to find what peace he may?”, then, lo and behold, you speak with the voice of the Catalyst, and change my perception of all that I do. And enable me to be once more what I must be. The White Prophet.’

I sat looking up at him. Despite my efforts, a smile twisted my mouth. ‘I thought I enabled other people to be heroes. Not prophets.’

‘Ah, well.’ He leapt lightly to the floor. ‘Some of us must be both, I fear.’ He gave himself a shake, and tugged his jerkin straight. Some of the wildness went out of him. ‘So. To return to my original question. What are our tasks today? My turn to give you the answer. Our first task today is to give no thought to the morrow.’

I took his advice, for that day at least. I did things I had not been giving myself permission to do, for they were not the serious tasks that provided against the morrow, but the simple work that brought me pleasure. I worked on my inks, not to take to market and sell for coin, but to try to create a true purple for my own pleasure. It yielded no success that day; all my purples turned to brown as they dried, but it was a work I enjoyed. As for the Fool, he amused himself by carving on my furniture. I glanced up at the sound of my kitchen knife scraping across wood. The movement caught his eye. ‘Sorry,’ he apologized at once. He held the knife up between two fingers to show me, and then carefully set it down. He got up from his chair and wandered over to his saddlepack. After a moment of digging, he tugged out a roll of fine bladed tools. Humming to himself, he went back to the table and set to on the chairs. He went bare-fingered to his task, tugging off the fine glove that usually masked his Skill-hand. As the day progressed, my simple chairs gained leafy vines twining up their backs, and occasional little faces peeping out of the foliage.

When I looked up from my work in mid-afternoon, I saw him come in with chunks of seasoned wood from my woodpile. I leaned back from my desk to watch him as he turned and considered each one, studying them and tracing their grain with his Skill-fingers as if he could read there secrets hidden from my eyes. At length he selected one with a knee in it and started in on it. He hummed to himself as he worked, and I left him to it.

Nighteyes woke once during the day. He clumped down from my bed with a sigh and tottered outside. I offered him food when he returned but he turned his nose up at it. He had drunk deeply, all the water he could hold, and he lay himself down with a sigh on the cool floor of the cabin. He slept again, but not as deeply.

And so I passed that day in pleasure, which is to say, in the sort of work I wanted to do rather than the work that I thought I ought to be doing. Chade came often to my mind that day. I wondered, as I seldom had before, at how the old assassin had passed his long hours and days up in his isolated tower before I had come to be his apprentice. Then I sniffed disdainfully at that image of him. Long before I had arrived, Chade had been the royal assassin, bearing the King’s Justice in the form of quiet work wherever it needed to go. The sizeable library of scrolls in his apartments and his endless experiments with poisons and deadly artifice were proof that he had known how to occupy his days. And he had had the welfare of the Farseer reign to give him a purpose in life.

Once, I, too, had shared that purpose. I had shrugged free of it to have a life of my own. Odd, that in the process I had somehow wrenched myself free of the very life I had thought to have to myself. To gain the freedom to enjoy my life, I had severed all connections with that old life. I had lost contact with all who had loved me and all I had loved.

That wasn’t the complete truth, but it suited my mood. An instant later, I realized I was wallowing in self-pity. My last three attempts at a purple ink were drying to brown, though one did have a very nice shade of rose to the brown. I set aside that scrap of paper, after making notes on it as to how I had got the colour. It would be good ink for botanical illustrations, I thought.

I unfolded my legs from my chair and rose, stretching. The Fool looked up from his work. ‘Hungry?’ I asked him.

He considered a moment. ‘I could eat. Let me cook. The food you make fills the stomach but does little more than that.’

He set aside the figurine he was working on. He saw me glance at it, and covered it, almost jealously. ‘When I’m finished,’ he promised, and began a purposeful ransacking of my cupboards. While he was tsk-ing over my lack of any interesting spices, I wandered outside. I crossed the stream, which could have led me gently down to the beach. Idly I walked up the hill, past both horse and pony grazing freely. At the crest of the hill I walked more slowly until I reached my bench. I sat down on it. Only a few steps away, the grassy hill gave way to sudden slate cliffs and the rocky beach below them. Seated on my bench, all I could see was the wide vista of ocean spread out before me. Restlessness walked through my bones again. I thought of my dream of the boy and the hunting cat out in the night and smiled to myself. Run away from it all, the cat had urged the boy, and the thought had all my sympathy.

Yet, years ago, that was what I had done, and this was what it had brought me. A life of peace and self-sufficiency, a life that should have satisfied me; yet, here I sat.

A time later, the Fool joined me. Nighteyes, too, came at his heels, to lie down at my feet with a martyred sigh. ‘Is it the Skill-hunger?’ the Fool asked with quiet sympathy.

‘No,’ I replied, and almost laughed. The hunger he had unknowingly waked in me yesterday was temporarily crippled by the elfbark I had consumed. I might long to Skill, but right now my mind was numbed to that ability.

‘I’ve put dinner to cook slow over a little fire, to keep from driving us out of the house. We’ve plenty of time.’ He paused, and then asked carefully, ‘And after you left the Old Blood folk, where did you go?’

I sighed. The wolf was right. Talking to the Fool did help me to think. But perhaps he made me think too much. I looked back through the years and gathered up the threads of my tale.

‘Everywhere. When we left there, we had no destination. So we wandered.’ I stared out across the water. ‘For four years, we wandered, all through the Six Duchies. I’ve seen Tilth in winter, when snow but a few inches deep blows across the wide plains but the cold seems to go down to the earth’s very bones. I crossed all of Farrow to reach Rippon, and then walked on to the coast. Sometimes I took work as a man, and bought bread, and sometimes the two of us hunted as wolves and ate our meat dripping.’

I glanced over at the Fool. He listened, his golden eyes intent on my story. If he judged me, his face gave no sign of it.

‘When we reached the coast, we took ship north, although Nighteyes did not enjoy it. I visited Bearns Duchy in the depth of one winter.’

‘Bearns?’ He considered that. ‘Once, you were promised to Lady Celerity of Bearns Duchy.’ The question was in his face but not his voice.

‘That was not of my will, as you recall. I did not go there to seek out Celerity. But I did glimpse Lady Faith, Duchess of Bearns, as she rode through the streets on her way to Ripplekeep Castle. She did not see me, and if she had, I am sure she would not have recognized the ragged wanderer as Lord FitzChivalry. I hear that Celerity married rich in both love and lands, and is now the Lady of Ice Towers near Ice Town.’

‘I am glad for her,’ the Fool said gravely.

‘And I. I never loved her, but I admired her spirit, and liked her well enough. I am glad of her good fortune.’

‘And then?’

‘I went to the Near Islands. From there, I wished to make the long crossing to the Out Islands, to see for myself the land of the folk who had raided and made us miserable for so long, but the wolf refused to even consider such a long sea journey.

‘So we returned to the mainland, and travelled south. We went mostly by foot though we took ship past Buckkeep and did not pause there. We journeyed down the coast of Rippon and Shoaks, and on beyond the Six Duchies. I didn’t like Chalced. We took ship from there just to get away from it.’

‘How far did you go?’ the Fool prompted when I fell silent.

I felt my mouth twist in a grin as I bragged, ‘All the way to Bingtown.’

‘Did you?’ His interest heightened. ‘And what did you think of it?’

‘Lively. Prosperous. It put me in mind of Tradeford. The elegant people and their ornate houses, with glass in every window. They sell books in street booths there, and in one street of their market, every shop has its own sort of magic. Just to walk down that way dizzied me. I could not tell you what kind of magic it was, but it pressed against my senses, giddying me like too strong perfume …’ I shook my head. ‘I felt like a backward foreigner, and no doubt so they thought me, in my rough clothes with a wolf at my side. Yet, despite all I saw there, the city couldn’t live up to the legend. What did we used to say? That if a man could imagine a thing, he could find it for sale in Bingtown. Well, I saw much there that was far beyond my imagining, but that didn’t mean it was something I’d want to buy. I saw great ugliness there, too. Slaves coming off a ship, with great cankers on their ankles from the chains. We saw one of their talking ships, too. I had always thought them just a tale.’ I grew silent for a moment, wondering how to convey what Nighteyes and I had sensed about that grim magic. ‘It wasn’t a magic I’d ever be comfortable around,’ I said at last.

The sheer humanity of the city had overwhelmed the wolf, and he was happy to leave as soon as I suggested it. I felt smaller after my visit there. I appreciated anew the wildness and isolation of Buck’s coast, and the rough militancy of Buckkeep. I had once thought Buckkeep the heart of all civilization, but in Bingtown they spoke of us as barbaric and rude. The comments I overheard stung, and yet I could not deny them. I left Bingtown a humbled man, resolved to add to my education and better discover the true width of the world. I shook my head at that recollection. Had I ever lived up to my resolve?

‘We didn’t have the money for ship passage, even if Nighteyes could have faced it. We decided to journey up the coast on foot.’

The Fool turned an incredulous face to me. ‘But you can’t do that!’

‘That’s what everyone warned us. I thought it was city talk, a warning from folk who had never travelled hard and rough. But they were right.’

Against all counsel, we attempted to travel by foot up the coastline. In the wild lands outside of Bingtown, we found strangeness that near surpassed what we had discovered beyond the Mountain Kingdom. Well is that coast called the Cursed Shores. I was tormented by half-formed dreams, and sometimes my wakened imaginings were giddy and threatening. It distressed the wolf that I walked on the edges of madness. I can offer no reason for this. I suffered no fevers nor any of the other symptoms of the illnesses that can unseat a man’s mind, yet I was not myself as we passed through that rough and inhospitable country. Vivid dreams of Verity and our dragons came back to haunt me. Even awake, I tormented myself endlessly with the foolishness of past decisions, and thought often of ending my own life. Only the companionship of the wolf kept me from such an act. Looking back, I recall, not days and nights, but a succession of lucid and disturbing dreams. Not since I had first travelled on the Skill-road had I suffered such a contortion of my own thoughts. It is not an experience I would willingly repeat.

Never, before or since, had I seen a stretch of coast as devoid of humanity. Even the animals that lived there rang sharp and odd against my Wit-sense. The physical aspects of this coast were as foreign to us as the savour of it. There were bogs that steamed and stank and burned our nostrils, and lush marshes where all the plant life seemed twisted and deformed despite its rank and luxuriant growth. We reached the Rain River, which the folk of Bingtown call the Rain Wild River. I cannot say what distorted whim persuaded me to follow it inland, but I attempted it. The swampy shores, rank growth, and strange dreams of the place soon turned us back. Something in the soil ate at Nighteyes’ pads and weakened the tough leather boots I wore until they were little more than tatters. We admitted ourselves defeated, but then added a greater error to our wayward quest when we cut young trees to fashion a raft. Nighteyes’ nose had warned us against drinking any of the river water, but I had not fully appreciated what a danger it presented to us. Our makeshift raft barely lasted to carry us back to the mouth of the river, and we both incurred ulcerating sores from the touch of the water. We were relieved to get back to good honest salt water. Despite the sting of it, it proved most healing to our sores.

Although Chalced has long claimed rightful domain of the land up to the Rain River, and has frequently asserted that Bingtown, too, lies within its reign, we saw no signs of any settlements on that coast. Nighteyes and I travelled a long and inhospitable way north. Three days past the Rain River, we seemed to leave the strangeness behind, but we journeyed another ten days before we encountered a human settlement. By then, regular washing in brine had healed much of our sores, and my thoughts seemed more my own, but we presented the aspect of a weary beggar and his mangy dog. Folk were not welcoming to us.

My footsore journey north through Chalced persuaded me that folk there are the most inimical in the world. I enjoyed Chalced fully as much as Burrich had led me to believe I would. Even their magnificent cities could not move me. The wonders of its architecture and the heights of its civilization are built on a foundation of human misery. The reality of widespread slavery appalled me.

I paused in my tale to glance at the freedom earring that hung from the Fool’s ear. It had been Burrich’s grandmother’s hard-won prize, the mark of a slave who had won freedom. The Fool lifted a hand to touch it with a finger. It hung next to several others carved of wood, and its silver network caught the eye.

‘Burrich,’ the Fool said quietly. ‘And Molly. I ask you directly this time. Did you ever seek them out?’

I hung my head for a moment. ‘Yes,’ I admitted after a time. ‘I did. It is odd you should ask now, for it was as I crossed Chalced that I was suddenly seized with the urge to see them.’

One evening as we camped well away from the road, I felt my sleep seized by a powerful dream. Perhaps the images came to me because in some corner of her heart, Molly kept still a place for me. Yet I did not dream of Molly as a lover dreams of his beloved. I dreamed of myself, I thought, small and hot and deathly ill. It was a black dream, a dream all of sensations without images. I lay curled tight against Burrich’s chest, and his presence and smell were the only comforts I knew in my misery. Then unbearably cool hands touched my fevered skin. They tried to lift me away, but I wriggled and cried out, clinging to him. Burrich’s strong arm closed around me again. ‘Leave her be,’ he commanded hoarsely.

I heard Molly’s voice from a distance, wavering and distorted. ‘Burrich, you’re as sick as she is. You can’t take care of her. Let me have her while you rest.’

‘No. Leave her beside me. You take care of Chiv and yourself.’

‘Your son is fine. Neither of us is ill. Only you and Nettle. Let me take her, Burrich.’

‘No,’ he groaned. His hand settled on me protectively. ‘This is how the Blood Plague began, when I was a boy. It killed everyone I loved. Molly, I couldn’t bear it if you took her away from me and she died. Please. Leave her beside me.’

‘So you can die together?’ she demanded, her weary voice going shrill.

There was terrible resignation in his voice. ‘If we must. Death is colder when it finds you alone. I will hold her to the last.’

He was not rational, and I felt both Molly’s anger and her fear for him. She brought him water, and I fussed when she half-sat him up to drink it. I tried to drink from the cup she held to my mouth, but my lips were cracked and sore, my head hurt too badly and the light was too bright. When I pushed it away, the water slopped on my chest, icy cold and I shrieked and began to wail. ‘Nettle, Nettle, hush,’ she bade me, but her hands were cold when she touched me. I wanted nothing of my mother just then, and knew an echo of Nettle’s jealousy that another child claimed the throne of Molly’s lap now. I clutched at Burrich’s shirt and he held me close again and hummed softly in his deep voice. I pushed my face against him where the light could not touch my eyes, and tried to sleep.

I tried so desperately to sleep that I pushed myself into wakefulness. I opened my eyes to my breath rasping in and out of my lungs. Sweat cloaked me, but I could not forget the tightness of my hot, dry skin in the Skill-dream. I had wrapped my cloak about me when I lay down to sleep; now I fought clear of its confines. We had chosen to sleep away the deep of the night on a creek bank; I staggered to the water and drank deeply. When I lifted my face from the water, I found the wolf sitting very straight and watching me. His tail neatly wrapped all four of his feet.

‘He already knew I had to go to them. We set out that night.’

‘And you knew where to go, to find them?’

I shook my head. ‘No. I knew nothing, other than that when they first left Buckkeep, they had settled near a town called Capelin Beach. And I knew the, well, the “feel” of where they lived then. With no more than that, we set out.

‘After years of wandering, it was odd to have a destination, and especially to hurry towards it. I did not think about what we did, or how foolish it was. A part of me admitted it was senseless. We were too far away. I’d never get there in time. By the time I arrived, they would be either dead or recovered. Yet having begun that journey, I could not deviate from it. After years of fleeing any who might recognize me, I was suddenly willing to hurl myself back into their lives again? I refused to consider any of it. I simply went.’

The Fool nodded sympathetically at my account. I feared he guessed far more than I willingly told him.

After years of denying and refusing the lures of the Skill, I immersed myself in it. The addiction clutched at me and I embraced it in return. It was disconcerting to have it come back upon me with such force. But I did not fight it. Despite the blinding headaches that still followed my efforts, I reached towards Molly and Burrich almost every evening. The results were not encouraging. There is nothing like the heady rush of two Skill-trained minds meeting. But Skill-seeing is another matter entirely. I had never been instructed in that application of the Skill; I had only the knowledge I had gained by groping. My father had sealed off Burrich to the Skill, lest anyone try to use his friend against him. Molly had no aptitude for it that I knew. In Skill-seeing them, there could be no true connection of minds, but only the frustration of watching them, unable to make them aware of me. I soon found that I could not achieve even that reliably. Disused, my abilities had rusted. Even a short effort left me exhausted and debilitated by pain, and yet I could not resist trying. I strove for those brief connections and mined them for information. A glimpse of hills behind their home, the smell of the sea, black-faced sheep pastured on a distant hill – I treasured every hint of their surroundings, and hoped they would be enough to guide me to them. I could not control my seeing. Often I found myself watching the homeliest of tasks, the daily labour of a tub of laundry to be washed and hung, herbs to be harvested and dried, and yes, beehives to tend. Glimpses of a baby Molly called Chiv whose face reflected Burrich’s features cut me with both jealousy and wonder.

Eventually I found a village called Capelin Beach. I found the deserted cottage where my daughter had been born. Other folk had lived here since then; no recognizable trace of them remained to my eyes, but the wolf’s nose was keener. Nevertheless, Molly and Burrich were long gone from there, and I knew not where. I dared not ask direct questions in the village, for I did not want anyone to bear word to Burrich or Molly that someone was looking for them. Months had passed in my journeying. In every village I passed, I saw signs of new graves. Whatever the sickness had been, it had spread wide and taken many with it. In none of my visions had I seen Nettle; had it carried her off as well? I spiralled out from Capelin Beach, visiting inns and taverns in nearby villages. I became a slightly daft traveller, obsessed with beekeeping and professing to know all there was to know on the topic. I started arguments so others would correct me and speak of beekeepers they had known. Yet all my efforts to hear the slightest rumour of Molly were fruitless until late one afternoon I followed a narrow road to the crest of the hill, and suddenly recognized a stand of oak trees.

All my courage vanished in that instant. I left the road and skulked through the forested hills that flanked it. The wolf came with me, unquestioning, not even letting his thoughts intrude on mine as I stalked my old life. By early evening, we were on a hillside looking down on their cottage. It was a tidy and prosperous stead, with chickens scratching in the side yard and three straw hives in the meadow behind it. There was a well-tended vegetable garden. Behind the cottage were a barn, obviously a newer structure, and several small paddocks built of skinned logs. I smelled horse. Burrich had done well for them. I sat in the dark and watched the single window glow yellow with candlelight, and then wink to blackness. The wolf hunted alone that night as I kept my vigil. I could not approach and I could not leave. I was caught where I was, a leaf on the edge of their eddy. I suddenly understood all the legends of ghosts doomed to forever haunt some spot. No matter how far I roamed, some part of me would always be chained here.

As dawn broke, Burrich emerged from the cottage door. His limp was more pronounced than I recalled it, as was the streak of white in his hair. He lifted his face to the dawning day and took a great breath, and for one wolfish instant, I feared he would scent me there. But he only walked to the well and drew up a bucket of water. He carried it inside, then returned a moment later to throw some grain to the chickens. The smoke of an awakened fire rose from the chimney. So. Molly was up and about also. Burrich went out to the barn. As clear as if I were walking beside him, I knew his routine. After he had checked every animal, he would come outside. He did, and drew water, carrying bucket after bucket into the barn.

My words choked me for an instant. Then I laughed aloud. My eyes swam with tears but I ignored them. ‘I swear, Fool, that is when I came closest to going down to him. It seemed as unnatural a thing as I had ever done, to watch Burrich work and not toil alongside him.’

The Fool nodded, silent and rapt beside me.

‘When he came out, he was leading a roan stallion. It astonished me. “Buckkeep’s best” shouted every line of his body. His spirit was in the arch of his neck, his power in his shoulders and haunches. My heart swelled in me just to see such a horse, and to know he was in Burrich’s keeping rejoiced me. He turned the horse loose in a paddock, and then hauled yet more water to the trough there.

‘When he next led Ruddy out, much of the mystery was cleared for me. I did not know, then, that Starling had hunted him down and seen to it that both his horse and Sooty’s colt were given over to him. It was just good to see man and horse together again. Ruddy looked to have settled into good-natured stability; even so, Burrich did not paddock him next to the other stud, but put him as far away as possible. He hauled more water for Ruddy, then gave him a friendly thump and went back into the cottage.

‘Then Molly came out.’

I took another breath and held it. I stared out at the ocean, but that was not what I saw. The image of she who had been my woman moved before my eyes. Her dark hair, once wild and blowing to the wind, was braided and pinned sedately to her head, a matron’s crown. A little boy toddled unsteadily after her. Basket on her arm, she moved with placid grace towards the garden. Her white apron draped her swelling pregnancy. The swift and slender girl was gone, but I found this woman no less attractive. My heart yearned after her and all she represented: the cosy hearth and the settled home, the companionship of the years to come as she filled her man’s home with children and warmth.

‘I whispered her name. It was so strange. She lifted her head suddenly, and for one sharp moment I thought she was aware of me. But instead of looking up to the hill, she laughed aloud, and exclaimed, “Chivalry, no! Not good to eat.” She stooped slightly, to pull a handful of pea flowers from the child’s mouth. She lifted him, and I saw the effort it cost her. She called back to the cottage, “My love, come fetch your son before he pulls the whole garden up. Tell Nettle to come and pull some turnips for me.”

‘Then I heard Burrich call back, “A moment!” An instant later, he stood in the doorway. He called over his shoulder, “We’ll finish the washing up later. Come help your mother.” I watched him cross the yard in a few strides and snatch up his son. He swung him high, and the child gave a whoop of delight as Burrich landed him on his shoulder. Molly set a hand upon her belly and laughed with them, looking up at them both with delight in her eyes.’

I stopped speaking. I could no longer see the ocean. Tears blinded me like a fog.

I felt the Fool’s hand on my shoulder. ‘You never went down to them, did you?’

I shook my head mutely.

I had fled. I had fled the sudden gnawing envy I felt, and I fled lest I glimpse my own child and have to go to her. There was no place down there for me, not even on the edges of their world. I knew that. I had known it since first I knew they would marry. If I walked down to that door, I would carry destruction and misery with me.

I am no better than any other man. There was bitterness in me, and anger at both of them, and the stark loneliness of how fate had betrayed us all. I could not blame them for turning to each other. Neither did I blame myself for the anguish I felt that by that act, they had excluded me forever from their lives. It was done, and over, and regrets were useless. The dead, I told myself, have no rights to regret. The most I can claim for myself is that I did walk away. I did not let my pain poison their happiness, or compromise my daughter’s home. That much strength, I found.

I drew a long breath and found my voice again. ‘And that is the end of my tale, Fool. Next winter caught us here. We found this hut and settled into it. And here we have been ever since.’ I blew out a breath and thought over my own words. Suddenly none of it seemed admirable.

His next words rattled me. ‘And your other child?’ he asked quietly.

‘What?’

‘Dutiful. Have you seen him? Is not he your son, just as much as Nettle is your daughter?’

‘I … no. No, he is not. And I have never seen him. He is Kettricken’s son and Verity’s heir. So Kettricken recalls it, I am sure.’ I felt myself reddening, embarrassed that the Fool had brought this up. I set my hand to his shoulder. ‘My friend, only you and I know of how Verity used me … my body. When he asked my permission, I misunderstood his request. I myself have no memory of how Dutiful was conceived. You must recall; I was with you, trapped in Verity’s misused flesh. My king did what he did to get himself an heir. I do not begrudge it, but neither do I wish to remember it.’

‘Starling does not know? Nor even Kettricken?’

‘Starling slept that night. I am sure that if she even suspected, she would have spoken of it by now. A minstrel could not leave such a song unsung, however unwise it might be. As for Kettricken, well, Verity burned with the Skill like a bonfire. She saw only her king in her bed that night. I am certain that if it had been otherwise …’ I sighed suddenly and admitted, ‘I feel shamed to have been a party to that deception. I know it is not my place to question Verity’s will in this, but still …’ My words trickled away. Not even to the Fool could I admit the curiosity I felt about Dutiful. A son, mine and not mine. And as my father had chosen with me, so had I with him. To not know him, for the sake of protecting him.

The Fool set his hand on top of mine and squeezed it firmly. ‘I have spoken of this to no one. Nor shall I.’ He took a deep breath. ‘So. Then you came to this place, to settle yourself in peace. That is truly the end of your tale?’

It was. Since the last time I had bid the Fool farewell, I had spent most of my days either running or hiding. This cottage was my selfish retreat. I said as much.

‘I doubt that Hap would see it that way,’ he returned mildly. ‘And most folks would find saving the world once in their lifetime a sufficient credit and would not think to do more than that. Still, as your heart seems set on it, I will do all I can to drag you through it again.’ He quirked an eyebrow at me invitingly.

I laughed, but not easily. ‘I don’t need to be a hero, Fool. I’d settle for feeling that what I did every day had significance to someone besides myself.’

He leaned back on my bench and considered me gravely for a moment. Then he shrugged one shoulder. ‘That’s easily done, then. Once Hap is settled in his apprenticeship, come find me at Buckkeep. I promise, you’ll be significant.’

‘Or dead, if I’m recognized. Have not you heard how strong feelings run against the Witted these days?’

‘No. I had not. But it does not surprise me, no, not at all. But recognized? You spoke of that worry before, but in a different light. I find myself forced to agree with Starling. I think few would remark you. You look very little like the FitzChivalry Farseer that folk would recall from fifteen years ago. Your face bears the tracks of the Farseer bloodline, if one knows to look for them, but the court is an in-bred place. Many a noble carries a trace of that same heritage. Who would a chance beholder compare you to; a faded portrait in a darkened hall? You are the only grown man of your line still alive. Shrewd wasted away years ago, your father retired to Withywoods before he was killed, and Verity was an old man before his time. I know who you are, and hence I see the resemblance. I do not think you are in danger from the casual glance of a Buckkeep courtier.’ He paused, then asked me earnestly, ‘So. I will see you in Buckkeep before snow flies?’

‘Perhaps,’ I hedged. I doubted it, but knew better than to waste breath arguing with the Fool.

‘I shall,’ he decided resolutely. Then he clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Let’s back. Supper should be ready. And I want to finish my carving.’

TEN

A Sword and a Summons

Perhaps every kingdom has its tales of a secret and powerful protector, one that will rise to the land’s defence if the need be great and the entreaty sincere enough. In the Out Islands, they speak of Icefyre, a creature who dwells deep in the heart of the glacier that cloaks the heart of Island Aslevjal. They swear that when earthquakes shake their island home, it is Icefyre rolling restlessly in his chill dreams deep within his ice-bound lair. The Six Duchies legends always referred to the Elderlings, an ancient and powerful race who dwelt somewhere beyond the Mountain Kingdom and were our allies in times of old. Only a king as desperate as King-in-Waiting Verity Farseer would have given such legends not only credence, but enough importance that he left his legacy in the care of his ailing father and foreign queen while he made a quest to seek the aid of the Elderlings. Perhaps it was that desperate faith that gave him the power not only to wake the Elderling-carved stone dragons and rally them to the Six Duchies’ aid, but also to carve for himself a dragon body and lead them to defend his land.

The Fool stayed on, but in the days that followed, he studiously avoided any serious topics or tasks. I fear I followed his example. Telling him of my quiet years seemed to settle those old ghosts. I should have been content to slip back into my old routines but instead a different sort of restlessness itched. A changing time, and a time to change. Changer. The Catalyst. The words and the thoughts that went with them wound through my days and tangled my dreams at night. I was no longer tormented by my past so much as taunted by the future. Looking back over what I had made of my own youth, I suddenly found myself much concerned for how Hap would spend his years. It suddenly seemed to me that I had wasted all the years when I should have been preparing the lad to face a life on his own. He was a good-hearted young man, and I had no qualms about his character. My worry was that I had given him only the most basic knowledge of making his way in the world. He had no specialized skills to build on. He knew all that he needed to know to live in an isolated cottage and farm and hunt for his basic needs. But it was the wide world I was sending him into; how would he make his way there? The need to apprentice him well began to keep me awake at night.

If the Fool was aware of this, he gave no sign of it. His busy tools wandered through my cabin, sending vinework crawling across my mantelpiece. Lizards peered down from the door lintel. Odd little faces leered at me from the corners of cupboard doors and the edge of the porch steps. If it was made of wood, it was not safe from his sharp tools and clever fingers. The activities of the water sprites on my rain barrel would have made a guardsman blush.

I chose quiet work for myself as well, and toiled indoors as much as out despite the fine weather. Part of it was that I felt I needed a thoughtful time, but the greater share was that the wolf was slow to recover his strength. I knew that my watching over him would not hasten his healing, but I could not chase away my anxiety for him. When I reached for him with the Wit, there was a sombre quality to his silence, most unlike my old companion. Sometimes I would look up from my work to find him watching me, his deep eyes pensive. I did not ask him what he was thinking; if he had wanted to share it, his mind would have been accessible to mine.

Gradually, he regained his old activities, but some of the spring had gone out of him. He moved with a care for his body, never challenging himself. He did not follow me about my chores, but lay on the porch and watched my comings and goings. We hunted together still in the evening, but we went more slowly, both pretending to be hampered by the Fool. Nighteyes was as often content to point out the game and wait for my arrow rather than spring to the kill himself. These changes troubled me, but I did my best to keep my concerns to myself. All he needed was time to heal, I told myself, and recalled that the hot days of summer had never been his best time. When autumn came, he would recover his old vigour.

The three of us were settling into a comfortable routine. There were tales and stories in the evening, an accounting of the lesser events in our lives. Eventually we ran out of brandy, but the talk still flowed as smooth and warming as the liquor had. I told the Fool what Hap had seen at Hardin’s Spit, and of the talk about the Witted in the market. I shared, too, Starling’s account of the minstrels at Springfest, and Chade’s assessment of Prince Dutiful and what he had asked of me. All these stories, the Fool seemed to take into himself as a weaver takes up divergent threads to create from them a tapestry.

We tried the rooster feathers in the crown one evening, but the shafts of the feathers were too thin for the sockets, so the feathers sprawled in all directions. We both knew without speaking that they were completely wrong. Another evening, the Fool set out the crown on my table, and selected brushes and inks from my stores. I took a chair to one side to watch him. He arranged all carefully before him, dipped a brush in blue ink, and then paused, thinking. We sat still and silent so long that I became aware of the sounds of the fire burning. Then he set down the brush. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘It feels wrong. Not yet.’ He re-wrapped the crown and put it back in his pack. Then one evening, while I was still wiping tears of laughter from my eyes at the end of a ribald song, the Fool set aside his harp and announced, ‘I must leave tomorrow.’

‘No!’ I protested in disbelief at his abruptness, and then ‘Why?’

‘Oh, you know,’ he replied airily. ‘It is the life of a White Prophet. I must be about predicting the future, saving the world – all those minor chores. Besides. You’ve run out of furniture for me to carve on.’

‘No, really,’ I protested. ‘Cannot you stay at least a few more days? At least, stay until Hap returns. Meet the boy.’

He sighed. ‘Actually, I have stayed far longer than I should. Especially since you insist you cannot go with me when I leave. Unless?’ He sat up hopefully. ‘You have changed your mind?’

I shook my head. ‘You know I have not. I can scarcely go off and abandon my home. I must be here when Hap comes back.’

‘Ah, yes.’ He sagged back into his chair. ‘His apprenticeship. And you do have chickens to care for.’

The mockery in his voice stung. ‘It may not seem much of a life to you, but it’s mine,’ I pointed out sourly.

He grinned at having needled me. ‘I am not Starling, my dear. I do not disparage any man’s life. Consider my own, and tell me what height I look down from. No. I go to my own tasks, as dull as they must seem to one who has a whole flock of chickens to tend and rows of beans to hoe. My own tasks are just as weighty. I’ve a flock of rumours to share with Chade, and rows of new acquaintances to cultivate at Buckkeep.’

I felt a twinge of envy. ‘I expect they will all be glad to see you again.’

He shrugged. ‘Some, I suppose. Others were just as glad to see me go. And most will not recall me at all. Most, verging on all, if I am clever.’ He rose abruptly. ‘I wish I could just stay here,’ he confessed quietly. ‘I wish I could believe, as you seem to, that my life is my own to dispose of. Unfortunately, I know that is not true for either of us.’ He walked to the open door and looked out into the warm summer evening. He took a breath as if to speak, then sighed it out. A time longer he stared. Then he squared his shoulders as if making a resolve and turned back to me. There was a grim smile on his face. ‘No, it is best I leave tomorrow. You’ll follow me soon enough.’

‘Don’t count on that,’ I warned him.

‘Ah, but I must,’ he rejoined. ‘The times demand it. Of both of us.’

‘Oh, let someone else save the world this time. Surely there is another White Prophet somewhere.’ I spoke lightly, intending my words as jest. The Fool’s eyes widened at them, and I heard a shudder as he drew breath.

‘Do not even speak that future. It bodes ill for me that there is even the seed of that thought in your mind. For truly, there is another who would love to claim the mantle of the White Prophet, and set the world into the course that she envisions. From the beginning, I have struggled against her pull. Yet in this turning of the world, her strength waxes. Now you know what I hesitated to speak more openly. I shall need your strength, my friend. The two of us, together, might be enough. After all, sometimes all it takes is a small stone in a rut for a wheel to lurch out of its track.’

‘Mm. It does not sound like a good experience for the stone, however.’

He turned his eyes to mine. Where once they had been pale, they now glowed golden and the lamplight danced in them. There was both warmth and weariness in his voice. ‘Oh, never fear, you shall survive it. For I know you must. And hence I bend all my strength towards that goal. That you will live.’

I feigned dismay. ‘And you tell me not to fear?’

He nodded, and his face was too solemn. I sought to turn the talk. ‘Who is this woman you speak of? Do I know her?’

He came back into the room and sat down once more at the table. ‘No, you do not know her. But I knew her, of old. Or rather I should say, I knew of her, though she was a woman grown and gone while I was just a child …’ He glanced back at me. ‘A long time ago, I told you something of myself. Do you remember?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘I was born far, far to the south, of ordinary folk. As much as any folk are truly ordinary … I had a loving mother, and my fathers were two brothers, as is the custom of that place. But from the moment I emerged from my mother’s womb, it was plain that the ancient lineage had spoken in me. In some distant past, a White had mingled his blood with my family lines, and I was born to take up the tasks of that ancient folk.

‘As much as my parents loved and cherished me, they knew it was not my destiny to stay in their home, nor to be raised in any of their trades. Instead, I was sent away to a place where I could be educated and prepared for my fate. They treated me well there, and more than well. They too, in their own way, cherished me. Each morning I was questioned as to what I had dreamed, and all I could recall was written down for wise men to ponder. As I grew older and waking dreams overtook me, I was taught the art of the quill, that I might record my visions myself, for no hand is so clear as the one that belongs to the eye that has seen.’ He laughed self-deprecatingly and shook his head. ‘Such a way to raise a child! My slightest utterances were cherished as wisdom. But despite my blood, I was no better than any other child. I made mischief where I would, telling wild tales of flying boars and shadows that carried royal bloodlines. Each wild story I told was larger than the last, and yet I discovered a strange thing. No matter how I might try to foil my tongue, truth always hid in my utterances.’

He cast his glance briefly towards me, as if expecting me to disagree. I kept silence.

He looked down. ‘I suppose I have only myself to blame that when finally the biggest truth of all blossomed in me and would not be denied, no one would believe me. The day I proclaimed myself the White Prophet that this age had awaited, my masters shushed me. “Calm your wild ambitions,” they told me. As if anyone would ever desire to take on such a destiny! Another, they told me, already wore that mantle. She had gone forth before me, to shape the future of the world as her visions prompted her. To each age, there is only one White Prophet. All know that. Even I knew that was so. So what was I? I demanded of them. And they could not answer what I was, yet they were sure of what I was not. I was not the White Prophet. Her they had already prepared and sent forth.’

He took a breath and fell silent for what seemed a long time. Then he shrugged.

‘I knew they were wrong. I knew the trueness of their error as deeply as I knew what I myself was. They tried to make me content with my life there. I do not think they ever dreamed I would defy them. But I did. I ran away. And I came north, through ways and times I cannot even describe to you. Yet north and north I made my way, until I came to the court of King Shrewd Farseer. To him I sold myself, in much the same way you did. My loyalty for his protection. And scarce a season had I been there before the rumour of your coming rattled that court. A bastard. A child unexpected, a Farseer unacknowledged. Oh, so surprised they all were. All save me. For I had already dreamed your face and I knew I must find you, even though everyone had assured me that you did not and could not exist.’

He leaned over suddenly and set his gloved hand to my wrist. He gripped my wrist for only an instant, and our skin did not touch, but in that moment I felt a flash of binding. I can describe it no other way. It was not the Skill; it was not the Wit. It was not magic at all, as I know magic. It was like that moment of double recognition that sometimes overtakes one in a strange place. I had the sense that we had sat together like this, spoken these words before, and that each time we had done so, the words had been sealed with that brief touch. I glanced away from him, only to encounter the wolf’s dark eyes burning into mine.

I cleared my throat and tried to find a different subject. ‘You said you knew her. Has she a name, then?’

‘Not one you would have ever heard. Yet you have heard of her. Recall that during the Red Ship War, we knew their leader only as Kebal Rawbread?’

I bobbed my head in agreement. He had been a tribal leader of the Outislanders, one who had risen to sudden, bloody prominence, and just as swiftly fallen from power with the waking of our dragons. Some tales said Verity’s dragon had devoured him, others that he had drowned.

‘Did you ever hear that he had someone who advised him? A Pale Woman?’

The words rang oddly familiar in my mind. I frowned, trying to recall it. Yes. There had been a rumour, but no more than that. Again I nodded.

‘Well.’ The Fool leaned back. He spoke almost lightly. ‘That was she. And I will tell you one more thing. As surely as she believes that she is the White Prophet, so she believes that Kebal Rawbread is her Catalyst.’

‘Her one who comes to enable others to be heroes?’

He shook his head. ‘Not that one. Her Catalyst comes to dismantle heroes. To enable men to be less than what they should be. For where I would build, she would destroy. Where I would unite, she would divide.’ He shook his head. ‘She believes all must end before it can begin anew.’

I waited for him to balance his statement, but he fell silent. Finally I nudged him towards it. ‘And what do you believe?’

A slow smile spread over his face. ‘I believe in you. You are my new beginning.’

I could think of nothing to say to that, and a stillness grew up in the room.

He reached slowly up to his ear. ‘I’ve been wearing this since the last time I left you. But I think I should give it back to you now. Where I go, I cannot wear it. It is too unique. Folk might remember seeing an earring like this on you. Or on Burrich. Or on your father. It might tickle memories I wish to leave undisturbed.’

I watched him struggle with the catch. The earring was a silver net with a blue gemstone captured inside it. Burrich had given it to my father. I had been next to wear it. In my turn, I had entrusted it to the Fool, bidding him give it to Molly after my death as a sign I had never forgotten her. In his wisdom, he had kept it. And now?

‘Wait,’ I bade him suddenly, and then, ‘Don’t.’

He looked at me, mystified.

‘Disguise it if you must. But wear it. Please.’

Slowly he lowered his hands. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked incredulously.

‘Yes,’ I said, and I was.

When I rose the next morning, I found the Fool up and washed and dressed before me. His pack waited on the table. Glancing about the room, I saw none of his possessions. Once more he was attired nobly. His garb contrasted oddly with the humble task of stirring the porridge.

‘You are leaving, then?’ I asked stupidly.

‘Right after we eat,’ he said quietly.

We should go with him.

It was the most direct thought the wolf had shared with me in days. It startled me, and I looked towards him, as did the Fool. ‘But what of Hap?’ I asked him.

Nighteyes only looked at me in reply, as if I should already know his answer. I did not. ‘I have to stay here,’ I said to both of them. Neither one looked convinced. It made me feel sedate and staid to refuse them both, and I did not care for either sensation. ‘I have responsibilities here,’ I said, almost angrily. ‘I cannot simply go off and allow the boy to come back to an empty home.’

‘No, you cannot,’ the Fool agreed quickly, yet even his agreement stung, as if he said it only to mollify me. I found myself suddenly in a surly mood. Breakfast was grim and when we rose from the table, I suddenly hated the sticky bowls and porridge pot. The reminders of my daily, mundane chores suddenly seemed intolerable.

‘I’ll saddle your horse,’ I told the Fool sullenly. ‘No sense in getting your fine clothes dirty.’

He said nothing as I rose abruptly from the table and went out of the door.

Malta seemed to sense the excitement of the journey to come, for she was restive, though not difficult. I found myself taking my time with her, so that when she was ready, her coat gleamed as did her tack. I almost soothed myself, but as I led her out, I saw the Fool standing by the porch, one hand on Nighteyes’ back. Discontent washed through me again, and childishly I blamed him for it. If he had not come to see me, I would never have recalled how much I missed him. I would have continued to pine for the past, but I would not have begun to long for a future.

I felt soured and old as he came to embrace. Knowing there was nothing admirable about my attitude did nothing to improve it. I stood stiffly in his farewell clasp, barely returning it. I thought he would tolerate it, but when his mouth was by my ear, he muttered mawkishly, ‘Farewell, Beloved.’

Despite my irritation, I had to smile. I gave him a hug and released him. ‘Go safely, Fool,’ I said gruffly.

‘And you,’ he replied gravely as he swung up into the saddle. I stared up at him. The aristocratic young man on a horse bore no resemblance to the Fool I had known as a lad. Only when his gaze met mine did I see my old friend there. For a time we stood looking at one another, not speaking. Then, with a touch of the rein and a shift of his weight, he wheeled his horse. With a toss of her head, Malta asked for a free head. He gave it to her, and she sprang forwards eagerly into a canter. Her silky tail floated on the wind of her passage like a pennant. I watched him go, and even when he was out of sight, I watched the dust hanging in the lane.

When I finally went back into the cabin, I found he had cleaned all the dishes and the pot and put them away. In the centre of my table, where his pack had concealed it, a Farseer Buck was graven deep, his antlers lowered to charge. I ran my fingers over the carved figure and my heart sank in me. ‘What do you want of me?’ I asked of the stillness.

Days followed that one, and time passed for me, but not easily. Each day seemed possessed of a dull sameness, and the evenings stretched endless before me. There was work to fill the time, and I did it, but I also marked that work only seemed to beget more work. A meal cooked meant only dishes to clean, and a seed planted only meant weeding and watering in the days to follow. Satisfaction in my simple life seemed to elude me.

I missed the Fool, and realized that all those years I had missed him as well. It was like an old injury wakened to new complaint. The wolf was no help in enduring it. A deep thoughtfulness had come upon him, and evenings often found us trapped in our individual ponderings. Once, as I sat mending a shirt by candlelight, Nighteyes came to me and rested his head on my knee with a sigh. I reached down to fondle his ears and then scratch behind them. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked him.

It would not be good for you to be alone. I’m glad the Scentless One returned to us. I’m glad that you know where to find him.

Then, with a groan, he lifted his chin from my knee and went to curl on the cool earth by the front porch.

The final heat of summer closed down on us like a smothering blanket. I sweltered as I hauled water for the garden twice a day. The chickens stopped laying. All seemed too hot and too dull to survive it. Then, in the midst of my discontent, Hap returned. I had not expected to see him again until the month of full harvest was over, but one evening, Nighteyes lifted his head abruptly. He arose stiffly and went to the door, to stare down the lane. After a moment I set aside the knife I was sharpening and went to stand beside him. ‘What is it?’ I asked him.

The boy returns.

So soon? But as I framed the thought, I knew it was not soon at all. The months he had spent with Starling had devoured the spring. He’d shared high summer with me, but been gone all the month of early harvest and part of full harvest. Only a moon and a half had passed, and yet it still seemed horribly long. I caught a glimpse of a figure at the far end of the lane. Both Nighteyes and I hastened to meet him. When he saw us coming, he broke into a weary trot to meet us halfway. When I caught him in my arms in a hug, I knew at once that he had grown taller and lost weight. And when I let him go and held him at arm’s length to look at him, I saw both shame and defeat in his eyes. ‘Welcome home,’ I told him, but he only gave a rueful shrug.

‘I’ve come home with my tail between my legs,’ he confessed, and then dropped down to hug Nighteyes. ‘He’s gone all to bone!’ Hap exclaimed in dismay.

‘He was sick for a while, but he’s on the mend now,’ I told him. I tried to make my voice hearty and ignore the jolt of worry I felt. ‘The same could be said of you,’ I added. ‘There’s meat on the platter and bread on the board. Come eat, and then you can tell us how you fared out in the wide world.’

‘I can tell you now as we go, in few words,’ he returned as we trudged back to the cabin. His voice was deep as a man’s and the bitterness was a man’s, also. ‘Not well. The harvest was good, but wherever I went, I was last hired, for always they wanted to hire their cousin first, or their cousin’s friends. Always I was the stranger, put to the dirtiest and heaviest of the labour. I worked like a man, Tom, but they paid me like a mouse, with crumbs and cut coins. And they were suspicious of me too. They didn’t want me sleeping within their barns, no, nor talking to their daughters. And between jobs, well, I had to eat, and all cost far more than I thought it should. I’ve come home with only a handful more of coins than when I left. I was a fool to leave. I would have done as well to stay home and sell chickens and salt fish.’

The hard words rattled out of him. I said nothing, but let him get all of them said. By then we were at the door. He doused his head in the water barrel I had filled for the garden while I went inside to set out food on the table. He came into the cabin and as he glanced around, I knew without his saying it that it had grown smaller in his eyes. ‘It’s good to be home,’ he said. And in the next breath, he went on, ‘But I don’t know what I’m going to do for an apprentice fee. Hire out another year, I suppose. But by then, some might think me too old to learn well. Already one man I met on the road told me that he had never met a master craftsman who hadn’t begun his training before he was twelve. Is that honey?’

‘It is.’ I put the pot on the table with the bread and the cold meat, and Hap fell to as if he had not eaten for days. I made tea for us, and then sat across the table from my boy, watching him eat. Ravenous as he was, he still fed bits of his meat to the wolf beside his chair. And Nighteyes ate, not with appetite, but both to please the boy and for the sake of sharing meat with a pack member. When the fowl was down to bones with not even enough meat left to make soup, he sat back in his chair with a sigh. Then he leaned forwards abruptly, his eager fingers tracing the charging buck on the tabletop. ‘This is beautiful! When did you learn to carve like this?’

‘I didn’t. An old friend came by and spent part of his visit decorating the cabin.’ I smiled to myself. ‘When you’ve a moment, take a look at the rain barrel.’

‘An old friend? I didn’t think you had any save Starling.’

He did not mean the observation to sting, but it did. His fingers traced again the emblem. Once, FitzChivalry Farseer had worn that charging buck as an embroidered crest. ‘Oh, I’ve a few. I just don’t hear from them often.’

‘Ah. What about new friends? Did Jinna stop in on her way to Buckkeep?’

‘She did. She left us a charm to make our garden grow better, as thanks for a night’s shelter.’

He gave me a sideways glance. ‘She stayed the night, then. She’s nice, isn’t she?’

‘Yes, she is.’ He waited for me to say more but I refused. He ducked his head and tried to smother a grin in his hand. I reached across the table and cuffed him affectionately. He fended off the mock-blow, then suddenly caught my hand in his. His grin ran away from his face to be replaced by anxiety. ‘Tom, Tom, what am I going to do? I thought it would be easy and it wasn’t. And I was willing to work hard for a fair wage, and I was civil and put in a fair day, and still they all treated me poorly. What am I going to do? I can’t live here at the edge of nowhere for all my life. I can’t!’

‘No. You can’t.’ And in that moment I perceived two things. First, that my isolated life style had ill prepared the boy to make his own way, and second, that this was what Chade must have felt when I had declared that I would not be an assassin any more. It is strange to know that when you gave a boy what you thought was the best of yourself you actually crippled him. His frantic glance left me feeling small and shamed. I should have done better by him. I would do better by him. I heard myself speak the words before I even knew I had thought them. ‘I do have old friends at Buckkeep. I can borrow the money for your apprenticeship fee.’ My heart lurched at the thought of what form the interest on such a loan might take, but I steeled myself. I would go to Chade first, and if what he asked of me in return was too dear, I would seek out the Fool. It would not be easy to humbly ask to borrow money, but –

‘You’d do that? For me? But I’m not even really your son.’ Hap looked incredulous.

I gripped his hand. ‘I would do that. Because you’re as close to a son as I’m ever likely to get.’

‘I’ll help you pay the debt, I swear.’

‘No, you won’t. It will be my debt, taken on freely. I’ll expect you to pay close attention to your master and devote yourself to learning your trade well.’

‘I will, Tom. I will. And I swear, in your old age, you shall lack for nothing.’ He spoke the words with the devout ardency of guileless youth. I took them as he intended them, and ignored the glowing amusement in Nighteyes’ gaze.

See how edifying it is when someone sees you as tottering towards death?

I never said you were at your grave’s edge.

No. You just treat me as if I were brittle as old chicken bones.

Aren’t you?

No. My strength returns. Wait for the falling of the leaves and cooler weather. I’ll be able to walk you until you drop. Just as I always have.

But what if I have to journey before then?

The wolf lowered his head to his outstretched forepaws with a sigh. And what if you jump for a buck’s throat and miss? There’s no point to worrying about it until it happens.

‘Are you thinking what I am?’ Hap anxiously broke the seeming silence of the room.

I met his worried gaze. ‘Perhaps. What were you thinking?’

He spoke hesitantly. ‘That the sooner you speak to your friends at Buckkeep, the sooner we will know what to expect for the winter.’

I replied slowly. ‘Another winter here would not suit you, would it?’

‘No.’ His natural honesty made him reply quickly. Then he softened it with, ‘It isn’t that I don’t like it here with you and Nighteyes. It’s just that …’ he floundered for a moment. ‘Have you ever felt as if you could actually feel time flowing away from you? As if life was passing you by and you were caught in a backwater with the dead fish and old sticks?’

You can be the dead fish. I’ll be the old stick.

I ignored Nighteyes. ‘I seem to recall I’ve had such a feeling, a time or two.’ I glanced at Verity’s incomplete map of the Six Duchies. I let out my breath and tried not to make it a sigh. ‘I’ll set out as soon as possible.’

‘I could be ready by tomorrow morning. A good night’s sleep and I’ll be –’

‘No.’ I cut him off firmly but kindly. I started to say that the people I must see, I must see alone. I caught myself before I could leave him wondering. Instead, I tipped a nod towards Nighteyes. ‘There are things here that will want looking after while I am gone. I leave them in your care.’

Instantly he looked crestfallen, but to his credit he took a breath, squared his shoulders and nodded.

Beside the table, Nighteyes rolled to his side, and then onto his back. Here’s the dead wolf. Might as well bury him, all he’s fit for is to lie about in a dusty yard and watch chickens he’s not permitted to kill. He paddled his paws vaguely at the air.

Idiot. The chickens are why I’m asking the boy to stay, not you.

Oh? So, if you woke up tomorrow and they were all dead, there would be no reason we could not set out together?

You had better not, I warned him.

He opened his mouth and let his tongue hang to one side. The boy smiled down at him fondly. ‘I always think he looks as if he’s laughing when he does that.’

I didn’t leave the next morning. I was up long before the boy was. I pulled out my good clothes, musty from disuse, and hung them out to air. The linen of the shirt had yellowed with age. It had been a gift from Starling, long ago. I think I had worn it once on the day she gave it to me. I looked at it ruefully, thinking that it would appal Chade and amuse the Fool. Well, like so many other things, it could not be helped.

There was also a box, built years ago and stored up in the rafters of my workshop. I wrestled it down, and opened it. Despite the oily rags that had wrapped it, Verity’s sword was tarnished with disuse. I put on the belt and scabbard, noting that I’d have to punch a new notch in the belt for it to hang comfortably. I sucked in a breath and buckled it as it was. I wiped an oily rag down the blade, and then sheathed the sword at my hip. When I drew it, it weighed heavy in my hand, yet balanced as beautifully as ever. I debated the wisdom of wearing it. I’d feel a fool if someone recognized it and asked difficult questions. I would feel even stupider, however, if my throat were cut for lack of a weapon at my side.

I compromised by wrapping the jewelled grip with leather strips. The sheath itself was battered but serviceable. It looked appropriate to my station. I drew it again, and made a lunge, stretching muscles no longer accustomed to that reach. I resumed my stance and made a few cuts at the air.

Amusement. Better take an axe.

I don’t have one any more. Verity himself had given me this sword. But both he and Burrich had advised me that my style of fighting was more suited to the crudity of an axe than this graceful and elegant weapon. I tried another cut at the air. My mind remembered all Hod had taught me, but my body was having difficulty performing the moves.

You chop wood with one.

That’s not a battleaxe. I’d look a fool carrying that about with me. I sheathed the sword and turned to look at him.

Nighteyes sat in the doorway of the workshop, his tail neatly curled about his feet. Amusement glinted in his dark eyes. He turned his head to stare innocently into the distance. I think one of the chickens died in the night. Sad. Poor old thing. Death comes for all of us eventually.

He was lying, but he had the satisfaction of seeing me sheath the sword and hurry to see if it were so. All six of my biddies clucked and dusted themselves in the sun. The rooster, perched on a fence post, kept a watchful eye on his wives.

How odd. I would have sworn that fat white hen looked poorly yesterday. I’ll just lie out here in the shade and keep an eye on her. He suited his actions to his thought, sprawling in the dappling shade of the birches while staring at the chickens intently. I ignored him and went back into the cabin.

I was boring a new hole in the swordbelt when Hap woke up. He came sleepily to the table to watch me. He came awake when his eyes fell on the sword waiting in its sheath. ‘I’ve never seen that before.’

‘I’ve had it for a long time.’

‘I’ve never seen you wear it when we went to market. All you ever carried before was your sheath-knife.’

‘A trip to Buckkeep is a bit different from a trip to market.’ His question made me look at my own motives for taking the blade. When last I had seen Buckkeep, a number of people there wished me dead. If I encountered any of them and they recognized me, I wanted to be ready. ‘A city like that has a lot more rogues and scoundrels than a simple country market.’

I finished boring the new belt notch and tried it on again. Better. I drew the sword and heard Hap’s indrawn breath. Even with the handle wrapped in plain leather, there was no mistaking it for a cheap blade. This was a weapon created by a master.

‘Can I try it?’

I nodded permission and he picked it up gingerly. He adjusted his grip for the heft of it, and then fell into an awkward imitation of a swordsman’s stance. I had never taught Hap to fight. I wondered for an instant if that omission had been a bad decision. I had hoped he would never need the skills of a fighter. But not teaching them to him was no protection against someone challenging him.

Rather like refusing to teach Dutiful about the Skill.

I pushed that thought aside and said nothing as Hap swung the blade at the air. In a few moments he had tired himself. The hard muscles of a farming hand were not what a man used to swing a blade. The endurance to wield such a weapon demanded both training and constant practice. He set it down and looked at me without speaking.

‘I’ll be leaving for Buckkeep tomorrow morning at dawn. I still need to clean this blade, grease my boots, pack some clothing and food –’

‘And cut your hair,’ Hap interjected quietly.

‘Hm.’ I crossed the room and took out our small looking-glass. Usually, when Starling came to visit me, she cut my hair for me. For a moment I stared at how long it had grown. Then, as I had not in years, I pulled it to the back of my head and fastened it into a warrior’s tail. Hap looked at me with his brows raised, but said nothing about my martial aspect.

Long before dusk, I was ready to travel. I turned my attention to my smallholding. I busied myself and the boy with making sure all would go well for him while I was gone. By the time we sat down to our evening meal, we were ahead on every chore I could think of. He promised he would keep the garden watered and harvest the rest of the peas. He would split the last of the firewood and stack it. I caught myself telling him things he knew, things he had known for years, and finally stopped my tongue. He smiled at my concerns.

‘I survived on my own out on the roads, Tom. I’ll be fine here at home. I only wish I were going with you.’

‘If all works out, when I return, we will make a trip to Buckkeep together.’

Nighteyes sat up abruptly, pricking his ears. Horses.

I went to the door with the wolf at my side. A few moments later, the hoofbeats reached my ears. The animals were coming at a steady trot. I stepped to where I could see around the bend in our narrow lane, and glimpsed the horseman. It was not, as I had hoped, the Fool. This was a stranger. He rode a rangy roan horse and led another. Dust mottled the sweat streaks on his horse’s withers. As I watched them come, a sense of foreboding rose in me. The wolf shared my trepidation. His hackles bristled down his spine and the deep growl that rose from him brought Hap to the door as well. ‘What is it?’

‘I’m not sure. But it’s no random wanderer or peddler.’

At the sight of me, the stranger reined in his horse. He lifted a hand in greeting, then came forwards more slowly. I saw both horses prick their ears at the scent of the wolf, and felt their anxiety as well as their eagerness for the water they could also smell.

‘Are you lost, stranger?’ I greeted the man from a safe distance.

He made no reply but rode closer to us. The wolf’s growl reached a crescendo. The rider seemed unaware of the rising warning.

Wait, I bade him.

We stood our ground as the man rode closer. The horse he led was saddled and bridled. I wondered if he had lost a companion, or stolen it from someone.

‘That’s close enough,’ I warned him suddenly. ‘What do you seek here?’

He had been watching me intently. He did not pause at my words, but made a gesture at first his ears, and then his mouth as he rode closer. I held out a hand. ‘Stop there,’ I warned him, and he understood my motion and obeyed it. Without dismounting, he reached into a messenger’s pouch that was slung across his chest. He drew out a scroll and proffered it to me.

Stay ready, I warned Nighteyes as I stepped forwards to take it. Then I recognized the seal on it. In thick red wax, my own charging buck was imprinted. A different sort of trepidation swept through me. I stared at the missive in my hand, then with a gesture gave the deaf-mute permission to dismount. I took a breath and spoke to Hap with a steady voice. ‘Take him inside and provide him food and drink. The same for his horses. Please.’

And to Nighteyes, Keep an eye on him, my brother, while I see what this scroll says.

Nighteyes ceased his rumbling growl at my thought, but followed the messenger very closely as a puzzled Hap gestured him towards our cabin. The weary horses stood where he had left them. A few moments later, Hap emerged to lead them off to water. Alone I stood in the dooryard and stared at the coiled scroll in my hand. I broke the seal at last and studied Chade’s slanting letters in the fading daylight.

Dear Cousin,

Family matters at home require your attention. Do not delay your return. You know I would not summon you thus unless the need was urgent.

The signature that followed this brief missive was indecipherable. It was not Chade’s name. The real message had been in the seal itself. He never would have used it unless the need was urgent. I re-rolled the scroll and looked up towards the sinking sun.

When I entered the house, the messenger stood up immediately. Still chewing, he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and indicated he was ready to leave at once. I suspected his orders from Chade had been very specific. There was no time to lose in sleep or rest for man or beast. I gestured him back to his food. I was glad my rucksack was already packed.

‘I unsaddled the horses and wiped them down a bit,’ Hap told me as he came in the door. ‘They look as if they’ve come a long way today.’

I took a breath. ‘Put their saddles back on. As soon as our friend has eaten, we’ll be leaving.’

For a moment, the boy was thunderstruck. Then he asked in a small voice, ‘Where are you going?’

I tried to make my smile convincing. ‘Buckkeep, lad. And faster than I expected.’ I considered the matter. There was no way to estimate when I might be back. Or even if I would come back. A missive like this from Chade would definitely mean danger of some kind. I was amazed at how easily I decided. ‘I want you and the wolf to follow at first light. Use the pony and cart, so if he gets weary, he can ride.’

Hap stared at me as if I had gone mad. ‘What about the chickens? And the chores I was to do while you were gone?’

‘The chickens will have to fend for themselves. No. They wouldn’t last a week before a weasel had them. Take them to Baylor. He’ll feed and watch them for the sake of their eggs. Take a day or so, and close the house up tight. We may both be gone awhile.’ I turned away from the incomprehension on Hap’s face.

‘But …’ The fear in his voice made me turn back to him. He stared at me as if I were suddenly a stranger. ‘Where should I go when I get to Buckkeep Town? Will you meet me there?’ I heard an echo of the abandoned boy in his voice.

I reached back in my memory fifteen years and tried to summon up the name of a decent inn. Before I could dredge one out, he hopefully put in, ‘I know where Jinna’s niece lives. Jinna said I could find her there, when next I came to Buckkeep. Her house has a hedge-witch sign on it, a hand with lines on the palm. I could meet you there.’

‘That will be it then.’

Relief showed on his face. He knew where he was going. I was glad he had that security. I myself did not. But despite all my uneasiness, a strange elation filled me. Chade’s old spell fell over me again. Secrets and adventures. I felt the wolf nudge against me.

A time of change. Then, gruffly: I could try to keep pace with the horses. Buckkeep is not so far.

I do not know what this means, my brother. And until I do, I would just as soon that you stayed by Hap’s side.

Is that supposed to salve my pride?

No. It’s supposed to ease my fears.

I will bring him safely to Buckkeep Town, then. But after that, I am at your side.

Of course. Always.

Before the sun kissed the horizon good-night, I was mounted on the nondescript grey horse. Verity’s disguised sword hung at my hip, and my pack was fastened tightly to the back of my saddle. I followed my silent companion as he hastened us down the road to Buckkeep.

ELEVEN

Chade’s Tower

Between the Six Duchies and the Out Islands as much blood has been shared as has been shed. Despite the enmity of the Red Ship War, and the years of sporadic raiding that preceded it, almost every family in the Coastal Duchies will acknowledge having ‘a cousin in the Out Islands’. All acknowledge that the folk of the Coastal Duchies are of those mingled bloodlines. It is well documented that the first rulers of the Farseer line were likely raiders from the Out Islands who came to raid and settled instead.

Just as the history of the Six Duchies has been shaped by geography, so too has the chronicle of the Out Islands. Theirs is a harsher land than ours. Ice rules their mountainous islands year round. Deep fjords slash their islands and rough water divides them. We consider their islands immense, yet the domination of glacier grants men only the edges of those islands as dwelling places. What arable land they have along the coasts of their islands is stingy and thin in its yield. Thus no large cities can be supported there, and few towns. Barriers and isolation are the hallmark of that land, and so the folk dwell in fiercely independent villages and town-states. In times past, they were raiders by necessity as well as by inclination, and robbed one another as often as they ventured across the seas to harry the Six Duchies coastline. It is true that during the Red Ship War, Kebal Rawbread was able to force a brief alliance among the island folk, and from that alliance, he hammered together a powerful raiding fleet. Only the devastation of the Six Duchies dragons was sufficient to shatter his merciless hold over his own people.

Having once seen the strength of such an alliance, the individual headmen of the Out Island villages realized that such power could be used for more than War. In the years of recovery that followed the end of the Red Ship War, the Hetgurd was formed. This alliance of Out Island headmen was an uneasy one. At first, they sought only to replace inter-island raiding with trading treaties between individual headmen. Arkon Bloodblade was the first headman to point out to the others that the Hetgurd could use its unified strength to normalize trade relations with the Six Duchies.

Brawnkenner’s The Out Island Chronicles

As always, Chade had planned well. His silent messenger seemed very familiar with his ways. Before noon the next day, we had changed our exhausted horses for two others at a decrepit farmhouse. We travelled across brown hillsides seared by summer, and left those two horses at a fisherman’s hut. A small boat was waiting and the surly crew took us swiftly up the coast. We put in at a landing at a tiny trading port, where two more horses awaited us at a run-down inn. I stayed as silent as my guide, and no one questioned me about anything. If coin was exchanged, I never saw it. It is always best not to see what is meant to be concealed. The horses carried us to yet another waiting boat, this one with a scaly deck that smelled much of fish. It struck me that we were approaching Buckkeep not by the swiftest possible path, but by the least likely one. If anyone watched the roads into Buckkeep for us, they were doomed to disappointment.

Buckkeep Castle is built on an inhospitable strip of coast. It stands, tall and black, on top of the cliffs, but it commands a fine view of the Buck River mouth. Whoever controls that castle controls trade on the Buck River. For that reason was it built there. The vagaries of history have made it the ruling seat of the Farseer family. Buckkeep Town clings to the cliffs below the castle like lichens to rock. Half of it is built out on docks and piers. As a boy, I had thought the town had grown as large as it could, given its geography, but on the afternoon that we sailed into it, I saw that I had been wrong. Human ingenuity had prevailed over nature’s harshness. Suspended pathways now vined across the face of the cliffs, and tiny houses and shops found purchase to cling there. The houses reminded me of mud-swallows’ nests, and I wondered what pounding they took during the winter storms. Pilings had been driven into the black sand and rock of the beaches where I had once run and played with Molly and the other children. Warehouses and inns squatted on these perches, and at high tide, one could tie up right at their doorsteps. This our fishing boat did, and I followed my mute guide ‘ashore’ onto a wooden walkway.

As the small boat cast off and left us there, I gawked about us, a country farmer come to town. The increase in structures and the lively boat commerce indicated that Buckkeep prospered, yet I could take no joy in it. Here was the final evidence of my childhood erased. The place I had both dreaded and longed to return to was gone, swallowed by this thriving port. When I glanced about for my mute guide, he had vanished. I loitered where he had left me a bit longer, already suspecting he would not return. He had brought me back to Buckkeep Town. From here, I needed no guide. Chade never liked any of his contacts to know every link of the convoluted paths that led to him. I shouldered my small rucksack and headed towards home.

Perhaps, I thought as I wended my way through Buckkeep’s steep and narrow streets, Chade had even known that I would prefer to make this part of my journey alone. I did not hurry. I knew I could not contact Chade until after nightfall. As I explored the once-familiar streets and byways, I found nothing that was completely familiar. It seemed that every structure that could sprout a second storey had, and on some of the narrower streets the balconies almost met overhead, so that one walked in a perpetual twilight. I found inns I had frequented and stores where I had traded, and even glimpsed the faces of old acquaintances overlaid with fifteen years of experience. Yet no one exclaimed with surprise or delight to see me; as a stranger I was visible only to the boys hawking hot pies in the street. I bought one for a copper and ate it as I walked. The taste of the peppery gravy and the chunks of river fish in it were the taste of Buckkeep Town itself.

The chandlery that had once belonged to Molly’s father was now a tailor’s shop. I did not go inside. I went instead to the tavern we had once frequented. It was as dark, as smoky, and as crowded as I recalled. The heavy table in the corner still bore the marks of Kerry’s idle whittling. The boy who brought my beer was too young ever to have known me, but I knew who had fathered him by the line of his brow and was glad the business had remained in the same family. One beer became two, and then three, and the fourth was gone before twilight began to creep through the streets of the town. No one had uttered a word to the dour-faced stranger drinking alone, but I listened all the same. But whatever desperate business had led Chade to call on me, it was not common knowledge. I heard only gossip of the Prince’s betrothal, complaints about Bingtown’s war with Chalced disrupting trade, and the local mutterings about the very strange weather. Out of a clear and peaceful night sky, lightning had struck an unused storage hut in the outer keep of the castle and blown the roof right off. I shook my head at that tale. I left an extra copper for the boy, and shouldered my pack once more.

The last time I had left Buckkeep it had been as a dead man in a coffin. I could scarcely re-enter the same way, and yet I feared to approach the main gate. Once I had been a familiar face in the guardroom. Changed I might be, but I would not take the chance of being recognized. Instead, I went to a place both Chade and I knew, a secret exit from the castle grounds that Nighteyes had discovered when he was just a cub. Through that small gap in Buckkeep’s defences, Queen Kettricken and the Fool had once fled Prince Regal’s plot. Tonight, I would return by that route.

But when I got there, I found that the fault in the walls that guarded Buckkeep had been repaired a long time ago. A heavy growth of thistles cloaked where it had been. A short distance from the thistles, sitting cross-legged on a large embroidered cushion, a golden-haired youth of obvious nobility played a penny whistle with consummate skill. As I approached, he ended his tune with a final scattering of notes and set his instrument aside.

‘Fool,’ I greeted him fondly and with no great surprise.

He cocked his head and made a mouth at me. ‘Beloved,’ he drawled in response. Then he grinned, sprang to his feet, and slipped his whistle inside his ribboned shirt. He indicated his cushion. ‘I’m glad I brought that. I had a feeling you might linger a time in Buckkeep Town, but I didn’t expect to wait this long.’

‘It’s changed,’ I said lamely.

‘Haven’t we all?’ he replied, and for a moment there was an echo of pathos in his voice. But in an instant it was gone. He tidied his gleaming hair fussily and picked a leaf from his stocking. He pointed at his cushion again. ‘Pick that up and follow me. Hurry along. We are expected.’ His air of petulant command mimed perfectly that of a foppish dandy of the noble class. He plucked a handkerchief from his sleeve and patted at his upper lip, erasing imaginary perspiration.

I had to smile. He assumed the role so deftly and effortlessly. ‘How are we going in?’

‘By the front gate, of course. Have no fear. I’ve put word about that Lord Golden is very dissatisfied with the quality of servants he has found in Buckkeep Town. None have suited me, and so today I went to meet a ship bringing to me a fine fellow, if a bit rustic, recommended to me by my second cousin’s first valet. By name, one Tom Badgerlock.’

He proceeded ahead of me. I picked up his cushion and followed. ‘So. I’m to be your servant?’ I asked in wry amusement.

‘Of course. It’s the perfect guise. You’ll be virtually invisible to all the nobility of Buckkeep. Only the other servants will speak to you, and as I intend that you will be a down-trodden, overworked, poorly-dressed lackey of a supercilious, overbearing and insufferable young lord, you will have little time to socialize at all.’ He halted suddenly and looked back. One slender, long-fingered hand clasped his chin as he looked down his nose at me. His fair brows knit and his amber eyes narrowed as he snapped, ‘And do not dare to meet my eyes, sirrah! I will tolerate no impertinence. Stand up straight, keep your place, and speak no word without my leave. Are you clear on these instructions?’

‘Perfectly,’ I grinned at him.

He continued to glare at me. Then suddenly the glare was replaced by a look of exasperation. ‘FitzChivalry, the game is up if you cannot play this role and play it to the hilt. Not just when we stand in the Great Hall of Buckkeep, but every moment of every day when there is the remotest chance that we might be seen. I have been Lord Golden since I arrived, but I am still a newcomer to the Queen’s Court, and folk will stare. Chade and Queen Kettricken have done all they could to help me in this ruse, Chade because he perceived how useful I might be, and the Queen because she feels I truly deserve to be treated as a lord.’

‘And no one recognized you?’ I broke in incredulously.

He cocked his head. ‘What would they recognize, Fitz? My dead white skin and colourless eyes? My jester’s motley and painted face? My capers and cavorting and daring witticisms?’

‘I knew you the moment I saw you,’ I reminded him.

He smiled warmly. ‘Just as I knew you, and would know you when first I met you a dozen lives hence. But few others do. Chade with his assassin’s eyes picked me out, and arranged a private audience at which I made myself known to the Queen. A few others have given me curious glances from time to time, but no one would dare to accost Lord Golden and ask him if fifteen years ago he had been King Shrewd’s jester at this self-same court. My age appears wrong to them, as does my colouring, as does my demeanour, as does my wealth.’

‘How can they be so blind?’

He shook his head and smiled at my ignorance. ‘Fitz, Fitz. They never even saw me in the first place. They saw only a jester and a freak. I deliberately took no name when first I arrived here. To most of the lords and ladies of Buckkeep, I was just the Fool. They heard my jokes and saw my capers, but they never really saw me.’ He gave a small sigh. Then he gave me a considering look. ‘You made it a name. The Fool. And you saw me. You met my eyes when others looked aside, disconcerted.’ I saw the tip of his tongue for a second. ‘Did you never guess how you frightened me? That all my ruses were useless against the eyes of a small boy?’

‘You were just a child yourself,’ I pointed out uneasily.

He hesitated. I noticed he did not agree or disagree with me when he went on. ‘Become my faithful servant, Fitz. Be Tom Badgerlock, every second of every day that you are at Buckkeep. It is the only way you can protect both of us. And the only guise in which you can aid Chade.’

‘What, exactly, does Chade need of me?’

‘That would be better heard from his lips than mine. Come. It grows dark. Buckkeep Town has grown and changed, as has Buckkeep itself. If we try to enter after dark, we may well be turned away.’

It had grown later as we talked and the long summer day was fading around us. He led and I followed as he took me round about to the steep road that led to Buckkeep Castle’s main gate. He lingered in the trees to let a wine merchant round a bend before we ourselves stepped out on the road. Then Lord Golden led and his humble servant Tom Badgerlock trudged behind him, bearing his embroidered cushion.

At the gate he was admitted without question and I followed at his heels, unnoticed. The guard on the gate wore Buckkeep’s blue and their jerkins were embroidered with the Farseer leaping buck. Small things like that twisted my heart unexpectedly. I blinked and then coughed and rubbed my eyes. The Fool had the kindness not to look back at me.

Buckkeep had changed as much as the town that clung to the cliffs below it. Overall, the changes were ones I approved. We passed a new and larger stable. Paving stones had been laid where once muddy tracks had run. Although more folk thronged the castle than I recalled, it seemed cleaner and better maintained. I wondered if this was Kettricken’s Mountain discipline applied to the keep, or simply the result of peace in the land. All the years that I had lived in Buckkeep had been years of the Outislander raids and eventually outright war. Relative peace had brought a resumption of trade, and not just with the countries to the south of the Six Duchies. Our history of trading with the Out Islands was as long as our history of fighting with them. I had seen the Outislander ships, both oared and sailed, in Buckkeep’s harbour when I arrived.

We entered through the Great Hall, Lord Golden striding imperiously along while I hastened, eyes down, at his heels. Two ladies detained him briefly with greetings. I think it was hardest then for me to keep my guise of serving-man in place. Where once the Fool had inspired unease or outright distaste, Lord Golden was greeted with fluttering fans and eyelashes. He charmed them both with a score of elegantly-woven compliments on their dresses, their hair, and the scents they wore. They parted with him reluctantly, and he assured them he was as loath to leave, but he had a servant to be shown his duties, and certainly they knew the drudgery of that. One simply could not get good servants any more, and although this one came with a high recommendation, he had already proven to be a bit slow-witted and woefully countrified. Well, one had to make do with what one could get these days, and he hoped to enjoy their company on the morrow. He planned to stroll through the thyme gardens after breakfast, if they cared to join him?

They would, of course, with great delight, and after several more rounds of exchanged pleasantries, we were allowed to go our way. Lord Golden had been given apartments on the west side of the keep. In King Shrewd’s day, these had been considered the less desirable rooms, for they faced the hills behind the keep and the sunset, rather than the water and the sunrise. In those days, they had been furnished more simply, and were considered suitable for lesser nobility.

Either the status of the rooms had improved, or the Fool had been very lavish with his own money. I opened a heavy oak door for him at his gesture, and then followed him into chambers where both taste and quality had been indulged in equal measure. Deep greens and rich browns predominated in the thick rugs underfoot and the opulently cushioned chairs. Through a door I glimpsed an immense bed, fat with pillows and featherbed, and so heavily draped that even in Buck’s coldest winter, no draught would find the occupant. For the summer weather, the heavy curtains had been roped back with tasselled cords, and a fall of lace sufficed to keep all flying insects at bay. Carved chests and wardrobes stood casually ajar, the volume of garments within threatening to cascade out into the room. There was an air of rich and pleasant disorder, completely unlike the Fool’s ascetic tower room that I recalled of old.

Lord Golden flung himself into a chair as I closed the door quietly behind us. A last slice of sunlight from the westering sun came in the tall window and fell across him as if by accident. He steepled his graceful hands before him and lolled his head back against the cushions, and suddenly I perceived the deliberate artifice of the chair’s position and his pose. This entire rich room was a setting for his golden beauty. Every colour chosen, every placement of furniture was done to achieve this end. In this place and time, he glowed in the honey light of the sunset. I lifted my eyes to consider the arrangement of the candles, the angles of the chairs.

‘You take your place like a figure stepping into a carefully-composed portrait,’ I observed quietly.

He smiled, his obvious pleasure in the compliment a confirmation of my words. Then he came to his feet as effortlessly as a cat. His arm and hand twined through a motion to point at each door off the room. ‘My bedchamber. The privy room. My private room.’ This door was closed, as was the last one. ‘And your chamber, Tom Badgerlock.’

I did not ask him about his private room. I knew his need for solitude of old. I crossed the room and tugged open the door to my quarters. I peered inside the small, dark room. It had no window. As my eye adjusted, I could make out a narrow cot in the corner, a washstand and a small chest. There was a single candle in a holder on the washstand. That was all. I turned back to the Fool with a quizzical look.

‘Lord Golden,’ he said with a wry smile, ‘is a shallow, venal fellow. He is witty and quick-tongued, and very charming to his fellows, and completely unaware of those of lesser stations. So. Your chamber reflects that.’

‘No window? No fireplace?’

‘No different from most of the servants’ chambers on this floor. It has, however, one singularly remarkable advantage that most of the others lack.’

I glanced back into the room. ‘Whatever it is, I don’t see it.’

‘And that is exactly what is intended. Come.’

Taking my arm, he accompanied me into the dark little room. He shut the door firmly behind us. We were instantly plunged into complete darkness. Speaking quietly next to me, he observed, ‘Always remember that the door must be shut for this to work. Over here. Give me your hand.’

I complied, and he guided my hand over the rough stone of the outer wall adjacent to the door. ‘Why must we do this in the dark?’ I demanded.

‘It was faster than kindling candles. Besides, what I am showing you cannot be seen, only felt. There. Feel that?’

‘I think so.’ It was a very slight unevenness in the stone.

‘Measure it off with your hand, or whatever you want to do to learn where it is.’

I obliged him, discovering that it was about six of my handspans from the corner of the room, and at the height of my chin. ‘Now what?’

‘Push. Gently. It does not take much.’

I obeyed and felt the stone shift very slightly beneath my hand. A small click sounded, but not from the wall before me. Instead, it came from behind me.

‘This way,’ the Fool told me, and in the darkness led me to the opposite wall of the small chamber. Again, he set my hand to the wall and told me to push. The darkness gave way on oiled hinges, the seeming stone no more than a façade that swung away at my touch. ‘Very quiet,’ the Fool observed approvingly. ‘He must have greased it.’

I blinked as my eyes adjusted to a subtle light leaking down from high above. In a moment I could see a very narrow staircase leading up. It paralleled the wall of the room. A corridor, equally narrow, snaked away into darkness, following the wall. ‘I believe you are expected,’ the Fool told me in his aristocratic sneer. ‘As is Lord Golden, but in far different company. I will excuse you from your duties as my valet, at least for tonight. You are dismissed, Tom Badgerlock.’

‘Thank you, master,’ I replied snidely. I craned my neck to peer up the stairs. They were stone, obviously built into the wall when the castle was first constructed. The grey quality of the light that seeped down suggested daylight rather than lamplight.

The Fool’s hand settled briefly on my shoulder, delaying me. In a far different voice he said, ‘I’ll leave a candle burning in the room for you.’ The hand squeezed affectionately. ‘And welcome home, FitzChivalry Farseer.’

I turned to look back at him. ‘Thank you, Fool.’ We nodded to one another, an oddly formal farewell, and I began to climb the stair. On the third stair, I heard a snick behind me, and looked back. The door had closed.

I climbed for quite a distance. Then the staircase turned, and I perceived the source of the light. Narrow openings, not even as wide as arrowslits, permitted the setting sun to finger in. The light was growing dimmer, and I suddenly perceived that when the sun set, I would be plunged into absolute darkness. I came to a junction in the corridor at that time. Truly, Chade’s rat-warren of tunnels, stairs and corridors within Buckkeep Castle were far more extensive than I had ever imagined. I closed my eyes for a moment and imagined the layout of the castle. After a brief hesitation, I chose a path and went on. As I travelled, from time to time I became aware of voices. Tiny peepholes gave me access to bedchambers and parlours as well as providing slivers of light in long dark stretches of corridor. A wooden stool, dusty with disuse, sat in one alcove. I sat down on it and peered through a slit into a private audience chamber that I recognized from my service with King Shrewd. Evidently the magnificent woodwork that framed the hearth furnished this spy post. Having taken my bearings from this, I hastened on.

At last, I saw a yellowish glow in the secret passageway far ahead of me. Hurrying towards it, I found a bend in the corridor, and a fat candle burning in a glass. Far down another stretch, I glimpsed a second candle. From that point on, the tiny lights led me on, until I climbed a very steep stair and suddenly found myself standing in a small stone room with a narrow door. The door swung open at my touch, and I found myself stepping out from behind the wine rack into Chade’s tower room.

I looked about the chamber with new eyes. It was uninhabited at the moment, but a small fire crackling on the hearth and a laden table told me I was, indeed, expected. The great bedstead was overladen with comforters, cushions and furs as it had always been, yet an elaborate spiderweb constructed amidst the dusty hangings spoke of disuse. Chade used this room still, but he no longer slept here.

I ventured down to the workroom end of the chamber, past the scroll-laden racks and the shelves of arcane equipment. Sometimes, when one goes back to the scene of one’s childhood, things seem smaller. What was mysterious and the sole province of adults suddenly seems commonplace and mundane when viewed with mature eyes.

Such was not the case with Chade’s workroom. The little pots carefully labelled in his decisive hand, the blackened kettles and stained pestles, the spilled herbs and the lingering odours still worked their spell on me. The Wit and the Skill were mine, but the strange chemistries that Chade practised here were a magic I had never mastered. Here I was still an apprentice, knowing only the basics of my master’s sophisticated lore.

My travels had taught me a bit. A shallow gleaming bowl, draped with a cloth, was a scrying basin. I’d seen them used by fortune-tellers in Chalcedean towns. I thought of the night that Chade had wakened me from a drunken stupor to tell me that Neat Bay was under attack from Red Ship Raiders. There had been no time, that night, to demand how he knew. I had always assumed it had been a messenger bird. Now I wondered.

The work hearth was cold, but tidier than I recalled. I wondered who his new apprentice was, and if I would meet the lad. Then my musings were cut short by the sound of a door closing softly. I turned to see Chade Fallstar standing near a scroll rack. For the first time, I realized that there were no obvious doors in the chamber. Even here, all was still deception. He greeted me with a warm if weary smile. ‘And here you are at last. When I saw Lord Golden enter the Great Hall smiling, I knew you would be awaiting me. Oh, Fitz, you have no idea how relieved I am to see you.’

I grinned at him. ‘In all our years together, I can’t recall a more ominous greeting from you.’

‘It’s an ominous time, my boy. Come, sit down, eat. We’ve always reasoned best over food. I’ve so much to tell you, and you may as well hear it with a full belly.’

‘Your messenger did not tell me much,’ I admitted, taking a place at the small lavishly-spread table. There were cheeses, pastries, cold meats, fruit that was fragrantly ripe, and spicy breads. There was both wine and brandy, but Chade began with tea from an earthenware pot warm at the edge of the fire. When I reached for the pot, a gesture of his hand warded me off.

‘I’ll put on more water,’ he offered, and hung a kettle to boil. I watched the set of his mouth as he sipped the dark brew in his cup. He did not seem to relish it, yet he sank back in his chair with a sigh. I kept my thoughts to myself.

As I began to heap my plate, Chade noted, ‘My messenger told you as much as he knew, which was nothing. One of my greatest tasks has been to keep this private. Ah, where do I begin? It is hard to decide, for I don’t know what precipitated this crisis.’

I swallowed a mouthful of bread and ham. ‘Tell me the heart of it, and we can work backwards from there.’

His green eyes were troubled. ‘Very well.’ He took breath, then hesitated. He poured us both brandy. As he set mine before me he said, ‘Prince Dutiful is missing. We think he might have run on his own. If he did, he likely had help. It is possible that he was taken against his will, but neither the Queen nor I think that likely. There.’ He sat back in his chair and watched for my reaction.

It took me a moment to marshal my thoughts. ‘How could it happen? Who do you suspect? How long has he been gone?’

He held up a hand to halt my flow of questions. ‘Six days and seven nights, counting tonight. I doubt he will reappear before morning, though nothing would please me better. How did it happen? Well, I do not criticize my queen, but her Mountain ways are often difficult for me to accept. The Prince has come and gone as he pleased from both castle and keep since he was thirteen. She seemed to think it best that he get to know his people on a common footing. There have been times when I thought that was wise, for it has made the folk fond of him. I myself have felt that it was time he had a guard of his own to accompany him, or at the least a tutor of the well-muscled sort. But Kettricken, as you may recall, can be as unbending as stone. In that, she had her way. He came and went as he wished, and the guards had their orders to let him do so.’

The water was boiling. Chade still kept teas where he always had, and he made no comment as I rose to make my tea. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts, and I let him, for my own thoughts were milling in every direction like a panicky flock of sheep. ‘He could already be dead,’ I heard myself say aloud, and then could have bitten my tongue out at the stricken look on Chade’s face.

‘He could,’ the old man admitted. ‘He is a hearty, healthy boy, unlikely to turn away from a challenge. This absence need not be a plot; an ordinary accident could be at the base of it. I thought of that. I’ve a discreet man or two at my beck, and they’ve searched the base of the sea cliffs, and the more dangerous ravines where he likes to hunt. Still, I think that if he were injured, his little hunting cat might still have come back to the castle. Though it is hard to say with cats. A dog would, I think, but a cat might just revert to being wild. In any case, unpleasant as the idea is, I have thought to look for a body. None has been discovered.’

A hunting cat. I ignored my jabbing thought to ask, ‘You said run away, or possibly taken. What would make you think either one likely?’

‘The first, because he’s a boy trying to learn to be a man in a Court that makes neither easy for him. The second, because he’s a prince, newly betrothed to a foreign princess, and rumoured to be possessed of the Wit. That gives several factions any number of reasons to either control him or destroy him.’

He gave me several silent minutes to digest that. Several days would not have been enough. I must have looked as sick as I felt, for Chade finally said, softly, ‘We think that even if he has been taken, he is most valuable to his kidnappers alive.’

I found a breath and spoke through a dry mouth. ‘Has anyone claimed to have him? Demanded ransom?’

‘No.’

I cursed myself for not staying abreast of politics in the Six Duchies. But had not I sworn never to become involved in them again? It suddenly seemed a child’s foolish resolve never to get caught in the rain again. I spoke quietly, for I felt ashamed. ‘You are going to have to educate me, Chade, and swiftly. What factions? How does it benefit their interests to have control of the Prince? What foreign princess? And –’ and this last question near choked me, ‘– Why would anyone think Prince Dutiful was Witted?’

‘Because you were,’ Chade said shortly. He reached again for his teapot and replenished his cup. It poured even blacker this time, and I caught a whiff of a treacly yet bitter-edged aroma. He gulped down a mouthful, and swiftly followed it with a toss of brandy. He swallowed. His green eyes met mine and he waited. I said nothing. Some secrets still belonged to me alone. At least, I hoped they did.

‘You were Witted,’ he resumed. ‘Some say it must have come from your mother, whoever she was, and Eda forgive me, I’ve encouraged that thinking. But others point back a time, to the Piebald Prince and several other oddlings in the Farseer line, to say, “No, the taint is there, down in the roots, and Prince Dutiful is a shoot from that line.”’

‘But the Piebald Prince died without issue; Dutiful is not of his line. What made folk think that the Prince might be Witted?’

Chade narrowed his eyes at me. ‘Do you play Cat-And-Mouse with me, boy?’ He set his hands on the edge of the table. Veins and tendons stood up ropily on their backs as he leaned towards me to demand, ‘Do you think I’m losing my faculties, Fitz? Because I can assure you, I’m not. I may be getting old, boy, but I’m as acute as ever. I promise you that!’

Until that moment, I had not doubted it. This outburst was so uncharacteristic of Chade that I found myself leaning back in my chair and regarding him with apprehension. He must have interpreted the look in my eyes, for he sat back in his chair and dropped his hands into his lap. When he spoke again, it was my mentor of old that I heard. ‘Starling told you of the minstrel at Springfest. You know of the unrest in the land among the Witted, yes, and you know of those who call themselves the Piebalds. There is an unkinder name for them. The Cult of the Bastard.’ He gave me a baleful look, but gave me no time to absorb that information. He waved a hand, dismissing my shock. ‘Whatever they call themselves, they have recently taken up a new weapon. They expose families tainted by the Wit. I do not know if they seek to prove how widespread the Wit is, or if their aim is the destruction of their fellows who will not ally with them. Posts appear in public places. “Gere the Tanner’s son is Witted; his beast is a yellow hound.” “Lady Winsome is Witted; her beast is her merlin.” Each post is signed with their emblem, a piebald horse. Who is Witted and who is not has become court gossip these days. Some deny the rumours; others flee, to country estates if they are landed, to a distant village and a new name if they are not. If those posts are true, there are far more who possess the Beast Magic than even you might suppose. Or,’ and he cocked his head at me, ‘do you know far more of all this than I do?’

‘No,’ I replied mildly. ‘I do not.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Nor was I aware how completely Starling reported to you.’

He steepled his hands under his chin. ‘I’ve offended you.’

‘No,’ I lied. ‘It’s not that, it’s that –’

‘Damn me. I’ve become a testy old man despite all I’ve done to avoid it! And I offend you and you lie to me about it and when only you can aid me, I drive you away from me. My judgement fails me just when I need it most.’

His eyes suddenly met mine and horror stood in his gaze. Before my eyes, the old man dwindled. His voice became an uncertain whisper. ‘Fitz, I am terrified for the boy. Terrified. The accusation was not posted publicly. It was sent in a sealed note. It was not signed at all, not even with the Piebalds’ sigil. “Do what is right,” it said, “and no one else ever need know. Ignore this warning, and we will take action of our own.” But they didn’t say what they wanted of us, not specifically, so what could we do? We didn’t ignore it; we simply waited to hear more. And then he is gone. The Queen fears … the Queen fears too many things to list. She fears most that they will kill him. But what I fear is worse than that. Not just that they will kill him, but that they will reduce him to … to what you were when Burrich and I first pulled you from that false grave. A beast in a man’s body.’

He rose suddenly and walked away from the table. I do not know if he felt shamed that his love for the boy could reduce him to such terror, or if he sought to spare me the recollection of what I had been. He need not have bothered. I had become adept at refusing those memories. He stared unseeing at a tapestry for a time, then cleared his throat. When he went on, it was the Queen’s advisor who spoke. ‘The Farseer throne would not stand before that, FitzChivalry. We have needed a king for too long. If the boy were proven Witted, even that I think I could manage to set in a different light. But if he were shown to his dukes as a beast, all would come undone, and the Six Duchies will never become the Seven Duchies, but will instead be reduced to squabbling city-states and lands between that know no rule. Kettricken and I have come such a long and weary road, my boy, in the years that you have been gone. Neither she nor I can really muster the unquestionable authority that a true Farseer-born king could wield. Through the years, we have sailed a shifting sea of alliances with first these dukes, then those ones, always netting a majority that allowed us to survive another season. We are so close now, so close. In two more years, he will be prince no more, but take the title of King-in-Waiting. One year of that, and I think I could persuade the dukes to recognize him as a full king. Then, I think, we might feel secure for a time. When King Eyod of the Mountains dies, Dutiful inherits his mantle as well. We will have the Mountains at our back, and if this marriage alliance Kettricken has negotiated with the Out Islands hetgurd prospers, we will have friendship in the seas to the North.’

‘Hetgurd?’

‘An alliance of nobles. They have no king there, no high ruler. Kebal Rawbread was an anomaly for them. But this hetgurd has a number of powerful men in it, and one of them, Arkon Bloodblade, has a daughter. Messages have gone back and forth. His daughter and Dutiful seem to be suitable for one another. The Hetgurd has sent a delegation to formally recognize their betrothal. It will be here soon. If Prince Dutiful meets their expectations, the affiancing will be recognized at a ceremony at the next new moon.’ He turned back to me, shaking his head. ‘I fear it is too soon for such an alliance. Bearns does not like it, nor Rippon. They would probably profit from the renewed trade, but the wounds are still too fresh. Better, I would think, to wait another five years, let the trade swell slowly between the countries, let Dutiful take up the reins of the Six Duchies, and then propose an alliance. Not with my prince, but with a lesser offering. A daughter of one of the dukes, perhaps a younger son … but that is only my advice. I am not the Queen, and the Queen has made her will known. She will have peace in her lifetime, she proclaims. I think she attempts too much: to meld the Mountain Kingdom into the Six Duchies as a seventh, and to put an Outislander woman on our throne as queen. It is too much, too soon …’

It was almost as if he had forgotten I was there. He thought aloud before me, with a carelessness that he had never displayed in the years when Shrewd was on the throne. In those years, he would never have spoken a word of doubt on any of the king’s decisions. I wonder if he regarded our foreign-born queen as more fallible, or if he deemed me now mature enough to hear his misgivings. He took his chair across from me and again our eyes met.

In that moment, cold walked up my spine as I realized what I confronted. Chade was not the man he had been. He had aged, and despite his denials, the keen mind fought to shine past the fluttering curtains of his years. Only the structure of his spy-web, built so painstakingly through the years, sustained his power now. Whatever drugs he brewed in his teapot were not quite enough to firm the façade. To realize that was like missing a step on a dark steep stair. I suddenly grasped just how far and how swiftly we all could fall.

I reached across the table to set my hand upon his. I swear, I strove to will strength into him. I gripped his eyes with mine and sought to give him confidence. ‘Begin the night before he disappeared,’ I suggested quietly. ‘And tell me all that you know.’

‘After all these years, I should report to you, and let you draw the conclusions?’ I thought I had affronted him, but then his smile dawned. ‘Ah, Fitz, thank you. Thank you, boy. After all these years, it is so good to have you back at my side. So good to have someone I can trust. The night before Prince Dutiful vanished. Well. Let me see, then.’

For a time, those green eyes looked far afield. I feared for a moment that I had sent his mind wandering, but then he suddenly looked back at me, and his glance was keen. ‘I’ll go back a bit farther than that. We had quarrelled that morning, the Prince and I. Well, not quarrelled exactly. Dutiful is too mannered to quarrel with an elder. But I had lectured him, and he had sulked, much as you used to. I declare, sometimes it is a wonder to me how much that boy can put me in mind of you.’ He huffed out a brief sigh.

‘Anyway. We had had a little confrontation. He came to me for his morning Skill-lesson, but he could not keep his mind on it. There were circles under his eyes, and I knew he had been out late again with that hunting cat of his. And I warned him, sharply, that if he could not regulate himself so as to arrive refreshed and ready for lessons, it could be done for him. The cat could be put out in the stables with the other coursing beasts to assure that my prince would get a good sleep every night.

‘That, of course, ill suited him. He and that cat have been inseparable ever since the beast was given to him. But he did not speak of the cat or his late night excursions, possibly because he thinks I am less well informed of them than I truly am. Instead he attacked the lessons, and his tutor, as being at fault. He told me that he had no head for the Skill and never would no matter how much sleep he got. I told him not to be ridiculous, that he was a Farseer and the Skill was in his blood. He had the nerve to tell me that I was the one being ridiculous, for I had but to look in the mirror to see a Farseer who had no Skill.’

Chade cleared his throat and sat back in his chair. It took me a moment to realize that he was amused, not annoyed. ‘He can be an insolent pup,’ he growled, but in his complaint I heard a fondness, and a pride in the boy’s spirit. It amused me in a different way. A much milder remark from me at that age would have earned me a good rap on the head. The old man had mellowed. I hoped his tolerance for the boy’s insolence would not ruin him. Princes, I thought, needed more discipline than other boys, not less.

I offered a distraction of my own. ‘Then you’ve begun teaching him the Skill.’ I put no judgement in my voice.

‘I’ve begun trying,’ Chade growled, and there was concession in his. ‘I feel like a mole telling an owl about the sun. I’ve read the scrolls, Fitz, and I’ve attempted the meditations and the exercises they suggest. And sometimes I almost feel … something. But I don’t know if it’s what I’m meant to feel or only an old man’s wistful imagining.’

‘I told you,’ I said, and I kept my voice gentle. ‘It can’t be learned, nor taught, from a scroll. The meditation can ready you for it, but then someone has to show it to you.’

‘That’s why I sent for you,’ he replied, too quickly. ‘Because you are not only the only one who can properly teach the Skill to the Prince. You are also the only one who can use it to find him.’

I sighed. ‘Chade, the Skill doesn’t work that way. It –’

‘Say rather that you were never taught to use the Skill that way. It’s in the scrolls, Fitz. It says that two who have been joined by the Skill can find one another with it, if they need to. All my other efforts to find the Prince have failed. Dogs put on his scent ran well for half the morning, and then raced in circles, whimpering in confusion. My best spies have nothing to tell me, bribes have bought me nothing. The Skill is all that is left, I tell you.’

I thrust aside my piqued curiosity. I did not want to see the scrolls. ‘Even if the scrolls claim it can be done, you say it happens between two who have been joined by the Skill. The Prince and I have no such –’

‘I think you do.’

There is a certain tone of voice Chade has that stops one from speaking. It warns that he knows far more than you think he does, and cautions you against telling him lies. It was extremely effective when I was a small boy. It was a bit of a shock to find it was no less effective now that I was a man. I slowly drew breath into my lungs but before I could ask, he answered me.

‘Certain dreams the Prince has recounted to me first woke my suspicions. They started with occasional dreams when he was very small. He dreamed of a wolf bringing down a doe, and a man rushing up to cut her throat. In the dream, he was the man, and yet he could also see the man. That first dream excited him. For a day and a half, he spoke of little else. He told it as if it were something he had done himself.’ He paused. ‘Dutiful was only five at the time. The detail of his dream far exceeded his own experience.’

I still said nothing.

‘It was years before he had another such dream. Or, perhaps I should say it was years before he spoke to me of one. He dreamed of a man fording a river. The water threatened to sweep him away, but at the last he managed to cross it. He was too wet and too cold to build a fire to warm himself, but he lay down in the shelter of a fallen tree. A wolf came to lie beside him and warm him. And again, the Prince told me this dream as something that he himself had done. “I love it,” he told me. “It is almost as if there is another life that belongs to me, one that is far away and free of being a prince. A life that belongs to me alone, where I have a friend who is as close as my own skin.” It was then that I suspected he had had other such Skill-dreams, but had not shared them with me.’

He waited, and this time I had to break my silence.

I took a breath. ‘If I shared those moments of my life with the Prince, I was unaware of it. But, yes, those are true events.’ I halted, suddenly wondering what else he had shared. I recalled Verity’s complaint that I did not guard my thoughts well, and that my dreams and experiences sometimes intruded on his. I thought of my trysts with Starling and prayed I would not blush. It had been a very long time since I had bothered to set Skill-walls round myself. Obviously, I must do so again. Another thought came in the wake of that. Obviously, my Skill-talent had not degraded as much as I believed. A surge of exhilaration came with that thought. It was probably, I told myself viciously, much the same as what a drunk felt on discovering a forgotten bottle beneath the bed.

‘And you have shared moments of the Prince’s life?’ Chade pressed me.

‘Perhaps. I suspect so. I often have vivid dreams, and to dream of being a boy in Buckkeep is not so foreign from my own experience. But –’ I took a breath and forced myself on. ‘The important thing here is the cat, Chade. How long has he had it? Do you think he is Witted? Is he bonded to the cat?’

I felt like a liar, asking questions when I already knew the answers. My mind was rapidly shuffling through my dreams of the last fifteen years, sorting out those that came with the peculiar clarity that lingered after waking. Some could have been episodes from the Prince’s life. Others – I halted at the recollection of my fever dream of Burrich – Nettle, too? Dream sharing with Nettle? This new insight reordered my memory of the dream. I had not just witnessed those events from Nettle’s perspective. I had been Skill-sharing her life. It was possible that, as with Dutiful, the flow of Skill-sharing had gone both ways. What had seemed a cherished glimpse into her life, a tiny window on Molly and Burrich, was now revealed as her vulnerability before my carelessness. I winced away from the thought and resolved a stronger wall about my thoughts. How could I have been so incautious? How many of my secrets had I spilled before those most vulnerable to them?

‘How would I know if the boy was Witted?’ Chade replied testily. ‘I never knew you were, until you told me. Even then, I didn’t know what you were telling me at first.’

I was suddenly weary, too tired to lie. Who was I trying to protect with deceit? I knew too well that lies did not shield for long, that in the end they became the largest chinks in any man’s armour. ‘I suspect he is. And bonded to the cat. From dreams I’ve had.’

Before my eyes, the man aged. He shook his head wordlessly, and poured more brandy for both of us. I drank mine off while he drank his in long, considering sips. When he finally spoke, he said, ‘I hate irony. It is a manacle that ties our dreams to our fears. I had hoped you had a dream-bond with the boy, a tie that would let you use the Skill to find him. And indeed you do, but with it you reveal my greatest fear for Dutiful is real. The Wit. Oh, Fitz. I wish I could go back and make my fears foolish instead of real.’

‘Who gave him the cat?’

‘One of the nobles. It was a gift. He receives far too many gifts. All try to curry favour with him. Kettricken tries to turn aside those of the more valuable sort. She worries it will spoil the boy. But it was only a little hunting cat … yet it may be the gift that spoils him for his life.’

‘Who gave it to him?’ I pressed.

‘I will have to look back in my journals,’ Chade confessed. He gave me a dark look. ‘You can’t expect an old man to have a young man’s memory. I do the best I can, Fitz.’ His reproachful look spoke volumes. If I had returned to Buckkeep, resumed my tasks at his side, I would know these vital answers. The thought brought a new question to my mind.

‘Where is your new apprentice in all this?’

He met my gaze speculatively. After a moment he said, ‘Not ready for tasks such as these.’

I met his gaze squarely. ‘Is he, perhaps, recovering from, well, from a lightning strike from a clear sky? One that exploded an unused storage shed?’

He blinked, but kept control of his face. Even his voice remained steady as he ignored my thrust. ‘No, FitzChivalry, this task belongs to you. Only you have the unique abilities needed.’

‘What, exactly, do you want of me?’ The question was as good as surrender. I had already hastened to his side at his call. He knew I was still his. So did I.

‘Find the Prince. Return him to us, discreetly, and Eda save us, unharmed. And do it while my excuses for his absence are still believable. Get him home safely to us before the Outislander delegation arrives to formalize the betrothal to their princess.’

‘How soon is that?’

He shrugged helplessly. ‘It depends on the winds and the waves and the strength of their oarsmen. They have already departed the Out Islands. We had a bird to tell us so. The formality is scheduled for the new moon. If they arrive before that and the Prince is not here, I could, perhaps, fabricate something about his meditating alone before such a serious event in his life. But it would be a thin façade, one that would crumble if he did not appear for the ceremony.’

I reckoned it quickly in my head. ‘That’s more than a fortnight away. Plenty of time for a recalcitrant boy to change his mind and run home again.’

Chade looked at me sombrely. ‘Yet if the Prince has been taken, and we do not yet know by whom or why, let alone how we will recover him, then sixteen days seems but a pittance of time.’

I put my head in my hands for a moment. When I looked up, my old mentor was still regarding me hopefully. Trusting me to see a solution that eluded him. I wanted to flee; I wanted never to have known any of this. I took a steadying breath. Then I ordered his mind as he had once disciplined mine. ‘I need information,’ I announced. ‘Don’t assume I know anything about the situation, because it is likely I don’t. I need to know, first of all, who gave him the cat. And how does that person feel about the Wit, and the Prince’s betrothal? Expand the circle from there. Who rivals the gift-giver, who allies with him? Who at court most strongly persecutes those with the Wit, who most directly opposes the Prince’s betrothal, who supports it? Which nobles have most recently been accused of having the Wit in their families? Who could have helped Dutiful run, if run he did? If he was taken, who had the opportunity? Who knew his midnight habits?’ Each question I formulated seemed to beget another, yet in the face of that volley, Chade seemed to grow steadier. These were questions he could answer, and his ability to answer them strengthened his belief that together we might prevail. I paused for breath.

‘And I still need to report to you the events of those days. However, you seem to be forgetting that the Skill might save us hours of talk. Let me show you the scrolls, and see if they make more sense to you than they do to me.’

I looked around me, but he shook his head. ‘I do not bring the Prince here. This part of the castle remains a secret from him. I keep the Skill-scrolls in Verity’s old tower, and it is there that the boy has his lessons. I keep the tower room well secured, and a trusted guard is always before the door.’

‘Then how am I to have access to them?’

He cocked his head at me. ‘There is a way to them, from here to Verity’s tower. It’s a winding and narrow way, with many steps, but you’re a young man. You can manage them. Finish eating. Then I will show you the way.’

TWELVE

Charms

Kettricken of the Mountains was wed to King-in-Waiting Verity of the Six Duchies before she had reached her twentieth year. Their marriage was a political expedient, part of a larger negotiation to cement an alliance of trade and protection between the Six Duchies and the Mountain Kingdom. The death of her elder brother on the eve of her wedding bestowed an unexpected benefit to the Six Duchies: any heir she now bore would inherit the Mountain crown as well as that of the Six Duchies.

Her transition from Mountain princess to Six Duchies Queen was not an easy one, yet she faced it with the acceptance of duty that is the stamp of the Mountain rulers. She came to Buckkeep alone, without so much as a lady’s maid to sustain her. She brought to Buckkeep her personal standards that required her to be ever ready to sacrifice herself in any way that her new station might demand of her. For in the Mountains, that is the accepted role of the ruler: that the King is Sacrifice for his people.

Bedel’s Mountain Queen

Night was ebbing towards morning before I made my way down the hidden stairs to seek my own bed. My head was stuffed full of facts, few of which seemed useful to my puzzle. I’d go to sleep, I decided. Somehow, when I awoke, my mind would have sorted it all out.

I reached the panel that would lead back into my bedchamber and paused. Chade had already taught me all his cautions for using these passages. Breath pent, I peered through the tiny slit in the stone. It afforded me a very narrow view of the room. I could see a candle guttering on a small table set in the centre of the room. That was all. I listened, but heard nothing. Silently I eased a lever that set unseen counter-weights into motion. The door swung open and I slipped back into my room. A nudge from me sent the door back into place. I stared at the wall. The portal was as invisible as ever.

Lord Golden had thoughtfully provided a couple of scratchy wool blankets for the narrow cot in the stuffy little room. Tired as I was, it still looked remarkably uninviting. I could, I reminded myself, return to the tower room and sleep in Chade’s magnificent bed. He no longer used it. But that prospect was uninviting in a different way. Recently used or not, that bed was Chade’s bed. The tower room, the maps and the scroll racks, the arcane laboratory and the two hearths: all of that was Chade’s, and I had no desire to make it mine by using it. This was better. The hard bed and the stuffy room were comforting reminders that my stay here was to be very brief. After a single evening of secrets and machinations, I was already weary of Buckkeep politics.

My pack and Verity’s sword were on the bed. I threw the pack to the floor, leaned Verity’s sword in a corner, kicked my discarded clothing under the table, blew out the candle and groped my way to bed. I thrust Dutiful and the Wit and all the attendant threads resolutely aside. I expected to fall asleep immediately. Instead I stared open-eyed into the dark room.

More personal worries found me and chewed on me. My boy and my wolf would be on the road to Buckkeep tonight. It was unsettling to realize I was now counting on Hap to care for the old wolf that had always been his protector. He had his bow, and he was good with it. They’d be fine. Unless they were set on by highwaymen. Even then, Hap would probably eliminate one or two before they were captured. Which would probably anger the rest of them. Nighteyes would fight to the death before he’d let Hap be taken. Which left me with the pleasant image of my wolf dead in the road and my son captured by angered highwaymen. And I’d be too far away to do anything for them.

Wool blankets itch even more when you sweat. I rolled over to stare at a different patch of darkness. I wouldn’t think about Hap just now. There was no point to worrying about disasters that hadn’t happened yet. Unwillingly, I let my mind wander back to Chade’s Skill-scrolls and the present crisis. I had expected three or four scrolls. What he had shown me were several chests of scrolls, in various degrees of preservation. Even he had not been through all of them, though he thought he had them somewhat sorted into topics and levels of difficulty. He had presented me with a large table with three scrolls unrolled on it. My heart sank. The lettering on two of the scrolls was so archaic I could barely decipher it. The other seemed more recent, but almost immediately I encountered words and phrases that made no sense to me. It recommended an ‘anticula trance’ and suggested a helpful infusion made from an herb called Shepherd’s Wort. I’d never heard of it. The scroll further cautioned me to beware of ‘dividing my partner’s self-barrier’ as I might then ‘diffuse his anma’. I looked up at Chade in bewilderment. He divined my problem instantly.

‘I thought you would know what it meant,’ he said defeatedly.

I shook my head. ‘If Galen ever knew what these words and terms mean, he never divulged them to me.’

Chade gave a snort of contempt. ‘I doubt our “Skillmaster” could even read these characters.’ He sighed. ‘Half of any trade is understanding the vocabulary and idiom that the practitioners use. With time, we might piece it together with clues from the other scrolls. But we have precious little time. With every passing moment, the Prince may be carried farther from Buckkeep.’

‘Or he may never even have left the town. Chade, you have cautioned me many times not to take action simply for the sake of taking action. If we rush forth, we may be rushing in the wrong direction. First think, then act.’

It had felt so strange to remind my master of his own wisdom. I had watched him grudgingly nod to it. While he pored over the archaic lettering, muttering as his pen flowed a clear translation onto paper, I had carefully read the more accessible scroll. Then I had read it again, hoping it would make more sense. On my third attempt, I found myself nodding off over the old, blurred lettering. Chade had leaned across the table to clasp my wrist gently. ‘Go to bed, boy,’ he ordered me gruffly. ‘Lack of sleep makes a man stupid, and this will demand your best wits.’ I had conceded and left him there, still hunched over his pen and paper.

I shifted onto my back. I ached from all the stairs I had climbed today. Well, as long as I could not sleep, I might as well see what good I could do. I closed my eyes to the pressing darkness and composed myself. I emptied my mind of my concerns, and tried only to recall the last dream I had had of the boy and the cat. I conjured up their exhilaration at the night and the hunt. I summoned my recollection of the scents that had flavoured the air, and reached for the indefinable aura of a dream not my own. Almost I could enter that dream, but that was not what I sought. I tried to recall a tenuous Skill-link I had not been aware of at the time I experienced it.

Prince Dutiful. The son of my body. These titles in my mind had no impressions attached to them, yet oddly they interfered with what I was trying to do. My preconceived notions of Dutiful, my possessive idealizations of what my natural son would be like, stood between me and the frail threads of the Skill-link I sought to untangle. From somewhere in the keep, the stone bones of the castle carried a stray bit of music to my ears. It distracted me. I blinked at the dark before me. I had lost all sense of time; night stretched eternally around me. I hated this windowless room, shut off from the natural world. I hated the confinement I had to endure. I had lived with the wolf too long to find it tolerable.

In frustration, I abandoned the Skill and reached out with the Wit for my companion. He still had up the guard he had so often employed of late. I could sense him sleeping, and as I leaned against his walls, I felt the dull thunder of pain in his hips and back. I withdrew quickly when I sensed that my focusing on his pain was bringing it to the forefront of his mind. I had sensed no fear or foreboding in him, only weariness and aching joints. I wrapped him in my thoughts, drawing gratefully on his senses.

I’m sleeping, he grumpily informed me. Then, You’re worried about something?

It’s nothing. I just wanted to know you were fine.

Oh, yes, we’re fine. We’ve had a lovely day of walking down a dry, dusty road. Now we’re sleeping at the edge of it. Then, more kindly, he added, Don’t worry about things you can’t change. I’ll be with you soon.

Watch Hap for me.

Of course. Go to sleep.

I could smell damp grass and the trickling smoke of the campfire, and even Hap’s salty sweat as he lay nearby. It reassured me. All was well in my world then. I let go of all save those simple sensations and finally spiralled down into sleep.

‘Might I remind you that you are to serve as my valet, not the reverse?’

The words that jolted me from sleep were spoken in Lord Golden’s arrogant sneer, but the smile on the Fool’s face was entirely his own. A set of clothing hung over his arm, and I could smell warm, scented water. He was already faultlessly dressed in garb that was even more elegantly understated than what he had worn yesterday. His colours today were cream and forest green, with a thin edging of gilt at his cuffs and collar. He wore a new earring, a filigreed golden orb. I knew what was inside it. He looked fresh and alert. I sat up and then cradled my aching head in my hands.

‘Skill-headache?’ he asked sympathetically.

I shook my head and the pain rattled inside it. ‘I only wish it were,’ I muttered. I glanced up at him. ‘I’m just tired.’

‘I thought perhaps you would sleep in the tower.’

‘It didn’t feel right.’ I rose and tried to stretch but my back kinked in protest. The Fool set the clothing across the foot of the bed, and then sat down on my rumpled blankets. ‘So. Any thoughts on where our prince might be?’

‘Too many. Anywhere in Buck Duchy, or even beyond the borders by now. There are too many nobles who might want to take him. If he ran on his own, that only increases the number of places he might have gone.’ The washwater was still steaming. A few leaves of lemon balm floated fragrantly on the surface of the plain pottery bowl. I plunged my face into it gratefully and came up rubbing my hands over my face. I felt more awake and aware of the world. ‘I need a bath. Are the steam baths behind the guard barracks still there?’

‘Yes, but servants don’t use them. You’ll have to be wary of falling back into old habits. Personal servants, generally speaking, get the second use of their master’s or mistress’s bathwater. Or they haul their own from the kitchens.’

I gave him a look. ‘I’ll haul my own tonight.’ I proceeded to make the best use I could of the handbasin while he sat and silently watched me. While I was shaving, he observed quietly, ‘You’ll have to get up earlier tomorrow. All the kitchen staff know that I’m an early riser.’

I looked at him in consternation. ‘And?’

‘And they’ll be expecting my servant to come down for my breakfast tray.’

The sense sank in slowly. He was right. I needed to do a better job of stepping into my role if I was to find out anything useful. ‘I’ll go now,’ I offered.

He shook his head. ‘Not looking like that. Lord Golden is a proud and temperamental man. He would not keep such a rough-thatched servant as you show yourself now. We must make you look your part. Come here and sit down.’

I followed him out into the light and air of the master chamber. He had set out comb, brush and shears on his table, and propped a large mirror on it. I steeled myself to endure this. I crossed to the door to be sure it was securely bolted against untimely intrusion. Then I sat in a chair and waited for him to lop my hair into a servant’s short cut. I freed my hair from its tail as Lord Golden took up the shears. When I looked into his ornately-framed mirror, I saw a man I scarcely recognized. There is something about a large glass and seeing oneself all at once. Starling was right, I decided. I did look much older than my years. When I leaned back from the mirror and regarded my face, I was surprised to see how my scar had faded. It was still there as a seam, but it was not as remarkable as it had been on a young man’s unlined face. The Fool let me look at myself for a time in silence. Then he gathered my hair into his hands. I glanced up at his face in the mirror. His lower lip was caught in his teeth in an agony of indecision. Abruptly he clacked the shears back onto the table. ‘No,’ he said emphatically. ‘I can’t bring myself to do it, and I don’t think we need to.’ He took a breath, then rapidly curried my hair back into its warrior tail. ‘Try the clothing,’ he urged me. ‘I had to guess at size, but no one expects a servant’s clothing to be well tailored.’

I went back to the small chamber and looked at the garments draped across the foot of my cot. They were cut from the familiar blue homespun that servants at Buckkeep had always worn. It was not all that different from the clothing I had worn as a child. But as I put it on, it felt different. I was donning the garments that marked me to all eyes as a serving-man. A disguise, I told myself. I was not truly anyone’s servant. But with a sudden pang, I wondered how Molly had felt the first time she had donned the blue dress of a serving-girl. Bastard or not, I was the son of a prince. I had never expected to wear the garments of a servant. In place of my Farseer charging buck, there was an embroidery of Lord Golden’s golden cock-pheasant. Yet the garments fitted me well, and, ‘Actually, these are the best quality clothes I’ve worn in years,’ I admitted ruefully. The Fool leaned round the door to look at me, and for a second I thought I saw anxiety in his eyes. But at the sight of me he grinned, then made a show of walking a slow circle of inspection around me.

‘You’ll do, Tom Badgerlock. There are boots by the door, made a good three finger-widths longer than my foot, and wider, too. Best you put your things away in the chest, so that if anyone does become curious to look about our rooms, there will be nothing to arouse suspicion.’

This I did hastily while the Fool quickly tidied his own chamber. Verity’s sword went under the clothing in my chest. There were scarcely enough garments to cover it. The boots fitted as well as new boots usually did. Time would make them comfortable.

‘I’m sure you remember the way to the kitchens. I always eat my breakfast on a tray in my room; the kitchen boys will be glad to see you’re taking on the task of bringing it to me. It may give you an opening for gossip.’ He paused. ‘Tell them I ate little last night and hence am ravenous this morning. Then bring up enough for both of us.’

It was strange to have him direct me so minutely, but, I reminded myself, I had best get used to it. So I bobbed a bow at him and essayed a, ‘Yes, sir,’ before I went out of the door of the chamber. He started to smile, caught himself, and inclined a slow nod to me.

Outside the chamber, the castle was well awake. Other servants were busy, replenishing candles and sweeping soiled rushes away or scurrying about with fresh linens or buckets of washwater. Perhaps it was my new perspective, but it seemed to me that there were far more servants in Buckkeep than I recalled. It was not the only aspect that had changed. Queen Kettricken’s Mountain ways were in more evidence than ever. In her years of residence, the inside of the castle had been raised to a new standard of cleanliness. A sparse simplicity characterized the rooms I passed, replacing decades of ornate clutter that had once filled them. The tapestries and banners that remained were clean and free of cobwebs.

But in the kitchens, Cook Sara still reigned. I stepped into the steam and smells and it was like stepping through a doorway back into my boyhood. As Chade had told me, the old cook was ensconced on a chair rather than bustling from hearth to table to hearth, but clearly food was cooked in Buckkeep kitchens as it had always been cooked. I wrenched my eyes from Sara’s ample form, lest she catch my gaze and somehow know me. I tugged humbly at the sleeve of a serving-boy to make Lord Golden’s breakfast wishes known to him. The boy pointed out the trays, dishes and cutlery and then gestured wide at the cooking hearths. ‘Ye’re his servant, not me,’ he pointed out snippily, and went back to chopping turnips. I scowled at him, but was inwardly grateful. I had soon served up enough for two very ample breakfasts onto the tray. I whisked it and myself out of the kitchen.

I was halfway up the stair when I heard a familiar voice in conversation. I halted and then leaned on the balustrade to look down. Unbidden, a smile came to my face. Queen Kettricken strode through the hall below, half a dozen ladies struggling valiantly to keep pace with her. I knew none of her ladies; they were all young, none much past twenty. They had been children when last I was at Buckkeep. One looked vaguely familiar, but perhaps I had known her mother. My gaze fixed on the Queen.

Kettricken’s shining hair, still gloriously golden, was looped and pinned about her head in a crown of braids. She wore a simple circlet of silver upon her head. She was dressed in russet brown with an embroidered yellow kirtle, and her skirts rustled as she walked. Her ladies emulated her simple style without being able to capture it for it was Kettricken’s innate grace that lent elegance to her unpretentious garb. Despite the years that had passed, her posture and stride were still upright and unfettered. She walked with purpose, but I saw a stillness captured in her face. Some part of her was constantly aware of her missing son, and yet she still moved through the court as a queen. My heart stood still at the sight of her. I thought how proud Verity would be of this woman and, ‘Oh, my queen,’ I breathed to myself.

She halted in midstride and I almost heard the intake of her breath. She glanced about and then up, her eyes meeting mine across the distance. In the shadow of the Great Hall, I could not see her blue gaze, but somehow I felt it. For an instant our eyes locked, but her face held puzzlement, not recognition.

I felt the sudden thwack of fingers against the side of my head. I turned to my attacker, too amazed to be angry. A gentleman of the court, taller than I, looked down on me in sharp disapproval. His words were clipped. ‘You are obviously new to Buckkeep, oaf. Here, the servants are not permitted to stare so brazenly at the Queen. Be about your business. After this, remember your place, or soon you will have no place to remember.’

I looked down at the tray of food I gripped, struggling to control my face. Anger drenched me. I knew that my face had darkened with blood. It took every bit of my will to avert my eyes and bob my head. ‘Your pardon, sir. I will remember.’ I hoped he took my strangled voice for crushed humiliation rather than rage. Gripping the sides of the tray tightly, I continued my journey up the stairs as he went down and did not allow myself to glance over the balustrade to see if my queen watched me go.

A servant. A servant. I am a loyal, well-trained manservant. I am newly come from the country, but well recommended, so I am a mannered servant, accustomed to discipline. Accustomed to humiliation. Or was I? When I had followed Lord Golden into Buckkeep, Verity’s blade in its plain scabbard had hung at my side. Surely, some would have marked that. My complexion and the scars on my hands marked me as a man who lived more out of doors than in. If I was to play this role, then it must be believable. It must be a role I could endure, as well as one I could act convincingly.

At Lord Golden’s door, I knocked, paused discreetly to allow my master to expect me, then entered. The Fool was at the casement looking out. I closed the door carefully behind me, latched it and then set down the tray on the table. As I began to lay out the meal, I spoke to his back. ‘I am Tom Badgerlock, your servant. I was recommended to you as a fellow who was educated above his station by an indulgent master, but kept more for his blade than his manners. You chose me because you wanted a manservant capable of being your bodyguard as well as your valet. You have heard that I am moody and occasionally quick-tempered, but you are willing to try me to see if I will serve your purpose. I am … forty-two years old. The scars I bear I took defending my last master from an attack by three – no, six – highwaymen. I killed them all. I am not a man to be provoked lightly. When my last master died, he left me a small bequest that enabled me to live simply. But now my son has come of age, and I wished to apprentice him in Buckkeep Town. You persuaded me to return to service as a way to defray my expenses.’

Lord Golden had turned from the window. His aristocratic hands clasped one another as he listened to my soliloquy. When I had finished, he nodded. ‘I like it, Tom Badgerlock. Such a coup for Lord Golden, to have a manservant who is just a tiny bit dangerous to keep about. Such an air shall I put on over having hired such a man! You will do, Tom. You will do well.’

He advanced to the table, and I drew his chair out for him. He seated himself, and looked over the setting and dishes I had prepared for him. ‘Excellent. This is exactly to my liking. Tom, keep this up, and I shall have to raise your wages.’ He lifted his gaze to meet mine. ‘Sit down and eat with me,’ the Fool suggested.

I shook my head. ‘Best I practise my manners, sir. Tea?’

For an instant the Fool looked horrified. Then Lord Golden lifted a napkin and patted at his lips. ‘Please.’

I poured for him.

‘This son of yours, Tom. I have not met him. He’s in Buckkeep Town, is he?’

‘I told him to follow me here, sir.’ I suddenly realized I had told Hap little more than that. He would arrive with a weary old pony pulling a rickety cart with an ageing wolf in it. I had not gone to Jinna’s niece, to ask her to expect him. What if she took affront at my assumption that my boy could come there? Like a wave breaking over me, my other life caught up with me. I’d made no provisions for him. He knew no one else in Buckkeep Town, save Starling, and I did not even know if she was currently in residence here. Besides, with relations strained between us, Hap was unlikely to turn to her for aid.

Suddenly I knew I had to seek out the hedge-witch and be sure my boy would be accepted there. I’d leave a message for Hap with her. And I had to approach Chade immediately about making provisions for him. Given what I knew now, it seemed a cold bargain and my heart shrank within me at the thought of it. I could always borrow the money from the Fool. I winced at the thought. Just what are my wages? I prompted myself to ask. But the words could not find their way to my tongue.

Lord Golden pushed back from his table. ‘You are quiet, Tom Badgerlock. When your son does arrive, I expect you to present him to me. For now, I think I shall let you have this first morning to yourself. Tidy up here, get to know the castle and the grounds.’ He looked me over critically. ‘Fetch me paper, quill and ink. I will write you a letter of credit to Scrandon the tailor. I expect you will find his shop easily enough. You knew it of old. You need to be measured for more clothing, some for everyday, and some for when I want you to show well. If you are bodyguard as well as valet, then I think it fitting that you stand behind my chair at formal dinners and accompany me when I ride. And go also to Croys. He has a weapons stall down near the smithy’s lane. Look through his used swords and find yourself a serviceable blade.’

I nodded to each of his orders. I went to a small desk in the corner to set out pen and ink for my master. Behind me, the Fool spoke quietly. ‘Both Hod’s work and Verity’s blade are likely to be too well remembered here at Buckkeep Castle. I’d advise you to keep that blade in Chade’s old tower room.’

I did not look at him as I replied. ‘I shall. And I shall also be speaking to the Weaponsmaster, to ask him to provide me a practice partner. I shall tell him my skills are a bit rusty and you want me to sharpen them. Who was Prince Dutiful’s drill partner?’

The Fool knew. He always knew things like that. He spoke as he took his seat at the writing desk. ‘Cresswell was his instructor, but he paired him most often with a young woman named Delleree. But you can’t very well ask for her by name … hmm. Tell him you’d like to work with someone who fights with two swords, to sharpen your defence skills. I believe that is her speciality.’

‘I shall. Thank you.’

A few moments passed as his pen scratched busily across the paper. Once or twice he looked up, regarding me with a speculative look that made me uneasy. I wandered over to his window and looked out of it. It was a lovely day. I wished it belonged solely to me. I smelled melting wax and turned around to see Lord Golden applying his seal to his missives. He let the wax cool a bit, then held them out to me.

‘Off you go, to tailor and weapons-dealer. As for me, I think I shall stroll for a bit in the gardens, and then I have been invited to the Queen’s parlour for –’

‘I saw her. Kettricken.’ I choked on a bitter laugh. ‘It seems so long ago: us waking the stone-dragons, and all. And then something will happen and it seems like yesterday. The last time I saw Kettricken, she sat astride Verity-as-Dragon and bade us all farewell. Now, today, I saw her and it suddenly all came real for me. She has reigned here as Queen for well over a decade.

‘I stepped aside from all this to heal, and because I thought I could no longer be a part of it. Now, I’ve returned and I look around me and think, “I’ve missed my life.” While I was off and alone, it went on here, without me, and I’m forever doomed to be a stranger in my own home.’

‘Regrets are useless,’ the Fool replied. ‘All you can do is start from where you are. And who knows? Perhaps what you bring back from your self-imposed exile may prove to be just what is needed.’

‘And time flies by us, even as we speak.’

‘Quite so,’ Lord Golden replied. He gestured at his wardrobe. ‘My coat, Badgerlock. The green one.’

I opened the wardrobe doors and extracted the required garment from its many brethren, then closed the panels as best I could upon the bulging excess. I held his coat for him as so often I had seen Charim hold a coat for Verity, and assisted him into it. He held out his wrists to me, and I adjusted the cuffs and tugged the skirts of it straight. A flicker of amusement passed through his eyes. ‘Very good, Badgerlock,’ he murmured. He preceded me to the door and then waited while I opened it for him.

Once he was gone, I latched it, and quickly finished the rest of the cooling breakfast. I stacked the dishes back on the tray. I looked at the entry to the Fool’s private room. Then I kindled a candle, entered my small chamber and shut the door firmly behind me. But for the candle, the darkness would have been absolute. It took me a few moments to find the trigger that released the catch, and then two tries before I pressed the right spot on the wall. Despite the protest in my aching legs, I carried Verity’s sword up the multitude of stairs to Chade’s tower and leaned it in the corner by the mantle.

Once I was back in the Fool’s room, I cleared the table. When I glanced into the looking-glass, the breakfast things in my hands, I saw a Buckkeep serving-man. I gave a short sigh, reminded myself to keep my eyes lowered, and left the room.

Had I feared that on my return to Buckkeep Castle, all would instantly recognize me? The reality was that no one even saw me. A glance at my servant’s clothing and lowered eyes and I was dismissed from the mind. I did receive sidelong looks from my fellow servants, but for the most part they were occupied with their own tasks. A few offered hasty greetings, and I accepted their welcome amiably. I would cultivate the servants, for little happens in any great house that the servants do not know about. I returned the dishes to the kitchen and left the castle. The guards passed me through with scarcely a word. I soon found myself on the steep roads that led down to the town. It was a fine day and the road was well travelled. Summer seemed determined to linger a time yet. I fell in behind a group of ladies’-maids going down to the town with baskets on their arms. They glanced warily back at me twice, and then ignored me. The rest of the way down the hill, I listened hungrily to their gossip, but found no hints there. They were speaking of the festivities that would accompany the Prince’s betrothal, and what their mistresses would wear. Somehow the Queen and Chade had been able to disguise the Prince’s absence.

In the town, I went quickly about Lord Golden’s errands but kept my ears pricked for any word that might pertain to Dutiful. I found the tailor’s shop with no difficulty. As the Fool had told me, I knew it of old, when it was Molly’s chandlery. It was strange to enter that place. The tailor took my letter of credit with no hesitation, but clucked over Golden’s command for haste in their sewing. ‘Still, he has paid me well enough to make it worth my sleep tonight. Your clothes will be ready by tomorrow.’ I gathered from his other comments that Lord Golden had patronized him before. I stood silently on a low stool and was measured. No questions were asked of me, for Lord Golden had specified in his note how he wished his servant dressed. I was free to stand silent and wonder if I could still catch the scents of beeswax and aromatic herbs, or if I deceived myself. Before I departed, I asked the man if he knew of any hedge-witches in Buckkeep. I wanted to ask one if my new position boded well for me. He shook his head at my low-born superstition, but told me to ask about near the smithy’s lane.

This suited me well, for my next errand took me to Croy’s. I wondered that the Fool knew this man’s shop at all, for it was a jackdaw’s nest of battered weapons and armour. But again the proprietor took Lord Golden’s note without question. I took my time finding a blade I could live with. I wanted a simple, well-made weapon, but of course that is what any true man-at-arms chooses, so that was what Croy had least of. After trying to interest me in several remarkable swords that had elaborate guards and nondescript blades, he gave up on me and left me to sort through his collection. I did so, but kept up a constant stream of observations at how Buckkeep had changed since I was last there. It was not hard to get him gossiping, and then to turn his tongue to omens and portents and those who dealt in them. I did not have to mention Jinna by name to hear of her. At length I selected a blade truly worthy of my rusty skills. Croy tutted over it. ‘Your master has gold and to spare, good man. Choose yourself something with a bit of a sparkle on it, or some style to the basket.’

I shook my head. ‘No, no, I want nothing that will catch in a man’s clothes when the fighting is close and hot. This is the one I’ll have. But I’ll take a knife to go with it.’

This was soon found and I left his shop. I walked through the loud clanging and gusting heat that marked the smithy’s lane. The hammers of competing smithies were a stunning counterpoint to the sun’s beat. I had forgotten how constant the noise of a city was. I searched my memory as I walked, trying to recall if anything I had said to Jinna would conflict with my newly-modified life-history. At length, I decided it would have to do. If something did not make sense to her, well, she would just have to believe me a liar. I frowned at how much that disturbed me.

Croy had described a dark green sign with a white hand painted on it. The lines on the hand were all done in red, quite skilfully. From the low eaves of her roof several of her charms tinkled and turned in the sunlight. Luckily for me, none seemed to be against predators. It took me but a moment’s pause to guess at their purpose. Welcome. They attracted me to the house and the door. It took a time for anyone to reply to my knock, but then the top half of the door opened and Jinna herself greeted me.

‘Badgerlock!’ she exclaimed, peering at me, and it was pleasant that neither my warrior’s tail nor my new clothes had kept her from knowing me. She swung the lower door open instantly. ‘Come in! Welcome to Buckkeep Town. Will you let me repay the debt of hospitality I owe you? Do come in.’

There is little in life so reassuring as a genuine welcome. She took my hand and drew me into the cool dimness of her home as if I were an expected guest. The ceiling was low and the furnishings modest. There was a round table with several chairs set about it. Nearby shelves held the tools of her trade, including an assortment of draped charms. Dishes and food were on the table; I had interrupted her meal. I halted, feeling awkward. ‘I did not mean to intrude.’

‘Not at all. Sit down and share.’ She took a seat at the table as she spoke and I could scarcely do otherwise. ‘Now. Tell me what brings you to Buckkeep.’ She pushed the platter towards me. It held several jam tarts and smoked fish and cheese. I took a tart to give myself time to think. She must have noticed that I wore servant’s garb, but left it to me to tell her what it meant. I liked that.

‘I’ve taken a position at Buckkeep as a manservant to Lord Golden.’ Even knowing it was false, it was still hard to say those words. I had never realized what a proud fellow I was until I had to masquerade as the Fool’s servant. ‘When I left home, I told Hap to join me when he could. At that time, I was not sure of my plans. I think that when he gets to Buckkeep Town, he may seek you out. May I leave word for him with you, so you can send him on to me?’

I braced myself for all the inevitable questions. Why had I suddenly taken this employment, why hadn’t I simply brought Hap with me, how did I know Lord Golden? Instead, her eyes brightened and she exclaimed, ‘With great pleasure! But what I propose is simpler. When Hap arrives, I’ll keep him here and send word up to the keep. There’s a little room in the back he can use; it was my nephew’s before he grew up and married away. Let the boy have a day or so in Buckkeep Town; he seemed to enjoy it so at Springfest, and your new duties will probably not allow you time to show him about yourself.’

‘I know he would love that,’ I found myself saying. It would be far easier for me to maintain my role as Lord Golden’s servant if I did not have Hap in the midst of it. ‘My hope is that here in Buckkeep I’ll be able to earn the coin to purchase him a good apprenticeship.’

Coming up. A large ginger cat announced this to me at the same moment that he effortlessly elevated onto my lap. I stared at him in surprise. Never had an animal spoken so clearly to me via the Wit save for my own bond-animals. Nor had I ever been so completely ignored by an animal that had just spoken mind to mind with me. The cat stood, hind legs on my lap, front paws on the table, and surveyed the food. A plumey tail waved before my face.

‘Fennel! Shame on you, stop that. Come here.’ Jinna leaned across the table to scoop the cat from my lap. She picked up the conversation as she did so. ‘Yes, Hap’s told me of his ambitions, and it’s a fine thing to see a young man with dreams and hopes.’

‘He’s a good boy,’ I agreed with her fervently. ‘And he deserves a good chance at making something of himself. I’d do anything for him.’

Fennel now stood on Jinna’s lap and stared at me across the table. She likes me better than you. He stole a piece of fish from the edge of her plate.

Do all cats speak so rudely to strangers? I rebuked him.

He leaned back to bump his head possessively against Jinna’s chest. His yellow-eyed stare was daunting. All cats talk however they want. To whomever they want. But only a rude human speaks out of turn. Be quiet. I told you. She likes me better than you. He twisted his head to look up at Jinna’s face. More fish?

‘That’s plain,’ she agreed. I tried to remember what I had said to her as I watched her give the cat a bit of fish at the edge of the table. I knew Jinna was not Witted. I wondered if the cat was lying to me about all cats talking. I knew little of cats. Burrich had never kept them in the stables. We’d had rat-dogs to keep the vermin down.

Jinna misinterpreted my preoccupation. A touch of sympathy came into her eyes as she added, ‘Still, it must be hard to leave your own home and being your own master to come to town and serve, no matter how fine a man Lord Golden may be. I hope he’s as open-handed at paying you as he is when he comes down to Buckkeep Town to trade.’

I forced a smile to my face. ‘You know of Lord Golden, then?’

She bobbed a nod at me. ‘By coincidence, he was right here in this very room just last month. He wanted a charm to keep moths from his wardrobe. I told him I had never made such a thing before, but that I could attempt one. So gracious he was for such a noble man. He paid me for it, just on my word that I would make one. And then he insisted on looking at every charm I had in my shop, and bought no less than six of them. Six! One for sweet dreams, one for light spirits, another to attract birds – Oh, and he seemed quite entranced with that one, almost as if he were a bird himself. But when I asked to see his hands, to tune the charms to him, he told me they were all intended as gifts. I told him he might send each recipient to me, to have the charms tuned if they wished, but as yet none of them have come. Still, they will work well enough as I built them. I do like to tune the charms, though. It’s all the difference between a charm built by rote, and one created by a master. And I do regard myself as a master, thank you very much!’

These last words she offered with a hint of laughter in her voice in response to my raised brows. We laughed together, and I had no right to feel as comfortable with her as I did at that moment. ‘You’ve put my mind at rest,’ I declared. ‘I know Hap is a good lad, and little in need of my care any more. Yet I’m afraid I’m always imagining the worst befalling him.’

Don’t ignore me! Fennel threatened. He hopped up onto the table. Jinna put him on the floor. He floated back onto her lap. She petted him absently.

‘That’s just a part of being a father,’ she assured me. ‘Or a friend.’ A strange look came over her face. ‘I’m not above foolish worries myself. Even when they’re none of my business.’ She gave me a frankly speculative look that evaporated all the ease in my body. ‘I’m going to speak plainly,’ she warned me.

‘Please,’ I invited her but every bone in my body wished she would not.

‘You’re Witted,’ she said. It was not an accusation. It was more as if she commented on a disfiguring disease. ‘I travel quite a bit, in my trade, more perhaps than you have in the last few years. The mood of the folk has changed towards Witted ones, Tom. It’s become ugly everywhere I’ve been recently. I didn’t see it myself, but I heard that in a town in Farrow they displayed the dismembered bodies of the Witted ones they’ve killed, with each piece in a separate cage to prevent them coming back to life.’

I kept my face still but I felt as if ice were creeping up my spine. Prince Dutiful. Stolen or run away, but in either case vulnerable. Outside the protective walls of Buckkeep where people were capable of such monstrosities, the young prince was at risk.

‘I’m a hedge-witch,’ Jinna said softly. ‘I know what it is to be born with magic already inside you. It’s not something you can change, even if you want to. More, I know what it’s like to have a sister who was born empty of it. She seemed so free to me sometimes. She could look at a charm my father had made, and to her it was just sticks and beads. It never whispered and nagged at her. The hours I spent beside my father, learning his skills were hours she spent with my mother in the kitchen. When we were growing up, the envy went both ways. But we were a family and we could be taught tolerance of our differences.’ She smiled at her memories, then shook her head, and her face grew graver. ‘Out in the wide world, it’s different. Folk may not threaten to tear me apart or burn me, but I’ve seen hatred and jealousy in more than one set of eyes. Folk think either that it isn’t fair that I’ve got something they can never have, or they fear that somehow I’ll use what I’ve got to hurt them. They never stop to think they’ve got talents of their own that I’ll never master. They might be rude to me, jostle me on the street or try to squeeze me out of my market space, but they won’t kill me. You don’t have that comfort. The smallest slip could be your death. And if someone provokes your temper … Well. You become a different man altogether. I confess it’s been bothering me since the last time I saw you. So, well … to put my own mind at rest, I made you something.’

I swallowed. ‘Oh. Thank you.’ I could not even find the courage to ask what she had made me. Sweat was leaking down my spine despite the coolness of the dim room. She had not intended to threaten me, but her words reminded me how vulnerable I was to her. My assassin’s training went deep, I discovered. Kill her, suggested that part of me. She knows your secret and that makes her a threat. Kill her.

I folded my hands on the table before me.

‘You must think me strange,’ she murmured as she rose and went to a cupboard. ‘To be interfering in your life so when we have only met once or twice.’ I could tell she was embarrassed, yet determined to give me the gift she had made.

‘I think you are kind,’ I said awkwardly.

Her rising had displaced Fennel. He sat on the floor, wrapped his tail around his feet and glared up at me. There goes the lap! All your fault.

She had taken a box from the cupboard. She brought it back to the table and opened it. Inside was an arrangement of beads and rods on leather thongs. She lifted it and gave it a shake and it became a necklace. I stared at it, but felt nothing. ‘What does it do?’ I asked.

She laughed lightly. ‘Very little, I am afraid. I cannot make you seem unWitted, nor can I make you invulnerable to attack. I cannot even give you something that will help you master your temper. I tried to make something that would warn you of ill feelings towards you, but it became so bulky and large, it was more like war harness than a charm. You will forgive my saying that my first impression of you was that you were a rather forbidding fellow. It took me a while to warm to you, and if Hap had not spoken so well of you, I would not have given you a moment of my time. I would have thought you a dangerous man. So did many appraise you as they passed us in the market that day. And so, bluntly, did you later show yourself to be. A dangerous man, but not a wicked one, if you will excuse my judging you. Yet the set of your face, by habit, shows folk that darker aspect of yourself. And now, with a blade at your hip and your hair in a warrior’s tail, well, it does not give you a friendly demeanour. And it is easiest to hate a man that you first fear. So. This is a variation on a very old love charm. I have made it, not to attract lovers, but to make people well disposed towards you, if it works as I hope it will. When you try to create a variation on a standard theme, it often lacks strength. Sit still, now.’

She walked behind my chair with the dangling necklace. I watched her lower it past my face, and without being told, I bowed my head so she could fasten it at the nape of my neck. The charm made me feel no different, but her cool fingers against my skin sent a prickling chill over me. Her voice came from behind me. ‘I flatter myself that I got this fit right. It must not be too loose or it will dangle, nor so tight it chokes. Let me see it on you now. Turn around.’

I did as I was bid, twisting in my chair. She looked at the necklace, looked at my face, and then grinned broadly. ‘Oh, yes, that will do. Though you are taller than I recalled. I should have used a narrower bead for that … Well, it will do. I had thought it might take some adjusting, but I fear if I tinker with it, I will take it back to its origin. Now, wear it with your collar pulled up, like so, so just a slice of it shows. There. If you are in a situation where you feel it might be useful, find an excuse to loosen your collar. Let it be seen, and folk will find you a more persuasive talker. Like so. Even your silences will seem charming.’

She looked down into my face as she tugged my collar more open about the charm. I looked up at her and felt a sudden blush heat my face. Our eyes locked.

‘It works very well indeed,’ she observed, and unabashedly lowered her face to offer me her mouth. Not to kiss her was unthinkable. She pressed her mouth to mine. Her lips were warm.

We sprang apart guiltily as the doorhandle rattled. The door scraped open, and a woman’s silhouette was outlined against the day’s brightness. Then she came inside, pushing the door shut behind her. ‘Whew. It’s cooler in here, thank Eda. Oh. Beg pardon. Were you doing a reading?’

She had the same scattering of freckles on her nose and forearms. Clearly, this was Jinna’s niece. She looked about twenty or so, and carried a basket full of fresh fish on her arm.

Fennel ran to greet her, wrapping around her ankles. You love me best. You know you do. Pick me up.

‘Not a reading. Testing a charm. It seems to work.’ Jinna’s voice invited me to share her amusement. Her niece glanced from Jinna to me, knowing she had been excluded from some joke, but taking it genially. She picked up Fennel and he rubbed his face against her, marking his possession.

‘And I should be going. I’m afraid I have several other errands to do before I am required back at the keep.’ I wasn’t sure that I wanted to leave. But how interested I was in staying did not fit in at all with what I was supposed to be doing in Buckkeep. Most of all, I felt I needed a bit of time alone to decide what had just happened, and what it meant to me.

‘Must you go so right away?’ Jinna’s niece asked me. She seemed genuinely disappointed at seeing me rise from my chair. ‘There’s plenty of fish, if you’d care to stay and eat with us.’

Her impromptu invitation took me aback, as did the interest in her eyes.

My fish. I’ll eat it soon. Fennel leaned down to look fondly at the food.

‘The charm seems to work very well indeed,’ Jinna observed in an aside. I found myself tugging at my collar.

‘I really must go, I’m afraid. I’ve work to do, and I’m expected back at the keep. But thank you for the invitation.’

‘Perhaps another time, then,’ the niece offered, and Jinna added, ‘Certainly another time, my dear. Before he leaves, let me introduce Tom Badgerlock. He has asked me to keep watch for his son, a young friend of mine named Hap. When Hap arrives, he may stay with us for a day or so. And Tom will certainly have supper with us then. Tom Badgerlock, my niece, Miskya.’

‘Miskya, a pleasure,’ I assured her. I lingered long enough to exchange parting pleasantries, and then hurried out into the sunlight and noise of the city. As I hastened back to Buckkeep, I watched the reactions of folk I met. It did seem that more smiled at me than usually did, but I realized that might simply be their reaction to my meeting their eyes. I usually looked aside from strangers on the street. A man unnoticed is a man unremembered, and that is the best that an assassin can hope for. Then I reminded myself that I was no longer an assassin. Nonetheless, I decided that I would remove the necklace as soon as I got home. I found that having strangers regard me benevolently for no reason was more unnerving than having them distrust me on sight.

I made my steep way up to the keep gate and was admitted by the guardsmen there. The sun was high, the sky blue and clear, and if any of the passing folk were aware that the sole heir to the Farseer crown had vanished, they showed no sign of it. They moved about their ordinary tasks with no more than the concerns of a working day to vex them. By the stable, several tall boys had converged on a plump young man. I knew him for a dullard by his flat face and small ears and the way his tongue peeped out of his mouth. Dull fear showed in his small eyes as the boys spread to encircle him. One of the older stablehands looked towards them irritably.

No, no, no.

I turned, seeking the source of the floating thought, but of course that availed me nothing. A faint snatch of music distracted me. A stable-boy, sent hurrying about his tasks, jolted into me, then, at my startled look, begged my pardon most abjectly. Without thinking, I had allowed my hand to ride my sword hilt. ‘No harm done,’ I assured him, and added, ‘Tell me, where would I find the Weaponsmaster this time of day?’

The boy stopped suddenly, looked more closely at me, and smiled. ‘Down at the practice courts, man. They’re just past the new granary.’ He pointed the way.

I thanked him, and as I turned away, I tugged my collar closed.

THIRTEEN

Bargains

Hunting cats are not entirely unknown within Buck Duchy, but they have remained for years an anomaly. Not only is the terrain of Buck more suited to hound-hunting, but also hounds are more suited to the larger game that is usually the prey of mounted hunters. A lively pack of hounds, boiling and baying, is a fine accompaniment for a royal hunt. The cat, when it is employed, is usually seen as more fittingly the dainty hunting-companion of a lady, suitable for the taking of rabbits or birds. King Shrewd’s first queen, Queen Constance, kept a little hunting cat, but more for pleasure and companionship than sport. Her name was Hisspit.

Sulinga’s A History of Coursing Beasts

‘The Queen wishes to see you.’

‘When?’ I asked, startled. It was hardly the greeting I had expected from Chade. I had opened the panel that admitted me to his tower to find him sitting in his chair before the hearth, waiting for me. He stood immediately.

‘Now, of course. She wants to know what progress we have made, and is naturally anxious to hear from you as soon as possible.’

‘But I haven’t made any progress,’ I protested. I had not even reported my day’s work to Chade yet. I probably stank of sweat from the weapons court.

‘Then she’ll want to hear that,’ he replied relentlessly. ‘Come. Follow me.’ He triggered the door and we left the tower chamber.

It was evening. I had spent my afternoon doing as the Fool had advised me, playing the role of a servant learning his way about a new place. As such, I’d talked to quite a number of my fellow servitors, introduced myself to Weaponsmaster Cresswell, and successfully arranged it that he would suggest I freshen my blade skills against Delleree. She proved to be a formidable swordswoman, nearly as tall as I was, and both energetic and light-footed. I was pleased she could not get past my guard, but I was soon panting with the effort of maintaining it. Trying to penetrate her defences was not yet an option for me. The weapons training Hod had enforced on me long ago stood me in good stead, but my body simply could not react as swiftly as my mind. Knowing what to do under an attack is not the same thing as being able to do it.

Twice I begged leave for breathing space and she granted it to me with the satisfaction of the insufferably young. Yet my leading questions about the Prince availed me little, until at my third rest interlude I loosened my collar and opened my shirt wide to the cool air. I almost felt guilty doing it, yet I will not deny that I wanted to test if the charm would coax her to be more loquacious with me.

It worked. Leaning on the wall in the shade of the weapons shed, I caught my breath, and then looked up into her face. As our gaze met, her brown eyes widened, in the way that a person’s eyes widen at the sight of something pleasantly anticipated. Like a rapier rushing to its target, I thrust my question past her guard. ‘Tell me, do you press Prince Dutiful so hard when he practises with you?’

She smiled. ‘No, I fear I do not, for I am usually more occupied with maintaining my own defences against him. He is a skilled swordsman, creative and unpredictable in his tactics. No sooner do I devise a new trick to use against him than he learns it and tries it against me.’

‘Then he loves his blade-work, as good fighters usually do.’

She paused. ‘No. I do not think that is it. He is a youth who makes no half-measures in anything he does. He strives to be perfect in all he attempts.’

‘Competitive, is he?’ I tried to make my query casual. I busied my hands in smoothing my wayward hair back into its tail.

Again she considered. ‘No. Not in the usual sense. There are some I practise with who think only of beating their opponents. That preoccupation can be used against them. But I do not think the Prince cares if he wins our matches, only that he fights each one perfectly. It is not the same thing as competing with my skills …’ Her voice trailed away as she pondered it.

‘He competes with himself, against an ideal he imagines.’

My prompting seemed to startle her for an instant. Then, grinning, ‘That is it, exactly. You’ve met him, then?’

‘Not yet,’ I assured her. ‘But I’ve heard a great deal about him, and look forward to meeting him.’

‘Oh, that won’t be soon,’ she informed me guilelessly. ‘He has his mother’s Mountain ways in some things. Often he goes apart from the whole court for a time, to spend time just thinking. He isolates himself in a tower. Some say he fasts, but I have never seen signs of it when he returns to his routine.’

‘So what does he do?’ I asked in hearty puzzlement.

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘You’ve never asked him?’

She gave me an odd look, and when she spoke, her voice had cooled. ‘I am only his training partner, not his confidante. I am a guardsman and he is a prince. I would not presume to question my prince on his private time alone. He is, as all know, a private person, with a great need for solitude.’

Necklace or not, I knew I had pushed her too hard. I smiled, I hoped disarmingly, and straightened up with a groan. ‘Well, as a training partner, you’re the equal of any I’ve ever had. The Prince is fortunate to have someone such as you to sharpen his skills against. As am I.’

‘You are welcome. And I hope we can measure ourselves against one another again.’

I left it at that. I had as much success with the other servants. My queries, whether direct or indirect, yielded little information. It was not that the servants refused to gossip; they were as willing to chatter about Lord Golden or Lady Elegance as one could wish, but on the topic of the Prince, they simply seemed to know nothing. The picture I formed of Dutiful was of a boy who was not disliked, but was isolated not only by his rank but by his nature. It did not encourage me. I feared that if he had run, he had divulged his plans to no one. His solitary habits would have left him singularly vulnerable to kidnappers as well.

My mind went back to the note the Queen had received. It had told her that the Prince was Witted and demanded she take suitable action. What had the writer intended as ‘suitable action’? Revealing his Wit and proclaiming that the Witted must be accepted? Or purifying the Farseer line with his demise? Had the writer contacted the Prince as well?

Chade’s old workbench had yielded me the lock-picks I needed for my dinner-hour adventure. The Prince had Prince Regal’s former grand chambers. That lock and I were old friends and I anticipated that I could slip it easily. While the rest of the keep was at table, I approached the Prince’s rooms. Here again I saw his mother’s influence, for there was not only no guard at his door, but it was not locked. I slipped silently within, closing it softly behind me. Then I stared about me in perplexity. I had expected the same clutter and disorder that Hap tended to leave in his wake. Instead the Prince’s sparse possessions were all stored in such an orderly fashion that the spacious room looked nearly empty. Perhaps he had a fanatical valet, I mused. Then, recalling Kettricken’s upbringing, I wondered if the Prince had any body-servants at all. Personal servants were not a Mountain custom.

It took me very little time to explore his rooms. I found a modest assortment of clothing in his chests. I could not determine if any were missing. His riding boots were still there, but Chade had already told me that the Prince’s horse was still in his stall. He possessed a neat array of brush, comb, washbasin and looking-glass, all precisely aligned in a row. In the room where he pursued his studies, the ink was tightly stoppered and the tabletop had never suffered any blots or spills. No scrolls had been left out. His sword was on the wall, but there were empty pegs where other weapons might have hung. There were no personal papers, no ribbons or locks of hair tucked into the corner of his clothing chest, not even a sticky wineglass or an idly-tossed shirt under his bed. In short, it did not strike me as a boy’s bedchamber at all.

There was a large cushion in a sturdy basket near the hearth. The hair that clung to it was short, yet fine. The stoutly-woven basket bore the marks of errant claws. I did not need the wolf’s nose to smell cat in the room. I lifted the cushion, and found playthings beneath it: a rabbitskin tied to a length of heavy twine, and a canvas toy stuffed with catmint. I raised my eyebrows to that, wondering if hunting cats were affected by it as mousing cats were.

The room yielded me little else: no hidden journal of princely thoughts, no defiant run-away’s final note to his mother, nothing to suggest that the Prince had been spirited away against his will. I had retreated quietly from his rooms, leaving all as I had found it.

My route took me past the door of my old boyhood room. I paused, tempted. Who stayed there now? The hallway was empty and I yielded to the impulse. The lock on the door was the one I had devised, and it demanded my rusty skills to get past it. It was so stiff I was persuaded it had not turned in some time. I shut the door behind me and stood still, smelling dust.

The tall window was shuttered, but the shutters were, as they had always been, a poor fit. Daylight leaked past them, and after a few moments, my eyes adjusted to the dusky light. I looked around. There, my bedstead, with cobwebs embroidering the familiar hangings. The cedar clothing chest at the foot of it was thick with dust. The hearth, empty, black and cold. And above it, the faded tapestry of King Wisdom treating with the Elderlings. I stared at it. As a boy of nine, it had given me nightmares. Time had not changed my opinion of the oddly-elongated forms. The golden Elderlings stared down on the lifeless and empty room.

I suddenly felt as if I had disturbed a grave. As silently as I had entered the chamber, I left it, locking the door behind me.

I had thought to find Lord Golden in his chambers, but he was not there. ‘Lord Golden?’ I asked questioningly, and then advanced to tap lightly at the door of his private chamber. I swear I did not touch the catch, but it swung open at my touch.

Light flooded out. The small chamber had a window, and the afternoon sun filled it with gold. It was a pleasant, open room that smelled of woodshavings and paint. In the corner, a plant in a tub climbed a trellis. Hanging on the walls, I recognized charms such as Jinna made. On the worktable in the middle of the room, amongst the scattered tools and paint pots, there were pieces of rod, string and beads, as if he had disassembled a charm. I found I had taken a step into the room. There was a scroll weighted flat on the table, with several charms drawn on it. They were unlike anything I had seen in Jinna’s shop. Even at a glance, the sketches were oddly unsettling. ‘I remember that,’ I thought, and then, when I looked closer, I was absolutely certain I had never seen the like before. A shiver ran down my back. The little beads had faces; the rods were carved with spinning spirals. The longer I stared, the more they disturbed me. I felt as if I could not quite get my breath, as if they were pulling me into them. ‘Come away.’ The Fool spoke softly from behind me. I could not reply.

I felt his hand on my shoulder and it broke the spell. I turned at his touch. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said instantly. ‘The door was ajar and I –’

‘I did not expect you back so soon, or it would have been latched.’

That was all he said, and then he drew me from the room and shut the door firmly behind us.

I felt as if he had pulled me back from a precipice. I drew a shaky breath. ‘What were those?’

‘An experiment. What you told me of Jinna’s charms made me curious, so when I reached Buckkeep Town, I resolved to see them for myself. Once I had, I wanted to know how they worked. I wanted to know if the charm could only be made by a hedge-witch, or if the magic was in the way they were assembled. And I wanted to know if I could make them work better.’ His voice was neutral.

‘How can you stand to be around them?’ I demanded. Even now, the hair on the back of my neck was standing.

‘They are tuned to humans. You forget that I am a White.’

The statement left me as speechless as the insidious little sketches had. I looked at the Fool and for one blink I could see him as if for the first time. As attractive as his colouring was, I had never seen any other person with it. There were other differences, the way his wrists attached his hands to his arms, the airiness of his hair … but when our eyes met, I was looking at my old friend again. It was like jolting back to the earth after a fall. I suddenly recalled what I had done. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to … I know you need your privacy –’ I felt shamed and hot blood rushed to my face.

He was silent for a moment. Then he said justly, ‘When I came to your home, you hid nothing from me.’ I sensed that the statement reflected his idea of what was fair rather than his emotions on the topic.

‘I won’t go in there again,’ I promised fervently.

That brought a small smile to his face. ‘I doubted that you would.’

I suddenly wanted to change the subject, but the only thought that came to me was, ‘I saw Jinna today. She made this for me.’ I opened the collar of my shirt.

He stared, first at the charm, then up at my face. He seemed struck dumb. Then a wide and fatuous grin spread over his face.

‘It’s supposed to make people feel kindly towards me,’ I explained. ‘To counteract my grim appearance, I think, though she was not so unkind as to say that directly.’

He took a breath. ‘Cover it,’ he begged, laughing, and as I did so, he turned away from it. He walked almost hastily to the chamber window and looked out. ‘They are not tuned to my bloodlines, but that does not mean I am completely impervious against them. You often remind me that in some ways I am still very human.’

I unfastened it from my throat and held it out to him. ‘You can take it and study it if you like. I’m not entirely sure I like wearing it. I think I’d rather know what people honestly think of me.’

‘Somehow I doubt that,’ he muttered, but he returned to take the charm from my hand. He held it out in the air between us, studied it, and then glanced at me. ‘Tuned to you?’ he guessed.

I nodded.

‘Intriguing. I would like to keep it, for a day or so. I promise not to take it apart. But after that, I think you should wear it. Always.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ I promised, but felt no inclination to don it again.

‘Chade wanted to see you as soon as you came in,’ he suddenly said, as if he had only then remembered it.

And there we had left it, and I felt that I was, if not excused, at least forgiven for going where I had no business being.

Now as I followed Chade through the narrow passageway, I asked him, ‘How was this all built? How can a labyrinth like this that winds all through the castle be kept secret?’

He carried a candle and walked before me. He spoke over his shoulder, softly. ‘Some was built into the bones of the keep. Our ancestors were never trusting folk. Part of it was intended as a system of boltholes. Some of it has always been used for spying. Some of it used to be servants’ stairs, incorporated into the secret passages during a phase of intense reconstruction following a fire. And some was created deliberately, in your lifetime. When you were small, do you remember when Shrewd ordered that the hearth in the guardroom be rebuilt?’

‘Vaguely. I did not pay much attention at the time.’

‘No one did. You may have noticed that a wooden façade was added to two walls.’

‘The cupboard wall? I thought it was built so that Cook had a bigger larder, one that kept rats out. It made the room smaller, but warmer as well.’

‘And above the cupboards, there is a passageway, and several viewing slits. Shrewd liked to know what his guards were thinking of him, what they feared, what they hoped.’

‘But the men who built it would have known of it.’

‘Different craftsmen were brought in to do different parts of the job. I myself added the viewing slits. If any of them thought it odd that the ceilings of the cupboards were so sturdily built, they said nothing. And here we are. Hush.’

He lifted a tiny leather flap on the wall and peered into the revealed hole. After a moment, he whispered, ‘Come.’

The silent door admitted us into a privy chamber. There we paused again, while Chade again peered through a peephole, then tapped lightly at the door. ‘Enter,’ Kettricken responded quietly.

I followed Chade into a small sitting room off the Queen’s bedchamber. The connecting door to the bedchamber was closed and a bolt in place. The room was decorated sparsely in the Mountains’ severe but restful way. Fat scented candles gave us light in the windowless chamber. The table and chairs were of bare pale wood. The woven mat on the floor and the wall-hangings were made of grass worked into a scene of waterfalls tumbling down a mountainside. I recognized Kettricken’s own handiwork. Other than that, the chamber was bare. All this I noticed peripherally, for my queen stood in the centre of the room.

She was waiting for us. She wore a simple gown of Buck blue, with a white and gold kirtle. Her gold hair was dressed close to her head, and crowned only with a simple band of silver. She was empty-handed. Another woman would have brought her needlework or had set out a platter of food, but not our queen. She was waiting for us but I did not sense impatience or anxiety. I suspected she had been meditating, for an aura of stillness still clung to her. Our eyes met, and the small lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes seemed lies, for in the gaze we shared no time had passed at all. The courage I had always admired still shone there, and her self-discipline was like an armour she wore. Yet, ‘Oh, Fitz!’ she cried low on seeing me, and in her voice there was warm welcome and relief.

I bowed low to her, and then sank on one knee. ‘My queen!’ I greeted her.

She stepped forwards and touched my head, her hand a benediction. ‘Please rise,’ she said quietly. ‘You have been at my side through too many trials for me ever to want to see you on your knees before me. And as I recall, you once called me Kettricken.’

‘That was many years ago, my lady,’ I reminded her as I rose.

She took both my hands in hers. We were nearly of a height, and her blue eyes looked deep into mine. ‘Far too many, for which I fault you, FitzChivalry. But Chade told me, long ago, that you might choose solitude and rest for yourself. When you did, I did not begrudge it to you. You had sacrificed everything to your duty, and if solitude was the only reward you wished, then I was glad to grant it to you. Yet I confess I am more glad to see you return, especially at such a time of crisis.’

‘If you have need of me, then I am glad to be here,’ I replied, almost without reservations.

‘I am saddened that you walk among the folk of Buckkeep, and none know what sacrifices you have made for them. You should have been accorded a hero’s welcome. Instead, you walk unknown among them in the guise of a servant.’ Her earnest blue eyes searched my own.

I found myself smiling. ‘Perhaps I spent too long in the Mountains, where all know that the true ruler of that kingdom is the servant of all.’

For a moment her blue eyes widened. Then the genuine smile that broke forth on her face was like the sun breaking through storm clouds, despite the sudden tears that stood in her eyes. ‘Oh, Fitz, to hear you say such words is balm to my heart. Truly, you have been Sacrifice for your people, and I admire you for it. But to hear from your lips that you understand that it has been your duty, and took satisfaction in that, brings me joy.’

I did not think that was exactly what I had said, and yet I will not deny that her praise eased some of the ancient hurt in me. I pulled back from looking at that too closely.

‘Dutiful,’ I said suddenly. ‘He is why I am here, and much pleasure as I take in this reunion, I would take even more in discovering what has become of him.’

My queen kept possession of one of my hands and held it tightly as she drew me towards the table. ‘Oh, you were ever my friend, even before I came as a stranger to this court. And now your heart goes with mine in this matter.’ She drew a deep breath, and the fears and worries of a mother broke past the control in the monarch’s voice as she said, ‘No matter how I dissemble before the court – and it grieves me that I must deceive my own people this way – my son is never out of my thoughts for a moment. FitzChivalry, I put the blame for this at my own feet, yet I do not know if my fault was too much discipline for him, or too little, or if I demanded too much of the Prince and not enough of the boy, or –’

‘My queen, you cannot approach this problem from that direction. We must begin from where we are; no good will come of trying to apportion blame. I will tell you bluntly that in my brief time here, I have discovered nothing. Those who I have questioned speak well of the Prince. No one has divulged to me that he was unhappy or discontented in any way.’

‘Then you think he was taken?’ she broke in.

This interruption was so uncharacteristic of Kettricken that I finally grasped the depth of her anguish. I drew out a chair for her, and as she sat, I looked down into her face and said with all the calm I could muster, ‘I do not think anything yet. I do not have enough facts to form an opinion.’

At an impatient sign from her, both Chade and I were seated at the table. ‘But what of your Skill?’ she demanded. ‘Does it tell you nothing of him? Chade told me that he suspected you and the boy were somehow linked in your dreams. I do not understand how that could be so, but if it is, surely it must tell you something. What has he dreamed these last few nights?’

‘You will not like my answer, my queen, any more than you liked my answer all those years ago when we searched for Verity. My talent now is as it was then: erratic and unreliable. From what Chade has told me, it is possible that I have occasionally shared a dream with Prince Dutiful. But if it is so, I was not cognizant of it at the time. Nor can I break into his dreams at will. If he has dreamed these last few nights, he dreamed alone.’

‘Or perhaps he did not dream at all,’ Kettricken mourned. ‘Perhaps he is dead already, or tormented so that he cannot sleep and dream.’

‘My queen, you imagine the worst, and when you do, your mind stops at the problem and does not consider the solution.’ Chade’s voice was almost severe. Knowing how tormented he was over the boy’s absence, his sternness surprised me, until I saw the Queen’s reaction. Kettricken took strength from his firmness.

‘Of course. You are right.’ She took a breath. ‘But what can our solution be? We have discovered nothing, and neither has FitzChivalry. You have counselled me to keep his disappearance a secret, lest we panic the people and precipitate rash decisions. But there have been no demands for ransom. Perhaps we should make it public that the Prince is missing. Someone, somewhere, must know something. I think we must announce it and ask the people to help.’

‘Not yet,’ I heard myself say. ‘For you are right in saying that someone, somewhere, must know something. And if they are aware that the Prince is absent from Buckkeep, and they have not come forwards, then they have a reason. And I should like to know what it is.’

‘Then what do you suggest?’ Kettricken demanded of me. ‘What is left to us?’

I knew it would chafe her, yet I still suggested it. ‘Give me a little more time. A day, at most two. Let me ask more questions and sniff about some more.’

‘But anything could have happened to him by then!’

‘Anything could have happened to him by now,’ I pointed out levelly. I spoke calmly the cruel words. ‘Kettricken. If someone took him to kill him, they have done it by now. If they took him to use him, they are still awaiting our move in this game. If he ran away, then he may yet run home again. While we keep his absence a secret, the next move belongs to us. Let it be known, and others will make that move for us. You will have nobles tearing up the countryside, looking for him, and not all will have his best interests at heart. Some will want to “rescue” him to curry favour, and others may think to seize a prize from another weasel’s jaws.’

She closed her eyes but nodded reluctantly to my words. When she spoke, her voice was strained. ‘But you know that time runs out for us. Chade has told you that an Outislander contingent comes to formalize Prince Dutiful’s affiance? When they arrive a fortnight from now, I must be able to produce him or I risk not only embarrassment but also insult and an end to a carefully-wrought truce that I hope to make an alliance.’

‘Bought with your son.’ The words leapt out of my mouth before I knew I had thought them.

She opened her eyes and gazed at me levelly. ‘Yes. As the Mountain alliance with the Six Duchies was bought with me.’ She cocked her head at me. ‘Do you consider it a poor transaction?’

I deserved rebuke. I bowed my head to it. ‘No, my queen. I think it was the best bargain that the Six Duchies ever made.’

She nodded to my compliment and a faint blush rosed her cheeks. ‘I shall listen to your counsel, Fitz. Two more days will we seek Dutiful on our own, before we reveal his absence to our people. In those days, we will use every means at our disposal to discover what may have become of him. Chade has opened to you the concealed maze within the walls of Buckkeep. I little like what it says of us, that we furtively spy on our own folk, but I grant the freedom of it to you, FitzChivalry. I know you will not abuse it. Use it as seems wise to you.’

‘Thank you, my queen,’ I replied awkwardly. I did not truly welcome this gift, the access to every lord’s and lady’s small and grubby flaws. I did not glance at Chade. What had it cost him to be privy not just to the massive secrets of the throne, but the dirty and shameful sins of the folk of the keep? What vices had he inadvertently witnessed, what painful shortcomings had he glimpsed, and how did he meet the eyes of those folk every day in the broad and well-lit chambers of the keep?

‘… and whatever you must do.’

My mind had been wandering, but my queen was looking at me, waiting. I made the only possible response. ‘Yes, my queen.’

She gave a great sigh as if she had feared my refusal. Or as if she dreaded what she next must say. ‘Then do so, FitzChivalry, ever friend. I would not spend you this way if it could be avoided. Safeguard your health. Be wary of the drugs and herbs, for as thorough as your old master is, no translation should ever be absolutely trusted.’ She took a breath, then added in a different tone, ‘If either Chade or I press you too hard, tell us so. Your head must stand guard against my mother’s heart. Do not … do not let me shame myself in this, by asking more of you than you can …’ Her voice trailed away. I think she trusted me to take her meaning. She drew another breath. She turned her head and looked away from me, as if that would keep me from knowing that tears stood in her eyes. ‘You will begin tonight?’ she asked in an unnaturally high voice.

I knew what I had just agreed to. I knew then that I stood at the lip of the abyss.

I flung myself off into it. ‘Yes, my queen.’

How shall I describe that long climb up the stairs to the tower? Chade led the way through the secret places of the keep and I followed his uncertain lamplight. Dread and anticipation warred inside me. I felt I had left my stomach far behind me, and yet I longed for him to hurry up the steps. Excitement coursed through me as we approached that indulgence so long denied to me. My hopes and focus should have been on recovering the Prince, but the prospect of drowning myself in Skill dominated all my thoughts. It terrified and tantalized me. My skin felt taut and alive, and my senses seemed to strain against the confines of my flesh. Music seemed to move through the air at the edges of my hearing.

Chade triggered the door’s opening, and then gestured for me to precede him. As I edged past him, he observed, ‘You look nervous as a bridegroom, boy.’

I cleared my throat. ‘It seems strange to rush headlong into that which I have tried to school myself to avoid.’

He shut the door behind us as I glanced about the room. A small fire burned on the grate. Even in the height of summer, the thick stone walls of the keep seemed to whisper a chill into the room. Verity’s sword leaned up against the hearth where I had left it, but someone had removed the leather on the hilt. ‘You recognized Verity’s blade,’ I observed.

‘How could I not? I am glad you kept it safe.’

I laughed. ‘More like, that it kept me safe. Well. What exactly do you propose?’

‘I suggest you make yourself comfortable and that you attempt to Skill out after the Prince. That is all.’

I looked around for a place to sit. Not on the hearthstones. Yet, as it ever had been, there was only one comfortable chair near the fire. ‘And the drugs and herbs the Queen mentioned?’

Chade gave me a sidelong glance. I thought I detected some wariness in the look. ‘I do not think we will need them. She refers to several scrolls within the Skill collection. There are teas and tinctures that are suggested for Skill-students who seem to have difficulty attaining a receptive state. We had considered using them on Prince Dutiful but had decided to postpone it until we were sure they are necessary.’

‘Galen never used any herbs when he was instructing us.’ I brought a tall stool from the workbench and set it opposite Chade’s chair. I perched on it. He settled in his chair, but then had to look up at me. I suspect it annoyed him. He sounded peevish when he spoke.

‘Galen never used any herbs when he was instructing you. Did you never suspect that perhaps the others in your Skill-coterie received special attentions that you were not privy to? I did. Of course, we will never be certain of that.’

I shrugged my shoulders to that. What else could I do? It was years ago and they were all dead, several of them at my hands. What did it matter now? But the thoughts had stirred my old aversion to the Skill. From anticipation, I had shifted suddenly to dread. I changed the subject. ‘Did you find out for me who gave the cat to the Prince?’

Chade looked startled at my abrupt shift. ‘I – yes, of course. Lady Bresinga of Galeton and her son Civil. It was a birthday gift. The cat was presented to him in a little jewelled harness with a leash. The animal was about two years old, a long-legged stripy creature with a rather flat face and a tail as long as the rest of it. I understand those cats cannot be bred, that a kitten must be taken from a wild den before its eyes have opened if anything is to be made of it. It is an exotic coursing animal, suited to solitary hunting. The Prince took to it immediately.’

‘Who took the kitten from the den?’ I asked.

‘I have no idea. Their huntsman, I imagine.’

‘Did the cat like the Prince?’

Chade frowned to himself. ‘I had not really concerned myself with that. As I recall, they approached the dais, with Lady Bresinga holding the end of the cat’s leash and her son actually carrying the animal. It seemed almost dazed by all the light and noise of the festivities. I wondered myself if they had drugged it lest it panic and struggle to escape. But when they had made their courtesies to the Prince, the lady put the end of the leash in his hand and Civil, her son, set the cat at Dutiful’s feet.’

‘Did it try to get away? Did it test the leash?’

‘No. As I said, it seemed quite calm, almost unnaturally so. I believe it looked at the Prince for a time, and then bumped its head against his knee.’ Chade’s eyes had gone distant, and I saw his trained mind recalling the scene in detail. ‘He reached down to stroke it, and it cowered away. Then it sniffed his hand. Then it did this strange thing, opening its mouth wide and breathing near his hand, as if it could taste his scent from the air. After that, it seemed to accept him. It rubbed its head up and down his leg, just as a little cat does. When a servant tried to lead it away, it would not go, so it was allowed to remain near the Prince’s chair for the rest of the evening. He seemed very well pleased with it.’

‘How soon did he begin hunting it?’

‘I believe he and Civil took it out the next day. Civil and the Prince are nearly of an age, and the Prince was eager to try the cat, as any boy would be. Civil and his mother stayed on at court the rest of the week, and I think that Civil and the Prince took out the cat every morning. It was his chance to learn how to hunt with it, you see, from people familiar with the sport.’

‘And did they hunt well together?’

‘Oh, I suppose so. It is not for large game of course, but they brought back, oh, birds I think, and hares.’

‘And it always slept in his room?’

‘As I understand it, it has to be kept close to a human to keep it tamed. And of course, the hounds in the stable would not have left it in peace. So, yes, it slept in his room and followed him about the keep. Fitz, what do you suspect?’

I answered him honestly. ‘The same thing that you do. That our Witted prince has vanished with his hunting cat companion. And that none of this is a coincidence. Not the gift of the animal, not the bonding, not the disappearance. Someone planned this.’

Chade frowned, not wanting to admit what he believed. ‘The cat could have been killed when the Prince was taken. Or she could have run off.’

‘So you’ve said. But if the Prince is Witted, and the cat is bonded to him, she would not have run off when he was taken.’ The stool was uncomfortable but I stubbornly remained perched on it. I closed my eyes for a moment. Sometimes, when the body is weary, the mind takes flight. I let my thoughts skip where they would. ‘I’ve bonded thrice, you know. The first time to Nosy, the puppy that Burrich took from me. And again, to Smithy when I was still a boy. The last time, to Nighteyes. Each time, there was that instant sense of connection. With Nosy, I bonded before I was even aware I was doing it. I suspect it happened because I was lonely. Because when Smithy offered love, I accepted it with no discrimination. And when the wolf’s anger and hatred of his cage so exactly matched mine, I could not distinguish between us.’ I opened my eyes briefly and met Chade’s startled stare. ‘I had no walls, you see.’ I looked away from him, down at the dwindling fire. ‘From what I’ve been told, in Witted families, the children are protected from doing that. They are taught to have walls when they are young. Then, when they are of an age, they are sent out to find suitable partners, almost like seeking a suitable marriage partner.’

‘What are you suggesting?’ Chade asked quietly.

I followed the thought where it led me. ‘The Queen has chosen a bride for Prince Dutiful for the sake of a political alliance. What if an Old Blood family has done the same?’

A lengthy silence followed my words. I looked back at Chade. His eyes were on the fire, and I could almost see his mind working frantically to sort out all the implications of what I had said. ‘An Old Blood family deliberately selects an animal for the Prince to bond with. Assumptions, then: that Lady Bresinga is Witted, that indeed her whole line is, as you put it, Old Blood. That they somehow knew or suspected the Prince is also Witted.’ He paused, pursed his mouth, and considered. ‘Perhaps they were the source of the note claiming the Prince was Witted … I still do not grasp what they would profit from it.’

‘What do we profit from marrying Dutiful to some Outislander girl? An alliance, Chade.’

He scowled at me. ‘The cat somehow is part of the Bresinga family and retains ties to it? The cat can somehow influence the Prince’s political actions?’

The way he said it made it seem ridiculous. ‘I haven’t got it completely worked out yet,’ I admitted. ‘But I think there is something there. Even if their only goal is to prove that the Prince himself is Witted, and hence that other Witted folk should not be chopped up and burned for being the way they are. Or to gain the Prince’s sympathy towards Witted folk, and through him, the Queen’s.’

Chade gave me a sidelong glance. ‘Now that is a motive I can concede. There is also a possible blackmail there. Once they have bonded the Prince to an animal, they can hold out for political favours under the threat that they will tell others he is Witted.’ He looked aside from me. ‘Or attempt to reduce him to the level of an animal, if we do not comply with their political wishes.’

As always, Chade’s mind was capable of far more convolutions than mine was. It was almost a relief to have him refine my ideas. I did not want my mentor to be failing in mind or body. In so many ways, he still stood as a shield between me and the world. I nodded to his suggestions.

He stood up suddenly. ‘So all the more reason we should proceed as we had planned. Come, take my chair. You look like a parrot perched up there; you can’t possibly be comfortable. One thing all the basic scrolls stress is that a practitioner of the Skill should find a comfortable starting place, one in which the body is relaxed and unobtrusive to the mind.’

I opened my mouth to say that was the opposite of what Galen had done to us. On the contrary, when he was teaching us, he had made us so miserable in body that the mind became our only escape. I shut my mouth, the words unsaid. Useless to protest or ponder what Galen had done. The twisted, pleasureless man had tormented us all, and those he had succeeded in training he had warped into a mindlessly loyal coterie for Prince Regal. Perhaps that had had something to do with it; perhaps he had wanted to break down the body’s resistance and the mind’s judgement before he could shape them into the coterie he desired.

I sat down in Chade’s chair. It retained his warmth and the imprint of his body. It felt strange to sit there in his presence. It was as if I were becoming him. He assumed my perch on the stool and looked down on me from that towering height. He crossed his arms on his chest and leaned forwards to smirk down at me.

‘Comfortable?’ he asked me.

‘No,’ I admitted.

‘Serves you right,’ he muttered. Then, with a laugh, he got off the stool. ‘Tell me what I can do to help you with this process.’

‘You want me to just sit here and Skill out, hoping to find the Prince?’

‘Is that so hard?’ It was a genuine question.

‘I tried for several hours last night. Nothing happened except that I got a headache.’

‘Oh.’ For a moment he looked discouraged. Then he announced firmly, ‘We will simply have to try again.’ In a lower voice he muttered, ‘For what else can we do?’

I could think of no answer to that. I leaned back in his chair and tried to relax my body. I stared at his mantelpiece, only to have my attention stick on a fruit knife driven into the wood. I had done that, years ago. Now was not the time to dwell on that incident. Yet I found myself saying, ‘I crept into my old room today. It looks as if it has not been used since last I slept there.’

‘It hasn’t. Castle tradition says it is haunted.’

‘You’re joking!’

‘No. Think about it. The Witted Bastard slept there, and he was taken to his death in the castle dungeons. It’s a fine basis for a ghost tale. Besides. Flickering blue lights have been seen through its shutters at night, and once a stableboy said he saw the Pocked Man staring down from that window on a moonlit night.’

‘You kept it empty.’

‘I am not entirely devoid of sentiment. And for a long time, I hoped you would some day return to that room. But, enough of this. We have a task.’

I drew a breath. ‘The Queen did not mention the note about the Prince being Witted.’

‘No. She did not.’

‘Do you know why?’

He hesitated. ‘Perhaps some things are so frightening that even our good queen cannot bring herself to consider them.’

‘I’d like to see the note.’

‘Then you shall. Later.’ He paused, then asked me heavily, ‘Fitz. Are you going to settle down and do this thing or keep procrastinating?’

I took a deliberate breath, blew it out slowly, and fixed my gaze on the dwindling fire. I looked into its heart as I gradually unfastened my mind from my thoughts. I opened myself to the Skill.

My mind began to unfold. I have, over the years, given much thought to how one could describe Skilling. No metaphor really does it justice. Like a folded piece of silk, the mind opens, and opens, and opens again, becoming larger and yet somehow thinner. That is one image. Another is that the Skill is like a great unseen river that flows at all time. When one consciously pays attention to it, one can be seized in its current and drawn out to flow with it. In its wild waters, minds can touch and merge.

Yet no words or similes do it justice, any more than words can explain the smell of fresh bread or the colour yellow. The Skill is the Skill. It is the hereditary magic of the Farseers, yet it does not belong to kings alone. Many folk in the Six Duchies have a touch of it. In some it burns strong enough that a Skilled one can hear their thoughts. Sometimes, I can even influence what a Skill-touched person thinks. Far more rare are those who can reach out with the Skill. That ability is usually no more than a feeble groping unless the talent is trained. I opened myself to it, and let my consciousness expand but with no expectations of reaching anyone.

Threads of thought tangled against me like waterweed. ‘I hate the way she looks at my beau.’ ‘I wish I could say one last word to you, Papa.’ ‘Please hurry home, I feel so ill.’ ‘You are so beautiful. Please, please, turn around, see me, at least give me that.’ Those who flung the thoughts out with such urgency were, for the most part, ignorant of their own strength. None of them was aware of me sharing their thoughts, nor could I make my own thoughts known to them. Each cried out in their deafness with voices they believed were mute. None was Prince Dutiful. From some distant part of the keep, music reached my ears, temporarily distracting me. I pushed it aside and strove on.

I do not know how long I prowled amongst those unwary minds, nor how far I reached in my search. The range of the Skill is determined by strength of ability, not distance. I had no measure of my strength and time does not exist when one is in the grip of the Skill. I trod again that narrow measure, clinging to my awareness of my own body despite the temptation to let the Skill sweep me free of my body forever.

‘Fitz,’ I murmured, in response to something, and then, ‘FitzChivalry,’ I said aloud to myself. A fresh log crashed down onto the embers of the fire, scattering the glowing heart into individual coals. For a time I stared at it, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Then I blinked, and became aware of Chade’s hand resting on my shoulder. I smelled hot food, and slowly turned my head. A platter rested on a low table near the chair. I stared at it, wondering how it had come to be there.

‘Fitz?’ Chade said again, and I tried to recall his question.

‘What?’

‘Did you find Prince Dutiful?’

Each word gradually made sense to me until I perceived his query. ‘No,’ I said as a wave of weariness rolled over me. ‘No, nothing.’ In the wake of the fatigue, my hands began to tremble and my head to pound. I closed my eyes, but found no relief. Even with my eyes closed, snakes of light trembled across the dark. When I opened my eyes, they were superimposed on the room before me. I felt as if too much light were getting inside my head. The waves of pain tumbled me in a surf of disorientation.

‘Here. Drink this.’

Chade put a warm mug into my hands and I lifted it gratefully to my mouth. I took a mouthful, then nearly spat it out. It was not elfbark tea to soothe my headache, but only beef broth. I swallowed it without enthusiasm. ‘Elfbark tea,’ I reminded him. ‘That is what I need right now. Not food.’

‘No, Fitz. Recall what you yourself told me. Elfbark stunts the Skill-ability, and numbs you to your talent. That is something we cannot risk just now. Eat something. It will restore your strength.’

Obediently I looked at the tray. Sliced fruit floated in cream next to freshly baked bread. There was a glass of wine and pink slices of baked river fish. I carefully set the mug of broth down next to the revolting stuff and turned my gaze away. The fire was rekindling itself, dancing licks of flame, too bright. I lowered my face into my hands, seeking darkness, but even there the lights still danced before my eyes. I spoke into my hands. ‘I need some elfbark. It has not been this bad in years, not since Verity was alive, not since Shrewd took strength from me. Please, Chade. I cannot even think.’

He went away. I sat counting my heartbeats until he came back. Each thud of my heart was a flare of pain in my temples. I heard the scuff of his steps and lifted my head.

‘Here,’ he said gruffly, and set a cool wet cloth to my forehead. The shock of it made me catch my breath. I held it to my brow and felt the thudding ease somewhat. It smelled of lavender.

I looked at him through a haze of pain. His hands were empty. ‘The elfbark tea?’ I reminded him.

‘No, Fitz.’

‘Chade. Please. It hurts so badly I can’t see.’ Each word was an effort. My own voice was too loud.

‘I know,’ he said quietly. ‘I know, my boy. But you will just have to bear it. The scrolls say that sometimes the use of the Skill brings this pain, but that, with time and repeated effort, you will learn to master it. Again, my understanding of it is imperfect, but it seems to have to do with the split effort you make, both to reach out from yourself and to hold tight to yourself. Given time, you will learn how to reconcile those tensions and then –’

‘Chade!’ I did not mean to bellow but I did. ‘I just need the damned elfbark tea. Please!’ I took sudden control of myself. ‘Please,’ I added softly, contritely. ‘Please, just the tea. Just help me ease this pain, and then I could listen to you.’

‘No, Fitz.’

‘Chade.’ I spoke my hidden fear. ‘Pain such as this could push me into a seizure.’

I saw a brief flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. But then, ‘I don’t think it will. Besides, I’m here beside you, boy. I’ll take care of you. You have to try to get through this without the drug. For Dutiful’s sake. For the Six Duchies.’

His refusal stunned me into silence. Hurt and defiance tore me. ‘Fine.’ I bit off the word. ‘I have some in my pack in my room.’ I tried to find the will to stand.

A moment of silence. Then, unwillingly he admitted, ‘You had some in your pack in your room. It is gone. As is the carryme that was with it.’

I took the rag from my forehead and glared at him. My anger built on the foundation of my pain. ‘You have no right. How dare you?’

He took a breath. ‘I dare as much as my need demands. And my need is great.’ His green-eyed gaze met mine challengingly. ‘The throne needs the talent that only you possess. I will allow nothing that diminishes your Skill.’

He did not look away from me, but I could scarcely keep my eyes on him. Light was flaring all round him, stabbing into my brain. The barest edge of control kept me from throwing the compress at him. As if he guessed that, he took it from me, offering me a freshly cooled one in its place. It was a pitiful comfort, but I put it on my brow and leaned back in the chair. I wanted to weep with frustration and anguish. From behind the compress, I told him, ‘Pain. That’s what being a Farseer means to me. Pain and being used.’

He made no reply. That had always been his greatest rebuke, the silence that forced me to hear my own words over and over. When I took the cloth from my forehead, he was ready with another one. As I pressed it to my eyes, he said mildly, ‘Pain and being used. I’ve known my share of that as a Farseer. As did Verity, and Chivalry, and Shrewd before them. But you know there is more than that. If there weren’t, you wouldn’t be here.’

‘Perhaps,’ I conceded grudgingly. The fatigue was winning. I just wanted to curl up around the pain and sleep but I fought it. ‘Perhaps, but it isn’t enough. Not for going through this.’

‘And what more would you ask, Fitz? Why are you here?’

I knew he meant it to be a rhetorical question but the anxiety had been with me for too long. The answer was too close to my lips, and the pain made me speak without thought. I lifted a corner of the cloth to peer at him. ‘I do this because I want a future. Not for myself, but for my boy. For Hap. Chade, I’ve done it all wrong. I haven’t taught him a thing, not how to fight, nor how to make a living. I need to find him an apprenticeship with a good master. Gindast. That’s who he wishes to teach him. He wants to be a joiner, and I should have seen that this would come and saved my money, but I didn’t. And here he is, of an age to learn and I haven’t a thing to give him. The coins I’ve saved aren’t enough to –’

‘I can arrange that.’ Chade spoke quietly. Then, almost angrily, he demanded, ‘Did you think I wouldn’t?’ Something in my face betrayed me, for he leaned closer, brows furrowed as he exclaimed, ‘You thought you’d have to do this in order to ask my help, didn’t you?’ The damp cloth was still in his hand. It slapped the stone flags when he flung it in a temper. ‘Fitz, you –’he began, then words failed him. He stood up and walked away from me. I thought he would leave entirely. Instead he went down to the workbench and the unused hearth at the other end of the chamber. He walked around the table slowly, looking at it and at the scroll racks and utensils as if seeking for something he had misplaced. I refolded the second cloth and held it to my forehead, but surreptitiously I watched him from under my hand. Neither of us said anything for a time.

When he came back to me, he looked calmer but somehow older. He took a fresh cloth from a pottery dish, wrung it out, folded it and offered it to me. As we exchanged the compresses, he said softly, ‘I’ll see that Hap gets his apprenticeship. You could simply have asked me to do that when I visited you. Or years ago, you could have brought the lad to Buckkeep and we’d have seen him decently educated.’

‘He can read and write and figure,’ I said defensively. ‘I saw to that.’

‘Good.’ His reply was chill. ‘I’m glad to hear you retained that much common sense.’

There seemed no rejoinder to that. Both pain and weariness were overcoming me. I knew I had hurt him but I didn’t feel it was my fault. How could I have known he’d be so willing to help me? Nevertheless, I apologized. ‘Chade, I’m sorry. I should have known that you would help me.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed mercilessly. ‘You should have. And you’re sorry. I don’t doubt you’re sincere. Yet I seem to recall warning you, years ago, that those words will only work so often, and then they ring hollow. Fitz, it hurts me to see you this way.’

‘It’s starting to ease,’ I lied.

‘Not your head, you stupid ass. It hurts me to see that you are still … as you’ve always been since … damn. Since you were taken from your mother. Wary and isolated and mistrustful. Despite all I’ve … After all these years, have you given your trust to no one?’

I was silent for a time, pondering his words. I had loved Molly, but I had never trusted her with my secrets. My bond with Chade was as essential as my bones, but no, I had not believed that he would do all he could for Hap, simply for the sake of what we shared. Burrich. Verity. Kettricken. Lady Patience. Starling. In every instance, I had held back. ‘I trust the Fool,’ I said, and then wondered if I truly did. I did, I assured myself. There was almost nothing about me that he didn’t know. That was trust, wasn’t it?

After a moment, Chade said heavily, ‘Well, that’s good. That you trust someone.’ He turned away from me and spoke to the fire. ‘You should force yourself to eat something. Your body may rebel, but you know that you need the food. Recall how we had to press food on Verity when he Skilled.’

The neutrality in his voice was almost painful. I realized then that he had hoped I would insist that I did trust him. It would not have been true, and I would not lie to him. I rummaged about in my mind for something else to give him. I spoke the words without thinking. ‘Chade, I do love you. It’s just that –’

He turned to me almost abruptly. ‘Stop, boy. Say no more.’ His voice was almost pleading as he said, ‘That’s enough for me.’ He set his hand to my shoulder and squeezed nearly painfully. ‘I won’t ask of you that which you can’t give. You are what life has made you. And what I made you, Eda be merciful. Now pay attention to me. Eat something. Force yourself if you must.’

It would have been useless to tell him that the sight and smell of the food was enough to make me gag. I took a breath, and quaffed down the beef broth, not breathing until it was gone. The fruit in cream felt slimy in my mouth, the fish reeked and the bread near choked me, but I forced myself to swallow it half-chewed. I took a deep breath, and the wine followed it down. When I set the cup down, my stomach churned and my head reeled. The wine was a more potent vintage than I had thought. I lifted my eyes to Chade’s. His mouth hung ajar in dismay. ‘I didn’t mean like that,’ he muttered.

I lifted a hand at him in a gesture of futility. I feared to open my mouth to reply.

‘You’d best go to bed,’ he suggested humbly.

I nodded in reply and levered myself to my feet. He opened the door for me, gave me a candle and then stood at the top of the passage holding a light until my path carried me out of his view. My room seemed impossibly distant, but eventually I arrived at the entry. Queasy as I was, I extinguished my light before I approached and carefully peered through the peephole before I triggered the access to my dark room. No candle burned there tonight. It didn’t matter. I stumbled into the stuffy darkness and thrust the door shut behind me. A few steps carried me to my bed and I dropped onto it. I was too hot and my clothes bound me uncomfortably, but I was too tired to do anything about it. The black was so absolute I could not tell if my eyes were open or shut. At least the lights under my eyelids had been quenched. I stared up into the darkness and longed for the cool peace of the forest.

The thick walls of the room muffled all sound, and sealed me off from the night. It was like being sealed in a tomb. I closed my eyes to the blackness and listened to my headache thump with the beat of my heart. My stomach gurgled unhappily. I drew a deep breath, and ‘Forest,’ I said quietly to myself. ‘Night. Trees. Meadow.’ I reached for the comforting familiarity of the natural world. I painted in the details for myself. A light wind stirring in the treetops. Stars flickering through rags of moving clouds. Coolness, and the rich scents of the earth. Tension eased away from me, taking my pain with it. I drifted with my imagination. The packed earth of a game trail beneath my feet, and I was moving softly through darkness, following my companion.

She went more quietly than night itself, each step sure and swift. Try as I might, I could not keep up with her. I could not even catch a glimpse of her. I knew of her passage by her scent hanging in the night air, or by the still-rustling bushes just ahead of me. My cat followed her, but I was not swift enough. ‘Wait!’ I called to them.

Wait? She mocked me. Wait for you to ruin the night’s hunting? No. I shall not wait. You shall make haste, and do so silently. Have you learned nothing of me? Lightfoot am I and Nightfriend and Shadowstalker. Be you so, and come, come, come to share the night with me.

I hurried after her, drunk with the night and her presence, drawn as irresistibly as a moth is drawn to a candle. Her eyes were green, I knew, for she had told me, and her long tresses were black. I longed to touch her, but she was elusive and taunting, always ahead of me, never revealing herself to my eyes let alone my touch. I could only run after her through the night, the breath rasping in my chest as she flew before me. I did not complain. I would prove myself worthy of her and win her.

But my heart was thundering and my breath burning in my lungs. I crested the top of a hill and stopped for breath. Before me spread the vista of the river valley. The moon hovered round and yellow. Had we come so far, in one night’s hunting? Far below me, the walls of Galeton were a dark huddle of stone on the riverbank. A few isolated lights still shone yellow in the windows of the keep. I wondered who burned candles while the rest of the household slumbered.

Do you long to sleep, in a stuffy room mounded with blankets? Is that how you would squander a night such as this? Save sleep for when the sunlight can warm you, save sleep for when the game is hidden in den or burrow. Hunt now, my clumsy one. Hunt with me! Prove yourself. Learn to be one with me, think as I do, move as I do, or lose me forever.

I started to go after her. My thoughts snagged on something, delaying me. There was something I must do, right now. Something I must tell someone, right now. Startled, I halted where I stood. The thought divided me. Part of me had to go, had to hunt at her heels before she left me behind. But another part of me stood still. I must tell him now. Right now. I peeled myself free, separating while holding onto the knowledge I had gained. It flickered in my grasp, threatening to become the nonsense of a fading dream. I gripped the thought, letting all else fade. Hold it. Say it out loud. Cling to the word, cling tight to the thought. Don’t let it go, don’t let it melt away with the dream.

‘Galeton!’

I said the word aloud, sitting upright in my bed in the stifling darkness. My shirt stuck to me with sweat and the Skill-headache had returned with clanging bells attached to it. It didn’t matter. I lurched from my bed and began a patting search of the invisible walls. ‘Galeton,’ I said aloud, lest the word slip from my grasp. ‘Prince Dutiful hunts near Galeton.’

FOURTEEN

Laurel

There is a certain black stone, often finely veined with white or silver threading, that was extensively used by the Elderlings in their construction. At least one quarry for this stone exists in the wild lands beyond the Mountain Kingdom, but it is almost certain that other sources for it exist, for it is difficult even to imagine how it might otherwise have been used in such large constructions in so many far-flung locations. It was used, not only in the construction of their buildings, but also in the monoliths they raised at certain crossroads. Due to several odd qualities of the roads that the Elderlings constructed, it can be deduced that a ground or gravelled form of the stone was also instrumental in their creation. Wherever the Elderlings built, this stone was a favoured instrument, and even in the places that they seemed to have visited only sporadically, monuments of this stone are found. A close scrutiny of the Witness Stones of Buckkeep will convince the examiner that, although defaced by harsh weather or perhaps intentionally vandalized by men in ages past, the stone is of the same type. Some have suggested that the Witness Stones of Buckkeep and other ‘oath stones’ throughout the Six Duchies were originally raised by the Elderlings for a very different purpose.

I awoke in Chade’s great four-poster bed in the tower chamber. I knew a few moments of disorientation before deciding this was not another dream. I was truly awake. I did not recall going to sleep, only sitting down on the side of the bed for a few moments. I was still dressed in yesterday’s clothing.

I sat up cautiously: the hammers and anvils in my head had subsided to a monotonous drumming. The room appeared empty, but someone had been there recently. Washwater steamed near the hearth, and a small covered dish of porridge kept warm near it. As soon as I discovered these items, I put them to good use. My stomach was still reluctant to accept food, but I ate stoically, knowing it was for the best. I washed, put on a kettle for tea and then wandered down to the worktable. A large map of Buck was unfurled across it. The corners were weighted with a mortar and two pestles and a teacup. An inverted wineglass rested on the map itself. When I lifted it, I found Galeton underneath it. It was on a tributary of the Buck River, northwest of Buck and on the other side of the river from Buckkeep. I had never been there. I tried to recall what I knew of Galeton and swiftly did so. Absolutely nothing.

My Wit alerted me to Chade’s presence, and I turned as the hidden door swung open. He entered briskly. The tops of his cheeks were pink with the morning, and his white hair gleamed silver. Nothing invigorated the old man so much as fresh intrigue. ‘Ah, you’re up. Excellent,’ he greeted me. ‘I managed to arrange an early breakfast with Lord Golden, despite the absence of his serving-man. He assured me that he could be ready to travel in a few hours. He’s already concocted an excuse for the trip.’

‘What?’ I asked him, befuddled.

Chade laughed aloud. ‘Bird feathers, of all things. Lord Golden has a number of interesting hobbies, but his most current fascination is feathers. The larger and brighter the better. Galeton borders on a wooded upland, and has a reputation for pheasants, grouse and whiptails. The latter have rather extravagant plumage, especially their tail feathers. He’s already sent a runner on ahead to Lady Bresinga of Galeton, entreating hospitality from her while on his quest. It won’t be refused. Lord Golden is the most popular novelty that Buckkeep Court has seen in a decade. Having him guest at her manor will be a social coup for her.’

He paused, but it was I who took a breath. I shook my head as if it would settle my brains and enable me to catch up with him. ‘The Fool is going to Galeton to find Dutiful?’

‘Ah-ah!’ Chade cautioned me. ‘Lord Golden is going to Galeton to hunt birds. His manservant, Tom Badgerlock will, of course, accompany him. I hope that in the course of running down birds, you’ll pick up the trail of the Prince. But that, of course, is our private errand.’

‘So I’m going with him.’

‘Of course.’ Chade peered at me. ‘Are you all right, Fitz? You seem wool-witted this morning.’

‘I am. It seems that all is happening so fast.’ I didn’t say to him that I had become accustomed to ordering my own life and journeys. It felt strange to revert to living each day as another person decreed. I swallowed my protests. What had I expected? If we were to regain Prince Dutiful, this was how it must be. I struggled to find new footing for my thoughts. ‘Does Lady Bresinga have a daughter?’

Chade considered. ‘No. Only the son, Civil. I believe she fostered a girl cousin for a time. That would have been Fillip Bresinga. She is, let me see, I think she would be nearly thirteen now. She has returned home since spring.’

I shook my head, both in denial and in wonder. Chade had obviously refreshed his information on the Bresinga family since last night. ‘I sensed a woman, not a child. An … attractive woman.’ I had nearly said seductive. When I thought back to my experience of the night before, the dream became mine, and I recalled only too well how she had stirred my blood. Tantalizing. Challenging. I glanced back at Chade. He was watching my face with undisguised dismay. I asked the next question. ‘Has Dutiful expressed an interest in a woman? Might they have run away together?’

‘Eda forbid,’ Chade exclaimed fervently. ‘No.’ He denied it almost desperately. ‘There is no woman in Dutiful’s life, not even a girl he finds attractive. We have been very careful not to allow him the opportunity to develop such a bond. Kettricken and I decided long ago that it would be for the best.’ More quietly, he added, ‘She did not want to see her son torn as you were, between heart and duty. Have you never wondered how different things might have been if you had not loved Molly, if you had accepted your match with Lady Celerity?’

‘I have. But I will never regret loving Molly.’

I think the vehemence in my voice persuaded Chade to change tack. ‘There is no such love in Dutiful’s life,’ he declared with finality.

‘There wasn’t. There may be now,’ I contradicted him.

‘Then I pray it is a youthful infatuation, one that can be swiftly –’ He searched for a word. ‘Terminated,’ he said at last, and winced at his own choice. ‘The boy is already promised. Don’t look at me like that, Fitz.’

Obediently, I looked away. ‘I do not think he has known her long. Part of her allure was her mystery.’

‘Then we must endeavour to recover him swiftly, with little damage done.’

The next question was my own, asked for me. ‘What if he does not wish to be recovered?’ I asked in a low voice.

Chade was silent for a moment. Then, he said heartily, ‘Then you must do as you think best.’

My shock must have been apparent on my face, for he laughed aloud. ‘For there is little use in my pretending that you will do otherwise, is there?’ He drew a breath and sighed it out. ‘Fitz. I ask only this. Think in large terms. A boy’s heart is a precious thing, as is a man’s life. But the well-being of all the people of the Six Duchies and the Out Islands is even more precious. So, do what you think best. But be sure you truly have given it thought.’

‘I can’t believe you are allowing me that much leeway!’ I exclaimed.

‘Can’t you? Well, perhaps I know you better than you think I do.’

‘Perhaps,’ I conceded. But I wondered if he knew me as well as he thought he did.

‘Well, you arrived only a few days ago, and here I am sending you off again,’ Chade abruptly observed. He clapped me on the shoulder but his smile seemed a bit forced. ‘Think you can be ready to leave in an hour or so?’

‘I’ve not much to pack. But I’ll need to make a trip down to Buckkeep Town, to leave a message for Hap with Jinna.’

‘I can take care of that for you,’ Chade offered.

I shook my head. ‘She doesn’t read, and if I am to be Tom Badgerlock, then I wouldn’t have folk running errands for me. I’ll take care of it.’ I didn’t tell him that I wanted to do it myself.

‘As you wish,’ he replied. ‘Let me prepare a note for the boy to present to Master Gindast when he goes to him about his apprenticeship. The rest will be done subtly, I promise you. The joiner will believe he takes Hap on as a favour to one of his most affluent customers.’ Chade paused a moment. ‘You know, all we can offer the boy is a chance to prove himself. I can’t force the man to keep him on if Hap is clumsy or lazy.’ At my outraged look, Chade grinned. ‘But I am sure he is not. Just allow me a moment to compose my note for Hap to carry.’

It took more than a moment, of course. When I finally had it in hand, I found myself hurrying after the fleeing morning. I encountered Lord Golden in his chambers when I emerged from my own dark little cell. He clucked over the state of my slept-in clothes and commanded that I pick up my new garments from the tailor so that I would have appropriate garb for our journey. He informed me that we would travel alone and swiftly. Lord Golden had already established a reputation for both eccentricity and adventurousness. No one would look askance at this expedition. He also told me that he had himself selected a horse for me, and was having it freshly shod. I could pick her up from a smithy. He assumed I would wish to select my own tack, and gave me a letter of credit for that as well before sending me on my way. At no time did he vary from his Lord Golden manners, and I maintained my demeanour as Tom Badgerlock. These were roles we had to settle into as swiftly as possible. No errors could be made once we began to move in public. By the time I finally set out for Buckkeep Town, I was laden with errands and the sun was moving far too swiftly across the sky.

The tailor sought to delay me with a final fitting and adjustment of my new clothes. I refused, and did not even open the bundled garments to inspect them. I could tell Scrandon was accustomed to making a ceremony of delivering his finished goods, but I told him bluntly that Lord Golden had commanded me to make the greatest haste. At that he sniffed, and said he would take no responsibility then if the garments did not suit. I assured him that I would make no complaints and hastened out of his shop with an annoyingly bulky parcel.

I went next to Jinna’s shop, but there I met disappointment. She was not home, and her niece had no idea when she would be back. Fennel came to greet me. You love me. You know you do. Pick me up.

It seemed pointless to disobey. I picked him up. He sank his claws into my shoulder as he diligently marked my jerkin with his brow.

‘Jinna went up into the hills yesterday evening, and spent the night there, so that she could gather mushrooms first thing in the morning. She might be back in a moment, she might not return until the night falls,’ Miskya told me. ‘Oh, Fennel, stop being a pest. Come here.’ She took the cat from my arms, tsk-ing over the coating of tawny hair that clung to my jerkin.

‘No matter that, I assure you. But, oh, this is awkward,’ I apologized, and told her that my master had suddenly decided to take a journey and I must accompany him. I left with her the letter Chade had written for Hap, along with a note from me to my boy. Nighteyes would not be pleased to reach the city and find me gone. Nor would he relish lingering there, waiting for me. I belatedly realized I was leaving Jinna not just my son, but a wolf, a pony and a cart to tend until my return. I wondered if Chade could be of any help with that. I had no coin to leave for their keep, only my greatest thanks and deepest assurances that I would make good any expenses she encountered on their behalf.

‘So you’ve told me, Tom Badgerlock.’ Miskya smiled at me in gentle rebuke, obviously humouring my worry. Fennel tucked his head under her chin and regarded me severely. ‘Three times now you’ve told me that you’ll be back soon and pay us well. Rest comfortable, your son will be in good hands and welcome here, pay or not. I doubt you asked coin of my aunt when you welcomed her to your home.’

At Miskya’s words, I realized I had been clucking on like an apprehensive hen. With an effort, I stopped myself from explaining again just how sudden and urgent my errand was. By the time I had conveyed my awkward thanks, I felt completely disorganized and bemuddled. Scattered, as if parts of me were at my abandoned home and with Nighteyes and Hap, and even in the tower room at Buckkeep. I felt vulnerable and exposed. ‘Well, goodbye,’ I offered Miskya.

Sleeping in the sun is nicer. Take a nap with the cat, Fennel suggested as Miskya told me, ‘Travel well.’

As I walked away from Jinna’s house, guilt gnawed at me. I was leaving my responsibilities for strangers to deal with. I rigorously denied my disappointment at not seeing Jinna again before I left. The single kiss she had given me hung waiting, like a conversation unconcluded, but I refused to contemplate where it might lead. As complicated as things were, adding another tangle to my life was the last thing I should consider. Yet I had looked forwards to seeing her again, and being denied that dimmed my excitement at the journey.

For I was excited to be on my way. The guilt that I felt at leaving Hap’s welfare to someone else was an odd reflection of how freed I felt by this undertaking. In a short time the Fool and I would ride off together into El knew what, with only ourselves to look after. It promised to be a pleasant ride in fair weather with a good companion. There was more of holiday to it than errand. My fears for Prince Dutiful had been largely laid to rest by last night’s dream. The boy had been in no physical danger. Intoxicated with the night and the woman he pursued, the only danger was to his young heart, and no one could shield him from that. Truth to tell, I did not see my task as particularly difficult. We knew where to look for the lad, and with or without my wolf, I had always been a good tracker. If Lord Golden and I did not immediately flush the young prince from Galekeep, then I would track him down in the surrounding hills. Doubtless we would not be gone long. With that reassuring thought, I salved my conscience and went on to the smithy.

I had not expected much of a horse. Almost, I had feared that the Fool’s sense of humour would express itself through Lord Golden’s selection of horseflesh. I found the smith’s girl cooling herself with water from the rain barrel and told her I had come to fetch the horse Lord Golden had left for shoeing. She bobbed her head in understanding, and I waited where she left me standing. The day was warm enough. I had no desire to enter the inferno of noise and heat that was the blacksmith’s shop.

The girl was back soon enough, leading a rangy black mare. I walked round her once and looked up to find she was regarding me with the same wary gaze I was giving her. She appeared sound and unscarred by misuse. I quested lightly towards her. She snorted and would not look at me, refusing the contact. She had no interest in being friends with a human.

‘She was a nasty bit to shoe,’ the smith informed me loudly as he came sweating from his shop. ‘No manners about lifting her feet for a man to handle. And she’ll kick if she gets the chance, so mind that. Tried to take a nip out of my girl, too. But it was only while we were shoeing her. The rest of the time, she minded her manners well enough.’

I thanked him for his warnings and gave him the promised purse from Lord Golden. ‘Has she a name that you know?’ I asked him.

The smith pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘Never saw her afore this morning. If she had a name, she likely lost it in the horse-trade. Call her what you will; likely she’ll ignore it.’ I set the issue of her name aside. Her worn halter went with her, and by that I led her down to a saddler. I purchased plain, serviceable tack and despite my best bargaining efforts, I was still outraged at what they charged for it. The man’s expression plainly said he thought me unreasonable. As I went outside with the tack I had selected, I wondered if I truly were. I had never had to purchase tack before; perhaps Burrich’s obsession with repairing tack had been founded on how much the stuff cost.

The mare had been restive as I had tried several saddles on her, and when I tried to mount her, danced sideways. Once I was up, she answered the reins and my knees, but sloppily. I scowled at that but schooled myself to patience with her. Perhaps after we had taken one another’s measures she would serve me better. And if she did not, well, patience was required to unteach any horse’s bad habits. I had best accustom myself to that now. As I rode her carefully up the steep streets of Buckkeep Town, I reflected that perhaps I had been far more spoiled in my youth than I had ever known. Excellent horses, good tack, fine weapons, decent clothing, plentiful food: I had taken so much for granted.

A horse? I could teach a horse whatever it needs teaching. Why do you need a horse?

Nighteyes had slipped into my mind so easily I’d scarce been aware of him sharing my thoughts. I have to go somewhere. With the Scentless One.

Must it be on horseback? He didn’t allow me time to reply. I sensed his annoyance. Wait for me. I’m nearly there.

Nighteyes, no, don’t come to me. Stay with the boy. I’ll be back soon enough.

But he was gone, and my own thought was left hanging unanswered. I quested towards him but found only fog. He wouldn’t argue with me. He simply wouldn’t hear me telling him to stay with Hap.

The guards at the gate scarcely gave me a glance. I frowned and resolved to speak about that to Chade. Just because I was wearing blue clothing did not mean I had legitimate business in the castle. I rode up to the stable doors, dismounted, and then halted, heart hammering. From inside the stable came the voice of a man genially instructing someone in how to correctly clean a horse’s hooves. Years had deepened the voice, but I still recognized it. Hands, my boyhood friend and now the Stablemaster at Buckkeep, was just inside the open doors. My mouth went dry. The last time he had seen me, he had regarded me as either a ghost or a demon, and run shouting for the guards. That had been years ago. I was much changed, I told myself, but could put no faith in the years as my sole disguise. I took refuge in becoming Tom Badgerlock.

‘Here, boy,’ I summoned a lad loitering outside the stable. ‘Put this horse up for me. She belongs to Lord Golden, so see she is well treated.’

‘Yes, sir,’ he replied. ‘He sent us word to watch for Tom Badgerlock and a black mare, and to saddle up his own horse as soon as you returned. He said to tell you that you’re wanted up in his rooms as soon as you show.’ With that, he took my mare away without another word. I breathed out, relieved at how easily I had passed that hurdle, and turned away from the stable. Before I had gone a dozen steps, a man hurried past me, evidently on an errand of his own. As he passed me he gave me not a glance. I stared after Hands. He had put on girth with the years, but then, so had I. His dark hair was thinning on his head, but bristled thicker than ever on his brawny arms. In a moment he turned a corner and was out of sight. I stood staring after him, feeling as if I truly were a ghost, invisible in his world. Then I took a breath and hurried on my own way. In time, I reflected, he would catch a glimpse of Tom Badgerlock here and there about the keep, and by the time we stood face to face, I would have assumed that name and identity so completely that he would not question it.

I felt my life as Fitz was like footprints on a dusty floor, already being swept aside and overtrodden by others. It did not help that as I passed the Great Hall, I heard Lord Golden’s voice lifted in sudden summons. ‘Ah, there you are, Tom Badgerlock! Excuse me, ladies, here is my good man now. Farewell, fare well all in my absence!’

I watched him detach himself from a gaggle of noble ladies. They let him go reluctantly, fluttering fans and eyelashes after him, one making a pretty mouth of disappointment. Lord Golden smiled fondly on them all, waving a languid valediction with a graceful hand as he strode up to me. ‘Errands done? Excellent. Then we shall complete our preparations and be on our way while the sun is still high.’

He swept past me and I followed behind at a discreet distance, nodding to his words as he instructed me in how he wished his things packed. Yet when we reached his rooms and I closed the door behind us, I saw his well-stuffed travelling bags already waiting on the chair. I turned to the sound of him latching the door behind us. He gestured at my room just as the door of it opened and Chade emerged into our midst.

‘There you are and not a moment too soon. The Queen has received your tidings, and commands that you depart immediately. I do not think she will be completely at ease until the boy is under this roof again. Well, and neither will I.’ He bit his lower lip briefly and then announced, more to Lord Golden than to me, ‘The Queen has decided that Huntswoman Laurel will go with you. She readies herself now.’

‘We don’t need her,’ Lord Golden exclaimed in annoyance. ‘The less who know of this business, the better.’

‘She is the Queen’s own Huntswoman, and in her confidence in many things. Her mother’s family lives less than a day’s ride from Galeton. She claims to know the area well from childhood times spent there, so that may be a help to you. Besides, Kettricken is determined you will take her. Well do I know the futility of arguing with the Queen when she has made up her mind to something.’

‘I recall something of that myself,’ Lord Golden replied, but there was much of the Fool in that rueful voice. I felt a smile crook the corner of my own mouth. I, too, knew what it was to quail before the blue determination of my queen’s gaze. I wondered who this Laurel was, and what she had done to win the Queen’s confidence. Did I feel a prick of envy that someone had taken my place as Kettricken’s confidante at court? Well, it had been fifteen years since I had filled that role. Had I expected her to take no one in my place?

Lord Golden’s displeased resignation broke into my thoughts. ‘Well, so be it, then, if it must. She can come, but I’ll not wait upon her. Tom, are not you packed yet?’

‘Close enough,’ I rejoined and recalled myself enough to add, ‘My lord. I shall be but a moment. I’ve little enough to pack.’

‘Excellent. See that you bring Scrandon’s wares, for I will have you dressed appropriately to serve me in Galekeep.’

‘As you will, sir,’ I replied, and left them to step into my chamber. I put the bundle of new garments into the new saddle pack I found there. It was marked with Lord Golden’s cock pheasant. I added a few of my old garments for the night work I expected to be doing in Galeton, and then looked about the room. I already wore my serviceable sword. There was nothing else to add to the pack. No poisons, no cunningly made small weapons to smuggle along. I felt strangely naked despite having gone without them for years.

As I emerged with my packed bags slung over my shoulder, Chade stopped me with a lifted hand. ‘One more small item,’ he offered sheepishly, and held out a leather roll without meeting my eyes. As I took it into my hands, I knew the contents without having to check it. Picks for locks, and other subtle tools of the assassin’s trade. Lord Golden looked aside as I slipped the roll inside my pack. Of old, my clothing had featured hidden pockets for such things. Well, I hoped I would not have to be at this long enough to make such concerns necessary again.

Our farewells were hurried and odd. Lord Golden bid Chade a formal farewell, as if there were an entire audience of strangers watching them. Thinking I should emulate their example, I offered Chade a servant’s bow, but he seized me by the arms and embraced me hastily. ‘Thank you, my boy,’ he muttered by my ear. ‘Go in haste and bring Dutiful back to us. And go easy on the boy. This is as much my fault as his.’

Emboldened, I replied, ‘Watch over my boy for me, then. And Nighteyes. I hadn’t thought I’d be burdening Jinna with him, let alone a pony and cart.’

‘I’ll see they come to no harm,’ he offered, and I know he saw the gratitude in my eyes. Then I hastened to unlatch the door for Lord Golden, and followed at his heels carrying our bags as he strode through Buckkeep. Many called out farewells to him, and he acknowledged them warmly but briefly.

If Lord Golden had sincerely hoped to leave Laurel behind, she disappointed him. She was standing at the stable door, holding all our horses and waiting for us with every evidence of impatience. I placed her in her middle to late twenties. She was strongly built, not unlike Kettricken herself, long-boned and muscled, yet still womanly in form. She was not from Buck, for our women tend to be small and dark, and Laurel was neither. She was not fair like Kettricken, but her eyes were blue. Her brown hair was sun-streaked with blonde, and bleached near white at her temples. Sun had browned her face and hands. She had a narrow straight nose above a strong mouth and determined chin. She wore the leathers of a hunter, and her horse was one of those small, wiry ones that leaps like a terrier over any barrier and can race like a weasel through the most tangling brush. He was a homely little gelding, and his eyes shone with his spirit. Her small baggage roll was secured behind her saddle. As we approached, Malta lifted her head and whickered eagerly to her master. My black stood by uninterestedly. It was oddly humiliating.

‘Huntswoman Laurel. Ready to go, I see,’ Lord Golden greeted her.

‘Yes, my lord. Waiting only for you to be ready.’

At this, they both glanced at me. Recalling abruptly that I was Lord Golden’s servant, I took Malta’s reins from Laurel and held her while Lord Golden mounted. I fastened both our saddle-packs onto my black, a process she did not much approve of. As I took my reins from Laurel, she smiled at me and proffered a hand. ‘Laurel of the Downs family near Pitbank. I am her majesty’s Huntswoman.’

‘Tom Badgerlock. Lord Golden’s man,’ I replied as I bowed over her hand.

Lord Golden had already set his horse in motion with a noble disregard for the doings of servants. We both mounted hastily and set off after him. ‘And where is your family from, Tom?’ Laurel asked.

‘Um. Near Forge. On Bramble Creek.’ Bramble Creek was what Hap and I called it. If the creek near our cottage had any other name, I had never heard it. But the impromptu pedigree seemed to satisfy Laurel. The black was annoying me by tugging at her bit and trying to move up. Evidently she was not used to following another horse. Her stride was longer than Malta’s as well. I held her in place, but it was a near constant battle of wills.

Laurel gave me a sympathetic look. ‘New mount?’ ‘I’ve had her less than the day. Discovering her temperament on a journey may not be the best way to get to know her.’

She grinned at me. ‘No, but it may be the quickest. Besides, what choice do you have?’

We left the castle by the west gate. In my boyhood at Buckkeep, this gate had been kept secured at most times, and the road that led from it had been little more than a goat-path. Now it stood open, with a small manned guardhouse next to it. We were passed out with scarcely a pause, and found ourselves on a well-travelled road that traversed the hills behind Buck Castle before winding down to the riverside. The steepest bits of the old path had been rerouted, and the whole way widened. Tracks told me that carts used this meandering path, and as it carried us on our wandering way down to the river, I caught glimpses of wharves below, and the roofs of warehouses. I was still shocked when I began to catch glimpses of cottages back beneath the trees.

‘Folk did not use to live there,’ I said. I bit my tongue before I added that Prince Verity had loved to hunt these hills. I doubted they offered much game any more. Trees had been cleared to allow small gardens to be cultivated. Donkeys and ponies grazed in brushy pastures.

Laurel nodded to my surprise, but added, ‘Then you have not been here since the Red Ship War ended. All this has sprung up in the last ten years or so. When trade improved, more folk wanted to live near Buckkeep, and yet did not want to be too far from the castle lest the raids resume.’

I could think of no sensible reply to her words, but the new stretch of town still surprised me. There was even a tavern as we got closer to the docks, and a hiring hall for rivermen. We rode past a row of warehouses that fronted onto the docks. Donkey-carts seemed the favoured transportation. Blunt-nosed river craft were tied up to the docks, unloading cargo from Farrow and Tilth. We passed another tavern, and then several cheap rooming-houses such as sailors seem to favour. The road followed the river upstream. Sometimes it was wide and sandy; in other places timbers had been laid in a sort of boardwalk over boggy stretches. The other horses seemed to take no notice of the change, but at every one we traversed, my black slowed her pace and set back her ears. She did not like the drumming of her hooves on the timber. I set my hand to her withers and quested towards her, offering reassurance. She turned her head to roll an eye at me, but remained as distant as ever. She probably would have refused to go on if there had not been two other horses to follow. She was plainly far more interested in her own kind than in any companionship I might offer.

I shook my head at the difference between her and the amiable horses in Burrich’s stable, and wondered if his Wit had made the difference. Whenever a mare birthed a foal, Burrich was at her side, and the baby knew the touch of his hand almost as soon as it knew the lick of its mother’s tongue. Was it merely the early presence of a human that had made the beasts in his stable so accepting, or was it his own Wit, suppressed but still present, that had made them so receptive to me?

The afternoon sun beat down on us, and the sun bounced off the river’s wide and gleaming surface. The thudding hooves of the three horses were a pleasant counterpoint to my thoughts as I pondered. Burrich had seen the Wit as a dark and low magic, a temptation to let the beast in my nature overwhelm me. Common lore agreed with him and went further; the Wit was a tool for evil, a shameful magic that led its practitioners into degradation and wickedness. Death and dismemberment was the only recognized cure for the Wit. My equanimity over Dutiful’s absence was suddenly threatened. True, the boy had not been kidnapped. But although the Skill had let me find him, it was undoubtedly the Wit the boy was employing in his night hunts. If he betrayed himself to anyone, he might be put to death. Perhaps not even his status as a prince would be enough to protect him from that fate. After all, the Wit had been enough to tumble me from the favour of the Coastal Dukes straight into Regal’s dungeons.

No wonder Burrich had given up all use of the Wit. No wonder he had so often threatened to beat it out of me. Yet I could not regret having it. Curse or blessing, it had saved my life more often than it had endangered it. And I could not help but believe that my deep sense of kinship with all life enhanced my days. I drew a deep breath and cautiously let my Wit unfold into a general sensing of the day around me. My awareness of both Malta and the Huntswoman’s horse sharpened, as did their acknowledgement of me. I sensed Laurel, not as another rider beside me, but as a large and healthy creature. Lord Golden was as unknowable to my Wit as the Fool ever was. From even that sense, he rippled aside, and yet his very mystery was a familiar one to me. Birds in the trees overhead were bright startles of life amongst the leaves. From the largest of the trees we passed, I sensed a deep green flow of being, a welling of existence that was unlike an animal’s awareness and yet was life all the same. It was as if my sense of touch expanded beyond my skin to make contact with all other forms of life around me. All the world shimmered with life, and I was a part of that network. Regret this oneness? Deny this expanded tactility?

‘You’re a quiet one,’ Laurel observed. With a start I became aware of her as a person again. My thoughts had run so deep, I had almost forgotten the woman riding beside me. She was smiling at me. Her eyes were pale blue, but with rings of darker blue at the edges. One iris, I noted, had an odd streak of green in it, radiating out from the centre. I could think of no reply so I simply shrugged and nodded. Her smile grew wider.

‘Have you been Huntswoman for the Queen long?’ I asked, simply to be saying something.

Laurel’s eyes grew thoughtful as she totted up the years. ‘Seven years now,’ she said quietly.

‘Ah. Then you know her well,’ I rejoined, wondering how much she truly knew of our present errand.

‘Well enough,’ Laurel replied, and I could almost see her wondering the same about me.

I cleared my throat. ‘Lord Golden visits Galeton in search of gamebirds. He has a passion for collecting feathers, you know.’ I did not directly ask any question.

She looked at me from the corner of her eye. ‘Lord Golden has many passions, it is said,’ she observed in a low voice. ‘And the funds to indulge them all.’ She gave me another glance, as if to ask if I would defend my master, but if there was an insult, I did not take its meaning. She looked ahead and spoke on. ‘As for me, I but travel along to scout the hunting for my queen. She likes to go after gamebirds in the autumn. I have hopes that in Galeton woods we may find the kind that she likes best.’

‘So do we all hope,’ I agreed. I liked her caution. We would get along well enough, I decided.

‘Have you known Lord Golden long?’ she asked me.

‘Not directly,’ I hedged. ‘I had heard he was looking for a man, and I was glad when an acquaintance recommended me.’

‘Then you’ve done this kind of work before?’

‘Not for some time. For the past ten years or so I’ve lived quietly, just my boy and me. But he’s of an age to apprentice out, and that takes hard coin. This is the fastest way I know to earn it.’

‘And his mother?’ she asked lightly. ‘Won’t she be lonely with both of you away?’

‘She’s gone many years,’ I said. Then, realizing that Hap might sometime venture up to Buckkeep, I decided to keep as close to the truth as I could. ‘He’s a fosterling I took in. I never knew his mother. But I think of him as my son.’

‘You’re not married, then?’

The question surprised me. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘Neither am I.’ She gave me a small smile as if to say this gave us much in common. ‘So, how do you like Buckkeep so far?’

‘Well enough. I lived close by when I was a boy. It’s changed a great deal since then.’

‘I’m from Tilth myself. Up on the Branedee Downs is where I grew up, though my mother was from Buck. Her family lived not far from Galeton; I know the area, for I ranged there as a child. But mostly we lived near the Downs, where my father was Huntsman for Lord Sitswell. My father taught both my brothers and me the skills of being a huntsman. When he died, my older brother took his position. My younger brother returned to live amongst my mother’s people. I stayed on, mostly training the coursing horses in Lord Sitswell’s stable. But when the Queen and her party came hunting there years ago, I turned out to help, for the party was so large. The Queen took a liking to me, and –’ she grinned proudly ‘– I’ve been her Huntswoman ever since.’

I was trying to think of something more to say when Lord Golden beckoned us both to come closer.

I urged the black forwards and when we were close, he announced, ‘Those were the last of the houses for a way. I did not want folks saying that we rode in great haste, but neither do I wish to miss this evening’s only ferry from Lampcross. So now, good people, we ride. And, Badgerlock, we’ll see if that black is truly as fleet as the horse-seller said. Keep up as best you can. I’ll hold the ferry for us all.’ So saying, he touched his heels to Malta and let out her reins. It was all the permission she required. She sprang forwards, showing us her heels.

‘My Whitecap can match her any day!’ Laurel proclaimed, and gave her horse her head.

Catch them! I suggested to the black, and was almost shocked at her competitive response. From a walk, she all but leapt into a run. The smaller horses had the lead on us. Packed mud flew up from their hooves, and Malta led only by virtue of the narrowing trail. My black’s longer stride diminished their lead until we were close behind them, getting the full benefit of the mud they threw. The sound of us behind them spurred them to greater effort and once more they pulled ahead of us. But I could feel that my black had not yet hit her peak. There was still unrealized reach in her stride, and the tempo of her gait said that she had not reached her hardest gallop. I tried to hold her back where the flying clods would not shower us so heartily, but she paid no heed to the rein. The moment the trail widened, she surged forwards into the gap, and in a few strides she passed them both. I heard them both cry out to their horses, and I thought they would overtake us. But like a lengthening wolfhound on the scent, my black reached out to seize even longer strides of the path and fling it behind us. I glanced back at them once, to see both their faces alight with the challenge.

Faster, I suggested to my black. I did not really think she had more speed in her, but as a flame roars up a dry tree, she surged forwards again. I laughed aloud at the pure joy of it, and saw her ears flicker in response. She did not reach towards my mind with any thought, but I felt a tentative glimmer of her approval. We would do well enough together.

We were first to reach Lampcross Ferry.

FIFTEEN

Galeton

Since the time of the Piebald Prince, the scouring of the Witted has been accepted within the Six Duchies as matter-of-factly as enforced labour for bad debt or flogging for thieves. It was the normal way of the world, and unquestioned. In the years following the Red Ship War, it was natural that the purging should begin in earnest. The Cleansing of Buck had freed the land of the Red Ship Raiders and the Forged ones they had created. Honest folk hoped to purify the Six Duchies of unnatural taints completely. Some were, perhaps, too swift to punish on little evidence. For a time, accusations of being Witted were enough to make any man, guilty or not, tremble for fear of his life.

The self-styled Piebalds took advantage of this climate of suspicion and violence. While not revealing themselves, they publicly exposed well-known figures who were possessed of the Wit but never spoke out against the persecution of their more vulnerable fellows. It was the first attempt by the Witted as a group to wield any sort of political power. Yet it was not the effort of a people to defend themselves against unjust persecution, but the underhanded tactic of a duplicitous faction determined to seize power for themselves by any available means. They had no more loyalty to themselves than a pack of dogs.

Delvin’s The Politics of the Piebald Cabal

As it turned out, my race to the ferry landing was of small use. The ferry was there and tied up, and so it would remain, the captain told me, until an expected cargo of two waggons of sea salt arrived. When Lord Golden and Laurel arrived, which, to speak fairly, was not so much longer after I did, the captain remained adamant. Lord Golden offered him a substantial purse to leave without the waggons, but the captain shook his head with a smile. ‘I’d have your coins once, and nice as they might clink, I could only spend them once. I wait for the waggons at Lady Bresinga’s request. Her coins come to me every week, and I’ll not do anything to risk her ill-will. You’ll have to wait, good sir, begging your pardon.’

Lord Golden was little pleased with this, but there was nothing he could do. He told me to remain there with the horses, and took himself off to the landing inn where he could have a mug of ale in comfort while he waited. It was in keeping with our roles, and I harboured no resentment. I told myself this several times. If Laurel had not been with us, perhaps he would have found a way for us to share some time without compromising our public roles. I had looked forwards to a companionable journey with him and time in which we did not have to maintain our façade of master and servant but I resigned myself to what was necessary. Still, something of my regrets must have showed in my face, for Laurel came to keep pace with me as I walked the horses about in a field near the ferry landing. ‘Is something troubling you?’ she asked me.

I glanced at her in some surprise at the sympathy in her voice. ‘Just missing an old friend,’ I replied honestly.

‘I see,’ she answered, and when I offered no more on the topic, she observed, ‘You’ve a good master. He held no grudge against you that you beat him in our race. Many’s the master who would have found a way to make you regret your victory over him.’

The idea startled me, not as Tom Badgerlock but as Fitz. It had never occurred to me that the Fool might resent a race fairly won. Plainly I was not fully settled into my role. ‘That’s true, I suppose. But the victory was his as much as mine. He chose the horse, and at first I was not much impressed with the beast. But she can run, and in running she showed a spirit I didn’t suspect she had. I think I can make a good mount of her yet.’

Laurel stepped back to run a critical eye over my black. ‘She seems a good mount to me. What made you doubt her?’

‘Oh.’ I searched for words that would not make me sound Witted. ‘She seemed to lack a certain willingness. Some horses want to please. Your Whitecap is one, and Malta another. My black seems to lack that. But as we get to know one another, perhaps it will come.’

‘Myblack? That’s her name?’

I shrugged and smiled. ‘I suppose so. I hadn’t given her one, but, yes, I suppose that’s what I’ve been calling her.’

She gave me a sideways glance. ‘Well, it’s a little better than Blacky or Queenie.’

I grinned at her disapproval. ‘I know what you mean. Well, she may yet show me a name that fits her more truly, but for now she’s Myblack.’

For a time we walked in silence. She kept glancing up the roads that led down to the ferry landing. ‘I wish those waggons would come. I don’t even see them.’

‘Well, the land rises and falls a good deal along here. They may crest a hill anytime and come into view for us.’

‘I hope so. I’d like to be on our way. I’d hoped to reach Galeton before full dark. I’d like to get up in the hills as soon as possible and take a look around.’

‘For the Queen’s quarry,’ I supplied.

‘Yes.’ She glanced aside from me for a time. Then, as if making sure I understood that she did not break a confidence, she said bluntly, ‘Queen Kettricken told me that both you and Lord Golden are to be trusted. That I need hold nothing back from either of you.’

I bowed my head to that. ‘The Queen’s confidence honours me.’

‘Why?’

‘Why?’ I was startled. ‘Well, such confidence from such a great lady to one like me is –’

‘Unbelievable. Especially when you arrived in Buckkeep Castle but a few days ago.’ Her eyes met mine squarely.

Kettricken had chosen her confidante well. Yet her very intelligence could be a threat to me. I licked my lips, debating my answer. A small piece of truth, I decided. Truth was easiest to keep straight in later conversations. ‘I have known Queen Kettricken of old. I served her in several confidential ways during the time of the Red Ship war.’

‘Then it was for her that you came to Buckkeep rather than Lord Golden?’

‘I think it is fair to say I came for myself.’

There was a time of silence. Together we led our horses to the river and allowed them to drink. Myblack showed no caution of the water, wading out to drink deep. I wondered how she would react to boarding the ferry. She was big and the river was wide. If she decided to give trouble, it could be an unpleasant crossing for me. I dipped a kerchief in the cold water and wiped my face with it.

‘Do you think the Prince just ran away?’

I dropped the kerchief from my eyes to stare at her in surprise. This woman was blunt. She did not look away from me. I glanced about to be sure no one could hear us. ‘I don’t know,’ I said as bluntly. ‘I suspect he may have been lured rather than taken by force. But I do think others were involved in his leaving.’ Then I bit my tongue and chided myself for being too open. How would I back up that opinion? By revealing I was Witted? Better to listen than to talk.

‘Then we may be opposed in recovering him.’

‘It’s possible.’

‘Why do you think they lured him away?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ I was beginning to sound vapid and I knew it.

She met my eyes squarely. ‘Well, I also think he was lured away, if not taken outright. I speculate that those who took him did not approve of the Queen’s plan for marrying him to the Outislander narcheska.’ She glanced away and added, ‘Nor do I.’

Those words gave me pause. It was the first hint that she was not unquestioning in her loyalty to the Queen. All Chade’s old training came to the fore, as I sought to see how deep her disagreement ran. Could she have had something to do with the Prince’s disappearance? ‘I am not sure that I agree with it myself,’ I replied, inviting her to say more.

‘The Prince is too young to be pledged to anyone,’ Laurel said forthrightly. ‘I have no confidence that the Out Islands are our best allies, let alone that they will remain true. How can they? They are little more than city-states scattered along the coast of a forbidding land. No one lord holds true power there, and they squabble constantly. Any alliance we make there is as like to draw us into one of their petty wars as to benefit us in trade.’

I was taken aback. She had obviously given this a great deal of thought, and in a depth I would not have expected of a huntswoman. ‘What would you favour, then?’

‘Were the decision mine – and well I know it is not – I would hold him back, in reserve as it were, until I saw surely what was happening, not just in the Out Islands but to the south as well, in Chalced and Bingtown and the lands beyond. There has been talk of war down there, and other wild tales. Dragons have been seen, they do say. Not that I believe all I hear, but dragons did come to the Six Duchies during the Red Ship War. I’ve heard those tales too often to set them aside. Perhaps they are attracted to war and the prey it offers them.’

To enlighten her in that regard would have required hours. I merely asked, ‘Then you would marry our prince off to a Chalcedean noblewoman, or a Bingtown Trader’s daughter?’

‘Perhaps it would be best for him to marry within the Six Duchies. There are some who mutter that the Queen is foreign-born, and that a second generation of a foreign queen might not be good.’

‘And you agree?’

She gave me a look. ‘Do you forget I am the Queen’s Huntswoman? Better a foreigner like her than some of the Farrow noblewomen I’ve had to serve in the past.’

Our talk died there for a time. We led the horses away from the river. I removed bits and let the animals graze. I was hungry myself. As if she could read my thoughts, Laurel dug into her saddlebag and came up with apples for us both. ‘I always carry food with me,’ she said as she offered it to me. ‘Some of the folk I’ve hunted for think no more of the comfort of their hunters than they do of their horses or dogs.’

I bit back a response that would have defended Lord Golden from such a charge. Best to let the Fool decide how he wished to present himself. I thanked her and bit into the apple. It was both tart and sweet. Myblack lifted her head suddenly.

Share? I offered her.

She flicked her ears at me disdainfully and went back to grazing.

A few days without me and he’s consorting with horses. I might have known. The wolf used the Wit without subtlety, startling me and spooking all three horses. ‘Nighteyes!’ I exclaimed in surprise. I looked around for him.

‘Beg pardon?’

‘My … dog. He’s followed me from home.’

Laurel looked at me as if I were mad. ‘Your dog? Where?’

Luckily for me, the great wolf had just come into view, slipping out of the shelter of the trees. He was panting, and he headed straight for the river to drink. Laurel stared. ‘That’s a wolf.’

‘He does look a great deal like a wolf,’ I conceded. I clapped my hands and whistled. ‘Here, Nighteyes. Here, boy.’

I’m drinking, you idiot. I’m thirsty. As you might be if you had trotted all the way here instead of riding a horse.

‘No,’ Laurel replied evenly. ‘That is not a dog that looks like a wolf. That is a wolf.’

‘I adopted him when he was very small.’ Nighteyes was still lapping. ‘He’s been a very good companion to me.’

‘Lady Bresinga may not welcome a wolf into her home.’

Nighteyes lifted his head suddenly, looked about, and then without a glance at me, slunk back into the woods. Tonight. He promised me in parting.

I’ll be on the other side of the river by tonight.

So will I. Trust me. Tonight.

Myblack had caught Nighteyes’ scent and was staring after him. She whickered uneasily. I looked back at Laurel and found her regarding me curiously.

‘I must have been mistaken. That was, indeed, a wolf. Looked a great deal like my dog, though.’

You’ve made me look like an idiot.

That wasn’t hard.

‘It was a very peculiar way for a wolf to behave,’ Laurel observed. She was still staring after him. ‘It’s been years since I’ve seen a wolf in these parts.’

I offered Myblack the apple core. She accepted it, and left a coating of green slime on my palm in return. Silence seemed the wisest choice.

‘Badgerlock! Huntswoman!’ Lord Golden summoned us from the roadside. In great relief, I led the horses over to him.

Laurel trailed us. As we approached him across the meadow, she made a small sound of approval in her throat. I glanced back at her in consternation. Her eyes were fixed on Lord Golden, but at my questioning glance, she quirked a small smile at me. I looked back at him.

Aware of our scrutiny, he all but struck a pose. I knew the Fool too well to be fooled by Lord Golden’s careless artifice. He knew how the wind off the river toyed with his golden locks. He had chosen his colours well, blues and white, and his elegant clothing was cut to complement his slender figure. He looked like a creature of sun and sky. Even carrying food bundled in a white linen napkin and a jug, he still managed to look elegantly aristocratic.

‘I’ve brought you a meal and drink so you’ll not be tempted to leave the horses untended,’ he told me. He handed me the napkin and the moisture beaded jug. Then he ran his eyes over Laurel and gave her an approving smile. ‘If the Huntswoman would enjoy it, I would be pleased to share a meal with her while we await those cursed waggons.’

The fleeting glance Laurel sent my way was laden with meaning. She begged my pardon for deserting me even as she was certain I could see this was too rare an opportunity for her to miss it.

‘I am certain I would enjoy it, Lord Golden,’ she replied, inclining her head. I took Whitecap’s reins before she could think to ask me. Lord Golden offered her his arm as if she were a lady. With only the slightest hesitation, she set her sun-browned fingers on the pale blue of his sleeve. He immediately covered her hand with his long, elegant fingers. Before they were three steps away from me, they were in deep conversation about game birds and seasons and feathers.

I closed my mouth, which had been hanging just slightly ajar. Reality re-ordered itself around me. Lord Golden, I suddenly realized, was every bit as complete and real a person as the Fool had been. The Fool had been a colourless little freak, jeering and sharp-tongued, who tended either to rouse unquestioning affection or abhorrence and fear in those who knew him. I had been among those who had befriended King Shrewd’s jester, and had valued his friendship as the truest bond two boys could share. Those who had feared his wickedly-barbed jests and been repulsed by his pallid skin and colourless eyes had been the vast majority of the castle folk. But just now an intelligent and I must admit, very attractive young woman had just chosen Lord Golden’s companionship over mine.

‘There’s no accounting for tastes,’ I told Whitecap, who was looking after his departing mistress with an aggrieved air.

What’s in the napkin?

I didn’t think you’d go far. A moment.

I put the horses to graze with makeshift picket lines and went over to where the field met the edge of a forested bramble. There was a great mossy river boulder there, and I spread the napkin out upon it. When I unstoppered the jug, I found it held sweet cider. Within the napkin were two meat pasties.

One for me.

Nighteyes did not come all the way out of the bramble. I tossed one of the pasties to him and immediately bit into my own. It was still warm from cooking and the meat and gravy was brown and savoury. One of the lovely things about the Wit is that one can carry on a conversation while eating without choking. So. How did you find me, and why? I asked him.

I found you just as I’d find any flea bite. Why? What else was I to do? You could not have expected me to stay in Buckkeep Town. With a cat? Please. Bad enough that you reek of that creature. I could not have abided sharing space with him.

Hap will worry about you when he discovers you are missing.

Perhaps, but I doubt it. He was so excited to come back to Buckkeep Town. Why a boy would find it enticing, I do not know. There is nothing but noise and dust, no game worth speaking of, and far too many humans crammed into one space.

Then you came after me solely to spare yourself that aggravation. It had nothing to do with being concerned for me or missing me?

If you and the Scentless One hunt, then I should hunt with you. That is only sense. Hap is a good boy, but he is not the best hunter. Better to leave him safe in town.

But we are on horseback, and, my friend, you are not as fleet as you used to be, nor do you have the endurance of a young wolf. Best you go back to Buckkeep Town and keep watch over the boy.

Or maybe you could just dig a hole right here and bury me.

‘What?’ His bitterness startled the word out of me. I did choke on the cider I was drinking.

Little Brother, do not treat me as if I am already dead, or dying. If you see me that way, then I would rather truly be dead. You steal the now of my life away, when you constantly fear that tomorrow will bring my death. Your fears clutch cold at me and snatch all my pleasure in the day’s warmth from me.

As he had not in a long time, the wolf dropped all the barriers between us. I suddenly perceived what I had been hiding from myself. The recent reticence between us was not entirely Nighteyes’ doing. Half of it was mine, my retreat from him for fear that his death would be unbearably painful for me. I was the one who had set him at a distance; I was the one who had been hoarding my thoughts from him. Yet enough of my feelings had reached past that wall that he was wounded by them. I had been on the verge of abandoning him. My slow pulling away from him had been my resignation to his mortality. Truly, since the day I had pulled him back from death, I had not seen him as fully alive.

I sat for a time feeling shabby and small. I did not need to tell him I felt ashamed. The Wit forms a bond that makes many explanations unnecessary. I spoke my apology aloud. ‘Hap is really old enough to take care of himself. From now on, we belong together, come what may.’

I felt his concurrence. So. What is it we hunt?

A boy and a cat. Prince Dutiful.

Ah. The boy and the cat from your dream. Well, at least we shall know them when we find them. It was a bit disconcerting that he made that leap of connection so effortlessly, and that he acknowledged so easily what I had balked at. We had shared thoughts with those two, and more than once. I pushed that uneasiness aside.

But how will you cross the river? And how will you keep up with the horses?

Don’t let it trouble you, little brother. And don’t betray me by gawking.

I sensed that it amused him to leave me wondering, and so left it at that with no nagging. I finished my meal and leaned my back against the boulder that had been my table. It had soaked up the warmth of the day. I had had little sleep of late and I felt my eyelids growing heavy.

Go ahead and nap. I’ll keep watch on the horses for you.

Thank you. It was such a relief to close my eyes and welcome sleep without wariness. My wolf watched over me. The deep connection between us flowed unimpeded again. It brought me more peace than a full belly and sunshine.

They come.

I opened my eyes. The horses still grazed peaceably but their shadows had lengthened on the meadow grass. Lord Golden and Laurel stood at the edge of the field. I lifted a hand in recognition of them, then came reluctantly to my feet. My posture had kinked my back, and yet I would gladly have gone back to sleep. Later, I promised myself. I could see the freight waggons approaching the ferry ramp.

Both Whitecap and Malta came to my chirrup. Only Myblack went out to the end of the picket line and had to be drawn in. Once I had her reins, she surrendered and came with me as if she had never contemplated anything else. I led them to meet the oncoming waggons. When I noticed a set of grey wolf legs beneath one of the waggons, I looked aside.

The ferry was a large, flat vessel of splintery timbers, secured by a heavy line to each shore. Teams of horses drew it back and forth, but there were crewmen with push-poles manning it as well. They loaded Lady Bresinga’s waggons first, then passengers and their mounts. I was the last aboard. Myblack balked at boarding the ferry. In the end, I think she came aboard for the sake of the other horses’ company rather than any of my coaxing and praise. The ferry cast off from its dock and began its ponderous crossing of the Buck River. The river lapped and gurgled at the edge of the laden barge.

It was full dark before we reached the north shore of the Buck River. We were first off the ferry, but then waited for the waggons to unload. Lord Golden decreed that, rather than wait out the night at the inn, we would follow the waggons to Lady Bresinga’s manor at Galeton. The waggoneers knew the way by heart. They kindled lanterns and hung them from the sideboards, and so we followed them well enough.

The round moon shone down on us. We followed well back, and yet the dust of the waggons still hung in the air and stuck to my skin. I was far more tired than I had expected to be. The ache in my back was sharpest around the old arrow scar. I longed suddenly to have quiet talk with the Fool, to somehow connect again to the healthy young man I had once been. But, I reminded myself, neither Fitz nor the Fool was here. Only Lord Golden and his man Badgerlock. The sooner I fixed that in my mind, the better for both of us. Laurel and Lord Golden carried on a quiet conversation. His attention flattered her, and she did not attempt to disguise the pleasure she took in it. They did not exclude me and yet I would not have felt comfortable sharing it.

We came at length to Galeton. We had crested several rocky hills and crossed the oak valleys between, and then as we reached the top of yet another rolling hill, the winking lights of a small town shone out below us. Galeton fronted onto a small tributary of the Buck called Antler River. It was too small a body of water to be navigable by large boats. Most of the goods that came to Galeton made the last stretch of their journey by waggon. The Antler furnished water for the cattle and the fields, and fish for the folk that lived alongside it. The Bresinga manor was on a small rise that overlooked the little town. In the dark it was impossible to see the extent of the great house, but the spacing of the candlelit windows convinced me it was substantial. The waggons entered through the gate of a long stone wall and we followed unchallenged. When the drivers pulled up in the waggonyard beside the manor, men with torches came out to meet them. I noted the absence of barking dogs, and thought it odd. Lord Golden led Laurel and me on to the main entrance of the manor itself. Before we had even alighted, the door opened for us, and servants poured out to greet us.

We were expected. A messenger had preceded us on the morning ferry. Lady Bresinga herself appeared to greet us and welcome us to her home. Servants led our horses away, and bore our baggage for us as I followed Lord Golden and the Queen’s Huntswoman into the spacious entry hall of Bresinga Manor. Of oak and riverstone was this imposing house built. Thick timbers and massive stonework commanded the eye, dwarfing the folk who filled the chamber.

Lord Golden was the centre of their attention. Lady Bresinga had taken his arm in welcome. Short and plump, the woman looked up at him approvingly as she chatted. Her smile crinkled the corners of her eyes and stretched her upper lip tightly above her teeth. The lanky boy that stood at her side was likely Civil Bresinga. He was taller than Hap, yet about his age, and wore his dark hair brushed straight back above his forehead, revealing a pronounced widow’s peak. He gave me an odd glance in passing, then directed his attention back to his mother and Lord Golden. An odd little shiver of awareness danced across my skin. The Wit. Someone here was Old Blood, and concealing it with consummate skill. I breathed a thought of warning to the wolf. Be small. His acknowledgement was more subtle than the scent of night flowers when day comes, yet I saw Lady Bresinga turn her head slightly, as if to catch a distant sound. Too soon to be certain, yet I felt that Chade’s and my suspicions were well-founded.

The Huntswoman of the Queen had her own circle of admirers courting her favour. The Bresinga Huntsman was at Laurel’s elbow already, telling her that as soon as she arose in the morning, he’d be pleased to show her the best uplands for game birds. His assistants stood alertly at his elbow. Later, he would escort her into a late dinner with Lady Bresinga and Lord Golden. When hunting was planned, those two could expect to share table and wine with their betters.

In the midst of the hubbub of welcoming, little attention was paid to me. I stood, as any good servant did, awaiting my next command. A serving-woman hastened up to me. ‘I’ll show you the chambers we’ve prepared for Lord Golden so that you may arrange them to his taste. Will he want a bath this evening?’

‘Undoubtedly,’ I replied to the young woman as I followed her. ‘And a light repast in his rooms. Sometimes he is taken with an appetite late at night.’ This was a fabrication on my part to be sure that I did not have to go hungry. It was expected that I would see to my master’s comfort first, and then my own.

Lord Golden’s unexpected visit had commanded a fine chamber as large as my entire cottage. An immense bed dominated the room. It was mounded with featherbeds and fat pillows. Enormous bouquets of cut roses scented the chamber, and a veritable forest of beeswax tapers added both light and their delicate scent. By daylight, the room would look over the river and across the valley, but tonight the windows were shuttered. I opened one ‘for air’, and then assured the maid that I could unpack my master’s garments if she would see to bathwater. A small antechamber opened off Lord Golden’s for my own use. It was small, but better furnished than many servants’ chambers that I’d seen.

It took me longer to unpack Lord Golden’s clothing than I had expected. I was amazed at how much he had managed to fit into his packs. Not only clothing and boots, but jewellery, perfumes, scarves, combs and brushes emerged from the compact bags. I put it all in place as best I could imagine. I tried to recall Charim, Prince Verity’s serving-man and valet. Standing in his shoes suddenly put all he had done in a different perspective. That good man had always been present, and always engaged in some task for Verity’s comfort or convenience. Unobtrusive, yet ever ready for his master’s command. I tried to think what he would do in my place.

I kindled a small fire in the hearth so that my master would be comfortable while he was drying after his bath. I turned down Lord Golden’s bed and set his nightshirt out upon the linen. Then, smirking, I retreated to my own chamber, wondering what the Fool would have made of all this.

I had expected my own unpacking to be simple and it was until I got to the package of clothing from the tailor. I untied the string, and the garments seemed to burst from their confines like a blossom unfurling. The Fool had reneged on Lord Golden’s promise to keep me poorly dressed. The clothing the tailor had sewn was the best quality I had ever possessed in my life. There was a set of servant’s blues, better tailored than what I now wore, and of a finer weave. Two snowy shirts of linen were more elegant than what most servants wore. There was a doublet of rich blue, with dark hose with a grey stripe in it, and another in deep green. I held the green doublet up against me. The doublet’s skirt came almost to my knees, longer than I was accustomed to, and yellow embroidery ran riot over it. Yellow leggings. I shook my head. There was a wide leather belt to fasten about it. Lord Golden’s golden cock-pheasant was embroidered on the breast of the jerkin. I rolled my eyes at my reflection. Truly, the Fool had expressed himself in these clothes for me. Dutifully I put them away. No doubt he would soon find an excuse to make me wear them.

I had scarcely finished my unpacking before I heard a step in the hallway. A knock at the door announced that Lord Golden’s tub had arrived. Two serving-boys carried it in, followed by three others bearing buckets of both hot and cold water. It was expected that I would mix these to achieve Lord Golden’s preference in his bath. Then another lad arrived carrying a tray of scented oils that he might choose from, and yet another with a towering stack of towels. Two men arrived carrying the painted screens that would protect him from draughts while he was enjoying his ablutions. I have not always been swift at appraising social situations, yet dim as I was, I was awakening to Lord Golden’s social stature. A welcome this effusive was more likely to be accorded to royalty rather than to a landless noble of dubious origin. Obviously, his popularity at court far exceeded my initial regard of it. It chagrined me that I had not previously perceived it. Then, with unerring certainty, I knew the reason for it.

I knew who he was. I knew his past, or far more of it than any of his admirers did. To me, he was not the exotic and fabulously wealthy nobleman of some distant Jamaillian family. To me, he was the Fool in the midst of one of his elaborate pranks, and I was still expecting that at any moment he would cease his juggling and let all his flying illusions come clattering to the ground. But there was no moment of revelation awaiting. Lord Golden was real, as real as the Fool had been to me. I stood stock still a moment, reeling in that unveiling thought. Lord Golden was as real as the Fool. And hence, the Fool had been as real as Lord Golden.

So who was this man that I had known for most of my life?

A hint of presence, more a scent than a thought, carried me to the window. I looked, not out over the river, but down into the bushes outside the window. Nighteyes’ mind brushed softly against mine, cautioning me to control our Wit-bond. A pair of deep eyes looked up and met mine. Cat his delicate touch confirmed before I had even thought to ask it. Cat-piss stink on the corners of the stable, and on the underside of the bushes behind it. Cat scat buried in the rose garden. Cats everywhere.

More than one? Dutiful’s cat was a gift from this family. Perhaps they favour them as coursing animals.

That is a certainty. The stink of them is pervasive. It makes me uneasy. I have little desire to meet one in the flesh. All I have known of them I have learned since this afternoon, when Hap proposed that I should be friendly with one. I did no more than put my nose into the door when that orange fury flew at me, all claws and spitting.

I know no more of them than you do. Burrich never kept cats about the stable.

He was wiser than either of us knew.

A door closed softly behind me. I whirled to the sound, but it was only Lord Golden come into the room. Whether Fool or Golden, he was still one of the few in the world who could take me by surprise. I recalled my role, straightened and bowed to him. ‘Master, I have seen to arranging your things. Your bath awaits.’

‘Well done, Badgerlock. And the night air is refreshing. Is the view pleasant?’

‘Excellent, sir. The room commands a wide view of the river valley. And the night is fine, with a near full moon that would set most wolves howling.’

‘Is it?’ He crossed swiftly to the window and looked down on Nighteyes. The smile that lit his face was genuine. He drew a deep breath of satisfaction, as if savouring the air. ‘A good night indeed. Doubtless many night creatures are abroad hunting tonight. May our hunting tomorrow go as well as theirs does by moonlight. Unfortunate, indeed, that I must put off my hunting until tomorrow. Tonight, I am invited to sup late with Lady Bresinga and her son Civil. But they have excused me for a bit that I might refresh myself. You will, of course, attend me at the dinner.’

‘Of course, Master,’ I concurred with a sinking heart. In reality I had hoped to slip out of the open window and do a bit of reconnaissance with Nighteyes.

It’s nothing that I cannot manage better on my own. I shall snuff and range outside. See that you do the same inside. The sooner we are finished with the errand, the sooner we are for home again.

That’s true, I agreed, but I wondered at the slight sinking of my heart at the thought. Didn’t I want to leave Buckkeep and resume my own life as soon as possible? Or was I coming to relish my role as a serving-man to a wealthy fop? I asked myself sarcastically.

I took Lord Golden’s coat for him, and then eased him from his boots. As I had so often seen Charim do without paying any heed, I brushed and hung the jacket, and gave the boots a hasty dusting before setting them aside. When Lord Golden offered me his wrists, I undid the fastenings of the lacy cuffs of his shirt and set the glittering gauds aside. He leaned back in his chair. ‘I shall wear my blue doublet tonight. And the linen shirt with the fine blue stripe in it. Dark blue hose, I think, and the shoes with the trimming of silver chain. Lay it all out for me. Then pour the buckets, Badgerlock, and be generous with the rose oil. Then set the screens and leave me to my thoughts for a bit. Oh, and please, take some of this water into your chambers and avail yourself of it. When we dine, I shall want to smell the food, not you standing behind me. Oh. And wear the dark blue tonight. I think it will set off my own garb the better. One other thing. Put this on as well, but I counsel you to keep it covered unless you truly need it.’

From his pocket he drew forth Jinna’s charm. It coiled into my extended hand.

All this he announced with an air of genial good cheer. Lord Golden was a man well pleased with himself, looking forwards to an evening of pleasant talk and hearty viands. I did as I was bid, and then gratefully retreated to my own room with washwater and a bit of apple-scented oil. Shortly I heard Lord Golden splashing luxuriously whilst humming a tune I did not know. My own washing was a bit more restrained but just as welcome to me. I hurried, knowing that my services would soon be required again.

I struggled with my doublet, finding that it had been tailored far more close-fitting than I was accustomed to. There was scarcely room to conceal Chade’s roll of tools let alone the small knife that I decided I would carry. I could scarcely wear a sword into the dining room on a social occasion, but I found I did not wish to go completely unarmed. The wolf’s secretive approach to the Wit tonight had infected me with wariness. I cinched the belt that secured the doublet and then pulled my hair back into its warrior tail. Some of the apple-scented oil persuaded my hair to lie flatter. I realized I had not heard splashing for some moments, and hastened back into Lord Golden’s chamber.

‘Lord Golden, do you require my assistance?’

‘Scarcely.’ A shadow of the Fool was in Golden’s drawled sarcasm. He emerged from behind the screen, fully dressed, and adjusting the fall of lace at his cuffs. A small smile of pleasure at surprising me was playing about his mouth as he lifted his eyes to me. Abruptly, the smile faded. For a time he simply stared at me, mouth slightly ajar. Then his eyes lit. As he advanced to me, satisfaction shone in his face. ‘It’s perfect,’ he breathed. ‘Exactly as I had hoped. Oh, Fitz, I always imagined that, had I the chance, I could show you off as befitted you. And look at you.’

His use of my name was as astonishing as the way he gripped my shoulders and propelled me towards the immense mirror. For a moment I looked only at the reflection of his face over my shoulder, alight with pride and satisfaction. Then I shifted my gaze and stared at a man I scarcely recognized.

His directions to the tailor must have been very complete. The doublet encased my shoulders and chest. The white of the shirt showed at the collar and the sleeves. The blue of the doublet was Buck blue, my family colour, and even if I now wore it as a servant, the cut of the doublet was not that of servant but of soldier. The tailoring made my shoulders look broad and my belly flat. The white of the shirt contrasted with my dark skin and eyes and hair. I gazed at my own face in consternation. The sharpness of my scars had faded with my youth. There were lines on my brow and starting at the corners of my eyes, and somehow these lessened the severity of the scar’s passage down my face. I had long ago accepted the modification of my broken nose. The streak of white in my hair was more noticeable with my hair drawn back in a warrior’s tail. The man that looked back at me from the mirror put me somewhat in mind of Verity, but even more of the portrait of King-in-Waiting Chivalry that still hung in the hall at Buckkeep.

‘I look like my father,’ I said quietly. The prospect of that both pleased and alarmed me.

‘Only to someone seeking that resemblance,’ the Fool replied. ‘Only someone knowing enough to peer past your scars would see the Farseer in you. Mostly, my friend, you look like yourself, only more so. You look like the FitzChivalry that was always there, but kept hidden by Chade’s wisdom and subterfuge. Did you never wonder at how your clothes were cut, simply and almost rough, to make you look more stablehand and soldier than prince’s bastard? Mistress Hasty the seamstress always thought the orders came from Shrewd. Even when she was allowed to indulge in her fripperies and fashion, it was only the ones that drew attention to themselves and her sewing skills and away from you. But this, Fitz, this is how I have always seen you. And how you have never seen yourself.’

I looked back at the glass. I think I speak truth when I say that I have never been a vain man. It took a moment for me to accept that, while I had aged, the change was one of maturity rather than of degeneration. ‘I don’t look that bad,’ I conceded.

The Fool’s smile went broader. ‘Ah, my friend, I have been places where women would have fought one another with knives over you.’ He lifted a slender hand and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘And now, I fear I must wonder if my fancy has succeeded too well. You will not pass without remark. But perhaps that is for the best. Flirt a bit with the kitchen maids, and who knows what they will tell you?’

I rolled my eyes at his mockery. His gaze met mine in the mirror. ‘Nothing finer than we two has dined in these halls before,’ he decided emphatically. He squeezed my shoulder, and then stood straight, abruptly Lord Golden again.

‘Badgerlock. The door. We are expected.’

I jumped to obey my master. Somehow, those few moments with the Fool had restored my tolerance for this new charade of ours. I even found my interest warming to it. If Prince Dutiful were here at Galeton, as I suspected he was, we would find him out before the night was through. Lord Golden preceded me through the door and I followed two steps behind him and to his left.

SIXTEEN

Claws

The depredations of the Red Ship War took their heaviest tolls on the Coastal Duchies. Old fortunes were decimated, family lines failed, and once-proud holdings were reduced to ashy ruins and weedy courtyards. Yet in the wake of the war, just as seedlings sprout in the spring after a lightning fire, so too did many of the minor nobility find their fortunes swelling. Many of the humbler holdings had escaped the raiders’ attention. Flocks and crops survived, and what would once have seemed a secondary property came to be seen as places of plenty. The lesser lords and ladies of these lands suddenly found themselves seen as desirable matches for the heirs of older but suddenly less wealthy family lines. Thus the widowed lord of the Bresinga holdings near Galeton took a much younger and wealthier bride from amongst the Earwood family of Lesser Tor in Buck. The Earwood family was an old and noble line that had dwindled in both standing and wealth. Yet in the years of the Red Ship War, their sheltered valley prospered and shared harvest with the devastated folk of the Bresinga holdings that bordered them. This kindness bore fruit for the Earwood family when Jaglea Earwood became Lady Bresinga. She bore to her elderly lord an heir, Civil Bresinga, shortly before his death from a fever.

Scribe Duvlen’s A History of the Earwood Line

Lord Golden moved with the grace and certainty that is supposedly bone-bred in the nobility. Unerringly he led me to an elegant antechamber where his hostess and her son awaited him. Laurel was there, attired in a simple gown of soft cream trimmed with lace. She was deep in conversation with the Bresinga Huntsman. I thought that the gown did not suit her as well as her simple tunic and riding breeches had, for her tanned arms and face seemed to make the dainty lace at the collar and belled sleeves incongruous on her. Lady Bresinga was elaborately flounced and draped for dinner, the abundance of her garments swelling the proportions of her bust and hips. There were three other guests: a married couple and their daughter of about seventeen, obviously local gentry. All had been waiting for Lord Golden.

Their reaction when we entered was everything the Fool had claimed it would be. Lady Bresinga turned to greet her guest, smiling. Her eyes swept over him, widening with pleasure. ‘Our honoured guest is here,’ she announced. Lord Golden turned his head slightly to one side, tucking his chin in with an innocent air as if he were unaware of his own beauty. Laurel stared at him in frank admiration as Lady Bresinga introduced Lord Golden to Lord and Lady Grayling of Cotterhills and their daughter Sydel. Their names were unfamiliar but I seemed to recall Cotterhills as a tiny holding in the foothills of Farrow. Sydel’s cheeks grew pink and she appeared almost flustered at being included in Lord Golden’s bow, and after that, the young gentlewoman’s gaze appeared fixed on him. Her mother’s eyes had wandered over to me and were frankly appraising me in a way that should have made her blush. I glanced away only to find Laurel looking at me with a bemused smile, as if she had forgotten she knew me. I could almost feel Lord Golden’s radiant satisfaction in how he had turned their heads.

He offered his arm to Lady Bresinga, and her son Civil escorted Sydel. Lord and Lady Grayling followed and then came the Huntmasters. I followed my betters into the dining room and took up my post behind Lord Golden’s chair. My position proclaimed me bodyguard as well as servant. Lady Bresinga glanced at me questioningly but I did not meet her eyes. If she thought that Lord Golden had breached her hospitality by having me accompany him, she did not comment on it. Young Civil simply stared for a moment or two, and then shrugged off my presence with a quiet aside to his companion. And after that, I became invisible.

I think it was the most curious vantage point I’d ever held in my spying career. It was not comfortable. I was hungry, and Lady Bresinga’s board was loaded with dishes both savoury and sweet. The servants who brought and cleared away the repast passed right before me. I was also weary and aching from the long day’s ride, yet I forced myself to stand as still as possible, with no restless shifting, and to keep my eyes and my ears open.

All the talk at the table had to do with game and hunting. Lord Grayling and his lady and daughter were avid hunters, and evidently had been invited for this reason. Almost immediately, another common thread emerged. They hunted, not with hounds, but with cats. Lord Golden professed himself a complete novice at this sort of sport and begged them to enlighten him. They were only too pleased to do so, and the conversation soon bogged down into intricate arguments as to which breed of hunting cat did better on birds, with various tales exchanged to illustrate the different breeds’ prowess. The Bresingas were vocal in support of a short-tailed breed called ealynex, while Lord Grayling vociferously offered heavy wagers that his gruepards would take the day regardless of whether they sought birds or hares.

Lord Golden was a most flattering listener, asking avid questions and expressing amazement and fascination at the replies. The cats, he learned for both of us, were not coursing beasts, at least not in the same manner as hounds. Each hunter took a single feline, and it rode to the hunt on a special cushion, secured just behind its master’s saddle. The larger gruepards could be loosed against game up to the size of young deer. They relied on a burst of speed to catch their prey, and then suffocated it to death with a throat hold. The smaller ealynex was more often set loose in tall grassy meadows or underbrush, where it stalked its prey until it could leap upon it. It preferred to stun with a blow from a swift paw, or to break the neck or back with a single bite. It was sport, we learned, to loose such beasts upon a flock of tame pigeons or doves, to see how many they could bat to the ground before the whole flock took flight. Often these smaller, bob-tailed cats were matched against one another in bird batting competitions, with sizeable wagers riding on the favourites. The Bresingas boasted no less than twenty-two cats of both types in their hunting stables. The Graylings had only the gruepards, and but six of them in their clowder, but Lady Bresinga assured Lord Golden that her friend was fortunate in possessing some of the best breeding lines she had ever seen.

‘Then they are bred, these hunting cats? I was told that they had to be captured, that they would not breed if tamed.’ Lord Golden fastened his attention on the Bresingas’ Huntmaster.

‘Oh, the gruepards will breed, but only if they are allowed to carry out their mating battles and harsh courtship without interference. The enclosure Lord Grayling has devoted to this purpose is quite large, and no human must ever enter it. We are quite fortunate that his efforts in that regard have been successful. Prior to this, as you perhaps know, all gruepards were brought in from either Chalced or the Sandsedge regions of Farrow, all at great expense, of course. They were quite rare in this area when I was a boy, but the moment I saw one, I knew that was the hunting beast for me. And I hope I don’t sound a braggart in saying that, since the gruepards were so expensive, I was one of the first who thought of trying to tame our native ealynex to the same task. Hunting with the ealynex was quite unknown in Buck until my uncle and I first caught two of them. The ealynex are the cats that must be taken as adults, usually in pit-traps, and schooled to hunt as companions.’ This all spouted from the Bresinga Huntsman, a tall fellow who hunched forwards earnestly as he spoke. Avoin was his name. The topic was plainly his passion.

Lord Golden flattered him with his unwavering attention. ‘Fascinating. I must hear how such deadly little creatures are brought to heel. Nor was I aware there were so many names for hunting cats. I had assumed there was but one breed. So. Let me see. I was told that Prince Dutiful’s hunting animal had to be taken from the den as a kitten. It must be a gruepard, then?’

Avoin exchanged a glance with his mistress, almost as if he asked permission before he spoke. ‘Ah, well. The Prince’s cat is neither ealynex nor gruepard, Lord Golden. It is a rarer creature than either of those. Most know it as the mistcat. It ranges much higher into the mountains than our cats do, and is known for hunting amid the branches of the trees as well as on the ground.’ Avoin had dropped into the lecturing tone of the expert. Once he had begun to share his expertise, he would continue until his listeners’ eyes glazed over. ‘For its size, it takes game substantially larger than itself, dropping down on both deer and wild goats to either ride them to exhaustion, or to break the neck with a bite. On the ground, it is neither as swift as the gruepard nor as stealthy as the ealynex, but combines the techniques of both with good success against small game. But of the mistcat, you heard true. It must be taken from its home den before its eyes are opened if it is to be tamed at all. Even then, it may have an uneven temperament, but those who are taken and trained correctly become the truest companions that any hunter could desire. They will only hunt for one master, however. Of mistcats it is said, “from the den to the heart, never to part”. Meaning, of course that only he who is sly enough to find the mistcat’s den will ever possess one. It is quite a feat, to have a mistcat. When you see a hunter with a mistcat, you know you’re seeing a master of cat-hunting.’

Avoin’s voice suddenly faltered. If some sign had passed between him and his mistress, I had not seen it. Was the Huntsman involved then, in the circumstances that had brought such a cat to the Prince?

Lord Golden, however, blithely ignored the implications of what he had heard. ‘A sumptuous gift for our prince indeed,’ he enthused. ‘But it quite dashes my hopes of having a mistcat as my hunting creature tomorrow. At least, shall I have the prospect of seeing one set loose?’

‘I fear not, Lord Golden,’ Lady Bresinga replied graciously. ‘We have none in our hunting pack. They are quite rare. To see a mistcat hunt, you will have to ask the Prince himself to take you along on one of his outings. I am sure he would be delighted to do so.’

Lord Golden shook his head merrily, tucking his chin in as if taken aback. ‘Oh, no, dear lady, for I have heard that our illustrious prince hunts afoot with his cat, at night, regardless of the weather. Much too physical an endeavour for me, I fear. Not at all to my taste, not at all!’ Chuckles tumbled from him like spinning pins in a juggler’s hands. All around the table, the others joined in his mirth.

Climb.

I felt the prickle of tiny claws and glanced down. From somewhere, a small striped kitten had materialized. She stood on her hind legs, her front feet securely attached to my leggings by her embedded claws. Her yellow-green eyes looked up earnestly at mine. Coming up!

I refused the touch of her mind without, I hoped, seeming to. At the table, Lord Golden had led the conversation to what types of cats they might use tomorrow, and whether or not they would damage the plumage on the game. Feathers, he reminded them all, were what he sought, though he did enjoy gamebird pie.

I shifted my foot, hoping to dislodge the young bramble-foot. It did not work. Climbing! she insisted, and hopped up another notch. Now she hung from me by all four paws, her claws having penetrated my leggings to hook in my flesh. I reacted, I hoped, as any other servant might. I winced and then unobtrusively bent to pry the creature free, one thorny foot at a time. My action might have escaped attention if she had not mewled piteously at being thus thwarted. I had hoped to set her gently back on the floor, but Lord Golden’s amused voice with, ‘Well, Badgerlock, and what have you caught?’ directed all eyes to me.

‘Just a kitten, sir. She seemed determined to climb my leg.’ She was like a puff of dandelion fuzz in my hand. The deceptive depth of her fluffy coat was belied by the tiny ribcage in my hand. She opened her little red mouth and miaowed for her mother.

‘Oh, there you are!’ Lord Grayling’s daughter exclaimed, leaping up from the table. Heedless of any decorum, Sydel rushed to take the squirming kitten from my hand. With both hands she cradled the kitten under her chin. ‘Oh, thank you for finding her.’ She walked back to her place at the table, speaking as she went. ‘I could not bear to leave her alone at home, and yet she must have slipped out of my room just after breakfast, for I haven’t seen her all day.’

‘And is this, then, the kit of a hunting cat?’ Lord Golden asked as the daughter seated herself.

Sydel leapt at the chance to address Lord Golden. ‘Oh, no, Lord Golden, this is my own sweet pet, my little pillow-cat, Tibbits. She is such a mischief, aren’t you, lovey? And yet I cannot bear to be parted from her. How you have worried me this afternoon!’ She kissed the kitten on the top of her head and then settled the creature in her lap. No one at table seemed to regard her behaviour as unusual. As the meal and conversation resumed, I saw the little tabby head pop up at the edge of the table. Fish! The kit thought delightedly. A few moments later, Civil offered her a sliver of fish. I decided it meant little; it could be coincidence, or even the unconscious reaction that those without the Wit sometimes make to the wishes of animals they know well. The kit swiped a paw to claim possession of the morsel, and then took it into her owner’s lap to devour it.

Servants entered the hall to clear dishes and platters away, while a second rank of servants followed with sweet dishes and berry wines. Lord Golden had seized control of all conversation. The hunting tales he told were either fabulous concoctions or indicated that his life during the last ten years or so had been far different from what I had imagined. When he spoke of spearing sea-mammals from a skinboat drawn by harnessed dolphins, even Sydel looked slightly incredulous. But as is ever the case, if a story is well told, the listeners will stay with it to the end, and so they did this time. Lord Golden finished his recital with a flourish and a wicked gleam in his eye that suggested that if he were embellishing his adventure, he would never admit it.

Lady Bresinga called for brandy to be brought, and the table was cleared again. The brandy appeared with yet another assortment of small items to tempt already-satiated guests. Eyes went from sparkling with wine and merriment to the deep gleam of contentment that good brandy brings forth after a fine meal. My legs and lower back ached abominably. I was hungry as well, and tired enough that if I had been free to lie down on the flagged floor, I would instantly have been asleep. I scraped my nails against the inside of my palms, pricking myself back to alertness. This was the hour when tongues were loosest and talk most expansive. Despite the way Lord Golden leaned back in his chair, I doubted that he was as intoxicated as he seemed. The subject had rounded back to cats and hunting again. I felt I had learned as much as I needed to know about the topic.

The kitten had managed, after six thwarted efforts, to gain the top of the table. She had curled up and briefly napped, but now was wending her way amongst the bottles and glasses, threatening to topple them as she rubbed against each. Mine. And mine. This is mine, too. And mine. With the total confidence of the very young, she claimed every item on the table as her own. When Civil reached for the brandy snifter to refill his glass and that of his companion, the kitten arched her little back and bounced towards him on her toes, intent on making good on her claims. Mine!

‘No. Mine,’ he told her affably, and fended her off with the back of his wrist. Sydel laughed at the exchange. A slow excitement uncoiled within me but I kept my dulled stare apparently fixed on my master’s shoulder. Witted. Both of them. I was sure of it now. And as it tended to be inherited in families …

‘So. Who did catch the mistcat for the Prince’s gift?’ Lord Golden suddenly asked. The question almost followed from the conversation, yet it was pointed enough to turn all heads at the table. Lord Golden gave a small hiccup that bordered on being a discreet belch. It was enough of a distraction to combine with his slightly goggled stare to take the edge from his query. ‘I’ll wager it was you, Huntsman.’ His graceful hand made his words a compliment to Avoin.

‘No, not I,’ Avoin shook his head but oddly volunteered no more information.

Lord Golden leaned back, tapping his forefinger on his lips as if it were a guessing game. He rolled his gaze about the table, then chortled sagely and pointed at Civil. ‘Then it was you, young man. For I heard it was you who carried the cat up to Prince Dutiful to present him.’

The boy’s eyes flickered once to his mother’s before he gravely shook his head. ‘Not I, Lord Golden,’ he demurred. And again, that unusual silence of information withheld followed his words. A united front, I decided. The question would not be answered.

Lord Golden lolled his head back against his chair, and took a long noisy breath and sighed it out. ‘Damned fine gift,’ he observed liberally. ‘Love to have one myself, from all I’ve heard. But hearing’s no substitute for seeing. B’lieve I will ask Prince Dutiful to allow me to ’ccompany him some night.’ He sighed again and let his head wag to one side. ‘If he ever comes back from his meditation retreat. Not natural, if you ask me, for a boy that age to spend so much time alone. Not natural a’tall.’ Lord Golden’s enunciation was giving way rapidly.

Lady Bresinga’s diction was quite clear as she asked, ‘So our prince has retired again from the public eye, to follow his own thoughts for a time?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ Lord Golden affirmed. ‘And been a long time gone this time.’ course, he has a good deal to think about these days. Betrothal coming up and all, Outislander delegation coming. A lot for a young man to handle. I mean, how would you take to it, young sir?’ He wagged a finger in Civil’s general direction. ‘How’d you like to be betrothed to a woman you’ve never met … well, she isn’t even a woman yet, if rumour runs true. More like a girl on the cusp. She’s what, eleven? So young. Terribly young, don’t you think? And I don’t understand the advantages of the match. That I do not.’

His words were indiscreet, verging on direct criticism of the Queen’s decision. Looks were exchanged around the table. Plainly Lord Golden had taken more brandy than he handled well, and yet he was pouring more. His words hung unchallenged in the air. Perhaps Avoin thought he was turning conversation into a safer channel when he asked, ‘The Prince often retreats to meditate, then?’

‘It’s the Mountain way,’ Lord Golden confirmed. ‘Or so I am told. Wha’ do I know? Only that it’s not the Jamaillian way. The young nobles of my fair home are more worldly-minded. And that is encouraged, mind you, for where better will a young nobleman learn the manners and ways of the world than t’be out in the midst of it? Your Prince Dutiful might do better t’mingle more with his court. Yes, and to look closer to home for a suitable consort.’ A Jamaillian accent had begun to flavour Lord Golden’s softening words, as if intoxication took him back to the speech habits of his erstwhile home. He sipped from his glass and then set it back upon the table so awkwardly that a tiny amber wave leapt over the edge. He rubbed his mouth and chin as if to massage away the brandy’s numbing effect. I suspected that he had done little more than hold the brimming glass against his lip.

No one had replied to his comments, but Lord Golden appeared not to notice.

‘And this time has marked his longest absence of all!’ he enlarged. ‘That’s all we hear at the court these days. “Where is Prince Dutiful? What, still in seclusion? When will he return? What, no one can say?” Very dampening t’spirits at the court for our young ruler t’be absent so long. Wager that his cat hates it, too. What d’you think, Avoin? Does a hunting cat pine when his master’s away for long?’

Avoin appeared to consider it. ‘One devoted to his cat would not leave it long alone. A cat’s loyalty is not a thing to be taken for granted, but courted day by day.’

Avoin drew breath to continue but Lady Bresinga smoothly interrupted. ‘Well, our cats hunt best while dawn is still on the land. So if we are to show Lord Golden our beauties at their prime, we had all best retire so we may arise early.’ At a small sign from her, a servant moved forwards to draw back her chair. Everyone else came to his or her feet, though Lord Golden did so with a small lurch. I thought I heard a small titter of amusement from the Graylings’ daughter, but Sydel was none too steady herself. Knowing my role, I moved forwards to offer Lord Golden a firm arm. He disdained it loftily, waving me aside and scowling at my impertinence. I stood by stolidly as the nobility offered goodnights to one another, and then followed Lord Golden to his chambers.

I opened the door for him and saw him through it. Following him, I perceived that the household servants had been at work in our chambers. The bath-things were tidied away, fresh candles filled the holders, and the window was shut. A tray of cold meats, fruit and pastries rested on the table. My first act after closing the door was to open the window. It simply felt wrong to have a solid barrier between Nighteyes and me. I glanced out, but saw no sign of the wolf. Doubtless he was doing his own prowl of the premises, and I would not risk questing out towards him. I made a swift circuit of our rooms, checking for any signs of a search, and then looking under beds and within wardrobes for possible spies. The Bresinga household and their guests had been wary tonight. Either they knew why we had come, or they were expecting someone like us to come seeking the Prince. But I found no spies in the bedclothes, nor any sign that my carelessly-hung garments had been disturbed. I never left a room in perfect order. It is easy to return a searched room to perfect order, more difficult to recall exactly how both sleeves of the garment flung across the chair touched the floor.

I completed a similar perusal of Lord Golden’s chamber while he waited in silence. When I was finished, I turned back to my master. He dropped heavily into a chair and puffed out an immense sigh. His eyes drooped as his chin dropped to his chest. All of his features sagged with drink. I made a small sound of dismay. How could he have been so careless as to get drunk? As I watched him, he kicked out his feet one after the other so that his heels clonked against the floor. Obediently I went to draw his boots off and set them to one side. ‘Can you stand?’ I asked him.

‘Whsay?’

I glanced up from where I crouched by his feet. ‘I said, can you stand?’

He opened his eyes a slit, and then a slow smile stretched his mouth. ‘I am so good,’ he congratulated himself in a whisper. ‘And you are such a satisfactory audience, Fitz. Do you know how draining it can be, to strike poses when no one knows they are poses, to assume a whole different character when there is no one to appreciate how well I do it?’ A glint of the old Fool’s mischief shone in his golden eyes. Then it faded and his mouth became serious. He spoke very softly. ‘Of course I can stand. And dance and leap, if need be. But tonight is not for that. Tonight, you must go to the kitchens and complain of how hungry you are. Fetching as you look tonight, I don’t doubt you will be fed. And see where you can lead the conversation. Go ahead, go now, I am perfectly capable of getting myself to bed. Do you wish the window left open?’

‘I would prefer it so,’ I hedged.

And I. The confirming thought from Nighteyes was softer than a breath.

‘Then it shall be so,’ Lord Golden decreed.

The kitchen was still full of servants, for the end of the meal is not the end of the serving of it. Indeed, few folk work harder or longer hours than those who feed a keep, for usually just as the tidying and washing is done from the evening meal it is nearly time to set the bread rising for the next. This was as true at Galeton as it was at Buckkeep Castle. I came to the door and ventured to lean in with an inquisitive and hopeful look on my face.

Almost immediately one of the kitchen women took pity on me. I recognized her as one of the women who had waited on the table. Lady Bresinga had addressed her as Lebven. ‘You must be ravenous. There they all sat, eating and drinking, and treated you as if you were made of wood. Well, come in. As much as they ate, there is still plenty and to spare.’

In a short time, I was perched on a tall stool at a corner of the floury and scarred bread-table. Lebven set out an array of dishes within arm’s reach of me, and true to her telling, there was plenty and to spare. Slices of cold smoked venison still half filled a platter artfully ringed with little pickled apples. Sweetened apricots were fat golden cushions in little pastry squares so rich they crumbled away at one bite. Scores of tiny bird livers marinated with bits of garlic in an oily bath did not appeal to me, but beside those there were dark breasts of duck garnished with syrupy slices of sweet ginger root. I wallowed in culinary indulgence. There was good brown bread and a slab of butter to grease it down as well. Lebven brought a mug of cold ale and a pitcher to refill it. When she had set it down to my nodded thanks, she stood at the table across from me, sprinkled flour generously, and turned out onto it a risen sponge of bread. She commenced to thump and turn it, adding handfuls of flour as she worked at the dough until it was satiny.

For a time I simply ate and watched and listened. It was the usual kitchen talk, gossip and minor rivalries between servants, one spat over a bucket of milk left out to sour, and talk of the work to prepare for the morrow. The grand folk of the house would be up early, but they would expect the food to be ready when they were, and as lavish as tonight’s dinner. They’d want saddle-food to carry along as well, and this must charm the eye as much as fill the gut. I watched Lebven as she flattened the dough, spread it with butter, folded it, and then flattened it again, only to butter and fold it again. She became aware of me watching her and looked up with a smile. ‘It makes lots of layers in the rolls this way, all flaky and crisp. But it’s a lot of work for something that they’ll eat down in less than a minute.’

Behind her, a servant placed a covered basket on the counter. He opened it, spread a linen napkin to line it, and then began to place food in it: fresh rolls, a small pot of butter, a dish with slices of meat in it, and some of the pickled apples. I watched him from the corner of my eye, while nodding and replying to Lebven’s words. ‘It’s odd. Most of them don’t give half a thought to how much work goes into our making them comfortable.’

There was more than one muttered assent in the kitchen. ‘Well, look at you,’ Lebven returned the sympathy. ‘Kept on guard all through dinner, like someone might do your master a harm in a house where he’s guesting. Ridiculous Jamaillian way of thinking. But for that, you could have had a meal and some time to yourself tonight.’

‘I would have welcomed that,’ I returned honestly. ‘I’d have liked a look around. I’ve never been in a place where they kept cats instead of dogs.’

The other servant took the basket to the back door. A man waiting there took it from his hands. Something furry swung limp from his other hand. I had only a glimpse before the door was closed again. I longed to leap up and follow that food, but Lebven was still speaking.

‘Well. That’s only been in the last ten years or so, since the old master died. Before that, we had hounds for the most part, and only a cat or two for my lady’s hunting. But the young master prefers the cats to the dogs, and so he’s let the hounds die out. Not that I miss their barking and yammer, nor having them underfoot! The big cats are kept to their pens, save when they’re hunting. And as for the small ones, why, they’re darlings and no mistake. Not a river rat dares put his nose into this kitchen any more.’ She cast a fond look at a parti-coloured housecat on the hearth. Despite the mild evening, it was toasting itself by the dwindling cook-fire. She finally gave off her folding, and commenced beating the layered dough until it began to blister. It made conversation difficult and my departure more graceful. I went to the door of the kitchen and opened it. The man with the food was out of sight.

Lebven called to me, ‘If you’re seeking the back house, it’s out the other door and around the side. Just before you get to the rabbit hutches.’

I thanked her and obediently went out of the other door. A long look around showed me no other folk moving. I went around the side of the house, but another wing thwarted my view. The moonlight showed me rows of rabbit hutches between the house and the stable. So that had been what the man carried, a rabbit, its neck freshly wrung. The perfect late meal for a hunting cat. But there was no sign of the man and I dared not reach out towards Nighteyes, nor be gone from the kitchen too long. I growled to myself in frustration, certain that the packed meal had been for the Prince and his cat. I’d missed a chance. I returned to the warmth and light of the kitchen.

The kitchen had grown quieter. The washing up was mostly done, and the chore boys and girls escaped to their beds. Only Lebven remained beating the dough, and a morose man who was tending a pot of simmering meat. I resumed my seat and poured the last of the ale into my mug. Doubtless the others would get what sleep they could before they had to rise and prepare the next meal. The mottled cat abruptly stretched, rose and came to investigate me. I feigned ignoring him as he sniffed at my shoes and then my calf. The tom turned his head and opened his mouth wide as if expressing disgust, but I suspected he was only savouring my scent.

Smells like that dog outside. A disdainful curl of thought from him. Effortlessly, he floated up to land on the table beside me and thrust his nose towards the platter of venison. I fended him off with the back of my wrist. He took neither offence nor notice, but stepped over my arm to seize the slice he desired.

‘Oh, Tups, such manners in front of our guest. Don’t you mind him, Tom, he’s as spoiled as they come.’ She picked him up with floury hands. He kept possession of his meat as she set him on the floor then hunkered down over it, turning his head sideways to shear off mouthfuls. He gave Lebven one reproachful look. Shouldn’t feed the dogs at the table, woman. It was hard not to imagine malevolence in his yellow-eyed stare. Childishly, I stared right back, knowing well that most animals hate that. He muttered a threat in his throat, seized his meat, and whisked himself out of sight under the table.

I drank the last of my ale slowly. The cat knew. Did that mean the whole household knew of my connection to Nighteyes? Despite Avoin’s monologues all evening, I still knew too little of the hunting cats. Would they regard Nighteyes as an intruder, or would they ignore his scent in the courtyard? Would they think the information significant enough to communicate to the Witted humans? Not all Wit-bonds were as intimate as the one I shared with Nighteyes. His concern with the human aspects of my life had distressed Black Rolf almost to the point of disgusting him. Perhaps these cats only bonded with humans for the joy of the hunt. It was not impossible. Unlikely, but not impossible.

Well, I had not learned much more than what we had already suspected, but I’d had a more than ample meal. Sleep seemed the only other thing I could accomplish tonight. I offered Lebven my thanks and goodnight, and despite her insistence that she would do it, cleared my things from the table. The keep was quiet as I made my way softly back to my room. Only a dim light shone from under the door. I set my hand to it, expecting to find it latched. It was not. Every nerve suddenly ajangle, I eased it silently open on the darkened room. Then I caught my breath and stood motionless.

Laurel wore a long dark cloak over her nightgown. Her hair was loose and spilling down her back. Lord Golden wore an embroidered dressing gown over his nightshirt. The light from the tiny fire in the hearth glinted off the burnished thread of the birds embroidered on the back and sleeves of his dressing gown, and picked up the lighter streaks in Laurel’s flowing hair. He wore lacy gloves on his hands. They stood very close together by the fire, their heads bent together. I stood silent as a shocked child, wondering if I had interrupted an embrace. Lord Golden glanced over Laurel’s shoulder at me, and then made a small motion for me to come in and shut the door. As Laurel turned to see me, her eyes seemed very large.

‘I thought you were asleep in your chamber,’ she said quietly. Was she disappointed?

‘I was down in the kitchens, eating,’ I explained to her. I expected her to reply to my words, but she merely looked at me. I felt a sudden desire to be elsewhere. ‘But I am extremely tired. I think I shall be going to bed immediately. Good night.’ I turned towards my servant’s room, but Lord Golden’s voice halted me.

‘Tom. Did you learn anything?’

I shrugged. ‘Small details of the servants’ lives. Nothing that seems useful.’ I was still not certain of how freely I should speak before Laurel.

‘Well. Laurel seems to have done better.’ He turned to her, inviting her to speak. Any woman would have been flattered by his golden focus.

‘Prince Dutiful has been here,’ Laurel announced in a breathless whisper. ‘Before I retired to sleep, I asked Avoin to show me the stables and the cattery. I wanted to see how the animals were housed.’

‘His mistcat was there?’ I guessed incredulously.

‘No. Nothing that obvious. But the Prince has always insisted on tending to the cat’s needs himself. Dutiful has certain odd little habits, ways of folding things or hanging tack. He is very fussy about such things. There was an empty enclosure in the cattery. On the shelf by it were brushes and such, arranged just so. It was the Prince’s doing. I know it.’

I recalled the Prince’s chamber at Buckkeep, and suspected she was right. And yet – ‘Do you think the Prince would have let his precious cat be housed down there? In Buckkeep, the creature sleeps in his rooms.’

‘There is everything for a cat’s comfort there: things to claw, the herbs they fancy, fresh greens growing in a tub, toys for exercise, even live prey for their meals. The Bresingas keep hutch upon hutch of rabbits, so that their cats need never eat cold meat. The cats are truly pampered royalty.’

It seemed to me that my next question followed logically. ‘Might the Prince have stayed down in the stables to be closer to his cat?’ Perhaps the basket had not had too long a journey to make.

Laurel raised one brow at me. ‘The Prince stay in the cattery?’

‘He seemed to be very fond of the animal. I thought he might do that rather than be parted from it.’ I had nearly betrayed my conclusion: that the Prince was Witted and would not be parted from his bond-animal. There was a small silence. Lord Golden broke it. His mellow voice carried no further than the two of us. ‘Well, at least we have discovered that the Prince was here, even if he is not here now. And tomorrow may yield us more information. The Bresingas play cat-and-mouse with us. They know the Prince has left the court with his cat. They may suspect that we have come seeking him. But we shall stay in our roles, and graciously dance after whatever they dangle for us. We must not betray what we know.’

‘I hate this sort of thing,’ Laurel declared flatly. ‘I hate the deceit, and the polite faces we must wear. I wish I could simply go and shake that woman awake and demand to know where Dutiful is. When I think of the anguish that she has caused our queen … I wish I had asked to see the cattery before dinner. I would have asked different questions, I assure you. But I brought you the news as soon as I could. The Bresingas had furnished me with a maid who insisted on helping me prepare for bed, and then I did not dare slip from my room until I was sure most of the keep was asleep.’

‘Asking blunt questions will not serve us, nor shaking the truth out of noble ladies. The Queen wants Dutiful returned quietly. We must all keep that in mind.’ Lord Golden included me in his instruction.

‘I will try,’ Laurel replied with quiet resignation.

‘Good. And now we must all try to get what rest we can before tomorrow’s hunt. Good night, Tom.’

‘Good night, Lord Golden, Huntswoman Laurel.’

After a moment or two of silence, I realized something. I had been expecting Laurel to leave so that I could secure the door behind her. I had wanted to tell the Fool about the basket and the dead rabbit. But Laurel and Lord Golden were waiting for me to leave. She was studying a tapestry on a wall with an intensity it did not merit, while Lord Golden contentedly contemplated the gleaming fall of Laurel’s hair.

I wondered if I should lock the outer door for them, then decided that would be an oafish act. If Lord Golden wanted it locked, he would do it. ‘Good night,’ I repeated, trying to sound sleepy and not awkward. I took a candle and went to my own chamber, shutting the connecting door gently behind me. I undressed and got into bed, refusing to let my mind wander beyond that closed door. I felt no envy, I told myself, only the sharper bite of my loneliness in contrast to what they might be sharing. I told myself I was selfish. The Fool had endured years of loneliness and isolation. Would I begrudge him the gentle touch of a woman’s hand now that he was Lord Golden?

Nighteyes? I floated the thought, light as a dry leaf on the wind.

The brush of his mind against mine was a comfort. I sensed oak trees and fresh wind blowing past his fur. I was not alone. Sleep, little brother. I hunt our prey, but I think nothing new will we learn until dawn.

He was wrong.

SEVENTEEN

The Hunt

Among the Old Blood, there are teaching tales that are intended as guides for the very young. They are simple stories that instruct a child in virtues by telling of the animals that exemplify an admirable quality. Those not of Old Blood might be surprised to hear the Wolf praised for his dedication to his family, or the Mouse for her wisdom in providing for the cold winter months ahead. The Gander who keeps watch while the rest of the flock feeds is praised for his unselfishness and the Porcupine for his forbearance in injuring only those who attack him first. The Cat’s attribute is independence. A tale is told of a woman who seeks to bond with a cat. The cat offers to try her companionship for a day or two, if the woman will seek to perform well the tasks given her. The tale relates the duties the cat tries the woman at, stroking her fur, amusing her with string, fetching her cream and so on. The woman complies cheerfully with each request and does each one well. At the end of that time, the Witted woman again proposes that they bond, for she felt they were obviously well suited to one another. The cat refuses, saying, ‘If I bonded with you, you would be the poorer, for you would lose that which you love best about me, for it is that I do not need you, yet I tolerate your company.’ It is, the Old Blood say, a cautionary fable, meant to warn a child not to seek a bond-beast who cannot take as much from the relationship as it gives.

Badgerlock’s Old Blood Tales

Let me just see you.

You have. I have shown myself to you. Stop nagging me for that, and pay attention. You said you would learn this for me. You promised it to me. It is why I have brought you here, where there are no distractions. Be the cat.

It’s too hard. Let me see you with my eyes. Please.

When you are ready. When you can be the cat as easily as you are yourself. Then you will be ready to know me.

She was ahead of me. I toiled up the hill behind her, every bush catching at me, every dip and every stone catching at my feet. My mouth was dry. The night was cool, but as I pushed my way through the brush, dust and pollen rose to choke me. Wait!

Prey does not wait. A cat does not cry out ‘wait’ to the one she hunts. Be the cat.

For an instant, I almost caught a glimpse of her. Then the tall grass closed around her and she was gone. Nothing stirred, I heard no sound. I was no longer sure which way to go. The night was deep beneath the golden moon, the lights of Galeton lost behind me in the rolling hills. I took a breath, and then closed my mouth, resolving to breathe silently if it choked me. I moved forwards, a single gliding step at a time. I did not push branches out of my way, but swayed around them. I eased through the grass, striving to part it with my stride rather than push through it. I eased my weight from one carefully set footstep to the next. What had she bid me? ‘Be the night. Not the wind that stirs the trees, not even the soundless owl a-wing or the tiny mouse crouched motionless. Be the night that flows over all, touching without being felt. For Night is a cat.’ Very well, then. I was night, sleek and black and soundless. I halted under the sheltering branches of an oak. Its leaves were still. I opened my eyes as wide as they would go, striving to capture every bit of light I could. Slowly I turned my head. I flared my nostrils and then took in a deep silent breath through my mouth, trying to taste her on the air. Where was she, which way had she gone?

I felt a sudden weight, as if a brawny man had clapped both his hands to my shoulders and then sprung back from me. I spun around, but it was only Cat. She had dropped on me like a falling leaf, and then let herself drop to the ground. Now she crouched in the dry grass and ancient leaves under the tree. Belly to the ground, she looked up at me and then away. I crouched down beside her. ‘Which way, Cat? Which way did she go?’

Here. She is here. She is always here, with me.

After my love’s deep throaty voice, Cat’s thought in my mind was a reedy purr. I was fond of her, but to have her thoughts touch mine when I was longing instead for my love was almost intolerable. Gently I put her aside from me. I tried to ignore her injured protest that I should do so.

‘Here,’ I breathed. ‘I know she is close. But where?’

Closer than you know. But you shall never know me as long as you set the cat aside. Open to the cat. Be the cat. Prove yourself to me.

Cat flowed soundlessly away from me. I could not see where she had gone. She was night flowing into night, and it was like trying to discern the water you had poured into a stream. I drew a soundless breath and poised myself to follow, not just with my feet but with my heart. I pushed fear aside and opened myself to the cat.

Cat was back suddenly, easing out of the darkness to become a richer shadow. She pressed close against my legs. Hunted.

‘Yes. We hunt, we hunt for the woman, my love.’

No. We are hunted. Something scents us, something follows Cat-And-Boy through the night. Up. Climb.

She suited her words to her thoughts, flowing up the oak tree. Tree to tree. He cannot track us up here. Follow tree to tree. I knew that was what she was doing, and she expected me to follow. I tried. I flung myself at the oak, but the trunk was too large for me to shinny up and yet not coarse enough for my clawless fingers to find purchase. For an instant, I clung, but I could not climb. I slid back, nails bending and clothing snagging as the tree refused me. I could hear the predator coming now. It was a new sensation, one I did not like, to be hunted thus. I’d find a better tree. I turned and ran, sacrificing stealth for speed, but finding neither.

I chose to go uphill. Some predators, such as bears, could not run well on an uphill slope. If it was a bear, I could outdistance him. I could not think what else it might be that dared to hunt us. Another oak, younger and with lower branches, beckoned me. I ran, I leapt and caught the lowest branch. But even as I pulled myself up, my pursuer reached the bottom of the tree below me. And I had chosen foolishly. There were no other trees close by that I could leap to. The few that touched branches with mine were slender, unreliable things. I was treed.

Snarling, I looked down at my stalker. I looked into my own eyes looking into my own eyes looking into my own eyes –

I sat bolt upright, flung from sleep. Sweat sheathed me and my mouth was dry as dust. I rolled out of bed and stood, disoriented. Where was the window, where was the door? And then I recalled that I was not in my own cottage, but in a strange room. I blundered through the darkness to a washstand. I lifted the pitcher there and drank the tepid water in it. I dipped my hand in what little was left and rubbed it around on my face. Work, mind, I bade my struggling brain. It came to me. Nighteyes had Prince Dutiful treed somewhere in the hills behind Galeton. While I had slept, my wolf had found the Prince. But I feared that the Prince had discovered us as well. How much did he know of the Skill? Was he aware that we had been linked? Then all wondering was pushed aside. As the lowering storm is suddenly loosed by a bolt of lightning, so did the flash of light that seemed to fill my eyes herald the clanging of the Skill-headache that dropped me to my knees. And I had not a scrap of elfbark with me.

But the Fool might.

It was the only thought that could have brought me to my feet again. My groping hands found the door and I stumbled out into his chamber. The only light came from a small nest of dying coals in the hearth and the uncertain light of the night torches burning on the grounds outside the open window. I staggered towards his bed. ‘Fool?’ I called out softly, hoarsely. ‘Fool, Nighteyes has Dutiful treed. And …’

The words died on my lips. The dream had forced the earlier events of the night from my mind. What if that huddled shape beneath the blankets were not one body but two? An arm flung back a coverlet to reveal only one form occupying the great bed. He rolled to face me and then sat up. Concern furrowed his brow. ‘Fitz? Are you hurt?’

I sat down heavily on the edge of his bed, set one hand to each side of my head and pushed, trying to hold my skull together. ‘No. Yes. It’s the Skill, but we haven’t time for that. I know where the Prince is. I dreamed him. He was night-hunting with a cat in the hills behind Galeton. Then something was hunting us, and the cat went up one tree and I … the Prince went up another. And then he looked down and he saw Nighteyes under the tree. The wolf has him treed somewhere in those hills. If we go now, we can take him.’

‘No, we can’t. Use your common sense.’

‘I can’t. My head is cracking like an eggshell.’ I hunched forwards, elbows on my knees, head in my hands. ‘Why can’t we go get him?’ I asked piteously.

‘Walk your thoughts through it, my friend. We dress and creep out of this room, get past the stablefolk to take our horses out, ride through unfamiliar country by night until we come to where the Prince is up a tree with a wolf at the foot of it. One of us climbs the tree and forces the Prince down. Then we coax him to come back with us. Lord Golden miraculously appears at breakfast with, I imagine, a very disgruntled Prince Dutiful, or Lord Golden and his man simply disappear from Lady Bresinga’s hospitality without a word of explanation. In any case, in a few days a lot of very uncomfortable questions are going to be asked about Lord Golden and his man Tom Badgerlock, not to mention Prince Dutiful.’

He was right. We already suspected the Bresingas were involved in the Prince’s ‘disappearance’. Bringing him back to Galekeep would be foolish. We had to recover him in such a way that we could take him straight back to Buckkeep and no one the wiser. I pressed my fingers to my eyeballs. It felt as if the pressure inside my skull would force them out of their sockets. ‘What do we do then?’ I asked thickly. I didn’t even really want to know. I wanted to fall over on my side and huddle into a miserable ball.

‘The wolf keeps track of the Prince. Tomorrow, during our hunt, I will send you back for something I’ve forgotten. Once you are on your own, you will go to where the Prince is and persuade him to return to Buckkeep. I chose you a big horse. Take him with you immediately and return him to Buckkeep. I’ll find a way to explain your absence.’

‘How?’

‘I haven’t thought of it yet, but I will. Don’t be concerned about it. Whatever tale I tell, the Bresingas will have to accept for risk of offending me.’

I picked at the next largest hole in the plan. It was hard to keep my thoughts in order. ‘I … persuade him to come back to Buckkeep?’

‘You can do it,’ the Fool replied with great confidence. ‘You will know what to say.’

I doubted it, but had run out of strength to object. There were painfully bright lights behind my closed eyes. Knuckling them made them worse. I opened my eyes to the dim room, but zigzags of light still danced before my vision, sharding it. ‘Elfbark,’ I pleaded quietly. ‘I need it.’

‘No.’

My mind could not encompass that he had refused me. ‘Please.’ I pushed the word out. ‘The pain is worse than I can explain.’ Sometimes I could tell when a seizure was coming on. I hadn’t had one in a long time. Was I imagining that odd tension in my neck and back?

‘Fitz, I can’t. Chade made me promise.’ In a lower voice, as if he feared it was too little to offer, he added, ‘I’ll be here with you.’

Pain tumbled me in a wave. Fear mingled with it.

Should I come?

No. ‘Stay where you are. Watch him.’ I heard myself say the words out loud as I thought them. There was something I was supposed to worry about in that. I recalled it. ‘I need elfbark tea,’ I managed to say. ‘Or I can’t hold the limits. On the Wit. They’ll know I’m here.’

The bed moved under me as the Fool clambered out of it, a terrible jostling that pounded my brain against the inside of my skull. I heard him go to the washstand. A moment later, he was back, damp cloth in hand. ‘Lie back,’ he told me.

‘Can’t,’ I muttered. Any movement hurt. I wanted to get back to my own room, but could not. If I was going to have a fit, I didn’t want to do it in front of the Fool.

The cold cloth on my brow was like a shock. I retched with it, then took short panting breaths to get my stomach under control. I more felt than saw the Fool crouch down before me as I sat on the edge of the bed. He took my hand in gloved ones and his fingers fumbled over mine. An instant later, they bit down, pinching hard between the bones of my hand. I gave an inarticulate cry and tried to pull free of him, but as ever he was stronger than I expected.

‘Just for a moment,’ he muttered as if reassuring me. The pain in my hand became a racing numbness. A moment later, he seized my arm just above my elbow in both his hands, and again his fingers sought and then pinched down hard.

‘Please,’ I begged him, and tried to move away from him. He moved with me and the pain in my head was such I couldn’t escape. Why was he hurting me?

‘Don’t struggle,’ he begged me. ‘Trust me. I think I can help. Trust me.’ Again his hands moved, this time to my shoulder, and again those relentless fingers jabbed down hard. I gasped, and then his hands were on either side of my neck, his fingers pressing in and up as if he wished to detach my head. I grasped his wrists but could find no strength in my hands. ‘A moment,’ he begged me again. ‘Fitz, Fitz, trust me. Trust me.’

Then something went out of me. My head dropped forwards on my chest, lolling on my neck. The pain was not gone, but it was much diminished. I fell over on my side and he rolled me onto my back. ‘There. There,’ he said, and for a moment I stared into blessed darkness. Then the gloved hands were back, thumbs on my brow, spread fingertips seeking spots on my temples and the sides of my face, and then they pressed mercilessly, his smallest fingers digging in at the hinge of my jaw.

‘Take a breath, Fitz,’ I heard him tell me, and I then realized that I was not breathing. I gasped for air, and everything suddenly eased. I wanted to weep for relief. Instead, I sank instantly into a bottomless sleep. I dreamed a strange dream. I dreamed I was safe.

I came to a hazy wakefulness before dawn. I took a deep breath, and realized I was in the Fool’s bed. I think he had just arisen. He was moving quietly about the room, selecting clothing for himself. I think he felt me watching him, for he came back to the bedside. He touched my brow, pushing my head back onto the pillow. ‘Go back to sleep. You have a little more time to rest, and I think you need it.’ Two gloved fingers traced twin lines from the top of my head to the bridge of my nose. I slept again.

When next I woke, it was because he was gently shaking me. My servant-blue clothing was laid out on the bed beside me. He was already fully dressed. ‘Time to hunt,’ he told me when he saw I was awake. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to hurry.’

I moved my head cautiously. I ached all along my spine and neck. I sat up stiffly. I felt as if I had been in a fistfight … or had a seizure. There was a sore spot inside my cheek as if I’d bitten it. I looked away from him as I asked, ‘Did I have a fit last night?’

A small silence preceded his words. He kept his voice casual. ‘A small one, perhaps. You tossed your head about and trembled for a time in your sleep. I held you still. It passed.’ He did not want to speak of it any more than I did.

I dressed slowly. My whole body ached. My left arm bore the marks of the Fool’s fingers, small dark circles of bruising. So I had not imagined the strength of his grip. He saw me inspecting my arm, and winced sympathetically. ‘It leaves bruises, but sometimes it seems to work,’ was all he offered by way of explanation.

Hunt mornings at Galekeep were very similar to hunt mornings at Buckkeep Castle. Suppressed excitement tingled in the air. Breakfast was a hurried affair, taken standing in the courtyard and the painstaking efforts of the kitchen folk were scarcely noticed. I had only a mug of beer for I dared face no more than that. I did, however, have the foresight to do as Laurel had noted, and store some food in my saddle-pack and make sure my water-skin was freshly filled. I glimpsed Laurel in the hubbub of folk, but she was very busy, talking to at least four people at once. Lord Golden strolled through the crowd, greeting each person with a warm smile. Lord Grayling’s daughter was always at his elbow. Sydel’s smile and chatter were constant, and Lord Golden replied with attentive courtesy. Did young Civil look a bit irritated with that?

The horses were brought, saddled and gleaming from the stables. Myblack seemed unimpressed with the excitement in the air, and again I wondered at her seeming lack of spirit. The gathering seemed oddly muted to me, and then I smiled to myself. There was no excited baying to lift the heart and infect the horses with excitement. I missed hounds. The hunters and their attendants mounted, and then the cats were brought forth on their leads.

The cats were sleek, short-coated creatures, with elongated bodies. Their heads appeared small to me at first glance. Their coats were tawny, but in certain angles of the light, subdued dappling could be distinguished. Each cat’s long, graceful tail seemed to harbour an independent life. They padded through the thronging horses as calmly as dogs among sheep. These were the gruepards, and they knew very well what the milling, mounted folk meant. With little guidance each cat sought out its mounted master. I watched in stunned surprise as leads were loosed, and each cat leapt nimbly into place. I watched Lady Bresinga turn in her saddle to mutter fond words to her cat, while Civil’s gruepard put a heavy paw on his shoulder and pulled the boy back so the cat could bump faces with him. I waited in vain for some manifestation of the Wit. I was almost certain both the Bresingas possessed it, but it was controlled to an extent I had not imagined possible. Under the circumstances, no matter how I longed for the touch, I dared not quest out towards Nighteyes. His silence to me was so absolute it was like an absence. Soon, I promised myself, soon.

We set out for the hills where Avoin promised us good ground birds and much sport in the taking of them. I rode at the back with the other attendants, breathing dust. Despite the early hour, the day already promised to be unseasonably warm. The fine dust of our passing hung thick in the still air. The soil of the hills was strange stuff, for once the thin surface turf was broken by a trail, the trail became a track of fine powdery soil. I soon wished for a kerchief to cover my mouth and nose, and the hanging dust discouraged conversation. The hooves of the horses were muffled by the stuff, and with the absence of baying dogs, I felt that we rode in near silence. Soon we left the riverside and the trail behind us and rode across the face of the sun-drenched hill through crisping grey-green brush. We wended our way through rolling hills and draws that all looked deceptively alike.

The hunters were well ahead of us and moving steadily when we crested a hill. I think the flock of birds we rousted there surprised even Avoin, but everyone reacted quickly. I was too far back to see if a signal released the cats, or if the beasts simply reacted to the game. These were large, heavy-bodied birds that ran, wings open and beating, before they could lift from the ground. Several never made it into the air, and I saw at least two brought down on the wing by the leaping gruepards. The speed of the cats was heart-stopping. They flowed from their cushions, leaping to the ground impactlessly and shooting after the fleeing birds with a speed like a striking snake. One cat actually brought down two birds, seizing one in her jaws even as her clutching paws clasped one to her breast. I had noticed four or five boys on ponies riding behind us. They came forwards now, game-bags open, to take up the prey. Only one gruepard was reluctant to relinquish her kill, and I understood that she was a young hunter, her training still incomplete.

The birds were shown to Lord Golden before they were bagged. Sydel, who had been riding beside him, pushed her horse closer to see the trophies and exclaim over them. He took tail feathers from several of the birds, and then summoned me to his side. As I accepted the trophy feathers from him, he instructed me, ‘Put them in the case right away, so they are not marred.’

‘The case?’

‘The feather-case. I showed it to you when we were packing at Buckkeep … Sa’s Breath, man, you have not left it behind, have you? Ah! Well, you shall have to go back for it. You know the one, of tooled red leather with a felted wool lining. It is most likely amongst my things at Galekeep, unless you have left it at Buckkeep. Here, give Huntswoman Laurel the feathers to carry until you return. Make haste now, Tom Badgerlock. I need that case!’ Lord Golden did not disguise his irritation at his servant’s clumsiness. There was, indeed, such a case amongst Lord Golden’s belongings, but he had never told me it was a feather case, nor told me to bring it. I managed to look suitably chastened at my negligence as I bobbed my head to his orders.

So simply was I cut free from the hunt. Obedient to my master, I wheeled my horse and touched heels to Myblack. I put two rolling hills between the hunting party and us before I reached out cautiously to Nighteyes. I come.

Better late than never, I suppose, was the grudging reply.

I pulled in my horse and sat still. Wrongness flooded me. I closed my eyes, and saw through the wolf’s. It was a nondescript area, just like every hill and dale I had ridden through that morning. Oak trees in the draws and dusty scrub brush and yellow grass on the hillsides. But I knew where he was somehow and how to get to where he was. It was as Nighteyes described it: I knew where I itched before I scratched. I also knew, without his telling me, that there was a reason for his stillness. I quested towards him no more, but simply put heels to Myblack and leaned forwards to urge her on. She was a runner for level terrain, not these rolling hills, but she did well enough. I soon looked down on the dale where I knew Nighteyes waited.

I longed to rush straight down to him. His stillness was as ominous as flies buzzing round blood. I forced myself to cut a wide path around the dale and go slowly, reading the ground and breathing deep for any scents that might linger. I found the tracks of two shod horses, and a moment later cut the same tracks going in the opposite direction. Horses had come and gone from the copse of oak trees, and not long ago. I could restrain myself no longer. I rode into the welcoming shade of the trees as if I were running my head into a snare. Nighteyes.

Here. Hush.

He lay, panting heavily, in the dry shade of the oaks. Old leaves were stuck to the bloody gashes on his muzzle and flank. I flung myself from my horse and ran to him. I set my hands to his coat and his thoughts flowed silently into mine in the quietest possible sharing of the Wit.

They worked together against me.

The boy and the cat? I was surprised that he was surprised at that. The boy and the cat were Wit-bonded. Of course they would act together.

The cat and the horseman who brought the horses. I was watching the boy up the tree the whole while. I sensed nothing from him, not even that he called to the cat for help. But just after dawn broke, the damned cat attacked me. Dropped right out of a tree onto me, and I hadn’t even known she was coming. She must have travelled tree to tree like a squirrel. She clung like a burr. I thought I was winning when I flung her to the ground, but she wrapped her front paws around me and tried to disembowel me with her hind claws. Nearly succeeded, too. Just then, the man came up with the horses. The boy climbed down into the saddle, and then like a flash the cat was on the horse behind him. They galloped off and left me here.

Let me see your belly.

Water, first, before you poke at me.

Myblack annoyed me by dancing away from me twice before I caught her reins. I tied her securely to a bush after that, and then brought both water and food to Nighteyes. I let him drink from my cupped hands, and then we shared the food between us. I wanted to wash the blood from the gashes I could see, but I knew he wouldn’t allow it. Leave them to close themselves. I’ve already licked them clean.

At least, let me see the ones on your belly.

He was not happy about it, but he complied. The damage was much worse there, for the cat had obviously pulled him close, and his belly lacked the thick fur that had somewhat protected his back. They were not clean slashes, but jagged tears that were already festering. The only good aspect was that the claws had not penetrated the wall of his belly. I had feared to see bulging entrails; all I saw was lacerated flesh. I cursed myself for not having any salve to comfort the wounds. It had been too long since I had had to worry about things such as this; I had grown careless in the precautions I took.

Why didn’t you call for me to come and help you?

You were too far away to get here in time. And – uneasiness tinged his thoughts – I thought they wanted me to call you. The man on the big horse and the cat. They listened, as if my call to you were game they sought to beat out of hiding.

Not the Prince.

No. My brother, there is something very strange here. He was surprised when the horseman came with the extra mount. Yet I sensed the cat was not, the cat expected the man and the horses. The Prince does not perceive all that his bond-partner does. He goes blindly into his bond. It is … uneven. One commits and the other accepts the commitment, but does not return it in full. And the cat is … wrong.

He could make it no clearer than that to me. I sat for a time, my fingers buried deep in his coat, pondering what to do next. The Prince was gone. Someone he had not summoned had arrived to carry him away from the wolf, at precisely the moment that the cat was diverting the wolf. Carry him away to where?

I chased them for a time. But it is as you said. I cannot keep up with a running horse any more.

You never could.

Well. Neither could you. You couldn’t even keep up with a running wolf for long.

True. That’s very true. I smoothed his coat, and tried to pluck a dead leaf from one of his scabs.

Leave that alone! I’ll bite your hand off! And he could have. Fast as a snake, he seized my wrist in his jaws. He squeezed it, then let me go. It isn’t bleeding, so leave it alone. Stop picking at me and go after them.

And do what?

Begin by killing the cat. It was a vindictive suggestion with no heart in it. He knew as well as I did what it would do to the Prince if we killed his bond-animal.

I do. A pity he does not share your scruples about killing your bond-brother.

He doesn’t know you are bonded to me.

They knew I was bonded to somebody, and would have liked to discover just whom. That knowledge did not dissuade them from hurting me. I sensed his thoughts racing ahead of mine, pondering a situation I had not deciphered yet. Be careful, Changer. I recognize this pattern of old. You think this is a game of some kind, with limits and rules. You seek to bring the Prince back as a mother carries an errant cub back to the den. You have not even considered that you might have to injure him, or kill the cat to do so. Even farther from your thoughts is that they might kill you to prevent you from taking the Prince back. So I change my advice to you. Do not go after them now, alone. Give me until this evening to get past my soreness. And when we track them, let us take the Scentless One with us. He is clever, in a human sort of way.

Do you think the Prince has that in him? To kill me before letting me take him back to Buckkeep? The thought appalled me. Yet, I had been younger than Prince Dutiful when I first killed on Chade’s orders. I had not especially enjoyed it, but I had not deeply pondered the right or wrong of it. Chade was my conscience then, and I had trusted his discretion. I wondered. Was there such a person in the Prince’s life, someone whose counsel was enough to make him suspend his own judgement?

Stop thinking that you are dealing with a young prince. You are not. Nor is it the cat we must fear. This is something deeper and stranger, my brother, and we are best to go very, very carefully.

He drank the rest of my water. Then I left him there under the oaks, though I did not like to. I did not attempt to follow their trail, but returned to the Bresinga manor at Galeton, found the feather-case, and rode back to the hunt. They had moved on, but it was easy enough to track them. When I presented the case to Lord Golden, he observed, ‘You were a long time bringing it, Badgerlock.’ He looked round at his hunting companions and added, ‘Well, at least it is not as I had feared. I almost thought you had taken my words to mean that you must bring the case, even if you had to go all the way to Buckkeep Castle for it.’ There was a general laugh at my supposed dullness.

I bobbed my head in docile agreement. ‘My apologies, master, for the delay in finding it. It was not where I expected it to be.’

He accepted my apology with a nod, then handed me the case again. ‘Collect the feathers from Huntswoman Laurel. See that you put them in carefully.’

Laurel had a substantial handful of feathers. The red case opened like a book. Within, the case was lined with felted wool to cushion the feathers against hurts. I held the case while she carefully arranged each feather in its place. The other hunters rode on, seeming to pay no attention to us. ‘The cats hunt well?’ I asked as she positioned feathers.

‘Very well. They are amazing to watch. I had seen the Prince’s mistcat hunt before, but this is my first experience of gruepards. They have set the cats twice on birds and once on hares since you left us.’

‘Think you they will hunt much longer?’

‘I doubt it. Lord Golden confided that the midday sun is too harsh on his skin and may give him a headache. I think they will turn back soon.’

‘That would suit me well, also.’ The others were now a distance away from us, talking amongst themselves. She closed the feather-case and handed it back to me. We rode side by side until we caught up with the hunting party. She turned in her saddle to look at me and met my eyes as she said, ‘Last night, Tom Badgerlock, you looked a different man. You should take more care with your daily appearance. The effect is well worth your effort.’

Her words left me speechless. She smiled to see me struck dumb, then left me behind with the other attendants as she spurred her horse forwards to ride at Lord Golden’s stirrup. I do not know what, if any, words passed between them, only that soon the hunting party decided to return to Galekeep. The game-bags were heavy, the beat of the sun overhead was becoming oppressive, and the cats seemed irritable and less interested in the hunt.

This being so, the nobles turned their horses and set spurs to them, hastening back to the welcome cool of Galekeep’s thick stone walls. The rest of us followed as best we might. Myblack easily kept their pace, though I had to ride in their dust.

Nobility retired to their chambers to wash the dust away and don fresh clothing while others cared for their sweated horses and cranky cats. I followed Lord Golden as he strode ebulliently through the halls. I hastened to open the door for him, and then to shut it behind us after he had passed through. I fastened the latch quietly.

I turned to find him already laving the dust from his face and hands. ‘What happened?’ he asked me.

I told him.

‘Will he be all right?’ he asked anxiously.

‘The Prince? I hardly know.’

‘Nighteyes,’ the Fool clarified impatiently.

‘As well as he may be. I’ll take him more water and meat when I return. He was in pain but not like to die of his injuries.’ Though I had not liked the look of the inflamed scratches. The Fool almost seemed to answer my thoughts.

‘I’ve a salve that may soothe his hurts, if he will let you use it.’

I had to smile. ‘I doubt that he will, but I will be glad to take it all the same.’

‘Well. There but remains for me to manufacture a reason for the three of us to depart Galekeep immediately after lunch. We dare not let his trail grow cold. Nor do I think it likely that we will be returning here.’ As he spoke, he was changing his jacket, brushing dust from his trousers and wiping a cloth over his boots. He considered his reflection in the mirror, then hastily ran a brush through his fine hair. The pale strands floated after the brush and clung to it. The shorter pieces at his temples stood out like a cat’s whiskers. He exclaimed in annoyance, and refastened the heavy silver clip that he used to secure his hair at the base of his neck. ‘There. That will have to do. Pack us up, Tom Badgerlock. Be prepared to leave by the time I return from my meal.’ And he was gone.

There was fruit and cheese and bread on the table from the night before. The bread was a bit stale but I was hungry enough that it did not matter. I ate as I hastily packed my own things. Lord Golden’s wardrobe presented me with more problems. I could not recall how he had fitted so much clothing into such a small bag. At length, I managed to cram it all in, though I wondered what the fine shirts would look like when they emerged again.

The midday meal was still in progress when I finished. I took advantage of that and slipped down to the kitchen for cold beer and spicy sausages. My old skills served me in good stead, for when I left several thick slices off a cold joint were concealed in the breast of my servant’s tunic.

I returned to our rooms and spent the early afternoon impatiently awaiting Lord Golden’s return. I longed to reach for the wolf, and dared not. Every passing moment might be carrying the Prince further away. The afternoon was flowing away from me. I flung myself down on my bed to wait. Despite my anxiety, I must have dozed off.

I awoke to Lord Golden opening the door. I rolled from the bed to my feet, feeling sodden with sleep yet eager to leave. He shut the door behind me and in response to my look, replied grimly, ‘It is proving socially difficult to extricate us. There were guests at today’s luncheon, and not just those we hunted with. The Bresingas seemed determined to exhibit me to all their wealthy neighbours. They have planned dinners and teas and more hunts with half the countryside in attendance. I have been unable to invent a pressing enough reason for us to leave. This is damnably inconvenient. Would that I could go back to my motley and a more honest form of juggling and rope-walking.’

‘We’re not leaving yet,’ I observed stupidly.

‘No. There is a large dinner in my honour this evening. For us to abruptly leave before that would be insult. And when I hinted that I might have to cut my visit short and leave tomorrow morning, I was told that Lord Crias from across the river had planned a morning hunt for me, and an afternoon repast at his manor.’

‘They delay you on purpose. The Bresingas are involved in the Prince’s disappearance. I am sure they provided food for him and the cat last night. And Nighteyes is certain that those who attacked him are aware he is bonded to someone. They tried to flush me out.’

‘Perhaps. But even if we were certain, I could scarcely fling accusations about. And we are not certain. Perhaps they but seek social advancement at court, or to show me their various marriageable daughters. I gather that is why the girl was at dinner last night.’

‘I thought she was Civil’s companion.’

‘She was at great pains during the hunt to tell me that they were childhood friends with absolutely no romantic interests in one another.’ He sighed and sat down at the small table. ‘She told me that she, too, collects feathers. Tonight after dinner she wishes to show me her collection. I am certain it is an invention to spend more time with me.’

Had my own needs not been so pressing, I would have smiled at his dismay.

‘Well, I shall have to deal with it as best I may. And perhaps it can even be turned to our advantage, now that I think of it. Oh, I’ve an errand for you. It seems that while we were hunting today, I lost a silver chain. At lunch I noticed it was missing. It is one of my favourites. You will have to retrace our steps and see if you can find it. Take your time.’

As he spoke, he drew a necklace from his pocket, wrapped it in his kerchief, and handed it to me. I pocketed it. He opened his clothing-case, shot me an accusing look at the compressed jumble inside it, and then fished about until he discovered the pot of salve. He handed it to me.

‘Shall I lay out your clothing for dinner before I go?’

He rolled his eyes mockingly at me as he drew a crumpled shirt from his clothing bag. ‘I think you’ve already done enough for me, Badgerlock. Just go.’ As I moved towards the door, his voice stopped me. ‘Does the horse suit you?’

‘The black is fine,’ I assured him. ‘A good healthy beast and fleet, as we proved. You chose a good horse.’

‘But you would rather have chosen your own mount.’

I nearly said yes. But then, as I considered it, I realized that was not true. If I had been choosing the horse, I would have sought for a companion to bear me through the years. It would have taken me weeks, if not months, to select one. And now that I was unwillingly confronting the wolf’s mortality, I felt a strange reluctance to offer that much of myself to an animal. ‘No,’ I replied honestly. ‘It was much better that you chose one for me. She’s a good horse. You chose well.’

‘Thank you,’ he said quietly. It seemed to matter to him a great deal. If the wolf had not been waiting, it would have given me pause.

EIGHTEEN

Fool’s Kiss

Many are the tales told of Witted taking on their beasts’ shapes to wreak havoc upon their neighbours. The bloodier legends are of Witted in wolves’ skins, who in that guise rend their neighbours’ families as well as their flocks. Less sanguine are the tales who depict Witted suitors taking on the shapes of birds, or cats, or even dancing bears to gain access to a bedchamber in the course of a seduction.

All such tales are imaginative nonsense, perpetuated by those who seek to fuel hatred of the Witted. Although a Witted person can share the mind of his beast, and hence, its physical perceptions, he cannot metamorphose his Human form into that of an animal. It is true that some Witted who have been long in a partnership with their animal sometimes take on some of their habits of posture, diet, and mannerism. But a man who eats, dens, scavenges and smells like a bear does not become a bear. If that myth of shapechanging could be vanquished, it would go far to re-establishing trust between the Witted and unWitted.

Badgerlock’s Old Blood Tales

The wolf was not where I had left him. It rattled me, and I took some few moments convincing myself that I had not mistaken the spot. But there were the spatters of his blood where he had sprawled on last year’s leaves, and here were the spatters in the dust where he had lapped water from my hands. He had been here and now he was not.

It is one thing to track two shod horses with riders. It is another to follow the spoor of a wolf over dry ground. He had left no trace of his passage, and I feared to reach out towards him. I followed the tracks of the horses, believing that he would have done the same. As I trailed them through the sun-drenched hills, their tracks went down into a draw and crossed a small stream. They had stopped here to let the horses water. And then in the muddy bank was a wolf’s paw-print atop the horse’s hoof-mark. So. He was tracking them.

Three hills later, I caught up with him. He knew I was coming. He did not pause to wait for me, but moved on. That gait caught my eyes. It was not his purposeful trot. He walked. Myblack was not especially pleased to approach the wolf, but she didn’t fight me. As I drew closer, he stopped in the shelter of some trees and awaited me.

‘I brought meat,’ I told him as I dismounted.

I felt his awareness of me, but he sent no thought towards me. It was eerie. I took the meat out of my shirt and gave it to him. He wolfed it down and then came to sit beside me. I took the salve out of my pouch. He sighed and lay down.

The claw-swipes along his belly were livid ridges of lacerated flesh, and hot to the touch. When I applied the salve, the pain became an edged thing between us. I was as gentle as I could be and still be thorough. He tolerated it, but not gladly. I sat for a time beside him, my hand resting on his ruff. He sniffed at the salve I had applied. Honey and bear grease, I told him. He licked the long scratch and I let him. His tongue would push the ointment deeper into the wound and do him no harm. Besides, there was no way I could have stopped him. He already knew that I would have to go back to Galekeep.

It would be wisest for me to keep following them, even if I don’t go swiftly. The longer you are delayed, the colder the trail will be. Easier for you to come to me than to try to follow fading tracks.

There is no arguing with that. I gave no voice to my worries that he could neither hunt nor defend himself just now. He knew it, I knew it, and he had made his decision. I’ll catch up with you as soon as I can. He knew that too, but I could not refrain from the promise.

My brother. Be careful what you dream tonight.

I won’t seek to dream with them.

I fear they may seek you.

Fear smoked through my mind, but again there was nothing to say. I wished, vainly, that I had been brought up knowing more of the Wit. Perhaps if I had understood Old Blood better, I would know what I was dealing with now.

No. I think not. What you do, how you link to him, that is not just Skill. It is the crossing of your magic. You open the door with one and travel with the other. As when I attacked Justin after he had bridged into you with Skill. His Skill made the bridge, but I used my bond with you to run across it.

He had deliberately shared that thought with me, acknowledging a worry that had been growing in me for some time. Dog-magic, Justin had called my Wit, and told me that my use of the Skill stank of it. Verity had never complained of that. But Verity, I admitted unwillingly, shared my truncated education in the Skill. Perhaps he had not detected a staining of the Wit in my use of the Skill, or perhaps he had been too kind to ever rebuke me with it. Now I worried for my wolf. Do not follow them too closely. Try not to let them know that we track them.

What did you fear? That I would attack a cat, and two men on horseback? No. That battle belongs to you. I will trail this game; it is up to you to bring it to bay and down it.

His thought created unpleasant images in my mind all the way back to Galekeep. I had entered into this to track down a boy, runaway or perhaps kidnapped. Now I was facing not only a boy who did not wish to be returned to Buckkeep, but his confederates. How far would I go in my efforts to return him to the Queen, and what limits would he set in his determination to have his own way?

Would those with him have any constraints as to what they would do to keep him?

I knew Lord Golden was wise to continue our play. Much as I longed to drop all pretence and simply hunt down the Prince and drag him back to Buckkeep, I could see the consequences of that. If the Bresingas were certain that we pursued him, they would certainly get a warning to him. He would flee faster and hide deeper. Worse, they might directly interfere with our pursuit of him. I had no wish to meet with an untimely ‘accident’ as we tracked Prince Dutiful. As matters stood, we could still hope to move secretly to regain the Prince and discreetly convey him back to Buckkeep. He had fled Galekeep at our arrival, yet not gone far at first. Now he was on the move again, but still had no reason to connect Lord Golden to any pursuit. If the Fool could pry us loose of Lady Bresinga’s hospitality without arousing any suspicion, we could follow him unobtrusively and have a better chance of catching up with him.

I returned to Galekeep hot and dusty and parched. It still seemed odd to surrender my horse to a stableman. I found Lord Golden napping in his chambers. The curtains were drawn against the heat and light, putting the room in twilight. I went quietly past him to my own room to wash most of the dust and sweat away. I hung my shirt on the bedpost to dry and air and slung my fresh one over my shoulder.

Servants had replenished the bowl of fruit in Lord Golden’s chamber. I helped myself to a plum and ate it by the window, peering around the curtain at the garden outside. I felt both tired and restless. I could think of nothing constructive to do, and no way to pass the time. Frustration and worry chafed me.

‘Did you find my chain, Badgerlock?’ It was Lord Golden’s aristocratic tone that interrupted my thought.

‘Yes, my lord. Just where you thought you’d lost it.’

I drew the delicate jewellery from my pocket and carried it over to where he lounged on his bed. He accepted it as gratefully as if he were truly a nobleman and it had truly been lost. I lowered my voice. ‘Nighteyes follows the trail for us. When we can leave, we can go straight to the wolf.’

‘How is he?’

‘Stiff. Sore. But I think he will recover.’

‘Excellent.’ He sat up, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. ‘I’ve selected evening clothing for us, and laid it out in your room. Really, Badgerlock, you must learn to handle my garments more carefully.’

‘I’ll try, my lord,’ I muttered, but I could not get my heart back into the game. I was suddenly tired of the whole charade. ‘Have you thought of a way for us to leave discreetly?’

‘No.’ He strolled to the table. Wine had been left there for him. He poured a glass and drank it, then poured another. ‘But I’ve thought of an indiscreet one, and already laid the groundwork for it this afternoon. Not without regrets – I’ll be compromising Lord Golden’s reputation somewhat, but what is a nobleman without a bit of scandal to his name? It will probably just increase my popularity at court. Everyone will want to know my side of it, and will speculate on what truly happened.’ He sipped from his glass. ‘I think that if I succeed at this, it will convince Lady Bresinga that her fears that we are seeking the Prince are groundless. No proper emissary of the Queen would behave as I intend.’ He gave me a sickly smile.

‘What have you done?’

‘Nothing, just yet. But I fancy that by morning, our leaving will be facilitated as swiftly as we could wish.’ He drank again. ‘Sometimes I don’t care for the things that I must do,’ he observed, and there was a plaintive note in his voice. He finished the glass of wine as if girding himself for a task.

Not another word would he divulge to me. He arrayed himself carefully for dinner, and I had to suffer the indignity of the green jerkin and yellow leggings. ‘Perhaps it is a shade too bright,’ he conceded in response to my incensed gaze. His grin was too broad for me to believe any apology in his words. I did not know if it was the wine or one of his fey humours. ‘Stop glowering, Badgerlock,’ he rebuked me as he adjusted the cuffs of a muted green coat. ‘I expect my servants to maintain a pleasant demeanour. Besides, the colour does set off the darkness of your eyes and skin and hair – all of you. It rather reminds me of an exotic parrot. You may not appreciate such a show of yourself, but the ladies will.’

Obeying him taxed all my ability to dissemble. I walked behind him to where the nobility had gathered before dinner. This was a larger group than the night before, for Lady Bresinga had extended her hospitality to those who had hunted with her earlier. They might have been invisible for all the notice Lord Golden gave them. Sydel was seated at a low table with young Civil. An assortment of feathers was spread out before her on a cloth, and they seemed to be discussing them. She had obviously been watching the door, for the moment Lord Golden entered, her face was transfigured. She gleamed like a lantern in the darkness. Young Civil also underwent a transformation, but it was not so pleasant. He could not very well sneer at a guest in his mother’s home, but his features went very still and cold. Dismay clutched at my belly. No. I wanted no part of this.

But Golden, smiling and charming, made directly for the pair. His greetings to everyone else in the chamber were brief to the point of neglect. Without even a pretence of subtlety, he seated himself between them, obliging Civil to move over to make room for him. From that moment on, he virtually ignored everyone else in the room as he focused all of his allure on the girl. Their heads bent together over the feathers. His every movement was a seduction. His long fingers stroked the gaudy feathers on the cloth. He selected one, and touched its softness to his own cheek, and then leaned forwards to draw it gently down the length of Sydel’s arm. She giggled nervously and drew back from the touch. He smiled. She blushed. He set the feather back on the cloth and shook a reproachful finger at it as if it were at fault. Then he selected another one. Boldly he held it against the sleeve of her gown, murmuring some comparison of colour. He gathered others from the cloth, arranged them in a sort of feather bouquet. With the tip of one forefinger, he turned her face to look at his, and then, by a trick I could not see, fastened the feathers into her hair so that they hung down and followed the line of her cheek.

Civil rose abruptly and stalked away. His mother spoke to a woman at her side, who moved swiftly to intercept him before he left the chamber. There were low voiced words between them, and the young man’s tone was not calm. I could not follow what he said, for Lord Golden’s words rose over general conversation to proclaim, ‘Would that I had a looking-glass to show you, but you must be content to see how well this ornament becomes you by looking into my eyes.’

Earlier in the day, I had been appalled at how brazenly she had stalked Lord Golden and at how willing she had been to throw over her young suitor for the strange nobleman. Now I almost pitied Sydel. One hears of birds charmed by snakes, though I have never seen such a thing. What I witnessed now was more like a flower leaning towards light. She absorbed his attention and blossomed in its warmth. In the space of a few moments, her girlish infatuation with his age and wealth and fine ways had been transformed into a more womanly warmth and fascination with him. I knew with crawling certainty that she was his to bed, if he chose. Should he tap at her chamber door tonight, she would admit him without hesitation.

‘He goes too far.’ Laurel’s breathless whisper was tinged with horror as she strolled past me.

‘He excels at that,’ I murmured in reply. I shifted my shoulders in the confines of my gaudy jacket. My pretence at being Lord Golden’s bodyguard might become real tonight. Certainly the look Civil shot him promised murder.

When Lady Bresinga announced that it was time to dine, Civil made the foolish mistake of hesitating. Before he had even the chance churlishly to refuse to escort Sydel to the table, his rival had offered his arm and the girl had taken it. This left Civil duty-bound to escort his slighted mother as they followed their esteemed guest and his prey into the dining hall.

I tried to rein my emotions in and be a stoic observer of that dinner. Lord Golden’s tactic revealed much to me. Sydel’s parents were obviously torn between courtesy to Lady Bresinga and her son, and the enticing prospect of their daughter winning the attention of this extremely wealthy nobleman. Lord Golden was a far more desirable catch than young Civil, yet they were not unmindful of the danger to their young daughter. To catch a nobleman’s eye is not the same as to have the pledge of one. There was a danger that he might toy with her and ruin her for future marriage. It was a dangerous line for a young girl to walk, and in the way that Lady Grayling picked her bread to pieces I plainly saw her mother’s doubts that Sydel could toe it.

Avoin and Laurel tried desperately to kindle a conversation about the day’s hunt, and the talk lurched along, but Lord Golden and Sydel were too deeply engrossed in their own quiet talk to pay any attention. Civil, seated to the other side of Sydel, was ignored by both of them. Avoin was holding forth on the uses of rue in training cats, for all knew that a cat would avoid anything marked with the essence of the herb. Laurel said that onion was sometimes used for the same purpose. Lord Golden offered Sydel a titbit from his plate, and then stared in rapt fascination as the girl ate it. He was drinking heavily tonight, glass after glass, and to all appearances, he was actually pouring it all down his throat. I felt anxiety. The Fool, drunk, had always been both unpredictable and volatile. Would Lord Golden have more restraint when in his cups?

Civil’s anger must have flared, for I felt a querying Wit-echo from something. I could not catch the thought, only the emotion that accompanied it. Something was fully willing to rend Lord Golden to shreds on Civil’s behalf. I did not doubt that his hunting cat was his Wit-beast. For that unguarded moment of fury, the connection between them sang with bloodlust. It was quenched in an instant, but there was no mistaking what it was. The boy was Witted. And Lady Bresinga? I looked past her, watching her without seeming to. I felt no trace of the Wit from her, but she radiated maternal disapproval of her son’s lapse. Because he had betrayed his Old Blood to any who might be aware of such things? Or because his displeasure showed so plainly on his face? Betraying one’s emotions so blatantly was not genteel.

I stood, as I had the previous night, behind Lord Golden’s chair all through the meal. I learned little from the words exchanged that night, but much from the glances. Lord Golden’s scandalous behaviour both fascinated and horrified the other guests. Quiet words were exchanged, as were shocked glances. Lord Grayling, at one point, sat breathing through his white-pinched nostrils for several moments while his wife spoke frantically to him in an undertone. She appeared willing to gamble the Bresingas’ good will for the possible benefit of a better match. Through all this interplay, I sifted expressions and exchanges, looking for some sign of who was Witted. It was not information I could quantify, but before the dinner was over, I was satisfied that both Civil and Lady Bresinga were. I was equally certain their Huntsman was not. Of the other guests at their table, there were two I suspected of the Wit. A certain Lady Jerrit had something of the cat in her mannerisms. She was perhaps unaware of how she breathed in the scent of every dish before she ventured to taste it. Her spouse, a hale and hearty man, had a trick of turning his head sideways to the leg of fowl he was devouring, as if he had sharper teeth there with which to scissor the meat free. Small habits, but telling. As the Prince had fled Buckkeep to Galekeep, so he might, when driven from Galekeep, go to another Wit-friendly holding. These two lived to the south. The Prince’s trail led north, but that did not mean he would not circle back.

I noticed another thing as well. Lady Bresinga’s eyes came often to settle on me, and I did not think she was admiring my gaudy garments. She looked like a woman trying to recall something. I was almost certain I had never met her in my other life as FitzChivalry. But to be almost certain of something means that there is always a squirming of doubt in the back of the mind. For a time, I kept my head slightly lowered and my eyes cast to one side. Only after I observed the others did I realize what a wolf-like attitude that was. When next she looked at me, I met her eyes boldly and stared back. I was not so bold as to smile at her, but I deliberately widened my eyes, feigning an interest in her. Her affront at Lord Golden’s bold servant was plain. Catlike, she unfocused her eyes and looked through me. In that glance, I was finally sure of her. Old Blood.

I wondered if she was the woman that had captivated my prince’s fancy. Certainly, she was attractive. Her full lips hinted at sensuality. Dutiful would not be the first young man to fall victim to a knowledgeable older woman. Had that been her aim in giving the cat to him? To seduce him and win his young heart, so that no matter where he was wed, she would always keep his heart? It would explain why he had come here when he had fled Buckkeep. But, I reflected, it would not explain his unfulfilled passion. No. If she had intended to seduce the Prince, she would have moved swiftly to entangle him as deeply as possible. There was something else here, something strange, as the wolf had said.

A brief flip of Lord Golden’s hand at the end of the meal dismissed me. I went, but reluctantly. I wanted to witness whatever reactions his abominable behaviour might bring. The diners would move on to other amusements now; music, games of chance, and conversation. I went to the kitchen, and again was offered a choice of the feast’s remains. There had been a piglet tonight, cooked whole, and plenty of tender meat and crisp skin lay scattered among the bones on the platter. A sauce of sour apples and berries had accompanied it. This, with bread and soft white cheese and several mugs of ale made a more than adequate meal. It might have been more enjoyable if Lord Golden’s man had not been taken to task over his master’s behaviour.

Civil and Sydel, I was informed sternly by Lebven, had been affianced almost from birth. Well, if not formally, at least it was common knowledge among all the folk of both households that the two were intended for one another. His mother’s house and Lord Grayling’s family had always been on the best of terms, and the two estates were adjacent to one another. Why should not Grayling’s daughter benefit from Lady Bresinga’s rapid rise in the world? Old friends should help one another. What was my master thinking, to come between them? Could his intentions be honourable? Would he steal young Civil’s bride from him, to bear her off to court and wealth beyond her station? Did he womanize at Buckkeep, was he but toying with her affections? Was he good with a sword? For it was well known that Civil had a temper, and hospitality or no, the boy might challenge him over Sydel.

To all of this I professed ignorance. I was newly come to Lord Golden’s service, and to the court at Buckkeep. I knew little of my master’s ways or temperament yet. I was as curious as they were as to what would befall them all. The excitement that Golden had stirred was such that I could not steer the conversation to Dutiful or Old Blood or any useful topic. I lingered only long enough to purloin a large chunk of meat. Then I pleaded my duties and departed the kitchen for my room, frustrated of knowledge and deeply concerned for Lord Golden’s welfare. As soon as I was back in our rooms, I changed back into my humbler blue clothing. The green jerkin had rather suffered from concealing the meat. Then I sat down to await my master’s return. Anxiety roiled through me. If he carried this role too far, he might indeed find himself facing young Civil’s blade. I doubted that Lord Golden was any better with a sword than the Fool had been. It would, of course, be scandalous if it came to bloodshed, but young men in Civil’s position were not inclined to worry about such niceties.

The depths of the night had passed and we were venturing towards the shallows of dawn when there was a tap at the door. A dour-faced maid informed me that my master required my assistance. Heart in mouth, I followed her, to discover Lord Golden senseless with drink on a bench in a parlour. He sprawled there like a cast-off garment. If other folk had witnessed his collapse, they had left. Even the maid gave a small toss of her head as she abandoned me to tend to him. As soon as she left, I half-expected him to rouse and tip me a wink that this was all a sham. He did not.

I hauled him to his feet but even that did not stir him. I could either drag him or carry him. I resorted to the undignified expediency of slinging him over my shoulder and toting him back to his chamber like a sack of grain. I dumped him unceremoniously onto the bed, and fastened the door behind us. Then I dragged off his boots and shook him out of his jacket. As he fell back onto the bed, he said, ‘Well, I did it. I’m certain of it. I’ll apologize tomorrow, most abjectly, to Lady Bresinga. Then we’ll leave immediately. And all will be relieved to see us go. No one will follow us, no one will suspect we track the Prince.’ His voice wavered towards the end of this speech. He still had not opened his eyes. Then, in a strained voice he added, ‘I think I’m going to vomit.’

I brought him the washbasin and set it on the bed next to him. He crooked an arm around it as if it were a doll. ‘What, exactly, did you do?’ I demanded.

‘Oh, Eda, make it all stand still.’ He clenched his eyes tightly and spoke. ‘I kissed him. I knew that would do it.’

‘You kissed Sydel? Civil’s intended?’

‘No,’ he groaned, and I knew a short-lived moment of relief. ‘I kissed Civil.’

‘What?’

‘I had gone to piss. When I came back, he was waiting for me outside the parlour where the others were gaming. He grabbed my arm and all but dragged me into a sitting room where he confronted me. What were my intentions towards Sydel? Did not I grasp that they had an understanding?’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said–’ He paused abruptly and his eyes grew round. He leaned towards the basin, but after a moment he only burped gassily and lay back. He groaned, then continued: ‘I said I understood their understanding, and hoped that perhaps we could come to an understanding of our own. I clasped his hand in mine. I said I saw no difficulty. That Sydel was a lovely girl, as lovely a girl as he was a boy, and that I hoped we might all become close and loving friends.’

‘And then you kissed him?’ I was incredulous.

Lord Golden screwed his eyes shut. ‘He seemed a bit naïve. I wanted to be sure he took the fullness of my meaning.’

‘Eda and El in a tangle,’ I swore. I stood up and he groaned as the bed moved beneath him. I walked to the window and stared out. ‘How could you?’ I demanded of him.

He took a breath and strained mockery crept into his voice. ‘Oh, please, beloved. You needn’t be jealous. It was the most brief and chaste kiss you can imagine.’

‘Oh, Fool,’ I rebuked him. How could he make a jest of something like this?

‘It wasn’t even on the mouth. Just a warm press of my lips to the palm of his hand, a single flick of my tongue.’ He smiled feebly. ‘He snatched it away as if I had branded him.’ Suddenly he hiccuped loudly and then made a sour face. ‘You’re dismissed. To your room, Badgerlock. I’ve no more need of you tonight.’

‘Are you certain?’

He nodded, a short vehement nod. ‘Go away,’ he said plainly. ‘If I’m going to puke, I don’t want you watching me.’

I understood his need to preserve that much dignity. He had little enough left. I retreated to my room and shut the door. I busied myself with packing my things. A short time later, when I heard the sounds of his misery, I did not go to him. Some things a man should do alone.

I did not sleep well. I longed to touch minds with my wolf, but dared not allow myself that comfort. Necessary they might be, yet I still felt dirtied by the Fool’s political manipulations. I longed to live the direct and clean life of a wolf. Towards dawn, I came out of a doze to the sound of the Fool moving about in his chamber. I found him sitting at the small table looking haggard. Somehow the fresh clothing he had donned only made him look the more rumpled. Even his hair looked sweaty and dishevelled. He had a little box in front of him and a mirror. As I watched, puzzled, he dipped his finger in something and wiped it under his eye. The shadow there deepened to a pouch. Then he sighed. ‘I hate what I did last night.’

I did not need him to explain. I tried to ease his conscience. ‘Perhaps it was a kindness. Perhaps it is better they discovered, before they wed, that Sydel’s heart is not as constant as Civil believed.’

He shook his head, refusing the comfort. ‘If I had not led, she would not have followed in that dance. Her first sallies were but a girl’s coquetry. I think it as instinctive for a girl to flirt as it is for boys to show off their muscles and daring. Girls of her age are like little kittens pouncing at grass to practise their hunting skills. They do not yet know the meaning of the motions they make.’ He sighed, and went back to his little box of coloured powders.

Silently I watched as he not only made himself look more ill, but added a decade to his years by delineating the lines in his face.

‘Do you think that’s necessary?’ I asked him as he snapped the little box shut and handed it to me. I tucked it back into his case, which was, I noted, already neatly packed for our journey.

‘I do. I wish to be sure that the glamour I put over Sydel is completely broken before I depart. Let her see me as substantially older than she is, and dissolute. She will wonder what she was thinking, and flee back to Civil. I hope he will have her. It would be better than her pining after me.’ He gave a melodramatic sigh, but I knew his ridicule was for himself. This morning, Lord Golden’s façade was fractured and the Fool shone forth from the cracks.

‘A glamour?’ I asked sceptically.

‘Of course. No one is invulnerable to me if I choose to enchant them. No one but you, that is.’ He rolled his eyes at me dolorously. ‘But there is no time for me to mourn that. Now you must go forth and make it known that I wish a private moment with Lady Bresinga. Then go and tap at Laurel’s door and let her know that we ride soon.’

By the time I returned from the second half of my errand, Lord Golden had departed the room to his meeting with Lady Bresinga. It was a very brief meeting, and when he returned, he indicated that I should take our bags down immediately. He did not stop to eat anything, but I had already purloined all the fruit that had been in our room. We would survive, and he was probably wiser to avoid food for a time yet.

Our horses were brought round. Lady Bresinga descended to wish us a chill farewell. Not even the servants deigned to notice our departure. Lord Golden offered yet another apology, attributing much of his behaviour to the fine quality of her wines. If this flattery was meant to appease her, it failed. We rode slowly from her courtyard, Lord Golden setting a very easy pace for us. At the foot of the hill, we turned towards the ferry. Only when the line of trees along the road hid us from the manor’s view did he halt and ask me, ‘Which way?’

Laurel had been riding in a mortified silence. She had said nothing, but I gathered that in humiliating himself, Lord Golden had daubed her with the same brush. Now she looked shocked as I said, ‘This way,’ and turned Myblack off the road and into the sun dappled forest.

‘Don’t wait for us,’ he told me brusquely. ‘Go as swiftly as you can to close the gap. We’ll catch up as we may, though my poor head may hold us back a bit. The worry now is that we may lose his trail. I am certain Laurel can follow yours. Go now.’

I wanted no more than that. I saw the purpose of his order at once. It would allow me to be alone when I overtook Nighteyes and to confer with him privately. I nodded once and set my heels to Myblack. She sprang forwards willingly, and I let my heart lead us. I did not bother looping back to where I had last seen the wolf, but reined her north and east to where I knew he was today. I let a tiny thread of my awareness tug at him to let him know I was coming and felt the twitch of his response. I urged Myblack to greater speed.

Nighteyes had covered a surprising amount of ground. I did not let myself worry about whether or not Laurel could track me easily. My drive now was to rejoin my wolf, see that he was well, and then to push on in pursuit of the Prince. My uneasiness for him had been steadily swelling.

The day was hot, summer’s last sprawl across the land, and the sun beat down on us even through the thin shade of the trees. The dry air seemed laden with dust that sucked the moisture from my mouth and clung to my eyelashes. I did not bother trying to find trails but pushed Myblack through the forested hills and down into the dales between them. Lusher vegetation showed where creeks sometimes ran, but their waters seeped under the surface now. Twice we crossed streams, and each time I stopped to let Myblack water and to drink deeply myself. Then we pushed on.

By early afternoon, I had an indefinable conviction that Nighteyes was near. Before I saw him or scented him, I began to get the strange feeling that I had seen this terrain before, that something about those trees ahead was oddly familiar. I pulled in the horse and slowly scanned the hills around me, only to have him step out from a patch of alder brush scarce a stone’s throw away. Myblack flinched and then focused her full attention on him. I set a hand to her neck. Calm. No need to fear. Calm.

Too tired and not hungry enough to chase you, Nighteyes added helpfully.

‘I brought you meat.’

I know. I smell it.

I had scarcely unwrapped it before it was gone. I wanted to look at his injuries, but knew better than to bother him with that while he was eating. And as soon as he had finished eating, he gave himself a shake. Let’s go.

Let me look at …

No. Maybe tonight. But while they have light, they travel, and so must we. They already have a good start on us, and the dry soil holds their scents poorly. Let’s go.

He was right about tracking them. The dry ground resisted both print and scent. Before the afternoon was over, we had twice been stymied, and had only rediscovered their trail by casting for it in a wide circle. The shadows were growing long when Lord Golden and Laurel caught up with us. ‘I see your dog has found us again,’ she observed wryly, and I could think of nothing to say in reply.

‘Lord Golden tells me that you track the Prince, that a serving girl told you the Prince had fled north?’ There was question in her voice, and her mouth was flat with disapproval. I did not know if she hoped to catch Lord Golden in a lie, or if I was supposed to have seduced someone for the information.

‘She didn’t know he was the Prince. She simply called him a lad with a hunting cat.’ I tried to think of something that would divert her from more questions. ‘The trail is poor. Any help you could give me would be welcome.’

My ruse worked. She proved an able tracker. As the light went out of the day, she picked up small signs that I might have missed, and thus we kept following them long past the hour when I would have said the light was too poor. We came to a creek where they had stopped to water. The spoor of two men, two horses and the cat were all plain in the damp soil at the water’s edge. There we decided to make camp for the night. ‘It’s better to stop tracking while we know we are on the right trail than to wait until we are not certain, and have confused things with our own tracks. Early tomorrow we will start again,’ Laurel announced.

We made a bare camp, little more than a tiny fire and our blankets beside it. Food was in short supply, but at least we had plenty of water. The fruit I had taken from our room was warm and bruised but welcome. Laurel carried, from habit, some twists of dried meat and travel bread. There was precious little of it, and she unwittingly bought much good favour from me when she announced, ‘We don’t need the meat as much as the dog does. We have both fruit and bread.’ Another woman, I thought, might have ignored the wolf’s hunger and hoarded the meat for the next day. Nighteyes, for his part, deigned to take it from her hand. And afterwards, when I insisted on looking at his scratches, he did not snarl when she joined me, though she was wise enough not to attempt to touch him. As I had suspected, he had licked most of the unguent away. The scratches were scabbed closed and the flesh beside them did not look too angry. I decided against putting more ointment on them. As I put the unused pot away, Laurel nodded her head in quiet agreement. ‘Better dry and closed than greased too well and the scab softened too much.’

Lord Golden had already stretched out on his blanket. I surmised that neither his head nor his belly were yet calm. He had spoken little throughout our camp-making and sparse meal. In the gathering dark, I could not tell if his eyes were closed or if he stared up at the sky.

‘Well, I suppose he has the right of it,’ I said, gesturing at him. ‘Early to bed, and an early start tomorrow. Perhaps, with luck, we’ll overtake them.’

I think Laurel assumed Lord Golden was already asleep. She lowered her voice. ‘It will take some hard riding, as well as a measure of luck. They ride assuredly, knowing where they are bound, while we must go carefully lest we lose them.’ Laurel cocked her head and studied me across the small fire. ‘How did you know when to leave the road to find their trail?’

I took a breath and chose a lie at random. ‘Luck,’ I replied quietly. ‘I had a feeling they would be going in this direction, and when I struck their trail, we followed it.’

‘And your dog had the same feeling, which is why he had gone ahead of you?’

I just looked at her. The words rose to my tongue without my volition. ‘Maybe I’m Witted.’

‘Oh, yes,’ she replied sarcastically. ‘And that is why the Queen trusts you to go after her son. Because you are one of those she most fears. You are not Witted, Tom Badgerlock. I’ve known Witted folk before; I’ve endured their disdain and snubs for folks who do not share their magic. Where I grew up, there were plenty of them, and in that place and time, they did little to conceal it. You are no more Witted than I am, though you are one of the best trackers I’ve ever ridden with.’

I did not thank her for the compliment. ‘Tell me about the Witted folk you grew up with,’ I suggested. I smoothed a wrinkle out of my blanket and lay back on top of it. I closed my eyes almost all the way, as if I were only mildly interested in her words. The moon, a paring less than full, looked down at us through the trees. At the edge of the fire’s light, Nighteyes was diligently licking himself. Laurel fussed for a moment with her own blanket, tossing small stones out from under it. Then she smoothed it to the earth and lay back on it. She was silent for a moment or two and I did not think she was going to answer me.

Then, ‘Oh, they were not so bad. Not like the tales folk tell. They did not turn into bears or deer or seals at the light of the full moon, nor did they eat raw meat and steal children. Still, they were bad enough.’

‘How?’

‘Oh,’ she hesitated. ‘It just was not fair,’ she said at last, with a sigh. ‘Imagine never being sure that you were alone, for some little bird or lurking fox might carry the eyes and ears of your neighbour. They took full advantage of their Wit, for their animal partners forever told them where the hunting was best or the berries first ripened.’

‘Were they that open that they were Witted? Never have I heard of such a village.’

‘It was not that they were open about what they were, so much as that I was excluded for what I was not. Children are not subtle.’

The bitterness of her words shocked me. I recalled, abruptly, how the rest of Galen’s coterie had treated me with disdain when I could not seem to master the Skill. I tried to imagine growing up amidst such snubbing. Then a thought intruded. ‘I thought your father was Huntsman for Lord Sitswell. Did not you grow up on his estate, then?’ I wanted to know where this place was, where Witted ones were so common their children had come to expect it of their playmates.

‘Oh. Well, but that came later, you see.’

I was not sure if she lied then, or if she had lied earlier, only that the untruth hung almost palpably between us. It made an uncomfortable silence. My mind darted amongst the possibilities. That she was Witted, that she was an unWitted child in a family with Witted siblings or parents, that she had made the whole tale up, that all of Lord Sitswell’s manor was riddled with Witted servants. Perhaps Lord Sitswell himself was of the Old Blood. Such speculation was not entirely useless. It prepared the mind to sort whatever other information she might toss my way into the appropriate possibilities. I harked back to an earlier conversation we had had, and found a chance remark that put a chill down my back. She had said she would know these hills well, having spent time not far from Galeton, amongst her mother’s folk. Chade, too, had mentioned something of that. I tried to find a way to renew the conversation.

‘So. You sound as if you do not share the currently fashionable hatred of the Witted. That perhaps you do not wish to see them all burned and cut up.’

‘It’s a filthy habit,’ she said, and the way she said it made me feel as if fire and blade were too small a cure for it. ‘I think that parents who teach their children to indulge it should be whipped. Those that choose to practise it should not marry nor have children. They already have a beast to share their homes and lives. Why should they cheat a woman or a man by taking a spouse? Those who are Witted should have to choose, early in their lives, which they will bind to, an animal or another human. That’s all.’

Her voice had risen on the vehemence of her reply. At her last words, it dropped away, as if she suddenly recalled that Lord Golden was sleeping. ‘Good night, Tom Badgerlock,’ she added belatedly. She tried to soften her tone, perhaps, but it still plainly told me that our talk was over. As if to emphasize it, she rolled on her blanket to put her back to me.

Nighteyes rose with a groan and came stiffly to me. He lay down beside me with a sigh. I let my hand come to rest on his ruff. Our shared thoughts flowed as secretly as our blood.

She knows.

Then you think she is Witted? I asked him.

I think she knows that you are Witted, and I don’t think she likes it much.

For a time, I lay silently mulling that. But she fed you.

Oh, well, I think she likes me. It’s you she’s not sure about.

Go to sleep.

Are you going to reach after them tonight?

I didn’t want to. If I succeeded, it would give me a terrible headache. The mere thought of the pain made me nauseous. Yet if I could touch the Prince, I might gain information that could help us catch up sooner. I should try.

I felt his resignation. Go ahead, then. I’ll be right here.

Nighteyes. When I Skill and afterwards … do you share the pain?

Not exactly. Though it is hard for me to remain apart from it, I can. It just feels cowardly when I do.

It’s not cowardly at all. What is the point of both of us suffering?

He made no answer to me, but I sensed that he reserved some thought on that for himself. Something about my question almost amused him. I lifted my hand from his fur and set it on my chest. Then I closed my eyes, centred myself, and tried for a Skill-trance. Dread of pain kept intruding on my thoughts, pushing awry my carefully-constructed peace. Finally, I managed to find a balancing point and held myself there, somewhere between dreaming and waking. I reached forth into the night.

That night I felt, as I had not in years, the sweetness of the pure connection of the Skill. I reached out and it was as if someone reached back and clasped both my hands in welcome. It was a simple, sweet joining, as comforting as homecoming after a long journey. There was the linking of the Skill, and someone drowsing in a soft bed in a loft under the eaves of a thatched roof. The homely smells of a cottage surrounded me, the lingering smell of a good stew cooked that night, and the honey-tang of a beeswax candle burning late somewhere below. I could hear a man and a woman talking, their voices muted as if they did not want to disturb my rest. I could not make out their words, but I knew I was home and safe and that nothing could harm me there. As our Skill-link faded, I sank deeply into the most peaceful sleep I had known in many a year.

NINETEEN

The Inn

During the years of the Red Ship War, when Prince Regal the Pretender wrongfully claimed to be King of the Six Duchies, he introduced a system of justice he called the King’s Circle. Trial by arms was not unknown in the Six Duchies. It is said that if two men fight before the Witness Stones, the gods themselves look down and reward victory to him whose cause is just. Regal took this idea one step further. In his arenas, accused criminals faced either his King’s Champions or wild beasts. Those who survived were judged to be innocent of the charges against them. Many Witted met their ends in those circles. Yet those who died in these bloody trials were but half of the evil done there. For what was born in those same contests was a public tolerance of violence and mayhem that swiftly became a hunger. These trials became spectacle and amusement as much as judgement. Although one of Kettricken’s first acts as queen and regent for young Dutiful was to put an end to such trials and have the Circles dismantled, no royal decision could quench the bloodlust that Regal’s spectacles had awakened.

I awoke very early the next morning with a sense of well-being and peace. An early morning fog was in the process of burning off. Dew glimmered on my blanket. For a time I gazed unthinking at the sky through the oak branches overhead. I was in a state of mind in which the black pattern against the blue was all that I needed to satisfy me. After a time, when my mind insisted on recognizing the sight before me as tree branches against the sky, I came back to myself and where I was and what I must do.

I had no headache. I could cheerfully have rolled over and slept most of the day away, but I could not decide if I was truly tired or simply wanted to return to the safety of my dreams. I forced myself to sit up.

Nighteyes was gone. The others still slept. I poked up the embers of the fire and fed it before it occurred to me that we had nothing to cook over it. We’d have to tighten our belts and follow the Prince and his companion. With luck, something edible would cross our path.

I drank from the stream and washed my face in the cool water. The day was already warming. As I was drinking, the wolf came back.

Meat? I asked hopefully.

A nest of mice. I didn’t save you any.

That’s all right. I wasn’t that hungry. Yet.

He lapped alongside me for a time, then lifted his muzzle. Where did you go, last night?

I knew what he meant. I’m not sure. But it felt safe.

It was nice. I’m glad you can get to a place like that.

There was wistfulness in his thought. I looked at him more closely. For an instant, I saw him as another might. He was an ageing wolf, grey on his muzzle, flesh sunken on his flanks. His recent encounter with the cat still hindered him. He ignored my concern to stare into the stream. Fish?

I let my annoyance seep into my thought. ‘Not a sign of one,’ I muttered aloud. ‘And there should be. Plenty of plants, midges buzzing. There should be fish here. But there aren’t.’

I felt his mental shrug at how life was. Wake the others. We need to get moving.

He did not want my worry. It was a useless burden to him, an anxiety not to be indulged. When I returned to camp, the others were already stirring. There was little to say. Lord Golden seemed to have recovered from his excesses. No one spoke about the lack of food. Dwelling on it would not change it. Instead, in a remarkably short time, we were in our saddles again and following the Prince’s fading trail. He was moving steadily north. At noon, we found a campfire, the ashes gone cold. The area around the fire was well trampled, as if folk had camped there for several days. The mystery was easily solved. Two trees bore the mark of a picket line. Someone had waited here. When the Prince, the cat, and their companion arrived, they had departed together. North. Laurel and I debated the number of horses in the other party, and finally settled on four. They had picked up two more companions here.

We pressed on, increasing our pace as the multiple tracks were easier to follow. A high overcast came in, and then thickened into clouds. I blessed the dimming of the sun’s harshness, but Nighteyes still panted as he kept pace with us. I watched him with growing concern. I longed to link more tightly with him, to be sure that he did not press on in spite of pain, but while Laurel rode with us, I dared not.

As shadows lengthened and the day began to cool, we came out of the forest and looked down at a wide yellow road crossing our path. From the crest of a hill, we stared down at it with dismay. If the Prince and his fellows had chosen to follow it, tracking might become very difficult.

We reached the edge of the road. Their tracks merged with it. The wolf made a show of casting about, but without much enthusiasm … The Prince’s trail mingled in the thick dry dust with old waggon tracks and softened hoof-prints. Neither imprint nor scent would linger long. An afternoon breeze could erase all trace of their passage.

‘Well,’ Lord Golden observed helpfully. He lifted one eyebrow at me.

I knew what he suggested. Was not this why Chade had sent me? I shut my eyes and took a breath, then I threw myself wide to the Skill without any thought for protecting myself. Where are you? I demanded of the rushing world around me. There might have been a twitch of response but I had no assurance that it was the Prince. After last night, I knew there was something else out there that reacted to my Skill-reaching, something that was not the Prince. I could set my hand to it, almost. I forced myself to shift my attention away from that beckoning harbour and to reach out again for the Prince. But he and the cat eluded me. I do not know how long I sat on Myblack and extended myself to the wide world. Time stands still in such a reaching. I could almost feel the Fool waiting for me; no, I did feel him. A shimmering thread of Skill let me know how he contained his impatience. I sighed and pulled myself back from both the peaceful invitation and my fruitless reaching after the Prince. I had no tidings to give Lord Golden.

I opened my eyes. ‘They were going north. Let’s follow it north.’

‘The road is more northeast than north,’ Lord Golden pointed out.

I shrugged. ‘The other option is southwest,’ I replied.

‘Northeast it is,’ he concurred, and touched his heels to Malta. I followed him, and then glanced back to see what was keeping Laurel. She had a puzzled look on her face and was looking from me to Lord Golden as if perplexed. After a moment, she came after us. I reviewed my most recent interchange with my master and could have kicked both of us. I hadn’t even remembered to call him ‘lord’, let alone kept the proper tone of a servant to his master. Our direction had obviously been my decision. I decided the best course of action was to say nothing at all about it, and hope to make it up with future subservience though my heart sank at that thought, and I admitted to myself just how much I longed for unguarded conversation and companionship.

We rode on through the remainder of the daylight. Lord Golden ostensibly led us, but in reality we followed the road. As the light faded, I began to look for a likely camping spot. Nighteyes seemed to pluck the thought from the air, for he surged ahead of our horses to crest a low rise in the road. When he disappeared over it, I knew he wanted us to follow. ‘Let’s go just a bit further,’ I suggested despite the gathering darkness. And at the top of the hill, we were rewarded with the sparse lights of a little village in the folds of the valley before us. A river wound past it; I could smell it, and the smoke of cook-fires. My stomach awoke from its resignation and growled loudly.

‘There will be an inn down there, I’ll wager,’ Lord Golden announced enthusiastically. ‘Real beds. And we can get provisions for tomorrow.’

‘Dare we ask for word of the Prince?’ Laurel asked. Our weary horses seemed to sense there might be something better than grass and creek water for them tonight. They picked up their pace as they went down the hill. I saw no sign of Nighteyes, but I had not expected to.

‘I’ll make some quiet inquiries,’ I volunteered. I imagined that Nighteyes already was doing that. If they had passed through the village and paused at all, the cat would have left some sign.

With unerring instinct, Lord Golden led us to an inn. It was a grand building for such a small town, built of black stone and boasting a second storey. The hanging signboard chilled my heart. It was the Piebald Prince, neatly divided into his head and four quarters. It was not the first time I had seen him depicted that way; in fact, it was the commonest way to see him, but a sense of foreboding hung over me. If either Golden or Laurel were given pause by the sign, they did not betray it. Light spilled wide from the inn’s open door, and talk and good cheer flowed out with it. I smelled cooking food and Smoke and beer. The level of the laughter and shouted conversation was a pleasant roar. Lord Golden dismounted and told me to take the horses to the hostler. Laurel accompanied him into the noisy common room as I led the animals around to the darkened back of the inn. In a few moments, a door was flung open, and light stabbed out into the dusty innyard. The hostler appeared, wiping his interrupted meal from his lips, and bearing a lantern. He took the horses from me and led them off to the stable. I more felt than saw Nighteyes in the deeper darkness at the corner of the inn. As I approached the inn door, a shadow detached itself and brushed past me. In that brief touch, I knew his thoughts.

They were here. Be cautious. I smell man’s blood in the street in front of this place. And dogs. Usually dogs are here, but not tonight.

He blurred into the night before I could ask him any details. I went in through the back door with an uneasy heart and an empty belly. Inside, the innkeeper informed me that my master had already commanded his finest room, and I was to bring all the bags up. Wearily I turned back to the stables. While I appreciated Lord Golden’s ruse to let me have a good look inside the stables, I was suddenly afflicted with a weariness that could barely be suppressed. Food and sleep. I didn’t even need a bed. I would have been happy to drop where I stood.

The hostler was still putting grain into our horses’ feed-bins. Perhaps because I was there, they got a more generous shake of oats. I saw nothing unusual in the stables. There were three plug-horses of the kind such a place usually kept for hire, and a battered cart. A cow in a byre probably provided the milk for the guests’ porridge. I disapproved of the chickens roosting in the rafters. Their droppings would foul the horses’ food and water, but there was little I could do about it. There were only two other horses stabled there, not enough to be the mounts of those we followed. There were no hunting cats tethered in empty stalls. Well, nothing was ever easy. The hostler was competent at his work, but not talkative, nor even curious. His clothing was pungent with Smoke; I suspected the herbs had mellowed him past caring much about anything. I got our bags and, heavily-laden, made my way back to the inn.

The finest room was up a flight of worn wooden steps. The climb taxed me more than it should have. I knocked at the door, then managed to open it for myself. It was the finest room in the sense that it was the best sitting room at the inn. Lord Golden was enthroned in a cushioned chair at the head of a scarred table. Laurel sat at his right hand. There were mugs in front of them and a large earthenware pitcher. I smelled ale. I managed to set the bags down inside the door instead of just dropping them. Lord Golden deigned to notice me. ‘I’ve ordered food, Tom Badgerlock. And arranged rooms for us. As soon as they’ve made the beds up, they’ll show you where to take the bags. Until then, do be seated, my good man. You’ve well earned your keep today. There’s a mug for you.’

He nodded to a seat at his left, and I took it. Someone had already poured the ale for me. I’m afraid I drained off that first mug without any other thought than that it was sustenance after a long day. It was neither the best nor the worst brew I’d ever tasted, but few draughts had been as welcome as that one. I set the empty mug down on the table and Lord Golden nodded permission at the pitcher. As I refilled our mugs, the food arrived. There was a roast fowl, a large bowl of buttered peas, a meal pudding with treacle and cream, crisp trout on a platter, bread, butter and more ale. Before the serving-boy left, Lord Golden added another request. He had badly bruised his shoulder that morning; would the boy bring him a slab of raw meat from the kitchen to draw the soreness from the swelling? Laurel served Lord Golden and herself and then passed the dishes on to me. We ate in near silence, all of us very intent on the food. In a short time, the fowl and fish had been reduced to bones on the platters. Lord Golden rang for the servants to clear away. They brought a berry pie with clotted cream for a sweet, and more ale. The slab of raw meat came with it. As soon as the servant was gone, Lord Golden neatly wrapped it in his napkin and handed it to me. I wondered with weary gratitude if anyone would notice its later disappearance. A short time later I became aware that I had eaten more than I should have done, and drunk more than was wise. I had that sodden, overly full feeling that is so miserable after one has been hungry all day. Lassitude crept over me. I tried to hide my yawns behind my hand and pay attention to the hushed conversation between Lord Golden and Laurel. Their voices seemed distant, as if a noisy river rushed between them and me.

‘One of us should have a quiet look round,’ Laurel was insisting. ‘Perhaps some questions asked downstairs would discover where they were going, or if they are known around here. It could be they are close by.’

‘Tom?’ Lord Golden prodded me.

‘I already have,’ I said softly. ‘They were here. But they either moved on already, or are at a different inn. If a town this size has more than one inn.’ I leaned back in my chair.

‘Tom?’ Lord Golden asked me with some annoyance. In an aside to Laurel he observed, ‘It’s probably the Smoke. He’s never had any head for it. Just walking through the fumes puts him into a fog.’

I pried open my eyes. ‘Beg pardon?’ I asked. My own voice sounded thick and distant in my ears.

‘How do you know they were here?’ Laurel demanded. Had she asked that before?

I was too tired to think of a good answer. ‘I just do,’ I replied shortly, and then directed my words to Lord Golden as if we had been interrupted. ‘There’s also been blood spilled in the street outside the inn. We should go carefully around here.’

He nodded sagely. ‘I think our wisest course is an early bed and an earlier start tomorrow.’ Without letting Laurel voice any objections, he rang the servants’ bell again. He was told that his rooms were, indeed, ready. Laurel had a tiny room to herself up at the end of the hall. Lord Golden had a more substantial chamber, with room for a cot for his man in it. The maidservant who had come at the bell insisted that she would carry Laurel’s bag up to her chamber for her, so we said goodnight there. I avoided her eyes. I was suddenly tremendously weary, too weary to even attempt our roles. It was all I could do to shoulder a share of our bags and follow the servant to Lord Golden’s rooms. He stayed behind, chatting with the innkeeper about replenishing our travel supplies before we left in the morning.

Our room was at the back of the inn, on the ground floor. I dragged our baggage inside, closed the door behind the departing servant and opened wide the window. I found a nightshirt for Lord Golden and laid it out on his turned-down bed. I put the meat inside my shirt, to take to Nighteyes later. Then I sat down on my bed to await Lord Golden’s return.

I awoke to someone shaking my shoulder gently. ‘Fitz? Are you all right?’

I came up slowly out of my dream. It took a moment or two to recall who I was. In my dream, I had been in another city, a populous, well-lit city. There had been music and many torches and lights. A celebration. I had not been a servant, but was – ‘It’s gone,’ I told the Fool sleepily.

I heard an odd scrabbling noise and then a thump as Nighteyes heaved himself over the windowsill and then dropped into the room. He thrust his nose into my face. I petted him absently. I felt so drowsy. My ears buzzed.

The Fool shook me again. ‘Fitz. Stay awake and talk to me. What’s wrong? Is it the Smoke?’

‘Nothing. It’s just so peaceful. I want to go back to sleep.’ Sleep pulled at me like a retreating tide. I longed to recede with it. Nighteyes poked me again.

Stupid. It’s the black stone, like the Elderling road. You’re getting lost in it again. Come outside.

I forced my eyes open wider. I looked up into the Fool’s concerned face, and then dazedly gazed at the walls that surrounded me. Black stone. Veined with silver. And when I looked at it, I recognized it for what it was, stone scavenged from a much older building. The stones of the inner wall of the room fitted almost seamlessly together, but the outer wall was built more roughly. No, I suddenly knew, that wasn’t completely right. The building predated the town, but it had been a ruin, rebuilt from the same ancient stone. And that ancient stone was memory stone, worked by Elderling hands.

I do not know what the Fool thought as I tottered to my feet. ‘Stones. Memory stone,’ I told him thickly as I groped my way towards the fresh air. I heard his astonished cry when I threw myself out of the window into the dusty innyard. The wolf landed more softly beside me. An instant later, Nighteyes faded into the shadows as someone leaned out of a window and demanded, ‘What goes on there?’

‘It’s my idiot serving-man!’ Lord Golden retorted in disgust. ‘So drunk he has fallen out the window trying to close it for me. Well, let him lie there. Serves the sodden oaf right.’

I lay still in the dust of the innyard and felt the plucking dreams recede. In a moment or two, I would stand and walk further from the stone walls. I just needed a moment or two.

The terrible tiredness that had been burdening me all evening gradually eased. I floated in relief. I stared up into the night sky and felt as if I could rise right up into it. Somewhere a couple was arguing. He was miserable but she was insistent. It was too much trouble to focus on their words, but then they came closer, and I could not avoid overhearing them.

‘I should go home,’ he said. He sounded very young. ‘I should go back to my mother. If I had not left her, none of this would have happened. Arno would still be alive. And those others.’

She inserted her head under his arm, and then rested it on his chest. That’s true. And we would be apart, you forever given to another. Is that truly what you want?

They had drifted closer. With him, I breathed the sweet scent of her, musky and wild. He held her close. The wind blew through my dream of them, tattering the edges. He stroked her fur; her long dark hair threaded through his fingers. ‘It isn’t what I want. But perhaps it is my duty.’

Your duty is to your people. And to me. She wrapped her hand around his forearm. Her fingernails pressed against his flesh like claws. She tugged at him with them. Come on. It is time to get up again. We cannot tarry, we must ride.

He looked down into her green eyes. ‘My love, I must go back. I would be more useful to all of us there. I could speak out, I could press for change. I could …’

We would be apart. Could you stand that?

‘I would find a way for us to be together.’

No! She cuffed his cheek, and her palm rasped against his skin. There was a hint of claws in the gesture. No. They would not understand. They would force us apart. They would kill me, and perhaps you, too. Recall the tale of the Piebald Prince. His royal blood was not enough to protect him. Yours would be no shield to you. A pause, then: I am the only one who truly cares about you. Only I can save you. But I dare not come to you completely until you have proven you are one of us. Always you hold back. Are you ashamed of your Old Blood?

No. Never that.

Then open yourself. Be what you know you are.

He was silent for a long time. ‘I have a duty,’ he said softly. Infinite regret was in his voice.

‘Get him up!’ The man’s voice came from behind me. ‘There’s no time for delay. We need to gain some distance.’ I twisted on the ground to see who spoke but saw no one.

Green eyes stared into his. I could have fallen forever into those eyes. Trust me, she begged him, and he had to do as she requested. Later, you can think of these things. Later you can think of duty. For now, think of living. And of me. Get up.

The Fool took my arm and draped it across his shoulders. ‘Up you come,’ he said persuasively, and heaved me to my feet. He was dressed all in black. More time must have passed than I had thought. Laughter and talk still spilled from the common room of the inn along with light. Once I was up, I found I could walk, but the Fool still insisted on keeping my arm as he guided me to a dark corner of the innyard. I leaned against the rough wood of the stable wall and collected myself.

‘Are you going to be all right?’ the Fool asked me again.

‘I think so.’ The cobwebs were clearing from my mind. But the feel of these cobwebs was more familiar. I felt the familiar twinges of a Skill-headache, but they were less determined than usual. I drew a deep breath. ‘I’ll be all right. But I don’t think I should try to sleep in the inn tonight. It’s built from memory stone, Fool, like the black road. Like the stone in the quarry.’

‘Like the dragon Verity carved,’ he filled in.

I took a deep breath. My head was clearing rapidly. ‘It’s full of memories. That’s so strange, to find stone like that here in Buck. I never supposed the Elderlings had come this far.’

‘Of course they had. Think about it. What do you think the old Witness Stones are, if not Elderling handiwork?’

His words shocked me. Then, it was so obvious that I didn’t waste time agreeing. ‘Yes, but standing stones are one thing. That inn is the rebuilt remains of an Elderling structure. I had never expected to see that here in Buck.’

He was silent for a time. As my eyes adjusted to the deeper darkness where we sheltered, I could see that he was actually chewing at the corner of his thumbnail. After a moment, he realized I was looking at him and snatched his hand away from his mouth. ‘Sometimes I get so caught up in the immediate puzzle that I overlook the pieces of the larger question that are all around us,’ he said as if confessing a fault. ‘So. You are all right now?’

‘I think I’ll be fine. I’ll find an empty stall in the stable and sleep there. If the hostler asks, I’ll tell him I’m in disgrace.’ I turned to go, then thought to ask, ‘Will you be able to get back into the inn, dressed like that?’

‘Just because I sometimes wear the clothes of a nobleman, don’t think I’ve forgotten all the tricks of a tumbler.’ He sounded almost offended. ‘I’ll get back in the way I got out: through the window.’

‘Good. I may take a walk about the town, to “clear my head”. And to see what I can discover. If you can make the opportunity, go to the common room. Stir the gossip-pot and see if you hear anything of strangers with a hunting cat passing through here yesterday.’ I started to add something about bloodshed in the street, but stopped myself. There was little chance it directly related to us.

‘Very well. Fitz. Go carefully.’

‘There’s no need to remind me of that.’

I started to step away from him but he suddenly caught at my arm. ‘Don’t go just yet. I’ve wanted to talk to you all day.’ He abruptly let go of me and crossed his arms on his chest. He took a ragged breath. ‘I did not think this would be so hard. I’ve played so many roles in my life. I thought it would be easy, that it might even be fun to play master to your man. It’s not.’

‘No. It’s hard. But I think it’s wise.’

‘We’ve blundered too many times with Laurel.’

I shrugged helplessly. ‘That is as it is. She knows we were both chosen by the Queen. Perhaps we can leave her in confusion and let her draw her own conclusions. They might be more convincing than anything we could fabricate.’

He cocked his head and smiled. ‘Yes. That tactic pleases me. For now, we shall discover what we can tonight, and plan an early start in the morning.’

We separated at those words. He withdrew into the darkness, vanishing as adeptly as Nighteyes could. I watched for him to cross the innyard but did not see him. I caught one brief glimpse of him as he vaulted back through the darkened window. I did not hear a sound.

Nighteyes pressed heavily against my leg.

What news? I asked him. Our Wit was as silent as the warmth of his body against me.

Bad news. Keep silent and follow.

He took me, not through the main streets of town, but away from the centre of town. I wondered where we were going, but dared not reach forth to touch minds with him. I curbed my Wit, though it dulled my senses not to share the wolf’s awareness. We ended up in a rocky field near the river’s edge. He took me to the edge of it, where large trees grew. The tall dry grasses had been tramped down flat there. I caught a whiff of cooked meat and cold ashes. Then my eyes pieced together the length of rope still hanging from a tree, and the burned-out fire beneath it. I stood very still. The night wind off the river stirred the ashes and suddenly the smell of cooked meat sickened me. I put my hand over the extinguished coals. They were sodden and cold. A fire deliberately set and deliberately drowned. I poked at them, and felt the tell-tale greasiness of dripping fat. They had been more than thorough. Hung, cut in quarters, burned, and the remains thrown in the river.

I moved well away from the fire to the shelter of the trees. I sat down on a big rock there. The wolf came and sat beside me. After a time, I remembered his meat and gave it to him. He ate it without ceremony. I sat with my hand over my mouth, wondering. Coldness moved through me where blood had once flowed. Townsmen had done this, and now they ate and laughed and sang songs at the inn. They had done this to someone just like me. Perhaps to the son of my body.

No. The blood does not smell right. It was not him.

It was a small comfort. It only meant that he had not died today. Did the townsfolk hold him somewhere? Was the lively night at the inn an anticipation of more blood-sport on the morrow?

I became aware of someone coming softly through the night towards us. She came from the direction of the town lights, but did not walk on the road. She came through the trees at the edge of the road, moving near-soundlessly.

Huntingwoman.

Laurel stepped from the shadow of the trees. I watched her as she moved purposely towards the burned patch. As I had earlier, she crouched over it, sniffing, and then touching the ashes.

I stood, making just enough sound to let her know I was there. She flinched, spinning to confront us.

‘How long ago?’ I asked the night.

Laurel sighed out a small breath as she recognized us. Then ‘Just this afternoon,’ she answered quietly. ‘My maid told me about it. Bragged, actually, of how the lad she is to marry was right in the thick of it, getting rid of the Piebald. That’s what they call them in this valley. Piebalds.’

The river wind blew between us. ‘So you came out here …?’

‘To see what was left to be seen. Which isn’t much. I feared it might be our prince, but –’

‘No.’ Nighteyes was leaning heavily against me, and I shared what we both suspected. ‘But I think it was one of his companions.’

‘If you know that much, then you know the others fled.’

I hadn’t known that, but I was shamefully relieved to hear it. ‘Were they pursued?’

‘Yes. And the men who chased them off have not returned yet. Some chased, some stayed to kill the one they had caught. It is planned that the ones who did this,’ and she indicated the rope and the fire circle with a disdainful kick, ‘will ride out in the morning. There is some anxiety that their friends have not returned yet. Tonight they’ll drink, and build up both their courage and anger. Tomorrow they’ll ride.’

‘Then we had best ride out before them, and swifter.’

‘Yes.’ Her glance travelled from me to Nighteyes and back again. We both looked around at the trampled ground and the dangling rope and the burned out-place. It seemed as if there should have been something for us to do, some gesture to make, but if there was, it escaped me.

We walked back to the inn together in near silence. I marked her dark garments and the soft-soled boots she wore, and once again I thought that Queen Kettricken had chosen well. I dirtied the night with a question whose answer I dreaded. ‘Did she tell you many details? How or why they were attacked, if the boy and the cat were with them?’

Laurel drew a deep breath. ‘The one they killed was not a stranger. He was one of their own, and they had suspected him of beast-magic for a long time. The usual stupid stories … that when other lambs died of the scours, his survived. That a man angered him, and after that, the man’s chickens died off. He came to town today with strangers, one a big man on a warhorse, one with a cat riding behind him. The others with him were also known to these folk, boys who had grown up on outlying farms. There are usually dogs at the inn. The innkeeper’s son keeps rabbit-hounds, and he had just returned from the hunt. The dogs were still excited. At the sight of the cat, the dogs went mad. They surrounded the horse, leaping and snapping. The man with the cat – our prince, most likely – drew his blade to defend the cat, and slashed at the hounds, cutting an ear off one. But that was not all he did. He opened his mouth wide, and snarled, hissing like a cat.

‘At the commotion, other men boiled out of the inn. Someone shouted “Piebald!” Another cried for a rope and a torch. The man on the warhorse laughed at them, and put his horse to kicking out at both dogs and men. One man was kicked to the ground by the horse. The mob responded with rocks and curses, and more men came out of the tavern. The Piebalds broke the circle and tried to ride off, but a lucky stone caught one of the riders on the temple and knocked him from his saddle. The mob closed on him, and he yelled at the others to ride. The girl made them all out to be cowards for fleeing, but I suspect that the one they caught delayed the mob so his companions could escape.’

‘He bought the Prince’s life with his own.’

‘So it would seem.’

I was silent for a moment, tallying my facts. They had not denied what they were. None of them had attempted to placate the mob. It was confrontational behaviour, a harbinger of things to come. And one of their company had sacrificed himself, and the others had accepted it as necessary and right. That indicated not only the value they placed on the Prince, but deep loyalty to an organized cause. Had Dutiful been won to their side? I wondered what role these ‘Piebalds’ had assigned to the Prince, and if he concurred in it. Had Dutiful accepted that the man should die for him? Did he ride on, knowing the man they left behind faced an agonizing death? I would have given much to know that. ‘But Dutiful was not recognized as the Prince?’

She shook her head. The night was growing darker around us and I felt more than saw the movement.

‘So. If the others caught up with him, they would not hesitate to kill him.’

‘Even knowing he was the Prince would not delay them. The hatred of the Old Blood runs deep here. They would think they were cleansing the royal line, not destroying it.’

Some small part of me marked that she called them Old Blood now. I did not think I had heard her use the phrase before. ‘Well. I think time becomes even more precious.’

‘We should ride on tonight.’

The very thought made me ache. I no longer had the resilience of youth. In the past fifteen years, I had grown used to regular meals and rest every night. I was tired and sick with dread of what must come when we caught up with the Prince. And my wolf was weary beyond weariness. I knew it was a false strength that moved his limbs now. Soon, his body would demand rest, no matter how hard the circumstances. He needed food and healing time, not to be dragged on tonight.

I’ll keep up. Or you’ll leave me behind and do what you must.

The fatalism in the thought shamed me. The sacrifice was too close to what a young man had done today for a prince. The inarguable truth was that once more I spent all our strength for a king and a cause. The wolf yielded up the days of his life to me for an allegiance he understood only in terms of his love for me. Black Rolf had been right all those years ago. It was wrong of me to use him so. I made a child’s promise to myself that when this was over, I would make it up to him somehow. We would go somewhere he wanted to go, and do something he longed to do.

Our cabin and the fireside. That would be enough for me.

It is yours.

I know.

We returned to the inn by a roundabout path, avoiding the better-travelled roads of the village. In the dark of the innyard, she put her mouth close to my ear. ‘I’ll slip up to my room to pack my things. You wake Lord Golden and let him know that we must ride.’

She disappeared into the shadows near the back door. I made my own entrance through the front, presenting the scowling face of a chastised servant as I hastened through the main room. The hour was late now and the mood more one of brooding than celebration. No one took notice of me. I made my way to our room. Outside the door, the sounds of argument reached me. Lord Golden’s voice was raised in aristocratic fury. ‘Bedbugs, sir! Thick as swarming bees. I’ve most delicate skin. I cannot stay where such vermin thrives!’

Our landlord, garbed in nightshirt and cap and clutching a candle, sounded horrified. ‘Please, Lord Golden, I’ve other bedding, if you would –’

‘No. I shall not spend the night here. Prepare an accounting immediately.’

I knocked on the door. At my entrance, Lord Golden transferred his temper to me. ‘There you are, you worthless scoundrel! Out carousing, I don’t doubt, while I’ve had to pack my own things and yours as well. Well, make yourself useful in some way! Run and knock on Huntswoman Laurel’s door and tell her we must leave immediately. Then roust the hostler and have our horses made ready. I cannot spend the night at an inn infested with vermin!’

I hastened away from the innkeeper’s insistence that he ran a good, clean inn. In a surprisingly short time, we found ourselves outside and ready to ride. I’d saddled our mounts myself; the hostler had not responded to my efforts to roust him. The innkeeper had followed Lord Golden out into the yard, remonstrating that we would find no other inn tonight, but the noble was adamant. He mounted, and without a word to us, stirred Malta to a walk. Laurel and I followed.

For a time, we kept our sedate pace. The moon had risen, but the crowding houses thwarted her light, and the occasional lamplight leaking through shutters made more shadows than illumination for us. Lord Golden’s voice carried softly to both of us. ‘I heard the gossip in the taproom and judged it best we leave immediately. They fled on the road.’

‘By going in the dark, we take a large chance on missing their trail,’ I pointed out.

‘I know. But by waiting, we might arrive too late to do anything but bury him. Besides, none of us could sleep, and this way we go ahead of those who will ride out tomorrow.’

Nighteyes ghosted up to join us. I quested towards him, and as we joined, the night seemed lighter around us. He snorted at our dust, then trotted up to lead the way. Linked by the Wit, he could not hide from me the effort that cost him. I winced but accepted his decision. I nudged Myblack to keep pace with him.

‘Our saddle packs seem bulkier than when we first arrived,’ I observed to the night as Myblack came abreast of Malta.

Lord Golden lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. ‘Blankets. Candles. Anything else that I thought might prove useful to us. I ghosted the kitchens, once I knew that we’d have to be on the road swiftly, so there is bread in that sack as well. And apples. If I’d taken much more than that, it would have been noticed. Try not to crush the loaves.’

‘One would think you two had done this sort of thing before, Lord Golden.’ There was an edge to Laurel’s tone, and just enough query on the honorific to sober us both. When neither of us came up with words, she added, ‘I don’t think it quite fair that I share the risks of this venture, but still go blindfolded between you.’

Lord Golden spoke in his best aristocratic tone. ‘You’re right, Huntswoman. It is not fair, yet that is how it must remain for a time. For unless I am mistaken, we need to put on some speed. As our prince left this town at a gallop, so shall we.’

He acted as he spoke, setting his heels to Malta, who sprang forwards joyously to challenge Myblack for the lead. Laurel was at his side in an instant. Later, my brother. I felt Nighteyes part himself from me, both mentally and physically. He knew he could not keep up with the running horses. He would follow at his own pace and on his own path. That sundering wrenched me, even as I knew it was his choice and the wisest course of action. Naked of him, stripped of his night vision, I rode on, letting Myblack choose her path as we cantered three abreast past the huddled houses.

The village was small. We reached the outskirts swiftly. The moon’s light spilled down the ribbon of road. Malta broke into a gallop, and both the other horses sprang forwards to keep up with her. We passed farmsteads, and fields both harvested and standing. I tried to keep watch for the tracks of running horses leaving the road, but saw nothing. We let the horses run until they wanted to slow down and breathe. As soon as Malta tugged at her bit, Lord Golden let her have her head and we were off again. The two were more of one mind than I had realized. It was his complete trust that gave her such cheeky confidence. We rode through what remained of the night, and Lord Golden set our pace.

As dawn greyed the skies, Laurel spoke my thoughts aloud. ‘At least we have a good start on those who intended to ride out at dawn to see what luck their fellows had in hunting Piebalds. And clearer heads.’

She left unspoken a fear I knew we all shared; that we had lost the Prince’s trail in our haste to follow him. As the strengthening day hid the moon from us, we rode on. Sometimes one has to trust to luck, or to believe in fate as the Fool did.

TWENTY

Stones

There are techniques a man can use to deal with torture. One is to learn to divorce the mind from the body. Half the anguish that a skilled torturer inflicts is not the physical pain, but the victim’s knowledge of the level of damage done. The torturer must walk a fine line if he wishes his victim to talk. If he takes his destruction past what the victim knows can heal, then the victim loses all incentive to talk. He but wishes to plunge more swiftly into death. But if he can hold the torment short of that line, then the torturer can make the victim an accomplice in his own torment. Suspended in pain, the anguish for the victim is wondering how long he can maintain his silence without pushing his tormentor over the line into irrevocable damage. As long as the victim refuses to talk, then the torturer proceeds, venturing closer, ever closer to damage the body cannot repair.

Once a man has been broken by pain, he remains forever a victim. He cannot ever forget that place he has visited, the moment when he decided that he would surrender everything rather than endure more pain. It is a shame no man ever completely recovers from. Some try to drown it by becoming the perpetrator of similar pain, and creating a new victim to bear for them that shame. Cruelty is a skill taught not only by example but by experience of it.

– from the scroll Versaay’s Uses of Pain

As the sun rose, we rode on. Farmsteads, cultivated fields and pastures became less common, and then vanished to be replaced by rocky hillsides and open forest. My anxiety was divided between fear for my wolf and for my young prince. All in all, I had greater faith in my four-legged companion’s ability to take care of himself than I did Dutiful. With a resolution Nighteyes would have approved, I set him out of my thoughts and concentrated on the road beside me. The increasing heat of the day was exacerbated by the thickness of the air. I could feel a storm brewing. A heavy rainfall might take all trace of their trail from the road. Tension chewed at me.

Without speaking of it, Laurel rode close to the left-hand side of the road and I the right. We looked for any sign of horses leaving the road; specifically, we looked for sign of at least three horses, galloping in flight. I knew that if I were fleeing mounted pursuers my first thought would have been to get off the road and take to the woods where there was a better chance of losing them. I assumed the Prince and his companions would do the same.

My fears that we had missed their trail in the dark built, but suddenly Laurel cried out that she had them. I no sooner looked at the marks than I was sure she was right. Here were a plenitude of shod hooves leaving the road, and all in haste. The wide tracks of the great warhorse were unmistakable. I was certain we had discovered where the Prince had left the road with his companions, and where the mob had pursued them.

As the others left the road and followed, I paused and dismounted briefly on the pretence of securing our baggage better to Myblack’s saddle. I used the opportunity to relieve myself at the side of the road, knowing Nighteyes would be seeking sign of my passage.

Mounted again, I swiftly caught up with the others. A darkness gathered at the far horizon. We heard several long rumbling threats of thunder in the distance. The trampled path of the pursuit was easy to follow, and we urged our weary beasts to a canter as we followed it. Over two open hills of grass and scrub we followed them. As we ascended the third hill, a forest of oak and alder came down to meet us. There we caught up with the pursuers. There were half a dozen of them, sprawled in the tall grass in the shadows of the trees.

Their ambushers had killed their mounts and the dogs as well. It was a wise thing to do; riderless horses returning to the village would have brought out the pursuit much sooner. Yet the act sickened me, the more so because it had been done by those of Old Blood. It seemed ruthless in a way that frightened me. The horses had done nothing to deserve death. What sort of folk were these that the Prince rode with now?

Laurel covered her mouth and nose with her hand and held it there. She did not dismount. Lord Golden looked tired and sickened, but he dismounted alongside me. Together we moved among the dead, inspecting them. They were all young men, just at the age to be caught up in such madness. Yesterday afternoon, they had leapt onto their horses and ridden off to kill some Piebalds. Yesterday evening, they had died. Lying there, they did not look cruel or vicious or even stupid. Only dead.

‘There were archers in those trees,’ I decided. ‘And they were waiting here. I think the Prince’s party rode through, relying on folk that already were in position here to protect them.’ I had found but one broken arrow, cast aside. The others had been frugally and coolly recovered from the bodies.

‘That is not the mark of an arrow.’ Lord Golden pointed out a body that lay apart from the others. There were deep puncture wounds in his throat. Powerful clawed hind legs had disembowelled him. His guts buzzed and clustering flies covered the look of horror in his eyes.

‘Look at the dogs. Cats attacked them as well. All the Piebalds rounded and stood together here, and killed those who followed.’

‘And then they rode on.’

‘Yes.’ Had the Prince’s cat killed this man? Had their minds been joined as the cat killed?

‘How many do you think we follow now?’

Laurel had ridden a little way ahead. I suspected she did so to be away from the bloating bodies as much as to study the trail. I didn’t blame her. Now she called back in a low voice, ‘I make it at least eight that we follow now.’

‘And follow we must,’ Lord Golden said. ‘Immediately.’

Laurel nodded. ‘There will be others from the village riding out by now, wondering why these men have not returned. When they find these bodies, their fury will drive them mad. The Prince must be extracted before these two groups clash.’

Her words made it sound so simple. I went back to Myblack, who annoyed me by sidling away twice before I could catch her reins. She wanted schooling but now was not the time for it. I reminded myself that blood will unnerve the calmest animal, and that patience with her now would pay great dividends later. ‘A different rider would give you a fist between the ears for that,’ I told her mildly after I was mounted.

Her shiver of apprehension surprised me. Evidently she was more aware of me than I supposed. ‘Don’t worry. I don’t do things like that,’ I reassured her. Horselike, she ignored my calming remark. Thunder rolled again in the distance and she laid her ears back flat.

I think it bothered all of us to ride away and leave those bodies swelling in the heat. Realistically, it was the wise thing to do. Their fellows would find them soon enough, and to them should fall the burying. The delay it would cause them would work to our good.

Wise or not, it felt wrong.

The tracks we followed now were the deep cuts of hard-ridden horses. The soil under the forest roof was moister and held the trail better. At first, they had ridden for distance and speed, and a child could have followed their marks. But after a time, the trail descended into a ravine and followed a twisting stream. I rode with my eyes on the trees overhead, trusting Myblack to follow Malta’s lead as I watched for possible ambush. An unspoken concern occupied my mind. The Piebalds the Prince rode with seemed very organized, almost to a military level. This was the second group of men who had waited for the Prince, and then ridden on with him. At least one member of the party had not hesitated to sacrifice his life for the others, nor had they scrupled at slaughtering all those who followed them. Their readiness and ruthlessness bespoke a great determination to keep the Prince and bear him on to whatever destination they had in mind. Retrieving him was very likely beyond our abilities, yet I could discover no alternatives save to follow them. Sending Laurel back to Buckkeep to fetch the guard was not feasible. By the time she returned, it would be too late. We would lose not only time, but the secrecy of our mission.

The ravine widened and became a narrow valley. Our quarry left the stream. Before we departed it, we paused briefly to refill waterskins and share out a bit of the Fool’s purloined bread and some apples. I bought a bit of Myblack’s favour with the apple core. Then we were up and off again. The long afternoon wore on. None of us had spoken much. There was little to say unless we worried out loud. Danger rode behind us as well. In either direction we were outnumbered, and I badly missed my wolf at my side.

The trail left the valley floor and wound up into the hills. The trees thinned and the terrain became rocky. The hard earth made tracking more difficult, and we went more slowly. We passed the stony foundations of a small village, long abandoned. We rode past odd hummocky formations that jutted from the boulder-strewn hillside. Lord Golden saw me looking at them and said quietly, ‘Graves.’

‘Too big,’ I protested.

‘Not for those folk. They built stone chambers to hold their dead, and often entire families were interred in them as they died.’

I looked curiously back at them. Tall dead grass waved on the mounds. If there was stone beneath that sod, it was well covered. ‘How do you know such things?’ I demanded of him.

He didn’t meet my eyes. ‘I just do, Badgerlock. Put it down to the advantages of an aristocratic education.’

‘I’ve heard tales of these sorts of places,’ Laurel put in, her voice hushed. ‘They say tall thin ghosts rise from those mounds sometimes, to capture straying children and…Oh, Eda save us. Look. The standing stone from the same tales.’

I lifted my eyes to follow her pointing finger. A shiver walked up my back.

Black and gleaming, the stone stood twice as tall as a man did. Silver veined it. No moss clung to it. The inland breezes had been kinder to it than the salt-heavy storm winds that had weathered the Witness Stones near Buckkeep. At this distance, I could not see what signs were carved into its sides, but I knew they would be there. This stone pillar was kin to the Witness Stone and to the black pillar that had once transported me to the Elderling City. I stared at it, and knew it had been cut from the same quarry that had birthed Verity’s dragon. Had magic or muscle borne it so far from that place to this?

‘Do the graves go with the stone?’ I asked Lord Golden.

‘Things that are next to each other are not always related to one another,’ he observed smoothly, and I knew he evaded my question. I turned slightly in the saddle to ask Laurel, ‘What does the legend say about the stone?’

She shrugged one shoulder and smiled, but I think the intensity of my question made her uneasy. ‘There are lots of tales, but most have the same spine.’ She drew a breath. ‘A straying child or an idle shepherd or lovers who have run away from forbidding parents come to the mounds. In most tales they sit down beside them to rest, or to find a bit of shade on a hot day. Then the ghosts rise from the mounds, and lead them to the standing stone. And they follow the ghost inside, to a different world. Some say they never come back. Some say they come back aged and old after being gone but a night, but others say the opposite: that a hundred years later, the lovers came back, hand in hand, as young as ever, to find their quarrelling parents long dead and that they are free to wed.’

I had my own opinion of such tales, but did not voice them. Once I had stepped through such a pillar, to find myself in a distant dead city. Once the black stone walls of that long-dead city had spoken to me, and the city had sprung to life around me. Monoliths and cities of black stone were the work of the Elderlings, long perished from the world. I had believed the Elderlings had been denizens of a far realm, deep in the mountains behind Kettricken’s Mountain Kingdom. Twice now I had seen evidence that they had walked these Six Duchies hills as well. But how many summers ago?

I tried to catch Lord Golden’s eye, but he stared straight ahead and it seemed to me that he hastened his horse on. I knew by the set of his mouth that any question I asked him would be answered with another question or with an evasion. I focused my efforts on Laurel.

‘It seems odd that you would hear tales of this place in Farrow.’

She gave that small shrug again. ‘The tales I heard were of a similar place in Farrow. And I told you. My mother’s family came from a place not far from the Bresinga holdings. We often visited, when she was still alive. But I’d wager that the folk around here tell the same sort of tales about those mounds and that pillar. If any folk do live around here.’

That seemed unlikely as the day wore on. The further we rode on, the wilder the country became. The horizon darkened and the storm muttered threats but came no nearer. If these valleys had ever known the plough, or these hills ever nurtured pasturing kine, they had forgotten it these many years. The earth was dry, stones thrusting out amongst the clots of dried up grasses and scrubby brush. Chirring insects and birdcalls were the only signs of animal life. The trail became more difficult to follow and perforce we went more slowly. Often I glanced back behind us. Our tracks on top of the tracks we followed would make it easier for our pursuers to catch up with us, but I could think of no alternative.

The constant hum of the insects suddenly hushed off to our left. I turned towards it, my heart in my mouth, but an instant later I felt my brother’s presence. Two breaths, and I could see him. As always I marvelled at how well the wolf could hide himself even in the scantiest of cover. As he drew closer, my gladness at seeing him turned to dismay. He trotted determinedly, head down, and his tongue hung nearly to his knees. Without a word to the others, I pulled up Myblack and dismounted, taking down my waterskin. He came to me, to drink water from my cupped hands.

How did you catch up so swiftly?

You follow tracks, going slowly to find your way. I followed my heart. Where your path has wound through these hills, mine brought me straight to you, over terrain a horse would not relish.

Oh, my brother.

No time to pity me. I came to bring you warning. You are followed. I passed those who come behind you. They stopped at the bodies. They were enraged, shouting to the skies. Their anger will delay them for a time, but when they come on, they will ride fast and furious.

Can you keep up?

I can hide, far more easily than you can. Instead of thinking of what I will do, you should think of what you should do.

There was little enough we could do. I remounted, kicked Myblack and caught up with the others. ‘We should try for more speed.’

Laurel gave me a look, but said nothing. Only a shift in Lord Golden’s posture betrayed he had heard me, but in answer Malta sprang forwards. Myblack suddenly decided she would not be outdone. She leapt forwards, and in four strides we led the way. I kept my eyes on the ground as we hurried along. It looked as if the Prince and his fellows had made for the shelter of some trees; I applauded their decision. I looked forwards to gaining the cover. I urged a bit more speed from Myblack and led us all directly into the ambush.

A mental shout from Nighteyes prompted me to rein to one side. Laurel took the arrow, dropping to the earth with a cry. The shot had been intended for me. Fury and horror blazed up in me and I rode Myblack straight at the stand of trees. My luck was that there was only one archer, and he had not had time to nock another arrow. As we passed under the downsweeping branches, I stood up in my stirrups, miraculously caught a firm hold and pulled myself up on the branch. The archer was trying to swing his arm to bring the arrow to bear on me, but the intervening small branches were hampering him. There was no time to think about consequences. I launched myself at him, springing like a wolf. We fell in a tangle of two men and the bow. A projecting branch nearly broke my shoulder without breaking our fall. It turned us in the air. We landed with the young archer on top of me.

The impact slammed the air out of me. I could think but not act. Nighteyes saved me the need. He dashed in, a rush of claws and teeth that swept the youth off my body. I felt our attacker’s surprised attempt at a repel against Nighteyes. I think he was too shocked to put much strength into it. I lay on the earth as they fought beside me, trying frantically to pull air into my lungs. He swung a fist but Nighteyes dodged and seized his passing wrist. The archer shrieked and launched a wild kick at the wolf. I felt its stunning impact. Nighteyes kept his hold but lost the strength in it. As the man wrenched his torn wrist from the wolf’s jaws, I found enough breath to act.

From where I lay, I kicked the archer in the head. I flung myself on top of the man. My hands found his throat as Nighteyes seized his right calf in his jaws and hung on. The man flopped wildly between us but could not escape. Nighteyes worried his leg. I squeezed his throat and held on until I felt his struggles cease. Even then, I kept a grip on his throat with one hand as my other found my belt knife. The entire world had shrunk to a reddened circle that was my vision of his face.

‘… kill him! Don’t kill him! Don’t kill him!’

Lord Golden’s shouts penetrated my mind finally as I held the knife to our attacker’s throat. I had never been less inclined to listen. Yet as the red haze of battle faded from my vision, I found myself looking down at a boy little older than Hap. His blue eyes stood out in their sockets, both in horror of death and for lack of air. Something in our fall had scraped the side of his face and blood stood out in fine rows on his cheek. I loosened my grip and Nighteyes dropped his leg. But still I straddled his chest and held my knife to his throat. I was not at all sentimental as to the innocence of young boys. We’d already seen this one’s bow-work. He would as soon kill me as not. I kept my gaze on him as I asked the Fool, ‘Is Laurel dead?’

‘Scarcely!’ The incensed voice was female. Laurel staggered over to us. A glance showed me her hand clamped tight to the point of her shoulder. Blood was leaking through her fingers. She had already pulled the arrow out.

‘Did you get the head out?’ I asked quickly.

‘I would not have pulled it out if I hadn’t been sure I could get the whole thing,’ she replied waspishly. Pain did not improve her temperament. She was pale but two bright spots of colour stood on her cheeks. She looked down at the boy I straddled and her eyes went very wide. I heard her take a ragged breath.

Nighteyes stood beside me, panting heavily. We should get out of here. The thought was sluggish with pain. Others may come. Those who follow or those who went ahead. I saw the boy’s brow furrow.

I glanced at Laurel. ‘Can you ride as you are? Because we must leave here. We need to question him, but this isn’t the time. We don’t want to be caught by those who follow, or by his friends coming back for him.’

I could tell by her eyes that she didn’t know the answer to my question but she lied bravely. ‘I can ride. Let’s go. I, too, have questions I’d like to ask this one.’ The archer stared at her, horror-stricken at the venom in her voice. He suddenly bucked under me, trying to escape. I backhanded him with my free hand. ‘Don’t try that again. It’s much easier for me to kill you than drag you along.’

He knew I spoke truth. His eyes went to Lord Golden and then to Laurel before his gaze came back to me. He peered up at me, blood leaking from his nose and I recognized his shocked look. This was a young man who had killed, but never before been in imminent danger of being killed. I felt oddly qualified to introduce him to the sensation. No doubt I had once worn that same expression.

‘On your feet.’ Fifteen years ago, I would have backed up the command by hauling him upright. Now I kept a grip on his shirt front but let him stand up himself. I was short of breath after our tussle, and not inclined to spend my reserves on a show of strength. Nighteyes lay down on the moss beneath the tree, unabashedly panting.

Disappear, I suggested to him.

In a moment.

The archer stared from me to my wolf and back again, confusion growing in his eyes. I refused to meet his gaze. Instead, I cut the leather thong that fastened the collar of his shirt. He flinched as my knife blade tugged through it. I jerked the leather loose, and roughly turned him. ‘Your hands,’ I demanded, and without quibbling, he put them behind him. The fight seemed to have gone out of him. The teethmarks in his arm were still bleeding. I tied his wrists tightly together. I completed my task and glanced up to find Laurel glowering at my prisoner. Obviously, she was taking the attack personally. Perhaps no one had ever tried to kill her before. The first time is always a memorable experience.

Lord Golden assisted Laurel into the saddle. I knew she wanted to refuse his help, but didn’t dare. Missing her mount would be more humiliating than accepting his support. That left Myblack to carry my captive and me. Neither my horse nor I were happy with it. I picked up the archer’s bow, and after a moment’s hesitation, flung it up into the tree where it snagged and hung. With luck, no one passing here would happen to glance up and see it. From the way he stared after it, I knew it had been precious to him.

I took up Myblack’s reins. ‘I’m going to mount,’ I told my captive. ‘Then I’m going to reach down and pull you up behind me. If you don’t cooperate, I’m going to knock you cold and leave you for those others. You know the ones I mean. The ones you thought we were, the killers from the village.’

He moistened his lips. The whole side of his face had started to puff and darken. For the first time, he spoke. ‘You aren’t with them?’

I stared at him coldly. ‘Did you even wonder about that before you shot at me?’ I demanded. I mounted my horse.

‘You were following our trail,’ he pointed out. He looked over at the woman he had shot and his expression was almost stricken. ‘I thought you were the villagers coming to kill us. Truly.’

I rode Myblack over to him and reached down. After an instant’s hesitation, he hitched his shoulder up towards me. I got a firm grip on his upper arm. Myblack snorted and turned in a circle, but after two hops, he managed to get a leg over her. I gave him a moment to settle behind me, and then told him, ‘Sit tight. She’s a tall horse. Throw yourself off her, you’ll likely break a shoulder.’

I glanced back the way we had come. There was still no sign of pursuit, but I had a sense of our luck running out. I looked around. The trail of the Witted led uphill, but I didn’t want to follow them further until I had wrung from this boy whatever he knew. My eyes plotted out a possible ruse. We could go downhill to where a stream probably flowed in winter. The moister soil at the bottom of the hill would take our tracks well. We could follow the old streambed for a time, then leave it. Then up the opposite side and across a rocky hillside and back into cover. It might work. Our tracks would be fresher, but they might just assume they were catching up. We might draw the pursuers off the Prince.

‘This way,’ I announced, and put my plan into action. My horse was not pleased with her double burden. She stepped out awkwardly as if determined to show me this was a bad idea.

‘But the trail…’ Laurel protested as we abandoned the faint tracks we had followed all day.

‘We don’t need their tracks. We’ve got him. He’ll know where they’re headed.’

I felt him draw a breath. Then he said, through gritted teeth, ‘I won’t tell.’

‘Of course you will,’ I assured him. I kicked Myblack at the same time that I asserted to her that she would obey me. Startled, she stepped out, and despite the added weight, she bore us both well. She was a strong and swift horse, but one accustomed to using those traits only as she pleased. We would have to come to terms about that.

I made her move fast down the hill and then pushed her along the stream until we came to a dry watercourse that met it. It was stony and that pleased me. We diverged there, and when I came to a rock-scrabble slope, we went up it. Behind me, the archer hung on with his knees. Myblack seemed to handle the challenge without too much effort. I hoped I was not setting too difficult a pace and course for Laurel. I urged Myblack up the gravelly hill at a steep angle. If I had lured the village mob into following us, I hoped this would present them with some nasty tracking.

At the top of the hill, I paused for the others to catch up. Nighteyes had vanished. I knew he rested now, gathering his strength to come after us. I wanted my wolf at my side, yet I knew he was in less danger by himself than in my company. I scanned the surrounding terrain. Night would be coming on soon, and I wanted us out of sight and in a defensible location, one that overlooked other approaches. Up, I decided. The hill we were on was part of a ridgeline hummocking through the land. Its sister was both higher and steeper, the rocks of her bones showing more clearly.

‘This way,’ I told the others, as if I knew what I was doing, and led them on. We descended briefly into a scantily wooded draw, and then I led them up again, following a dry streambed. Chance and good fortune blessed us. On the next hillside, I encountered a narrow game-trail, obviously made by something smaller and more agile than horses. We followed it. For a large horse, Myblack managed well, but I heard my captive catch his breath several times as the trail edged across the hill’s steep face. I knew Malta would make nothing of this. I dared not look back to see how Laurel was faring. I had to trust Whitecap to bear his mistress along.

My captive dared to speak to me. ‘I am Old Blood.’ He whispered it insistently, as if it should mean something to me.

‘Are you?’ I replied in sarcastic surprise.

‘But you are –’

‘Shut up!’ I cut his words off fiercely. ‘Your magic matters nothing to me. You’re a traitor. Speak again, and I’ll throw you off the horse right now.’

He resumed a stunned silence.

As the path led up and up, I wondered if I had chosen well. The few trees we passed were twisted and gaunt, the leaves hanging limp in the hovering storm’s aura. The flesh of the earth gave way to bony stones. I knew my refuge when I saw it. It was not a true cave, but was more a deep undercut in a cliff. We had to dismount to coax our horses the rest of the way up to it. I led Myblack in. It was cooler beneath the undercut and water oozed from the rockface at the back. Perhaps at some times of the year it had been responsible for carving the undercut, but now it did little more than leave a damp, green streak on the cave floor before it dribbled away down the hillside. There was no feed for the horses. It could not be helped. It offered us the best shelter and it looked defensible.

‘We’ll spend the night here,’ I announced quietly. I wiped sweat from my brow and neck. The storm was lowering and the air thick with the threat of rain. I pointed to a spot near the back of the cavern. ‘Get down and sit there,’ I told my prisoner. He spoke not a word, but sat, staring down at me. I gave him no second chance. I reached up, seized the front of his shirt, and jerked him off the horse. Anger has always multiplied my strength. I let him almost stand, then flung him hard from me, so that he hit the back wall of the cave and then slid down it to sit flat on the floor, half-stunned. ‘There’s worse to come,’ I promised him harshly.

Laurel stared, white-faced and wide-eyed, probably shocked at my taking command. I took her horse from her and Lord Golden helped her ease herself down. My captive showed no inclination to try to flee, and so I ignored him as I unsaddled the horses and set up our makeshift camp. Myblack lipped and then sucked at the traces of water. I scraped away sand to deepen the depression at the bottom of the wall and, gratifyingly, water began to pool there. Lord Golden was seeing to Laurel’s shoulder. Deft as the Fool had always been, he had cut and peeled the clothing back from the injury. Now he held a dampened cloth to it. The blood on the cloth looked dark rather than bright. Their heads were bowed together over it in quiet talk. I drew closer. ‘How bad is it?’ I asked quietly.

‘Bad enough,’ Lord Golden replied succinctly, but it was Laurel’s glance that shocked me. She stared at me as if I were a rabid beast. It was far more than the affront she might take at one who had rudely interrupted a private conversation. I withdrew, wondering if the baring of her shoulder before me was what bothered her. Yet she seemed to have no qualms about Lord Golden touching her. Well, I had other things to tend, and would intrude no further.

I considered the small supply of food that remained to us. Bread and apples made up most of it. There was little enough for three, and not enough for four. I coldly decided our prisoner could do without. Like as not, he’d had his own provisions, and had probably eaten better today than we had. Thinking of him made me decide to check on him. He was sitting awkwardly, his hands still bound behind him, considering his lacerated ankle. I glanced at it, but offered no sympathy. I stood silently over him until he spoke.

‘Can I have some water?’

‘Turn around,’ I ordered him and was impassive as he struggled to obey. I untied his wrists. He made a small sound as I jerked the leather thong free of the clotted blood there. Slowly he moved his hands around in front of him. ‘You can get water over there, when the horses are satisfied.’

He nodded slowly. I knew well how badly his shoulders ached by now. My own was still throbbing from striking the tree branch. His scraped face had darkened and scabbed from the damage taken in our fall. One blue eye was shot with blood. Somehow, his injuries made him look even younger. He studied the forearm the wolf had mangled. By the set of his jaw, I knew he was afraid even to touch his injury. Slowly he lifted his eyes to me, and then looked past me.

‘Where is your wolf?’ he asked me.

I nearly backhanded him. He flinched at my aborted gesture. ‘You don’t ask questions,’ I told him coldly. ‘You answer them. Where are they taking the Prince?’

He looked at me blankly and I cursed my own clumsiness. Perhaps he had not known the Prince’s identity. Well, too late to call the words back. I’d probably have to kill him anyway. I recognized that thought as Chade’s and set it aside. ‘The boy who rides with the cat,’ I clarified. ‘Where are they taking him?’

He swallowed dryly. ‘I don’t know,’ he lied sullenly.

I wanted to throttle the truth out of him. He threatened me in too many ways. I stood up abruptly before I could give in to my temper. ‘Yes, you do. I’ll give you some time to think about all the ways that I could make you tell me. Then I’ll be back.’ I walked a few steps away from him before I forced a grin onto my face and turned. ‘Oh. And if you think this is a good time to make a run for it…well, two or three steps outside, and you’d no longer be wondering where my wolf is.’

A white blast of light suddenly flared into our shelter. The horses screamed, and two heartbeats later, thunder shook the earth. I blinked, momentarily blinded, and then outside the mouth of the cave, the rain came down as if someone had overturned a bucket. Abruptly, it was dark outside. A puff of wind carried rain into our cave mouth, and then shifted away. The warmth of the day departed.

I took food over to Lord Golden and Laurel. She looked a bit dazed. He had dragged one of the saddles and a blanket over to make a backrest for her. She pushed her straggling hair back from her face with her left hand. Her right lay in her lap. She had bled more than I thought, for blood had trickled down to clot between her fingers and outline her nails. Lord Golden accepted the bread and apples for both of them.

I glanced at the downpour outside the cave’s mouth and shook my head. ‘This storm will wash every bit of trail away. The good of that is that perhaps the villagers will just take their dead and go home. The bad is that we lose the Prince’s trail, too. Making our ambusher talk is our only hope of finding the Prince now. I’ll tend to that when I get back.’ I unbuckled my sword belt and held it out. When neither reached for it, I drew the blade and set it on the ground beside them. I lowered my voice.

‘You might have to use it. If you do, don’t hesitate. Kill him. If he gets away and manages to warn his friends, we’ll have no chance of recovering the Prince. I’m letting him think for a bit. Then I’ll get the truth out of him. Meanwhile, I’m going out to get a bit of firewood while there’s any still dry. And I’ll check to see if anyone is following our trail.’

Laurel lifted her good hand to cover her mouth. She suddenly looked sick. Lord Golden’s glance went to the prisoner, and then met mine. His eyes were troubled, but surely he knew I had to look for Nighteyes. ‘Take my cloak,’ he suggested.

‘It would only get as wet as the rest of me. I’ll change into dry things when I get back.’

He didn’t tell me to be careful, but it was in his look. I nodded to it, steeled myself, and walked out into the pouring rain. It was every bit as cold and unpleasant as I expected it to be. I stood, eyes squinted and shoulders hunched to it, peering out through the grey downpour. Then I took a breath and resolutely changed my expectations. As Black Rolf had once shown me, much discomfort was based on human expectations. As a man, I expected to be warm and dry when I chose to be. Animals did not harbour any such beliefs. So it was raining. That part of me that was wolf could accept that. Rain meant being cold and wet. Once I acknowledged that and stopped comparing it to what I wished it to be, the conditions were far more tolerable. I set out.

The rain had turned the pathway up to the cave into a milky stream. The footing was treacherous as I went down it. Even knowing that our tracks were there, I had a hard time seeing them. I allowed myself to hope that rain, dark, and the lack of a trail to follow would send our pursuers back to town. Some would have undoubtedly turned back to the village to bear the tidings of the deaths. Did I dare to hope they all had, bearing the bodies with them?

At the foot of the hill, I paused. Cautiously, I quested out. Where are you?

There was no answer. Lightning cracked in the distance, and thunder rumbled a few moments later. The fury of the rain renewed itself in a roar. I thought of my wolf as I had last seen him, battered and tired and old. I threw aside all caution and howled my fear to the sky. Nighteyes!

Be quiet. I’m coming. He was as disgusted with me as if I were a yelping cub. I closed down my Wit, but still sighed in deep relief. If he could be that irritated with me, then he was not in as bad a way as I had feared.

I watched for wood, and found some that was almost dry in the shelter of a long fallen tree. I took handfuls of the pithy wood from the rotting trunk, and broke dead branches into manageable lengths. I pulled off my shirt and bundled my tinder and fuel into it in the hopes of keeping it marginally drier. As I toiled back up the hill to the cavern, the rain ceased as abruptly as it had begun. The pattering of second-hand drops from the tree branches and the trickling sounds of water seeking to soak into the earth filled the evening. Somewhere in the near distance, a night bird sang a cautious two notes.

‘It’s me,’ I said quietly as I approached the overhang of stone. Myblack snorted a soft reply. I could barely see the others within, but after a few moments, my eyes adjusted. Lord Golden had set out my flint-box for me. Luck was with me, and in a few moments, I had a tiny fire kindled in the back of the cave. The smoke crawled along the stony roof until it found its way out. I stepped outside to check that it was not too visible from the hillside below. Satisfied, I returned, to build the fire to a respectable size.

Laurel sat up and then scooted closer to the friendly light. She looked a bit better, but her pain was still evident on her face. I watched her steal a sidelong glance at the archer. There was accusation in her eyes, but also misplaced pity. I hoped she wouldn’t try to interfere in what I had to do.

Lord Golden was already muttering through his pack. A moment later, he pulled out one of my blue servant shirts and offered it to me. ‘Thanks,’ I muttered. At the edge of the firelight, my prisoner sat with his shoulders hunched. I noticed the neat bandaging on his ankle and wrist and recognized the Fool’s knots. Well, I had not told him to leave the man alone; I should have known he would tend to him. I dropped my sodden shirt on the cave floor. As I shook out the dry shirt, Laurel spoke softly from the shadows.

‘That’s quite a scar.’

‘Which one?’ I asked without thinking.

‘Centre of your back,’ she replied as quietly.

‘Oh. That one.’ I tried to keep my voice light. ‘That was an arrow whose head didn’t come out with the shaft.’

‘So that was your concern earlier. Thank you.’ She smiled at me.

It was almost an apology. I could think of no reply. Her words and gentle smile had made me self-conscious. Then I became aware of Jinna’s charm exposed at my throat. Ah. I finished putting on the dry shirt. Then I took the leggings that Lord Golden handed me and stepped into the shadows behind the horses to change. The dribble of water down the inside wall had swelled to a steady trickle, and a tiny stream was now venturing past the horses and out the mouth of the cave. Well, at least they would have water tonight, if not grass. I tasted a scooped handful. It was earthy but not foul.

Back by the fire, Lord Golden solemnly offered me a hunk of bread and an apple. I had not realized how hungry I was until I took the first bite. All of it would not have filled me, but I ate only the apple and half the bread. Unfortunately, by the last bite, I still felt just as hungry. I ignored that as I had the rain earlier. It was another human-based assumption, that one had the right to a full belly at regular intervals. It was a comforting idea, but not truly necessary to survival. I repeated that several times to myself. I looked up from the flames to find Lord Golden eyeing me. Laurel had tugged a blanket over herself and dozed off. I spoke quietly. ‘Did he say anything while you were bandaging him?’

Lord Golden considered. Then a smile broke through the façade. ‘Ouch?’ the Fool offered.

I grinned back, then forced myself to face the eventuality. Despite Laurel’s shut eyes, I lowered my voice, pitching it only for the Fool’s ears. ‘I have to know everything he knows about their plans. They’re organized and they’re ruthless. There’s more to this than Witted folk helping a runaway boy. I have to make him tell us where they’ve taken the Prince.’

The smile faded from the Fool’s face, but Lord Golden’s hauteur did not replace it. ‘How?’ he asked in dread.

‘However I must,’ I replied coldly. I felt a sick anger that he would make this harder for me. The Prince and his well-being were what mattered. Not his squeamishness, nor the life of the Old Blood boy who sat by the cavern wall. Not even my own feelings mattered in this. I was doing this for Chade, for my queen, for the Farseer line, for the Prince himself. This dirty little task was what I had been schooled to do; it was all part of the ‘quiet work’ of an assassin’s training. My guts clenched inside me. I pulled my eyes away from the Fool’s anxious gaze and stood up. Get it over with. Make him talk. Then kill him. I dared not let him go and we certainly couldn’t be hindered by taking him with us. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d killed for the Farseers. I’d never had to beat information out of my victim first, but I knew how to do that, too. I’d learned those lessons first-hand in Regal’s dungeon. I only wished the circumstances had left me another choice.

I turned away from the light and walked into the darkness where the young man waited. He was sitting on the ground, his back to the cavern wall. For a time, I just stood over him, looking down on him. I hoped his dread of this encounter was as great as mine. When he finally gave in and looked up at me, I growled, ‘Where are they taking him?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, but the words had no strength in them.

I kicked him hard, the toe of my boot catching him under his ribs. I’d gauged it to drive the air from his lungs without doing permanent damage. It wasn’t time for that yet. He yelped and curled over his injury. Before he could recover at all, I reached down, grabbed him by the shirtfront and jerked him to his feet. I had the advantage of height, so I gritted my teeth and held him on his toes. His hands caught at my wrists and tugged feebly. He was still gasping for air.

‘Where?’ I demanded flatly. Outside, the rain resumed in a sudden hissing roar.

‘They…didn’t…say,’ he wheezed, and all Eda’s mercy made me long to believe him. I dared not. I slammed him hard against the cavern wall, so that the back of his head bounced off it. The impact made my bruised shoulder shout at me. I saw him bite his lip against his own pain. Behind me, I heard a muffled sound from Laurel but didn’t turn to it.

‘You can tell me now or you can tell me later,’ I warned him as I held him hard against the wall. I hated what I was doing, yet somehow his stupid resistance was fuelling my anger towards him. I drew on it, trying to build the will I needed to continue. Quickest was kindest; harshest was actually most merciful. The sooner he talked, the sooner it would be over. He had chosen the path that led him to this. He was a traitor in league with those who had lured Kettricken’s son from her side. The heir to the Six Duchies throne might even now be in mortal danger, and what this man knew could let me rescue him. Whatever I did to him now, he had brought upon himself.

Something like a boy’s sob shook him. He caught a breath. ‘Please,’ he said quietly.

I hardened my heart and drew back my fist.

But you promised. Never again. No more of the killing that brings no meat and Forges the heart. Nighteyes was aghast.

Stay out of this, my brother. I have to do this.

No. You don’t. I come. I come as swift as I can. Wait for me, my brother, please. Wait.

I broke free of the wolf’s thoughts. Time to end this. Break him. But the stubborn traitor looked very much like a boy fighting desperately to keep his secret. Tears cut clean streaks down his cheeks. The wolf’s thoughts had stolen my determination. I found I had set him back on his feet. I had never had any passion for this sort of thing. Some men, I knew well, took pleasure in breaking another man’s spirit, but the torture I had endured in Regal’s dungeon had locked me forever into the role of victim. Whatever I did to this young man, I would feel. Worse, I would see myself through his eyes, as I became to him what Bolt had been to me. I looked aside before he could see the weakness in my eyes, but it did me no good, for the Fool stood, but an arm’s length away, and all the horror I tried to suppress was in his gaze. The pity mixed with his horror stung me. He saw. He saw despite all the years, the beaten boy that still huddled within me, and always would. Somewhere I forever cowered, somewhere I was endlessly unmanned by what had been done to me. It was intolerable that anyone should know that. Even my Fool. Perhaps especially him.

‘Don’t interfere,’ I told him harshly, in a voice I had not known I owned. ‘Go tend to the Huntswoman.’

It was as if I had struck him. His mouth opened but no sound came out. I set my own jaw. I made myself cold. I tightened my grip slowly on my captive’s collar. He struggled to swallow and then his breath wheezed in his throat. His blue eyes flickered over my scar and broken nose. It was not the face of a merciful, civilized man. Traitor, I reminded myself as I gazed at him. You betray your prince, just as Regal betrayed Verity. How often had I fantasized about what I would have done to Regal, had I ever been given a chance for vengeance? This boy deserved it just as richly. He would bring the Farseer line to an end if I let him keep his secret. I breathed slowly, staring at him, letting those thoughts come to the front of my mind. I felt them change the set of my mouth and my eyes. My resolve firmed. Time to end this, one way or another. ‘Last chance,’ I warned harshly as I took out my knife. I watched my hands as if they belonged to someone else. I put the tip of the bared blade just below his left eye. I let it dig into the skin there. He clenched the eye shut, but we both knew that would not protect it. ‘Where?’

‘Stop him,’ Laurel pleaded in a shaking voice. ‘Please, Lord Golden, make him stop.’ At her words, I felt the man in my grip start to tremble. How frightening for him, that even my companions dreaded what I would do to him. A smile took over my face and froze it in a rictus.

‘Tom Badgerlock!’ Lord Golden addressed me imperiously. I didn’t even turn to his words. He had dragged me into this just as much as Chade and Kettricken had. It was all inevitable now. Let him watch and see where the road led. If he didn’t like it, he could avert his eyes. I couldn’t. I’d have to live it.

No. You don’t. And I refuse to. I won’t be bonded to that. I won’t allow it.

I felt him before I saw him. A moment later, the faint reach of the firelight picked out his silhouette, and then my wolf tottered in. Water dripped from him; the guardhairs of his coat had gone to downward points. He came a few steps farther into the cave, and then paused to shake himself. The touch of his mind on mine was like a firm hand on my shoulder. He turned my thoughts to him, and to us, pushing aside all other concerns. My brother. Changer. I am so weary. I am cold and wet. Please. I need your help. He ventured closer still, and then he leaned against my leg, asking quietly, Food? With the physical touch, he pushed aside a darkness that I had not known lived within me, to fill me with his wolfness and the now.

I let go of my prisoner and he sagged away from me. He tried to stand, but his knees gave out and he sat down heavily on the floor. His head fell forwards and I thought I heard a muffled sob. He didn’t matter right now. I pushed that FitzChivalry Farseer away to become the wolf’s partner.

I took a breath. I felt weak with relief at seeing Nighteyes. I clutched at his presence and felt it sustain me. I saved you some bread.

Better than nothing. He pressed his shaking body against my leg as he led me back to the fire and its welcome warmth. He waited patiently while I found the chunk of bread for him. I sat down close beside him, heedless of his wet fur, and handed him the bread a bit at a time. When he had finished eating, I smoothed my hand along his back. My touch slicked away rain. The wet had not penetrated his coat, but I could sense his pain and his weariness. Yet his vast love for me was what wrapped me and made me myself again.

I found a thought worth sharing. How are those scratches healing?

Slowly.

I slipped my hand down to the flesh of his belly. Mud had spattered on his belly and contaminated the wounds. He was cold, but the swollen scratches were hot. They were festering. Lord Golden’s pot of unguent was still in my saddlepack. I fetched it and amazingly, Nighteyes let me apply it to the long, raised welts. Honey, I knew, was a drawing thing. It might suck the heat from his wounds. I glanced up, suddenly aware of the Fool beside us. He knelt down and put both his hands on the wolf’s head like a benediction. He looked deep into Nighteyes’ eyes as he said, ‘I am so relieved to see you, old friend.’ I heard the edge of tears in his voice. Wariness haunted his voice as he cautiously asked me, ‘When you are finished with the ointment, might I have some for Laurel’s shoulder?’

‘Of course,’ I said quietly. I dabbed a last bit onto Nighteyes, then gave the pot to the Fool. As he leaned closer to take it, he whispered softly, ‘I have never been so frightened in my life. And there was nothing I could do. I think only he could have called you back.’

As he stood, the back of his hand brushed my cheek. I didn’t know if he sought to reassure himself or me. I felt an instant of misery for both of us. It was not ended, only put off.

With a sigh, Nighteyes suddenly stretched out beside me. He rested his head on my leg. He stared out towards the mouth of the cave. No. It is ended. I forbid it, Changer.

I have to find the Prince. He knows where he is. I have no choice.

I am your choice. Believe in me. I’ll track the Prince for you.

I doubt this storm has left any trail to follow.

Trust me. I’ll find him for you. I promise. Only do not do this thing.

Nighteyes, I can’t let him live. He knows too much.

He ignored that thought, or seemed to. Instead, he bade me, Before you kill him, think of what you take from him. Remember what it is to be alive.

Before I could reply, he trapped me in his senses and swept me into his wolf’s ‘now’. FitzChivalry Farseer and all his concerns were banished. We stared out into the black night outside the cave mouth. The falling rain had wakened all the scents of the hills and he read them for me. The rain was a steady hiss against the ground, masking all other sounds. Beside us, the fire was subsiding. I was peripherally aware of the Fool tending it, feeding it bits of firewood to keep it alive but hoarding our supply against the long night to come. I smelled the smoke, the horses, the other humans.

His intent was to take me away from being a man with a man’s cares and back to being a wolf. In that, he succeeded better than he planned. Perhaps Nighteyes was wearier than he knew, or perhaps the hissing rain lulled us both into the closeness of puppies that set no boundaries. I drifted into him, into his mind and spirit and then into his body.

Slowly I came to awareness of the flesh that enclosed him. He had no reserves left. The weariness that filled him pushed out all else. He was dwindling, like the fire, taking in sustenance but none the less, growing ever smaller.

Life is a balance. We tend to forget that as we go blithely from day to day. We eat and drink and sleep and assume that we will always rise up the next day, that meals and rest will always replenish us. Injuries we expect to heal, and pain to lessen as times go by. Even when we are faced with wounds that heal more slowly, with pain that lessens by day only to return in full force at nightfall, even when sleep does not leave us rested, we still expect that somehow tomorrow all will come back into balance and that we will go on. At some point, the exquisite balance has tipped, and despite all our flailing efforts, we begin the slow fall from the body that maintains itself to the body that struggles, nails clawing, to cling to what it used to be.

I stared at the darkness before us. It suddenly seemed that each of the wolf’s exhalations was longer than the breaths he drew in. Like a foundering ship, he sank each day deeper into an acceptance of routine pain and decreased vitality.

He slept heavily now, all wariness forgotten, his broad-skulled head on my lap. I drew a stealthy breath and then gently set my hand to his brow.

As a lad, I had been a source of strength for Verity. He had set his hand to my shoulder, and by his Skill, drawn off the strength he desperately needed to fight the Red-Ships. I thought back to the day on the riverbank, and what I had done to the wolf then. I had reached him with the Wit, but mended him with the Skill. I had known for some time that the two magics could mingle. I had even feared that my use of the Skill must always be contaminated by the Wit. Now that fear became a hope that I could use the two magics together for my wolf. For one could not just take strength with the Skill; one could lend it.

I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing. The wolf’s barriers were down, my Farseer concerns pushed from my mind. Only Nighteyes mattered. I opened myself and willed my strength, my vitality, the days of my life into him. It was like a long exhalation of breath, a flow of life leaving my body and seeping into his. I felt dizzied, yet I sensed him growing steadier, like a wick given a fresh supply of oil. I sent another exhalation of life into him, feeling fatigue seep through me as I did so. It did not matter. What I had given him had steadied him but not restored him; he needed more of my strength. I could eat and sleep and regain my vitality later. Right now, his need was greater.

Then his awareness flared up like a leaping flame, and NO! He forbade it, jerking his body away from mine. He separated himself from me, throwing up walls that nearly sealed me out. Then his thoughts blasted my mind. If ever you attempt that again, I will leave you. Completely and forever. You will not see my body, you will not touch my thoughts, and you will not even catch my scent near your trails. Do you understand me?

I felt like a puppy, shaken and flung aside. The abruptness of the severing left me disoriented. The world swung around me. ‘Why?’ I asked shakily.

Why? He seemed amazed that I could ask.

At that moment, I heard a furtive footfall grating sand. I turned to catch sight of my prisoner darting out the mouth of the cave. I sprang to my feet and leapt after him. In the darkness and rain, I collided with him, and then we were rolling over and over down the rocky hillside in front of the cave. He yelped once as we fell. Then I seized him, and did not let go until we skidded to a halt in the brush and scree at the foot of the slope. Bruised and shaken, we lay panting together as loosened stones bounced past us. My knife was under me, the hilt digging into my hip. I seized the archer by the throat.

‘I should kill you right now,’ I snarled at him. From above, in the darkness, I heard questioning voices. ‘Be quiet!’ I roared at them, and they ceased. ‘Get up,’ I told my prisoner savagely.

‘I can’t.’ His voice shook.

‘Get up!’ I demanded. I staggered upright without letting go of him, and then half-hauled him to his feet. ‘Move!’ I told him. ‘Up the hill, back to the cave. Try to run again, and I’ll pound you bloody.’

He believed me. The reality was that my efforts with Nighteyes had drained me. I could barely keep pace with him as we clambered back up the rain-slick slope. As we scrabbled and slid, a Skill-headache painted bolts of lightning on my eyelids. We were both caked with mud before we regained the cave. Once inside, I ignored Lord Golden’s anxious expression and Laurel’s questions while I securely trussed my prisoner’s wrists behind his back and bound his ankles together. I handled him viciously, the pounding pain in my skull spurring me on. I could feel Laurel and the Fool watching me. It made me feel both angry and ashamed of what I did. ‘Sleep well,’ I hissed at him when I was finished. I stepped back from him and drew my knife from its sheath. I heard Laurel’s gasp and the prisoner gave a sudden sob. But I only walked to the trickle of water to clean the mud from the hilt and sheath. I sloshed mud off my hands and then rubbed my face with cold water. I’d wrenched my back in the struggle. Nighteyes whined low in his throat, a worried sound at my pain. I clenched my teeth and tried to block it away from him. As I stood up, my prisoner spoke. ‘You’re a traitor to your own kind.’ Fear of death gave the boy a false courage. He flung his words at me, but I wouldn’t even look at him. His voice rose in shrill accusation. ‘What did they pay you to betray us? What reward is there for you and your wolf if you bring back the Prince? Do they hold a hostage? A mother? Your sister? Do they swear that if you do this, they’ll let you and your family live? They lie, you know. They always lie.’ His shaking voice was gaining volume. ‘Old Blood hunts Old Blood, and for what? So the Farseers can deny that the blood of the Piebald Prince runs in their line? Or do you work for those who hate the Queen and her son? Will you take him back so that he can be denounced as Old Blood, and the Farseers brought down by those who think they could rule better than they?’

I should have been focused on what he was saying about the Farseers. Instead I heard only his denunciation of what I was. He spoke with certainty. He knew. I tried to brush his words aside. ‘Your wild accusations mean nothing. I am sworn to the Farseers. I serve my queen,’ I replied, though I knew it was stupid to be baited into talking to him. ‘I will rescue the Prince, regardless of who holds him, or what they are to me –’

‘Rescue? Ha! Return him to slavery, you mean.’ The archer had transferred his glare to Laurel as if to convince her. ‘The boy with the cat rides with us to safety, not as a prisoner, but as one coming home to his own kind. Better a free Piebald than a prince in a cage. So you betray him doubly, for he is a Farseer that you are sworn to serve, and Old Blood kin as truly as you are. Will you drag him back to be hanged and quartered and burned, as so many of us have been? As they killed my brother but two nights ago?’ His voice was suddenly choked. ‘Arno was only seventeen. He had not even the magic, himself. But he was kin to Old Blood, and chose to stand with us, even to giving up his life for us. He declared himself a Piebald and rode with us. Because he knew he was one of us, even if the magic did not work for him.’ He looked back at me. ‘Yet there you stand, as Old Blood as I am, you and your Wit-wolf beside you, and you would hunt us to the death. Lie all you wish, for you only shame yourself. Do you think I cannot sense you speaking to him?’

I stared at him. My throbbing head calculated what he had just done to me. By betraying me in front of Laurel, he had not only endangered me; he had taken Buckkeep from me once more. I could not return there now; not with Laurel knowing what I was. Horror had drained all colour from her face. She looked as if she would be ill. I saw a shifting in her eyes when I glanced at her, a rearranging of her opinion of me. The Fool’s face was very still. It was as if he struggled to conceal so many emotions that he was left wearing no expression at all. Had he already discerned what I must do? It was like a spreading poison. They knew I was Witted. Now it was not just the archer I’d have to kill, but Laurel as well. If I didn’t, I’d always be vulnerable.

Yet if I did, it would destroy all that was between the Fool and me as well. The assassin’s conclusion to that was to kill him, too, so that he would never look at me with those deaths in his eyes.

And then you could kill me, and then you could kill yourself, and no one would ever know of all we had shared. It would remain our shameful secret, taken to the grave with both of us. Kill us all, rather than admit to anyone what we are.

As unerring as a cold pointing finger, the thought jabbed me in the terrible division that had plagued me since we had captured the archer…no, since I had first realized, for the sake of my Farseer oath, I must set myself against the Old Blood and against the Prince’s wishes for himself.

‘Are you Witted?’ Laurel asked me slowly. Her voice was quiet but the question rang in my ears.

The others were still staring at me. I reached for the lie, but could not utter it. To speak it would be to deny the wolf. I was alienated from the Old Blood, yet there was still a kinship that went deeper than emotion or learned loyalties. I might not live as Old Blood, but the threats that hovered over their heads menaced me as well.

But I was sworn to the Farseers, and that, too, was my bloodline.

What must I do?

What is right. Be what you are, Farseer and Old Blood both. Even if it kills us, it will be easier than these endless denials. I’d rather die being true to ourselves.

It was like pulling my soul out of a morass.

The pain of my Skill-headache lessened abruptly, as if finding my own decision had freed me of something. I found my tongue. ‘I am Witted,’ I admitted quietly and soberly. ‘And I am sworn to the Farseer line. I serve my queen. And my prince, though he may not yet recognize it. I will do whatever I must to keep my oath of loyalty to them.’ I stared at the boy with wolf-eyes, and spoke what we both knew. ‘The Old Bloods have not taken him out of any loyalty or love for him. They do not seek to “free” him. They have taken him in an effort to claim him. Then they will use him. They will be as ruthless in that as they have been in taking him. But I will not allow that to befall him. No matter what I must do to assure that he is saved from that, I will do it. I will find where they have taken him and I will take him home. Regardless of what it may cost me.’

I saw the archer blanch. ‘I am a Piebald,’ he declared shakily. ‘Do you know what that means? It means I refuse to be ashamed of my Old Blood. That I will declare myself and assert my right to use my magic. And I will not betray my own kind. Even if it means facing my death.’ Did he say those words to show his determination equalled mine? Then he was mistaken. Obviously he had taken my words as a threat. Another mistake…I didn’t care. I didn’t bother to correct his misapprehension. One night spent in fear would not kill him, and perhaps he might, by morning, be ready to tell me where they were taking the Prince. If not, my wolf and I would find him.

‘Shut up,’ I told him. ‘Sleep while you can.’ I glanced at the others, who were watching our exchange closely. Laurel was staring at me with loathing and disbelief. The set lines in the Fool’s face aged him. His mouth was small and still, his silence an accusation. I closed my heart against it. ‘We should all sleep while we can.’

And suddenly fatigue was a tide rising around me. Nighteyes had come to sit beside me. He leaned against me, and the bone-weariness he felt was suddenly mine, too. I sat down, muddy and wet as I was, on the sandy floor of the cave. I was cold, but then, it was a night when one should expect to be cold. And my brother was beside me, and between us we had warmth to share. I lay down, put my arm over him and sighed out. I meant to lie still for just a moment before I rose to take the first watch. But in that instant, the wolf drew me down and wrapped me in his sleep.

TWENTY-ONE

Dutiful

In Chaky, there was an old woman who was most skilled at weaving. She could weave in a day what it took others a week to do, and all of the finest work. Never a stitch that she took went awry, and the thread she spun for her best tapestries was so strong that it could not be snipped with the teeth but must be cut with a blade. She lived alone and apart, and though the coins came in stacks to her for her work, she lived simply. When she missed the week’s market for the second time, a gentlewoman who had been waiting for the cloak the weaver had promised her rode out to her hut to see if aught was wrong. There was the old woman, sitting at her loom, her head bent over her work, but her hands were still and she did not stir to the woman’s knock at her doorjamb. So the gentlewoman’s man-servant went in, to tap on her shoulder, for surely she dozed. But when he did, the old woman tumbled back, dead as a stone, to sprawl at his feet. And from her bosom leapt out a fine fat spider, big as a man’s fist, and it scampered over the loom, trailing a thick thread of web. So all then knew the trick of her weaving. Her body they cut in four pieces and burned, and with her they burned all the work known to come from her loom, and then her cottage and loom itself.

Badgerlock’s Old Blood Tales

I awoke before dawn, with the terrible sensation of having forgotten something. I lay still for a time in the darkness, piecing together my uneasiness. Sleepily I tried to recall what had wakened me. Through the tattering veils of a headache, I forced my mind to function. Threads of a tangling nightmare came back to me slowly. They were unnerving; I had been a cat. It was like the worst of the old Wit-tales, in which the Witted one was gradually dominated by his beast until one day he awoke as a shape-changer, doomed to take on the form of his beast and forever prey to his beast’s worst impulses. In my dream, I had been the cat, but in a human body. Yet there had been a woman there also, sharing my awareness with the cat, mingled so thoroughly that I could not determine where one began and the other left off. Disturbing. The dream had caught at me, snagged me with its claws and held me under. Yet some part of me had heard … what? Whispers? The soft jingle of harness, the grit of boots and hooves on sand?

I sat up and glared around at the darkness. The fire was no more than a dark red smudge on the earth nearby. I could not see, but I was already certain that my prisoner was gone. Somehow he had wriggled loose, and now he had gone ahead to warn the others that we followed. I gave my head a shake to clear it. He had probably taken my damn horse as well. Myblack was the only one of the horses dumb enough to allow herself to be stolen without a sound.

I found my voice. ‘Lord Golden! Awake. Our prisoner has escaped.’

I heard him sit up in his blankets, no more than an arm’s length away. I heard him scrabble in the darkness, then a handful of wood bits was thrown on the fire. They glowed, and then a small flame of true fire leaped up. It only flared briefly, but what it showed was enough to confound me. Not only our prisoner was missing, but Laurel and Whitecap were gone.

‘She went after him,’ I guessed stupidly.

‘They went together.’ The Fool pointed out the more likely scenario. Alone with me, he completely abandoned Lord Golden’s voice and posture. In the fading flare of the fire, he sat up on his blanket, his knees tucked under his chin and his arms wrapped around his legs as he expostulated. He shook his head at his own stupidity. ‘When you fell asleep, she insisted she would take first watch. She promised to wake me when her duty was over. If I had not been so concerned over your behaviour, I might have seen how peculiar that offer was.’ His wounded look was almost an accusation. ‘She loosed him, and then they left deliberately and quietly. So quietly that not even Nighteyes heard them go.’

There was a question in his words if not his voice. ‘He isn’t feeling well,’ I said, and bit down on any other explanation. Had the wolf deliberately held me deep in sleep while he allowed them to leave? He still slept heavily by my side, the sodden sleep of exhaustion and sickness. ‘Why would she go with him?’

The silence lasted too long. Then, unwillingly the Fool guessed, ‘Perhaps she thought you would kill him, and she didn’t want it to come to that.’

‘I wouldn’t have killed him,’ I replied irritably.

‘Oh? Well, then, I suppose it is good that at least one of us is sure of that. Because frankly, the same fear had crossed my mind.’ He peered at me through the dimness, and then spoke with disarming directness. ‘You frightened me last night, Fitz. No. You terrified me. I almost wondered if I knew you at all.’

I didn’t want to discuss that. ‘Do you think he could have freed himself and then forced Laurel to go with him?’

He was quiet for a time, then accepted my change of subject. ‘That is possible, but only just. Laurel is … very resourceful. She would have found some way to make a noise. Nor can I imagine why he would do so.’ He frowned. ‘Did you think they looked at one another oddly? Almost as if they shared a secret?’

Had he seen something I had not? I tried to think that through, then gave it up as a hopeless task. Reluctantly, I pushed my blanket completely away. I spoke quietly, still not wishing to wake the wolf. ‘We have to go after them. Now.’ My wet, muddy clothes from the night before were clammy and stiff on my body. Well, at least I didn’t have to get dressed. I stood up. I refastened my swordbelt a notch closer to its old setting. Then I stopped, staring at the blanket.

‘I covered you,’ the Fool admitted quietly. He added, ‘Let Nighteyes sleep, at least until dawn. We will need some light to find their trail.’ He paused then asked, ‘You say we should follow them because you think … what? That he will go to wherever the Prince has gone? Do you think he would take Laurel there with him?’

I bit a torn corner off my thumbnail. ‘I don’t know what I think,’ I admitted.

For a time we both pondered in silence and darkness. I drew a breath. ‘We must go after the Prince. Nothing must distract us from that. We should go back to where we left his trail yesterday and try to discover it again, if the rains have left anything for us to discover. That is the only path that we are absolutely certain will lead to Dutiful. If that fails us, then we will fall back on trying to follow Laurel and the Piebald and hope that that trail also leads to the Prince.’

‘Agreed,’ the Fool replied softly.

I felt oddly guilty because I felt relief. Not just that he had agreed with me, not just that the Piebald had been put out of my reach, but relief that with Laurel and the prisoner gone, we could drop pretences and just be ourselves. ‘I’ve missed you,’ I said quietly, knowing that he would know what I meant.

‘So have I.’ His voice came from a new direction. In the dark, he was up and moving silently and gracefully as a cat. That thought brought my dream back to me abruptly. I grasped at the tattering fragments of it. ‘I think the Prince might be in danger,’ I admitted.

‘You’re only now concluding that?’

‘A different type of danger to what I expected. I suspected the Witted ones of luring him away from Kettricken and the court, of bribing him with a cat to be his Wit-partner so that they could take him off and make him one of their own. But last night, I dreamed, and … it was an evil dream, Fool. Of the Prince displaced from himself, of the cat exerting so much influence over their bonding that he could scarcely recall who or what he was.’

‘That could happen?’

‘I wish I knew for certain. The whole thing was so peculiar. It was his cat, and yet it was not. There was a woman, but I never saw her. When I was the Prince, I loved her. And the cat, I loved the cat, too. I think the cat loved me, but it was hard to tell. The woman was almost … between us.’

‘When you were the Prince.’ I could tell that he could not even decide how to phrase the question.

The mouth of the cave was a lighter bit of darkness now. The wolf slumbered on. I fumbled through an explanation. ‘Sometimes, at night … it’s not exactly Skilling. Nor is it completely the Wit. I think that even in my magic, I am a bastard cross of two lines, Fool. Perhaps that is why Skilling sometimes hurts so much. Perhaps I never learned to do it properly at all. Maybe Galen was right about me, all the time –’

‘When you were the Prince,’ he reminded me firmly.

‘In the dreams, I become him. Sometimes I recall who I truly am. Sometimes I simply become him and know where he is and what he is doing. I share his thoughts, but he is not aware of me, nor can I speak to him. Or perhaps I can. I’ve never tried. In the dreams, it never occurs to me to try. I simply become him, and ride along.’

He made a small sound, like breathing out thoughtfully. Dawn came in the way it does at the change of the seasons, going from dark to pearly grey all in an instant. And in the moment, I smelled that summer was over, that the thunderstorm last night had drowned it and washed it away, and the days of autumn were undeniably upon us. There was a smell in the air of leaves soon to fall, and plants abandoning their greenery to sink back into their roots, and even of seeds on the wing seeking desperately for a place to settle and sink before the frosts of winter found them.

I turned away from the mouth of our cave and found the Fool, already dressed in clean clothes, putting the final touch to our packing … ‘There’s just a bit of bread, and an apple left,’ he told me. ‘And I don’t think Nighteyes would fancy the apple.’

He tossed me the bread for the wolf. As the light of day reached his face, Nighteyes stirred. He carefully thought nothing at all as he rose, cautiously stretched, and then went to lap water from the pool at the back of the cave. When he came back, he dropped down beside me and accepted the bread as I broke it into pieces.

So. How long have they been gone? I asked him.

You know I let them go. Why do you even ask me that?

I was silent for a time. I had changed my mind. Couldn’t you feel that? I had decided I wouldn’t even hurt him, let alone kill him.

Changer. Last night you bore us both too close to a very dangerous place. Neither one of us truly knew what you would do. I chose to let them go rather than find out. Did I choose wrong?

I didn’t know. That was the frightening part, that I didn’t know. I wouldn’t ask him to help me track Laurel and the archer. Instead I asked, Think we can pick up the Prince’s trail?

I promised you I would, didn’t I? Let us simply do what we must do and then go home.

I bowed my head. It sounded good to me.

The Fool had been juggling the apple in one hand. Once Nighteyes had finished eating, he stopped, gripped the apple in both hands, and then gave it a sudden twist. It broke smoothly into two halves, and he tossed one to me. I caught it, and shook my head at him, grinning. ‘Every time I think I know all your tricks –’

‘You find out how wrong you are,’ he finished. He ate his half rapidly, saving the core for Malta, and I did the same with Myblack. The hungry horses were not enthusiastic about the day ahead. I smoothed their ragged coats a bit before I saddled them and fastened our saddle-packs to Myblack. Then we led them out and down the gravelly slope, now slippery with mud. The wolf limped along behind us.

As so often happens after a good thunderstorm, the sky was blue and clear. The scents of the day were strong as the rising sun warmed the wet earth. Birds sang. Overhead, a flock of ducks headed south in the morning light. At the bottom of the hill, we mounted. Can you keep up? I asked Nighteyes worriedly.

You’d better hope so. Because without me, you haven’t a chance of trailing the Prince.

A single set of horse-tracks led back the way we had come. Heavy imprints. They were riding double, as fast as Whitecap could carry them. Where were they going, and why? Then I put Laurel and the Piebald out of my head. It was the Prince we sought.

Whitecap’s hoof-prints returned to where we had been ambushed the day before. I noted, in passing, that the Piebald had retrieved his bow. Then they had ridden back towards the road. Whitecap’s tracks were still pushed deep in the damp soil. They had gone on together, then.

Theirs were not the only fresh tracks under the tree. Two other horses had come and gone there since the night’s rain. Their tracks overcut those of the heavily-burdened Whitecap. I frowned over that. These were not the tracks of the pursuers from the village. They had not come this far; at least not yet. I decided to hope that the deaths of their friends and the horrid weather had turned them back. These fresh tracks came from the northwest, then turned, and went back that way. I pondered for a time, then the obvious hammered me: ‘Of course. The archer had no horse. The Piebalds sent someone back for their sentry.’ I grinned ruefully. ‘At least they’ve left us a clear trail to follow.’

I glanced over but the Fool’s face was still. He did not share my elation.

‘What’s wrong?’

He gave a sickly smile. ‘I was imagining how we would feel now if you had killed that boy last night, beating their destination out of him.’

I did not want to follow that thought. I said nothing and concentrated on the tracks in the earth. Nighteyes and I led, and the Fool followed. The horses were hungry, and Myblack in particular fractious because of it. She snatched at yellow-veined willow leaves and clumps of dry grass whenever she could, and I felt too much sympathy to correct her. Had I been able to satisfy my belly that way, I would have snatched a handful of leaves myself.

As we pushed on, I saw signs of the rider’s haste as he raced back to warn his party that their sentry had been taken. The tracks followed the obvious routes now, the easiest way up a hill, the clearest path through a tongue of woods. The day was still young when we found the remnants of a camp under the spread of an oak grove.

‘They must have had a wet, wild night of it,’ the Fool guessed, and I nodded. The fire spot showed the remains of charred logs extinguished by the downpour and never rekindled. A woven blanket had left its imprint on the sodden ground; whoever had slept there had slept wet. The ground was churned with tracks. Had other Piebalds awaited them here? The departing tracks overcut one another. There was no point in wasting time trying to puzzle it out.

‘If we had pressed on yesterday after we encountered the archer, we would have caught them up here,’ I said remorsefully. ‘I should have guessed that. They put him in place, knowing that they would not go much further. He had no horse. It’s so obvious now. Damn, Fool, the Prince was within our grasp yesterday.’

‘Then likely he is today, also. This is better, Fitz. Fate has played into our hands. Today we go unencumbered, and we yet may hope to surprise them.’

I frowned as I studied the tracks. ‘There is no sign that Laurel and the ambusher came this way. So a man was sent back to pick up their sentry and returned alone, with the news that he’d been taken. What they will make of that is hard to say, but they definitely left in a hurry, without their archer. We should assume they’ll be on their guards now.’

I took a breath. ‘They will fight us when we try to take the Prince.’ I bit my lip, then added, ‘We’d best assume that the Prince will fight us, also. Even if he doesn’t, he’s going to be little help to us. He was so vague last night …’ I shook my head and discarded my concerns.

‘So our plan is?’

‘Surprise them if we can, hit them hard, take what we want, and get out fast. And ride for Buckkeep as swiftly as we can, because we won’t be safe until we are there.’

He followed the thought further than I had been willing to. ‘Myblack is swift and strong. You may have to leave Malta and me behind once you have the Prince. Don’t hesitate.’

And me.

The Fool glanced at Nighteyes as if he had heard him.

‘I don’t think I can do that,’ I said carefully.

Don’t fear. I’ll protect him for you.

I felt a terrible sinking in my heart. I kept severely to myself the worry, but who will protect you? I would not let it come to that, I promised myself. I would not leave either of them. ‘I’m hungry,’ the Fool noted. It was not a complaint, merely an observation, but I wished he had not said it. Some things are easier to ignore than acknowledge.

We rode on, the trail much plainer now in the rain-damped earth. They had cut their losses and pushed on without the archer, just as they had left one of their own behind to die when they had fled the village. Such cold determination spoke loudly to me of how valuable the Prince was to them. They would be willing to fight to the death. They might even kill the Prince rather than let us take him. The fact that we knew so little of their motives would force me to be totally ruthless. I discarded the idea of attempting to talk to them first. I suspected their answer would be the same greeting that their archer had had for us yesterday.

I thought longingly of a time when I would have sent Nighteyes ahead to spy out the way for us. Now, with the trail so clear, the panting wolf was holding us back. I knew the moment when he realized it, for he abruptly sat down beside the trail. I pulled in Myblack, and the Fool halted also.

My brother?

Go on without me. The hunt belongs to the swift and keen.

Shall I go on without my eyes and nose, then?

And without your brain, too, alas. Be on your way, little brother, and save your flattery for someone who might believe it. A cat, perhaps. He came to his feet, and despite his weariness, in a few steps he had melted into the surrounding bush in his deceptively effortless way. The Fool looked askance at me.

‘We go on without him,’ I said quietly. I glanced away from the troubled look in his eyes. I nudged Myblack and we went on, but faster now. We pushed our horses and the tracks before us grew fresher. At a stream, we stopped to let the horses water and to refill our skins. There were late blackberries there, sour and hard, the ones that had turned colour but in the shade, without the direct heat of the sun to sweeten them. We ate handfuls of them anyway, glad of anything we could chew and swallow. Reluctantly, we left fruit on the bushes, mounting as soon as the horses had fairly slaked their thirsts. We pushed on.

‘I make out six of them,’ the Fool observed as we rode.

I nodded. ‘At least. There were cat-tracks near the water. Two different sizes.’

‘We know one rode a warhorse. Should we expect at least one large warrior?’

I shrugged reluctantly. ‘I think we should expect anything. Including more than six opposing us. They ride towards safety of some kind, Fool. Perhaps an Old Blood settlement, or a Piebald stronghold. And perhaps we are watched even now as we follow.’ I glanced up. I had not noticed any birds paying us undue attention, but that did not mean there weren’t any. With the folk we pursued now, a bird in the air or a fox in a bush could be a spy. We could take nothing for granted.

‘How long has it been happening to you?’ the Fool asked as we rode.

‘The shared dreams with the Prince?’ I had not the energy to try to dissemble with him. ‘Oh, for some time.’

‘Even before that night you dreamed he was at Galekeep?’

I answered reluctantly. ‘I’d had a few odd dreams before then. I didn’t realize they were the Prince’s.’

‘You hadn’t told me of them, only that you’d dreamed of Molly and Burrich and Nettle.’ He cleared his throat and added, ‘But Chade had mentioned some of his suspicions to me.’

‘Did he?’ I was not pleased to hear that. I did not like to think of Chade and the Fool discussing me behind my back.

‘Was it always the Prince, or only the Prince? Or are there other dreams?’ The Fool tried to conceal the depth of his interest, but I had known him too long.

‘Besides the dreams you already know about?’ I deferred. I debated swiftly, not whether to lie to him, but how much of the truth I wished to share. Lying to the Fool was wasted effort. He had always known when I lied to him, and managed to deduce the truth from it. Limiting his knowledge was the better tactic. And I felt no scruples about it, for it was the device he most often employed against me. ‘You know that I dreamed of you. And, as I told you, once I dreamed clearly of Burrich, clear enough that I nearly went to him. Those, I would say, are the same types of dreams as those I have had about the Prince.’

‘You do not, then, dream of dragons?’

I thought I knew what he meant. ‘Of Verity-as-Dragon? No.’ I looked away from his keen yellow glance. I mourned my king still. ‘Even when I touched the stone that had held him, I felt no trace of him. Only that distant Wit-humming, like a beehive far under the earth. No. Even in my dreams, I do not reach him.’

‘Then you have no dragon-dreams?’ he pressed me.

I sighed. ‘Probably no more than you do. Or anyone who lived through that summer and watched them fly through the skies over the Six Duchies. What man could have seen that sight, and never dream of it again?’ And what Skill-addicted bastard could have watched Verity carve his dragon and enter into it, and not himself have dreamed of ending that way himself? Flowing into the stone, and taking it on as flesh, and rising into the sky to soar over the world. Of course, I dreamed sometimes of being a dragon. I suspected, nay, I knew, that when old age found me, I would make a futile trek into the Mountains and back to that quarry. But like Verity, I would have no coterie to assist me in the carving of my dragon. Somehow it did not matter that I knew I could not succeed. I could imagine no other death than one devoted to the attempt to carve a dragon.

I rode on, distracted, and tried to ignore the odd looks the Fool cast my way from time to time. I did not deserve the next bolt of luck that struck me, but I was glad of it all the same. As we came to the lip of a small valley, a trick of the terrain provided me with a single glimpse of those we pursued. The narrow valley was forested, but divided by a noisy watercourse swollen by last night’s storm. Those we followed were in the midst of fording it. They would have had to turn in their saddles and look up to see us. I reined in, motioning the Fool to do likewise and silently watched the party below. Seven horses, one riderless. There were two women and three men, one on an immense horse. There were three cats, not two, though in fairness to my tracking skills, two were similar in size. All three cats rode behind their owners’ saddles. The smallest cat rode behind a boy, dark-haired in a voluminous cloak of Buckkeep blue. The Prince. Dutiful.

His cat’s distaste for the water they crossed was evident in her tense posture and the set of her claws. I saw them for but an instant, and felt an odd giddiness at the sight. Then tree branches cloaked them. As I watched, the final rider and her mount lurched from the rocky stream bed and up the slick clay bank beyond it. As she vanished into the forest, I wondered if she was the Prince’s lady-love.

‘That was a big man on the big horse,’ the Fool observed reluctantly.

‘Yes. And they will fight as one. They were bonded, those two.’

‘How could you tell?’ he demanded curiously.

‘I don’t know,’ I replied honestly. ‘It is the same as seeing an old married couple in the market. No one has to tell you. You can just see it, in how they move together and how they speak to one another.’

‘A horse. Well, that may present some challenges I hadn’t expected.’ It was my turn to give him a puzzled look, but he glanced away from it.

We followed, but more cautiously. We wanted to catch glimpses of them without being seen ourselves. As we did not know where they were going, we could not race ahead to intercept them, even if the rough and wild terrain had offered us that possibility. ‘Our best option may be to wait until they’ve settled for the night, and then go in after the Prince,’ the Fool suggested.

‘Two flaws,’ I replied. ‘By nightfall, we may reach wherever it is they’re going. If we do, we may find them in a fortified location, or with many more companions. The second is that if they camp again, they will post sentries, just as they did before. We’d have to get past them first.’

‘So your plan is?’

‘Wait until they camp tonight,’ I admitted gloomily. ‘Unless we see a better opportunity before then.’

My premonition of disaster grew as the afternoon passed. The trail we followed showed signs of use by more than deer and rabbits. Other people used this path; it led to somewhere, a town or village, or at the least, a meeting place. I dared not wait for nightfall and their camp.

We ghosted closer than we had before. The unevenness of the terrain we crossed favoured us, for as soon as they began a descent of a ridge, we could venture closer. Several times we had to leave the trodden path to keep hidden below the ridgeline, but those we followed seemed confident that they were now in safer territory. They did not often look back. I studied their marching order as trees hid and then revealed them. The man on the big horse led the way, followed by the two women. The second woman led the riderless horse. Our prince came fifth, with his cat behind him on the saddle. Following him were the two other men and their cats. They rode like folk determined to cover ground before nightfall.

‘He looks like you did as a boy,’ the Fool observed as we once more watched them wend out of sight.

‘He looks like Verity to me,’ I disagreed. It was true. The boy did look like Verity, but he looked even more like my father’s portrait. I could not say if he looked like me at that age. I had had little to do with looking-glasses then. He had dark, thick hair, as unruly as Verity’s and mine. I wondered, briefly, if my father had ever struggled to get a comb through his. His portrait was my only image of him, and in that he was faultlessly groomed. Like my father, the young prince was long of limb, rangier than stocky Verity, but he might fill out as he got older. He sat his horse well. And just as I had noted with the man on the large horse, I could see his bond with the cat that rode behind him. Dutiful held his head tipped back, as if to be aware always of the cat behind him. The cat was the smallest of the three, yet larger than I had expected her to be. She was long-legged and tawny, with a rippling pattern of pale and darker stripes. Sitting on her saddle cushion, her claws well dug in, the top of her head came to the nape of the Prince’s neck. Her head turned from side to side as they rode, taking in all that they passed. Her posture said that she was weary of riding, that she would have preferred to cross this ground on her own.

Getting rid of her might be the trickiest part of the whole ‘rescue’. Yet not for an instant did I consider taking her back to Buckkeep with the Prince. For his own good, he would have to be separated from his bond-beast, just as Burrich had once forced Nosey and me to part.

‘It just isn’t a sound bond. It feels not so much that he has bonded as that he has been captured. Or captivated, I suppose. The cat dominates him. Yet … it is not the cat. One of those women is involved in this, perhaps a Wit-mentor as Black Rolf was to me, encouraging him to plunge into his Wit-bond with an unnatural intensity. And the Prince is so infatuated that he has suspended all his own judgement. That is what worries me.’

I looked at the Fool. I had spoken the thought aloud, with no preamble, but as often seemed with us, his mind had followed the same track. ‘So. Will it be easier to unseat the cat and take both prince and horse, or snatch the Prince and hold him on Myblack with you?’

I shook my head. ‘I’ll let you know after we’ve done it.’

It was agonizing to shadow after them, hoping for an opportunity that might not come. I was tired and hungry, and my headache from the night before had never completely abated. I hoped that Nighteyes had managed to catch some food for himself and was resting. I longed to reach out to him, but dared not, lest I make the Piebalds aware of me.

Our route had taken us up into the rugged foothills. The gentle river plain of the Buck River was far behind us now. As the late afternoon stole the strength of the sun from the day, I saw what might be our only chance. The Piebald party rode silhouetted against a ridgeline. Their trail led to a precipitous path that slashed steeply down and across the face of a sheer and rocky hill. Standing in my stirrups and staring through the thickening light, I decided the horses would have to go in single file. I pointed this out to the Fool.

‘We need to catch them up before the Prince begins the descent,’ I told him. It would be close. We had let them get almost too far ahead of us in an effort to remain hidden from them. Now I put my heels to Myblack, and she sprang forwards, with little Malta right on our heels.

Some horses are fleet only on a level, straight stretch. Myblack proved herself as able on broken terrain. The Piebalds had taken the easiest route, following the ridgelines. A steep-sided gorge, thick with brush and trees, sliced between them and us. We could cut off a huge loop of trail by plunging down the steep slope to reach the next ascending jog in the trail. I kneed Myblack and she crashed down through the brushy slope, splashed through the creek at the bottom and then fought her way up the other side through mossy turf that gave way under her hooves. I did not look back to see how Malta and the Fool were faring. Instead, I rode low to her back, avoiding the branches that would have swept me from the saddle.

They heard us coming. Doubtless we sounded more like a herd of elk or a whole troop of guardsmen than a single horseman bent on catching up with them. In response to the sound of our pursuit, they fled. We caught them at the last possible moment. Three of their party had already ventured out onto the steep narrow trail across the hill-face. The led horse had just begun the descent. The three horses remaining all carried cats as well as riders. The last one wheeled to meet my charge with a shout, while the second to last chivvied the Prince along as if to hurry him out onto the escarpment.

I crashed into the one who had turned to confront us, more by accident than by any battle plan. The footing on the mountainous path was treacherous with small rolling stones. As Myblack slammed shoulder to shoulder with the smaller horse, the cat leapt from its cushion yowling a threat, landed downhill from us, and slid and scrabbled away from the plunging hooves of the struggling horses.

I had drawn my sword. I urged Myblack forwards, and she easily shouldered the smaller horse off the path. As I passed, I plunged my sword once into a man who was still attempting to draw a wicked toothed knife. He cried out, and the cat echoed his cry. He began a slow topple from his saddle. No time for regrets or second thoughts, for as we pressed past him, the second cat-rider turned to meet us. I could hear confused shouts from women, and overhead a crow circled, cawing wildly. The narrow passage had a sheer rockface above it, and a slippery scree-slope below it. The man on the big horse was shouting questions that no one was answering, interspersed with demands that the others back up and get out of his way so he could fight. The path was too narrow for him to wheel his horse. I had a glimpse of his warhorse trying to back along the cramped trail while the women on the smaller horses behind him were trying to ride forwards and escape the battle behind them. The riderless horse was between the women and the Prince. A woman screamed to Prince Dutiful to hurry up at the same moment that the man on the big horse demanded that they both back up and give him room. His horse obviously shared his opinion. His massive hindquarters were crowding the far smaller horse behind him. Someone would have to give way, and the likeliest direction was down.

‘Prince Dutiful!’ I bellowed as Myblack chested the rump of the next horse. As Dutiful turned towards me, the cat on the horse between us opened its mouth in a yowling snarl and struck out at Myblack’s head. Myblack, both insulted and alarmed, reared. I narrowly avoided her head as she threw it back. As we came down, she clattered her front hooves against the other horse’s hindquarters. It did little physical damage, but it unnerved the cat, who sprang from her cushion. The rider had turned to confront us, but could not reach me with his short-sword. The Prince’s horse, blocked in front, had halted half on the narrowing trail. The riderless horse in front of him was trying to back up, but the Prince had no room to yield to him. Dutiful’s cat was snarling angrily but had nowhere to vent her rage. I looked at her, and felt an odd doubling of vision. All the while, the man on the great horse was bellowing and cursing, demanding furiously that the others get out of his way. They could scarcely obey him.

The rider I had engaged managed to wheel his horse on the narrow apron of earth that led to the narrow path across the hillface, but he nearly trampled his cat in doing so. The beast hissed and made a wild swipe at Myblack, but she danced clear of the menacing claws. The cat seemed daunted; I was sure my horse and I were far larger than any game it might normally pursue. I took advantage of that hesitation, kicking Myblack forwards. The cat retreated right under the hooves of her partner’s horse. The horse, reluctant to trample the familiar creature, in turn backed up, crowding the Prince’s horse forwards.

On the narrow ledge of the path, a horse screamed in sudden panic, echoed by the owner’s cry as it went down in an effort to avoid being pushed off the ledge by the warhorse that was backing determinedly towards us. The young woman on the horse kicked free of the stirrups and scrambled to stand, her back pressed against the ledge as the panicky animal, in a frantic bid to regain its footing, wallowed to one side and then slid off the edge. The woman’s horse slid down the steep slope, slowly at first, its churning efforts to halt its fall only loosening more stone to cascade with it. Spindly saplings that had found a footing in the sparse soil and cracked rock were snapped off as the horse crashed through them. The animal screamed horribly as one sapling, stouter than the others, stabbed deep into it and arrested its fall briefly before its struggles tore it loose to slide again.

Behind me, there were other sounds. I gathered without looking that the Fool had arrived, and that he and Malta were busying the other cat. His partner, I trusted, would still be down. My sword-thrust had gone deep.

Ruthlessness soared in me. I could not reach the cat’s owner with my blade, but the spitting cat menacing Myblack was within range. Leaning down, I slashed at him. The creature leapt wildly aside, but I had scored a long, shallow gash across his flank. Cries of anger and pain from both him and his human partner were my reward. The man reeled with his cat’s pain, and I experienced an odd moment of knowing the Wit-curses they flung at me. I closed my mind to them, kicked Myblack and we slammed together, horse to horse. I stabbed at the rider and when he tried to evade my blade, he tumbled from his saddle. Riderless and panicky, his horse was only too glad to flee the moment Myblack gave him room to get past her. In its turn, the Prince’s horse backed away from the struggle before her and off the steep trail onto the small apron of land that approached it.

The cat that rode behind the Prince had bristled its fur to full extension and now confronted me with an angry snarl. There was something wrong with it, something misshapen that appalled me. Even as I struggled to grasp what was awry, the Prince turned his horse and I came face to face with young Dutiful.

I have heard people describe instances when all time seemed to pause for them. Would that it had been so for me. I was confronted suddenly with a young man who, until this moment, had been to me little more than a name coupled with an idea.

He wore my face. He wore my face to the extent that I knew the spot under his chin where the hair grew in an odd direction and would be hard to shave, when he was old enough to shave. He had my jaw, and the nose I had had as a boy, before Regal had broken it. His teeth, like mine, were bared in a battle rictus. Verity’s soul had planted the seed in his young wife to conceive this boy, but his flesh had been shaped from my flesh. I looked into the face of the son I had never seen nor claimed, and a connection suddenly formed like the cold snap of a manacle.

If time had stood still for me, then I would have been ready for the great cut of his sword as he swung it towards me. But my son did not share my moment of stunned recognition. Dutiful attacked like seven kinds of demons, and his battle cry was a cat’s ululating cry. I all but fell out of my saddle leaning back to avoid his blade. Even so, it still sliced the fabric of my shirt and left a stinging thread of pain in its wake. As I sat up, his cat sprang at me, screaming like a woman. I turned to her onslaught, and caught the creature in midflight with the back of my elbow and arm. I yelled in revulsion as she struck me. Before she could lock onto me, I twisted violently, throwing her in the face of the cat-man I had just unseated. She yowled as they collided, and they fell together. She gave a sharp screech as he landed on top of her, then clawed her way out from under him, only to scrabble limpingly back from Myblack’s trampling hooves. The Prince’s gaze followed his cat, a look of horror on his face. It was all the opening I needed. I struck his sword from his unready grip.

Dutiful had expected me to fight him. He was not prepared for me to seize his reins and take control of his horse’s head. I kneed Myblack, and for a wonder she answered, wheeling. I kicked her and she sprang to a gallop. The Prince’s horse came eagerly. She was anxious to escape the noise and fighting, and following another horse suited her perfectly. I think I shouted to the Fool to flee. In some manner that I did not recognize, he seemed to be holding the clawed Piebald at bay. The man on the warhorse bellowed that we were stealing the Prince, but the cluster of struggling people, horses and cats could do nothing. My sword still in my hand, I fled. I could not afford to look back and see if the Fool followed. Myblack set a pace that kept the other horse’s neck stretched. The Prince’s horse could not keep up with Myblack’s best speed, but I forced her to go as fast as she possibly could. I reined Myblack from the trail and led Dutiful’s mount at breakneck speed down a steep hill and then cross-country. We rode through slapping brush, and clattered up steep rocky hills, and then down terrain where a sane man would have dismounted and led his horse. It would have been suicide for the Prince to leap from his horse. My sole plan was to put as much distance between Dutiful’s companions and us as I could.

The first time I spared a glance back at him, Dutiful was hanging on grimly, his mouth set in a snarling grimace and his eyes distant. Somewhere, I sensed, an angry cat followed us. As we came down one steep hillside in a series of leaps and slides, I heard a crashing in the brush behind and above us. I heard a shout of encouragement, and recognized the Fool’s voice as he urged Malta to greater speed. My heart leaped with relief that he still followed us. At the bottom of the hill, I pulled Myblack in for an instant. The Prince’s horse was already lathered, the white foam dripping from her bit. Behind her, the Fool reined Malta in.

‘You’re all in one piece?’ I asked hastily.

‘So it appears,’ he agreed. He tugged his shirt collar straight and fastened it at the throat. ‘And the Prince?’

We both looked at Dutiful. I expected anger and defiance. Instead, he reeled in his saddle, his eyes unfocused. His gaze swung from the Fool to me and back again. His eyes wandered over my face, and his brows furrowed as if he saw a puzzle there. ‘My prince?’ the Fool asked him worriedly, and for that instant, his tone was that of Lord Golden. ‘Are you well?’

For a moment, he just gazed at both of us. Then, life returned to his face and ‘I must go back!’ he suddenly shouted wildly. He started to pull his foot free of the stirrup. I kicked Myblack, and in that instant we were off again. I heard his cry of dismay, and looked back to see him clutching frantically at his saddle as he tried to regain his seat. With the Fool at our heels, we fled on.

TWENTY-TWO

Choices

The legends of the Catalyst and the White Prophet are not Six Duchies’ legends. Although the writings and lore of that tradition are known to some scholars in the Six Duchies, it has its roots in the lands far to the south, beyond even the reaches of Jamaillia and the Spice Islands. It is not properly a religion, but is more a concept both of history and philosophy. According to those who believe such things, all of time is a great wheel that turns in a track of pre-determined events. Left to itself, time turns endlessly, and all the world is doomed to repeat the cycle of events that lead us all ever deeper into darkness and degradation. Those who follow the White Prophet believe that to each age is born one who has the vision to redirect time and history into a better path. This one is known by his white skin and colourless eyes. It is said that the blood of the ancient lines of the Whites find voice again in the White Prophet. To each White Prophet, there is a Catalyst. Only the White Prophet of that particular age can divine who the Catalyst is. The Catalyst is one who is born in a unique position to alter, however slightly, predetermined events, which in turn cascade time into other paths with possibilities that diverge ever wider. In partnership with this Catalyst, the White Prophet labours to divert the turning of time into a better path.

Caterhill’s Philosophies

We could not keep up the pace forever, of course. Long before I felt safe, the condition of the horses forced us to breathe them. The sounds of pursuit had faded behind us; a warhorse is not a courser. As the evening approached true dark around us, we walked the horses down a winding streambed. The Prince’s horse could barely hold her head up. As soon as the heat was walked off her, we would have to stop for a time. I rode crouched in my saddle to avoid the sweeping branches of the willows that lined the stream. The others followed. When we had first slowed the horses, I had feared that the Prince would try a leaping escape. But he had not. Instead he sat his horse in sullen silence as I led her on.

‘Mind this branch,’ I warned Dutiful and Lord Golden as a low limb snagged on me when Myblack pushed her way under it. I tried not to let it snap back in the Prince’s face.

‘Who are you?’ the Prince suddenly demanded in a low voice.

‘You do not recognize me, my lord?’ Lord Golden asked him anxiously. I recognized his effort to distract the Prince’s attention from me.

‘Not you. Him. Who is he? And why have you assaulted myself and my friends in this way?’ There was an amazing depth of accusation in his voice. Abruptly he sat up straighter in his saddle as if he were just discovering his anger.

‘Duck,’ I warned him as I released another branch. He did.

Lord Golden spoke. ‘That is my servant, Tom Badgerlock. We’ve come to take you home to Buckkeep, Prince Dutiful. The Queen, your mother, has been most worried about you.’

‘I do not wish to go.’ With every sentence, the young man was recovering himself. There was dignity in his voice as he spoke these words. I waited for Lord Golden to reply, but the splashing thuds of the horses’ hooves in the stream and the swish and crackle of the branches we passed through were the only sound. To our right, a meadow suddenly opened out. A few blackened, snaggly stumps in it were reminders of a forest fire in this area years ago. Tall grass with browned seedheads vied with fireweed with sprung and fluffy seedpods. I turned the horses out of the stream and onto the grass. When I looked up at the sky, it was dark enough to show a pricking of early stars. The dwindling moon would not show herself until night was deep. Even now, the gathering darkness was leaching colour from the day, making the surrounding forest an impenetrable tangle of blackness.

I led them out to the centre of the meadow, well away from the forest edge before I reined in. Any attackers would have to cross open ground before they reached us. ‘Best we rest until moon-rise,’ I observed to Lord Golden. ‘It will be difficult enough to make our way then.’

‘Is it safe to stop?’ he asked me.

I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Safe or not, I think we must. The horses are nearly spent, and it’s getting dark. I think we’ve gained a good lead. That warhorse is strong, but not swift nor nimble. The terrain we’ve covered will daunt him. And the Piebalds must either abandon their wounded, splitting their party, or come after us more slowly. We have a little breathing space.’

I looked back at the Prince before I dismounted. He sat, shoulders slumped, but the anger in his eyes proclaimed him far from defeated. I waited until he swung his dark eyes to meet mine, and then spoke to him. ‘It’s up to you. We can treat you well and simply return you to Buckkeep. Or you can behave like a wilful child and try to run away back to your Witted friends. In which case I will hunt you down, and take you back to Buckkeep with your hands bound behind you. Choose now.’

He stared at me, a flat, challenging stare, the rudest thing one animal can do to another. He didn’t speak. It offended me on so many levels that I could scarcely keep my temper.

‘Answer me!’ I commanded.

He narrowed his eyes. ‘And who are you?’ His tone made the repeated question an insult.

In all the years I’d had the care and raising of Hap, he had never provoked me to the level of temper that this youth had instantly roused in me. I wheeled Myblack. I was taller than the lad to begin with and the differences in our mounts made me tower over him. I crowded both him and his horse, leaning over him to look down on him like a wolf asserting authority over a cub. ‘I’m the man who’s taking you back to Buckkeep. One way or another. Accept it.’

‘Badgerlo—’ Lord Golden began warningly, but it was too late. Dutiful made a move, a tiny flexing of muscle that warned me. Without considering anything, I launched at him from Myblack’s back. My spring carried us both off our horses and onto the ground. We landed in deep grass, luckily for Dutiful, for I fell atop him, pinning him as neatly as if I had intended it. Both our horses snorted and shied away, but they were too weary to run. Myblack trotted a few paces, knees high, snorted a second rebuke at me, and then dropped her head to the grass. The Prince’s horse, having followed her so far today, copied her example.

I sat up, straddling the Prince’s chest while pinning both his arms down. I heard the sound of Lord Golden dismounting, but did not even turn my head. I stared down at Dutiful silently. I knew by the labouring of his chest that I had knocked the wind out of him, but he refused to make a sound. Nor would he meet my eyes, not even when I took his knife from him and flung it disdainfully into the forest. He looked past me at the sky until I seized his chin and forced him to look me in the face.

‘Choose,’ I told him again.

He met my eyes, looked away, then met them again. When he looked away a second time, I felt some of the fight go out of him. Then his face twisted with misery as he stared past me. ‘But I have to go back to her,’ he gasped out. He drew breath raggedly, and tried to explain. ‘I don’t expect you to understand. You’re nothing but a hound sent to track me down and drag me back. Doing your duty is all you know. But I have to go after her. She is my life, the breath in my body … she completes me. We have to be together.’

Well. You won’t be. I came a knife’s edge away from saying those words, but I did not. Factually, I told him, ‘I do understand. But that doesn’t change what I have to do. It doesn’t even change what you have to do.’

I got off him as Lord Golden approached. ‘Badgerlock, that is Prince Dutiful, heir to the Farseer Throne,’ he reminded me sharply.

I decided to play the role he’d left open for me. ‘And that’s why he’s still got all his teeth. My lord. Most boys who draw knives on me are lucky to keep any.’ I tried to sound both surly and truculent. Let the lad think Lord Golden had me on a short leash. Let him worry that I wasn’t completely under the lord’s control. It would give me an edge of mastery over him.

‘I’ll tend the horses,’ I announced, and stalked away from them into the darkness. I kept one eye and one ear on the shapes of the Fool and the Prince as I dragged off saddles, slipped bits, and wiped the horses down with handfuls of grass. Dutiful got slowly to his feet, disdaining Lord Golden’s offered hand. He brushed himself off, and when Golden asked if he had taken any harm, replied with stiff courtesy that he was as well as could be expected. Lord Golden retreated a short way, to consider the night and allow the lad to collect his shattered dignity. In a short time, Myblack and Malta were grazing as greedily as if they had never seen grass before. I had put the saddles in a row. I removed bedding from Myblack’s saddle-packs and began to make it into pallets near them. If possible, I’d steal an hour of sleep. The Prince watched me. After a moment he asked, ‘Aren’t you going to build a fire?’

‘And make it easier for your friends to find us? No.’

‘But –’

‘It’s not that cold. And there’s no food to cook anyway.’ I shook out the last blanket, then asked him, ‘Do you have any bedding in your saddle-pack?’

‘No,’ he admitted unhappily. I divided the blankets to make three pallets instead of two. I saw him pondering something. Then he added, ‘I do have food. And wine.’ He took a breath, then asked, ‘It seems a fair trade for a blanket.’ I kept a wary eye on him as he approached and began to open his saddle-packs.

‘My prince, you misjudge us. We would not think of making you sleep on the bare earth,’ Lord Golden protested in horror.

‘You might not, Lord Golden. But he would.’ He cast me a baleful glance and added, ‘He does not even accord me the courtesy one man gives to another, let alone the respect a servant should have for his sovereign.’

‘He is a rough man, my prince, but a good servant all the same.’ Lord Golden gave me a warning look.

I made a show of lowering my eyes, but muttered, ‘Respect a sovereign? Perhaps. But not a runaway boy fleeing his duty.’

Dutiful took a breath as if he would reply in fury. Then he let it out as a hiss, but leashed his anger. ‘You know nothing of what you speak about,’ he said coldly. ‘I did not run away.’

Lord Golden’s tone was much gentler than mine had been. ‘Forgive me, my lord, but that is how it must appear to us. The Queen feared at first that you had been kidnapped. But no notes of ransom arrived. She did not wish to alarm her nobles, or to offend the Outislander delegation soon to arrive for your betrothal agreement. Surely you have not forgotten that in nine more nights, the new moon brings your betrothal? For you to be absent at such a time goes beyond mere discourtesy to insult. She doubted that was your intent. Even so, she did not turn out the guards after you, as she might have done. Preferring to be subtle, she asked me to locate you and bring you safely home. And that is our only aim.’

‘I did not run away,’ he repeated stubbornly, and I saw that the accusation had stung him more sharply than I had suspected. Nonetheless, he stubbornly added, ‘But I have no intention of returning to Buckkeep.’ He had taken a bottle of wine from his pack. Now he pulled out food. Smoked fish wrapped in linen, several slabs of hard-crusted honey-cake, and two apples; hardly travelling rations, but the toothsome repast that loyal companions would supply for a prince’s enjoyment. He unfolded the linen on the grass, and began to divide the food into three portions. Dainty as a cat, he arranged the food. I thought it was well done, a show of a gracious nature by a boy in an uncomfortable situation. He uncorked the wine and set it in the middle. With a gesture he invited us, and we were not slow to respond. Little as there was, it was very welcome. The honey-cake was heavy, suety and thick with raisins. I filled my mouth with half my slab and tried to chew it slowly. I was fiercely hungry. Yet even as we attacked the food, the Prince, less hungry, spoke seriously.

‘If you try to force me to return with you, you will only get hurt. My friends will come for me, you know. She will not surrender me so easily, nor I her. And I have no desire to see you get hurt. Not even you,’ he added, meeting my stare. I had thought he intended his words as a threat. Instead, he seemed sincere as he explained, ‘I must go with her. I am not a boy running away from his duty, nor even a man fleeing an arranged marriage. I do not run away from unpleasantness. Instead, I join myself where I most belong … where I was born to belong.’ His careful unfolding of words put me in mind of Verity. His eyes travelled slowly from me to Lord Golden and back again. He seemed to be seeking an ally, or at least a sympathetic ear. He licked his lips as if taking a risk. Very quietly, he asked, ‘Have you ever heard the tale of the Piebald Prince?’

We were both silent. I swallowed food gone tasteless. Was Dutiful mad? Then Lord Golden nodded, once, slowly.

‘I am of that line. As sometimes happens in the Farseer line, I was born with the Wit.’

I did not know whether to admire his honesty, or be horrified at his naïve assumption that he had not just condemned himself to death. I kept my features motionless and did not let my eyes betray my thoughts. Desperately I wondered if he had admitted this to others at Buckkeep.

I think our lack of reaction unnerved him more than anything else we could have done. We both sat quietly, watching him. He took a gambler’s breath. ‘So you see now, why it would be best for everyone if you let me go. The Six Duchies will not follow a Witted king, nor can I forsake what my blood makes me. I will not deny what I am. That would be cowardice, and false to my friends. If I returned, it would only be a matter of time before all knew of my Wit. If you drag me back, it can only lead to strife and division amongst the nobles. You should let me go, and tell my mother you could not find me. That way is best for all.’

I looked down at the last of my portion of fish. Quietly I asked, ‘What if we decided it were best for all if we killed you? Hung you, and cut you in quarters and burned the parts near running water? And then told the Queen we had not found you?’ I looked away from the wild fear in his eyes, shamed by what I had done and yet knowing he must be taught caution. After a space: ‘Know men before you share your deepest secrets with them,’ I counselled him.

Or your kill. He came up on me as quietly as a shadow, his thought light as the wind against my skin. Nighteyes dropped a rabbit, a bit the worse for wear, on the ground beside me. He had already eaten the guts. Casually, he lifted the smoked fish from my hands, gulped it down, and then lay down beside me with a heavy sigh. He dropped his head onto his forepaws. That rabbit started up right under me. Easiest kill I’ve ever made.

The Prince’s eyes opened so wide I could see white all around them. His gaze darted from the wolf to me and back again. I don’t think he had overheard our shared thought, but he knew all the same. He leapt to his feet with an angry cry. ‘You should understand! How can you tear me from not just my bond-beast but the woman who shares that Old Blood kinship with me? How can you betray one of your own?’

I had more important questions of my own. How did you cover that much ground so quickly?

The same way his cat will, and for much the same reason. A wolf can go straight where a horse must go round. Are you ready for them to find you? With my hand resting on his back, I could feel the weariness thrumming through him. He shuddered away my concern as if it were flies on his coat. I’m not that decrepit. I brought you meat, he pointed out.

You should have eaten it all yourself.

A trace of humour. I did. The first one. You don’t think I’d be foolish enough to follow you all this way on an empty belly? That one is for you and the Scentless One. And this cub, if you so will it.

I doubt he will eat it raw.

I doubt there is sense to avoiding a fire. Come they will, and they need no light to guide them. The boy calls to her; it is like breath sighing in and out of him. He yowls it like a mating call.

I am not aware of it.

Your nose is not the only sense that you have that is not as keen as mine.

I stood up, then nudged the eviscerated rabbit with my foot. ‘I’ll make a fire and cook this.’ The Prince was staring at me silently. He was well aware I’d been having a conversation that excluded him.

‘What about drawing pursuit to us?’ Lord Golden asked. Despite his question, I knew he was hoping for the comfort of a fire and hot meat.

‘He’s already doing that.’ I gestured at the Prince with my chin. ‘Having a fire long enough to have some hot food will not make it any worse.’

‘How can you betray your own kind?’ Dutiful demanded again.

I had already puzzled out the answer to that the night before. ‘There are levels of loyalty here, my prince. And my highest loyalty is to the Farseers. As yours should be.’ He was more my own kind than I had the heart to tell him, and I ached for him. Yet my actions did not feel like a betrayal to me. Rather I imposed safe boundaries on him. As Burrich had once done for me, I thought ruefully.

‘What gives you the right to tell me where my loyalty should be?’ he demanded. The anger in his voice let me know that I had touched that very question within him.

‘You’re correct. It’s not my right, Prince Dutiful. It’s my duty. To remind you of what you seem to have forgotten. I’ll find some firewood. You might ponder what will become of the Farseer throne if you simply refuse your duty and vanish.’

Despite his weariness, the wolf heaved himself to his feet and followed me. We went back to the stream’s edge, to look for dead wood carried by higher waters and left to dry all summer. We drank first, and then I dabbed my chest with water where the Prince’s blade had scored me. Another day, another scar. Or perhaps not. It had not even bled very much. I turned from that to looking for dry wood. Nighteyes’ keener night vision helped my lesser senses, and I soon had an armload. He’s very like you, the wolf observed as we made our way back.

Family resemblance. He’s Verity’s heir.

Only because you refused to be. He’s our blood, little brother. Yours and mine.

That struck me into silence for a time. Then I pointed out, You are much more aware of human concerns than you used to be. Time was when you took no notice of such things.

True. And Black Rolf warned us both that we have twined too deeply, and that I am more man than a wolf should be, and you more wolf. We’ll pay for it, little brother. Not that we could have helped it, but that does not change it. We will suffer for how deeply our natures have meshed.

What are you trying to tell me?

You already know.

And I did. Like myself, the Prince had been brought up amongst folk who did not use the Wit. And as I had, unguided, he seemed to have not only fallen into his magic, but to be wallowing in it. Untaught, I had bonded far too deeply. In my case, I had first bonded to a dog when we were both young, and far too immature to consider the implications of such a joining. Burrich had forcibly separated us. At the time, I had hated him for it, a hate that lasted years. Now I looked at the Prince, in the full throes of his obsession with the cat, and counted myself lucky that when I had bonded, there had only been the puppy involved. Somehow, his attachment to his cat had grown to include a young woman of Old Blood. When I took him back to Buckkeep, he would lose not only his companion, but also a woman he believed he loved.

What woman?

He speaks of a woman, one of Old Blood. Probably one of those women who rode with him.

He speaks of a woman, but he does not smell of a woman. Does not that strike you odd?

I pondered that on my way back to camp. I dropped the wood in a small tumble. As I set my fuel and then shaved a dry stick for tinder, I watched the boy. He had tidied away the linen napkin but left out the bottle of wine. Now he sat morosely on a blanket, his knees drawn up to his chin, staring out at the deepening night.

I dropped all my guards and quested towards him. The wolf was right. He keened for his Wit-partner, but I was not sure if he was even aware of doing it. It was a sad little seeking he sent forth, like a lost pup whimpering for its mother. It grated on my nerves, once I was aware of it. It was not just that he would call his friends down on us; it was the whining aspect of it that appalled me. It made me want to cuff him. Instead, as I worked with my tinder and flint, I asked callously, ‘Thinking of your girl?’

His head swivelled towards me, startled. Lord Golden flinched at the directness of my question. I bent deeper to puff gently at the tiny spark I had conjured up. It glowed, then became a pale, licking flame.

The Prince reached for a measure of dignity. ‘I am always thinking of her,’ he said softly.

I tented several skinny sticks over my tiny fire. ‘So. What’s she look like?’ I spoke with a soldier’s crude interest, the inflection learned from many a meal with the guardsmen at Buckkeep. ‘Is she …?’ I made the unmistakable, universal gesture, ‘any good?’

‘Shut up!’ He spat the words savagely.

I leered at Lord Golden knowingly. ‘Ah, we both know what that means. It means he don’t know. At least, not first hand. Or maybe it’s only his hand that knows.’ I leaned back and smirked at him challengingly.

‘Badgerlock!’ Lord Golden rebuked me. I think I had truly scandalized him.

I didn’t take the hint. ‘Well, that’s always how it is, isn’t it? He’s just a moony boy for her. Bet he’s never even kissed her, let alone …’ I repeated the gesture.

The taunting had the desired effect. As I added larger sticks to the flames, the Prince stood up indignantly. The firelight revealed that his colour was high and his nostrils pinched with anger. ‘It isn’t like that!’ he grated. ‘She isn’t some … Not that I expect you to understand anything other than whores! She’s a woman worth waiting for, and when we come together, it will be a higher and sweeter thing than you can imagine. Hers is a love to be earned, and I will prove myself worthy of her.’

Inside, I bled for him. They were a boy’s words, taken from minstrel tellings, a lad’s imaginings of something he had never experienced. The innocence of his passion blazed in him, and his idealistic expectations shone in his eyes. I tried to summon some withering crudity worthy of the role I had chosen, but could not force it past my lips. The Fool saved me.

‘Badgerlock!’ Lord Golden snapped. ‘Enough of this. Just cook the meat.’

‘My lord,’ I acknowledged gruffly. I gave Dutiful a sidelong sneer that he refused to see. As I picked up the stiff rabbit and the knife, Lord Golden spoke more gently to the Prince.

‘Does she have a name, this lady you so admire? Have I met her at court?’ Lord Golden was courteously curious. Somehow the warmth in his voice made it flattering that he would care to ask such a question. Dutiful was instantly charmed, not only despite his earlier irritation with me, but perhaps because of it. Here was a chance for him to prove himself a well-bred gentleman, to ignore my crass interest and reply as politely as if I did not exist.

He smiled as he looked down at his hands, the smile of a boy with a secret sweetheart. ‘Oh, you will not have met her at court, Lord Golden. Her kind is not to be found there. She is a lady of the wild woods, a huntress and a forester. She does not hem handkerchiefs in a garden on a summer’s day, nor huddle within walls by a hearth when the wind begins to blow. She is free to the open world, her hair blowing in the wind, her eyes full of the night’s mysteries.’

‘I see.’ Lord Golden’s voice was warm with a worldly man’s tolerance for a youth’s first romance. He came to sit on his saddle, next to the boy and yet slightly above him. ‘And does this paragon of the forest have a name? Or a family?’ he asked paternally.

Dutiful looked up at him and shook his head wearily. ‘There, you see what you ask? That is why I am so weary of the court. As if I cared whether she has family or fortune! It is she whom I love.’

‘But she must have a name,’ Lord Golden protested tolerantly as I slid my knife blade under the rabbit’s hide and loosened it. ‘Else what do you whisper to the stars at night when you dream of her?’ I peeled the hide from the rabbit as Lord Golden stripped the layers of secrets from the boy’s romance. ‘Come. How did you meet her?’ Lord Golden picked up the wine bottle, drank delicately from it, and then handed it to the Prince.

The lad turned it in his hands thoughtfully, glanced up at Golden’s smile, and drank. Then he sat, the bottle held loosely in his hands, the neck of it pointed towards the small fire that limned his features against the night. ‘My cat took me to her,’ he confided at last. He took another sip of the wine. ‘I had slipped out one night to go hunting with her. Sometimes, I just have to get away on my own. You know what it is like at court. If I say I will ride at dawn, I arise and there are six gentlemen ready to accompany me, and a dozen ladies to bid us farewell. If I say I will walk in the gardens after dinner, I cannot turn a corner in the path without finding a lady writing poetry beneath a tree, or encountering some noble who wishes me to have a word with the Queen on his behalf. It’s stifling, Lord Golden. In truth, I do not know why so many choose to come to court when they do not have to. Had I the privilege of freedom, I would leave it.’ He drew himself up suddenly and looked all around at the night. ‘I have left it,’ he declared abruptly, almost as if it surprised him. ‘I’m here, away from all that pretence and manipulation. And I’m happy. Or I was happy, until you came to drag me back.’ And he glared at me, as if it were all my doing, and Lord Golden an innocent bystander.

‘So. You went out hunting with your cat one night, and this lady …?’ Lord Golden deftly picked up the threads that had interested him.

‘I went out hunting with my cat and –’

The cat’s name? Nighteyes pressed with sudden urgency.

I grunted mockingly. ‘Sounds to me as if the cat and the lady got the same name. “Neverspeakit.”’ I skewered the rabbit on my sword. I didn’t like to cook on the end of my blade; it was bad for the tempering, but to get a green branch I would have had to leave the conversation and go to the forest’s edge and I wanted to hear what he had to say.

The Prince replied scathingly to my comment. ‘I would think that you, as a Piebald, would know that beasts have their own names, which they reveal to you at a time they think is proper. My cat has not shared her true name with me yet. When I am worthy of that confidence, I will have it.’

‘I’m not a “Piebald”,’ I asserted gruffly.

Dutiful ignored me. He took a breath and spoke earnestly to Lord Golden. ‘And the same is true of my lady. I do not need to know her name when it is her essence that I love.’

‘Of course, of course,’ Lord Golden comforted him. He hitched himself closer to the Prince and went on, ‘But I would hear of your first meeting with the fair one. For I confess that at heart, I am as soft a romantic as any court lady weeping at a minstrel’s tale.’ He spoke as if what Dutiful had said was of no consequence. But a profound sense of wrongness washed through me. It was true that Nighteyes had not immediately shared his true name with me, but the cat and the Prince had been together for months. I turned the sword, but the rabbit flopped around on the blade, its body cavity a loose fit, the seared side turning back to the flames. Grumbling, I pulled it out of the fire and burnt my fingers jamming it more firmly onto the weapon. I thrust it back over the flames and held it there.

‘Our first meeting,’ Dutiful mused. A rueful smile curved his mouth. ‘I fear that has yet to happen. In some ways. In all the important ways, I have met her. The cat showed her to me, or rather, she revealed herself to me through the cat.’

Lord Golden cocked his head and gave the boy an interested, if confused look. The lad’s smile widened.

‘It is hard to explain to someone with no experience of the Wit. But I will try. Through my magic, I can share thoughts with the cat. Her senses enhance my own. Sometimes, I can lie abed at night, and surrender my mind to hers, and become one with her. I see what she sees, feel what she feels. It’s wonderful, Lord Golden. Not debased and bestial as others would have you believe. It brought the world to life around me. If there was some way I could share the experience with you, I would, just so that you could understand it.’

The boy was so earnest in his proselytizing. I glimpsed the quick flash of amusement through Lord Golden’s eyes, but I am sure the Prince saw only his sympathetic warmth. ‘I shall have to imagine it,’ he murmured.

Prince Dutiful shook his head. ‘Ah, but you cannot. No one can, who is not born with this magic. That is why all persecute us. Because, lacking this magic, they become filled with envy and it turns to hatred.’

‘I think fear might have something to do with it,’ I muttered, but the Fool shot me a glance that bade me shut up. Chastened, I turned away from them and rotated the smoking rabbit.

‘I think I can imagine your communion with the cat. How wondrous it must be to share the thoughts of such a noble creature! How rich to experience the night and the hunt with one so attuned to the natural world! But I confess, I do not understand how she could reveal this wondrous lady to you … unless she guided you to her?’

How pleasant to feel her filthy claws raking your belly!

Shush.

Cats noble creatures? Spitting, carrion-breathed sneaks.

With difficulty, I ignored Nighteyes’ asides and focused on the conversation while appearing to be engrossed with the rabbit. The Prince was smiling and shaking his head at Lord Golden, totally enraptured now with speaking of his love. Had I ever been that young?

‘It was not like that. One night, as the cat and I moved through a forest of black trees, lit to silver by the moon’s radiance, I perceived we were not alone. It was not that uncomfortable sensation of being watched. This was more like … Imagine if the wind was the breath of a woman on the back of your neck, if the scent of the forest was her perfume, the chuckling of a brook her amusement. There was nothing there I had not seen or heard or felt a hundred times, and yet that night it was more than it had ever been before. At first, I thought I was imagining it, and then, through the cat, I began to know more of her. I felt her watching us as we hunted together, and I knew that she approved of me. When I shared fresh meat with the cat from her kill, I sensed that the woman shared its savour. The cat’s senses sharpen my own, I told you that. But suddenly I was seeing things, not as the cat or as myself, but as she saw things. I saw how the tumbled gap in a stone wall framed a struggling sapling, I saw the infinite pattern in the ripple of moonlight on a stream’s rapids, I saw … I saw the night world as her poetry.’

Prince Dutiful sighed slowly. He was lost in his romance, but the slow suspicion forming in my mind sent a chill up my back. I could feel the perk of the wolf’s ears and the readiness in his muscles as he shared my foreboding.

‘That was how it began. As shared glimpses of the beauty of the world. I was so foolish. At first, I thought she must be near us, watching us from a hiding place. I kept asking the cat to take me to her. And she did, but not in the manner I had expected. It was like approaching a castle through a fog. Layer after layer of mist lifted like veils. The closer I came to her, the more I longed to behold her in the flesh. Yet she taught me it would be nobler to wait for that. First, I must complete my lessons in the Wit. I must learn to surrender my human boundaries and self, and let the cat possess me. When I let the cat inside me, when I become the cat completely, then am I most aware of my lady. For we are both bonded to the same creature.’

Can that happen? The wolf’s question was incredulous and sharp.

I don’t know, I admitted. Then, more strongly. But I don’t think so.

‘It doesn’t work that way,’ I said aloud. I tried to say it in an unthreatening way, but I wanted the Fool to know that immediately. Nevertheless, the Prince bristled at me.

‘I said that it did. Do you call me a liar?’

I slumped back into my thuggish personality. ‘If I wanted to call you a liar,’ I greased my threatening words, ‘I would have said, “You’re a liar.” I didn’t. I said, “It doesn’t work that way.”’ I smiled, showing my teeth. ‘Why don’t you take it that I think that you don’t know what you’re talking about? That you’re just spilling out what someone else has filled you full of.’

‘For the last time, Badgerlock, be silent. You are interrupting a fascinating tale, and neither the Prince nor I particularly care if you believe it. I simply want to hear how it ends. So. When you finally did meet?’ Lord Golden’s tone implied he was on the edge of his seat.

The warm romanticism of Dutiful’s voice crashed suddenly into heartsick desperation. ‘We haven’t. Not yet. That was where I was going. She called me to her, and I left Buckkeep. She promised she would send folk to help me on my path to her. And she did. She promised that as I learned my magic, as my bond with the cat deepened and became truer, I would know more and more of her. I would have to prove myself worthy, of course. My love would be tested, as would my true willingness to be one with my Old Blood. I would have to learn to drop all barriers between the cat and myself. She told me it would be arduous, she warned me that I would have to change the way I thought about things. But, when I was ready,’ and despite the darkness, I could see the flush rise to the Prince’s cheeks, ‘she promised we would be joined, in a way that would be more compelling and true than anything I could imagine.’ His young voice went husky on those last words.

A slow anger began to build in me. I knew what he was imagining, and I was almost certain that what she was offering him had nothing to do with that. He thought he would be consummating their relationship. I feared he was about to be consumed by it.

‘I understand,’ said Lord Golden, and there was compassion in his voice. For my part, I was certain that he did not understand at all.

Hope flamed in the boy. ‘So now you understand why you must let me go? I have to go back. I do not ask that you take me back to my guides. I know they will be furious and a danger to you. All I ask is that you give me my horse and let me go. It is easy for you to do. Go back to Buckkeep; say you never found me. No one will know any better.’

‘I would,’ I pointed out sweetly as I took the rabbit from the fire. ‘The meat’s cooked,’ I added.

Charred to the bone.

The look the Prince gave me was venomous. I almost felt the clear solution flash through his mind. Kill the servant. Silence him. I would wager that Kettricken’s son had not been schooled in such ruthlessness before the Piebalds taught him. Yet it was an idea truly worthy of his Farseer forebears. I met his gaze, and let my mouth curl slightly, daring him. I saw his chest swell, and then I saw him master himself. He glanced away, veiling his hatred. Admirable self-control. I wondered if he’d try to kill me in my sleep.

I kept my gaze on him, challenging him to meet my eyes as I tore the rabbit into smoking pieces. The grease and soot coated my fingers. I passed a portion to Lord Golden, who took it with genteel distaste. Knowing how ravenous the Fool had been earlier in the day, I recognized it was but a show.

‘Meat, my prince?’ Lord Golden asked him.

‘No. Thank you.’ His voice was cold. He was too proud to accept anything from me, for I had mocked him.

The wolf declined a share of the well-cooked meat, so Lord Golden and I silently devoured it down to the bones. The Prince sat apart from us as we ate, staring off into the darkness. After a time, he lay down on his blanket. I sensed his Wit-keening grow in volume.

Lord Golden broke the leg-bone he held, sucked a bit of marrow from it, and tossed it into the embers of the fire. In its fading light, he looked at me with the Fool’s eyes. That gaze held such a mixture of sympathy and rebuke that I did not know how to react to it. We both looked over at the lad. He appeared to be asleep.

‘I’ll check on the horses,’ I offered.

‘I want to check on Malta myself,’ he replied. We both rose. My back clenched for a moment as I got up, and then eased. I was no longer accustomed to this type of life.

I’ll watch him, the wolf volunteered wearily. With a sigh he got up from where he lay, and walked stiffly over to the blankets, saddles and sleeping prince. Unerringly he chose the blanket I had put out for myself. He scuffed it up to suit himself and then lay down on it. He blinked his eyes at me, and then transferred his gaze to the boy.

The horses were in fine shape, considering how badly we’d treated them. Malta went to the Fool eagerly, rubbing her head against his shoulder as he petted her. Myblack, without apparently ever noticing me, still managed to sidle away whenever I tried to approach her. The Prince’s horse was neutral, neither welcoming nor shy about my touching her. After I’d petted her for a few moments, Myblack was suddenly behind me. She gave me a nudge, and when I turned to her, she allowed me to stroke her. The Fool spoke quietly, to Malta rather than to me.

‘It must be hard for you, meeting him for the first time like this.’

I wasn’t going to reply. There seemed nothing to say. Then I surprised myself by saying, ‘He isn’t really mine that way. He’s Verity’s heir, and Kettricken’s son. My body was there, but not me. Verity wore my body.’

I tried to rein my mind away from that memory. When Verity had told me that there was a way to wake his dragon, that my life and passion were the key, I had thought my King was asking me to give him my life. In my loyalty and my misery, I had been glad to surrender it. Instead he had used the Skill to take the use of my body, leaving me trapped in the shambling wreckage of his while he went in to his young wife and conceived an heir with her. I had no memories of their hours together. Instead, I recalled a long evening spent as an old man. Not even Kettricken was completely aware of what had happened. Only the Fool shared my knowledge of Dutiful’s conception. Now his voice jolted me from my painful musing.

‘He looks so like you at that age that it makes my heart ache.’

I knew there was nothing to say to that.

‘He makes me want to hold him tight and keep him safe. Protect him from all the terrible things that were done to you in the name of the Farseer reign.’ The Fool paused. ‘I lie,’ he admitted. ‘I would protect him from all the terrible things that were done to you because I used you as my Catalyst.’

The night was too black and our enemies were too near for me to want to hear any more of that. ‘You should sleep near him, near the fire. The wolf will stay there, too. Keep your sword handy.’

‘And you?’ he said after a moment. Was he disappointed that I had turned the conversation so firmly?

I tossed my head towards the row of trees along the streambed. ‘I’m going to climb one of those and keep watch. You should get a few hours of sleep. If they try to fall on us, they’ll have to cross the whole meadow. I’ll see them against the firelight in time to take action.’

‘What action?’

I shrugged. ‘If there’s a few, we fight. If there’s many, we run.’

‘Complex strategy. Chade taught you well.’

‘Rest while you can. We ride at moonrise.’

And we parted. I had the nagging sense that something had been left unspoken between us, something important. Well. There would be a better time later.

Anyone who thinks it is easy to find a good climbing tree in the dark has never tried it. On my third try, I found one that had a limb broad enough to sit on that still afforded me an unencumbered view of our campsite. I could have sat and pondered the vagaries of fate that had made me the father of two children and the parent of neither. Instead, I decided to worry about Hap. I knew Chade would keep his word, but could Hap hold up his end of the bargain? Had I taught him how to work well enough, would he have enough care for what he did, would he listen well and endure correction humbly?

The darkness was pitch. I looked in vain for the waning moon to rise. She and her dwindling light would not appear until the dead of night. Against the black-red smear of our campfire, I could just make out the shapes of Lord Golden and the boy in their blankets. Time passed. A friendly branch-stub nudged against the small of my back and prevented me from getting too comfortable.

Come down.

I had dozed. I could not see the wolf, but I knew that he was in the shadows at the base of my tree. Something’s wrong?

Come down. Be silent.

I came down, but not as quietly as I had hoped. I hung by my hands and then dropped, only to discover there was a hollow beneath the tree and the fall was greater than I had expected. The jar clacked my teeth together and jolted my spine against the base of my skull. I’m too old to do this sort of thing any more.

No. You only wish you were. Come.

I followed him, my teeth gritted. He took me silently back to the campsite. The Fool sat up noiselessly as I drew near. Even in the dark, I could make out his questioning look. I made a small motion for silence and watched.

The wolf went to where the Prince was curled like a kitten in his blankets. He put his muzzle close to Dutiful’s ear. I gestured at him not to wake the boy, but he ignored me. In fact, he levered his nose under the Prince’s cheek and nudged him. The boy’s head gave limply to his touch, lolling like a dead man’s. My heart stood still, and then I heard the rasp of his sleeping breath. The wolf nudged him again. He still didn’t wake.

I met the Fool’s wide-eyed stare, then I went to kneel by the boy. Nighteyes looked up into my face.

He was questing for them, questing and reaching, and then suddenly, he was just gone. I can’t feel him. Nighteyes was anxious.

He’s gone far and deep. I considered a moment. This is not the Wit.

‘Watch over us,’ I bade the Fool. Then I lay down beside Dutiful. I closed my eyes. As if I were steeling myself to dive into deep water, I measured each breath I drew into myself. I matched the rhythm to the boy’s breathing. Verity, I thought, for no reason at all save that it seemed to centre me. I hesitated, then I groped for and found the boy’s hand. I held it in mine, and it pleased me unreasonably that his palm was callused with work. I drew a final breath and plunged into the flow of the Skill. Skin to skin, I found him immediately.

I attached my consciousness to his and flowed with him. This, I suddenly knew, was how Galen’s coterie had spied on King Shrewd all those years ago. Then I had despised that leeching of knowledge. Now I seized onto it relentlessly and followed my prince.

There had been a shock of recognition, a jolt of kinship when I had first seen the boy. It did not compare to what I experienced now. I knew this boy’s wild seeking, his artless and fearless Skilling. It was as my own had been, a wild reaching with no knowledge of how I did it or the dangers it posed. He quested with his Wit and did not know that he Skilled out as well. For a daunting moment, I realized that like my own Skill-magic, his was tainted with the Wit. Having taught himself to Skill this way, could he ever learn to use the Skill-magic purely?

Then that consideration was pushed completely aside. Cloaked within the Skill, I witnessed his Wit-magic, and I was appalled.

Prince Dutiful was the cat. He was not merely bonded with the animal; he flowed completely into it, reserving nothing of himself. I knew that the wolf and I had interwoven our consciousness to a deep and dangerous level, but it was superficial compared to the Prince’s complete surrender to his bond.

Worse was the creature’s complete acceptance of the boy’s subservience. Then, as if I had blinked, I perceived it was not a cat at all. The cat was but a thin layer. It was a woman.

I swirled in confusion, and nearly lost my grip on the Prince. The Wit did not go from human to human. That was the province of the Skill. Did he Skill to this woman, then? No. This joining was not the Skill. I tried to sort it out and could not. I could not separate the woman from the cat, and Dutiful was submerged in both of them. It did not make sense. The woman was plumbing the boy’s mind. No. She was here, pooling into his body like cold thick water. I felt her flowing through him, exploring the shape of his flesh around her. It was still foreign to her. There was a strange eroticism to that chilling internal touch. Their joining in the cat was not yet complete enough, but soon, soon, she promised him, soon he would know her completely. They were coming for him, she assured him, and she knew where he was. I witnessed how he poured forth to her everything he knew about Lord Golden and me, the stamina and condition of our horses, the wolf that followed me, and I sensed her fury and revulsion for an Old Blood who betrayed his own kind.

They were coming. I saw with the cat’s eyes, and recognized the Piebalds we had battled earlier in the day. Limping, she led them. The big man came slowly, on foot, leading his massive horse as they forced their way through the dark forest. The two women rode slowly behind him. The scratched man with the injured cat came last of all. They led two riderless horses now, so we had either killed or severely injured one of their party. We come, my love. And a bird has been sent, summoning others to your aid. Soon you will be with us again, she promised. We will take no chances of losing you. When the others are near, we will close in and free you.

Will you kill Lord Golden and his servant? the Prince asked anxiously.

Yes.

I wish you wouldn’t kill Lord Golden.

It is necessary. I regret it, but it must be, for Lord Golden has come too far into our territory. He has seen the faces of our folk, and ridden our paths. He has to die.

Can not you let him go? He is sympathetic to our cause. Shown our strength, he might simply go back to the Queen and say he had never found –

Where is your loyalty? How can you trust him so quickly? Have you forgotten how many of our own folk have been killed by the Farseer reign? Or do you wish to see me and all our people die?

This question was like the snap of a whip and it pained me to feel Dutiful cower before it. My heart is with you, my love, with you, he assured her.

Good. That’s good. Then trust only me, and let me do what I must do. There is no need for you to dwell on it. You need not feel responsible for what people bring down upon themselves. It is none of your doing. You tried to leave quietly. They are the ones who pursued you and attacked us. Put it from your mind.

Then she wrapped him in love, in a surging wave of warm affection that overpowered any thought of his own that he might have. But she seemed to be only at the edges of that flow. It was cat-love, the fierce claws-and-teeth love of a feline. The emotion drenched me and despite my wariness, I near succumbed to it myself. I felt the Prince accept that she would do what she must do. She only did it so that they could be together. Was any price too high to pay for that?

She’s dead.

The wolf’s thought was like a voice in the room of a sleeping man. For a moment, I incorporated it into my dreams. Then the sense of it struck me like a punch to the belly. Of course. She’s dead. She rides the cat.

And in that foolish moment of my sharing with the wolf, she was aware of me.

What is this? Her fear and outrage were nothing compared to her utter shock. She had never experienced anything like this. It was outside her magic completely, and in the rawness of her astonishment, she betrayed much of her self.

I wrenched free of all contact before she could know any more than that someone had been there, watching her, just as I felt her make surer her grip upon him. It reminded me of a great cat seizing a mouse in her jaws and paralysing it with a bite. I got that same sense of both possession and devouring. For one clear moment, I hoped that the Prince perceived her as clearly as I did. He was a toy for her, a possession and a tool. She felt no love for him.

But the cat does, Nighteyes pointed out to me.

And in that twisting disparity, I came back to myself.

It reminded me of my jolting leap from the tree. Slammed back into my own flesh, I still sat up, gasping for air and space. Beside me, the Prince remained inert, but Nighteyes was instantly with me, thrusting his great head under my arm. Are you all right, little brother? Did she hurt you?

I tried to answer, but instead rocked forwards, moaning as a Skill-headache exploded in my skull. I was literally blinded, isolated in a black night riven by lightning bolts of blazing white across my vision. I blinked, then knuckled my eyes, trying to make the glaring light go away. It exploded into colours that sickened me. I hunched my shoulders and curled up against the pain.

A moment later, I felt a cold cloth laid across the back of my neck. I sensed the Fool beside me, blessedly silent. I swallowed and drew several deep breaths and then spoke into my hands. ‘They’re coming. The Piebalds we fought today, and others. They know where we are from the Prince. He’s like a beacon fire. We can’t hide, and they’re too many for us to fight and survive. Running is our only chance. We can’t wait for moonrise. Nighteyes will lead us.’

The Fool spoke very softly as if he guessed at my pain. ‘Shall I wake the Prince?’

‘Don’t bother trying. He’s far and deep, and I don’t think she’ll let him come back to his body right now. We’ll have to take him as a dead weight. Saddle the horses, will you?’

‘I will. Fitz, can you ride as you are?’

I opened my eyes. Floating jags of light still divided my vision, but now I could see the darkened meadow beyond them. I forced a smile to my face. ‘I’ll have to ride, just as my wolf will have to run. And you may have to fight. Not what any of us would choose, but there it is. Nighteyes. Go now. Choose a path for us, and get as far ahead of us as you can. I don’t know from which direction the other attackers are coming. Spy ahead for us.’

You think to send me out of harm’s way. The thought was almost reproachful.

I would if I could, my brother, but the truth is that I may be sending you directly into danger. Scout for us. Go now.

He rose stiffly and stretched. He gave himself a shake, and then set out, not at a lope, but at his distance-devouring trot. Almost immediately, he became invisible to me, the grey wolf gone into the grey meadow. Go carefully, my heart, I wished after him, but softly, softly, lest he know how much I feared for him.

I rose, moving very carefully, as if my head were an over-full glass. I did not actually believe my brains would spill out of the top of my skull if I were careless, but I almost hoped it. I took the Fool’s wet handkerchief off the back of my neck and held it to my brow and eyes for a time. When I looked down on the Prince, he hadn’t moved. If anything, his body was curled more tightly. I heard the Fool come up behind me leading the horses and I turned cautiously to look at him.

‘Can you explain?’ he asked softly, and I realized how little he knew. It was all the more amazing that he so unquestioningly acted on my requests.

I drew a breath. ‘He’s using the Skill and the Wit. And he hasn’t been trained in either, so he’s vulnerable, very vulnerable. He’s too young to understand just how much at risk he is. Right now, his consciousness rides with the cat. For all intents, he is the cat.’

‘But he will awaken and come back to his body?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I hope so. Fool, there is more. There is someone else joined to the cat. I, that is, we, Nighteyes and I, suspect that she is the cat’s former owner.’

‘Former? I thought Witted ones bonded to their animals for life?’

‘They do. She would be dead now. But her consciousness is within the cat, using the cat.’

‘But I thought the Prince …’

‘Yes. The Prince is there, too. I do not think he realizes that this woman he loves does not exist as a woman any more. I know he has no concept of how much power she has over him. And over the cat.’

‘What can we do?’

The throbbing in my head was making me sick to my stomach. I spoke more harshly than I intended. ‘Forcibly separate the boy from the cat. Kill the cat, and hope the boy doesn’t die.’

‘Oh, Fitz!’ He was appalled.

I didn’t have time to care.

‘Saddle just two of the horses, Malta and Myblack. I’ll put the boy in front of me. And then we have to ride.’

I did nothing while the Fool prepared the horses. I didn’t pack up anything, for I didn’t intend to take anything with us. Instead I just sat still and tried to persuade my head to ease. It was made the more difficult in that I was still Skill-twined with the boy. I felt more his absence than his presence. I sensed that there was pressure upon him, but it was a Wit pushing. I could not decide if she reached, trying to know more of me, or if she reached trying to possess the boy’s body. I did not wish to respond to it; they already knew enough of me from that earlier brushing touch. So I sat, head in hands, and looked at Kettricken’s son. As Verity had taught me so long ago, I carefully set my Skill-walls. This time, I set them to include the boy at my feet. I did not consider what I was trying to hold out. Instead, I focused on keeping open the space that was his mind, reserving it for him to return to.

‘Ready,’ the Fool said quietly, and I stood up again. I mounted Myblack, who was amazingly steady under me as the Fool hoisted the boy up into my arms. As always, the strength of the slender man surprised me. I arranged the Prince before me so that I had one arm to hold on to him, and one hand for the reins. It would have to do. In an instant, the Fool was mounted on Malta beside me. ‘Which way?’ he asked.

Nighteyes? I kept the questing as small and secret as I could. They might sense our Wit, but I doubted they could use that to follow us.

My brother. His reply was as discreet. I nudged Myblack and we moved off. I could not have told anyone where Nighteyes was, but I knew that I moved towards him. The Prince was a swaying weight in my arms. It was already uncomfortable. Giving in to my frustration with my pain and his dead weight, I gave him a rough shake. He made a faint sound of protest, but it might have been just air moving out of his lungs. For a time we travelled through forest, ducking swoops of branches and pressing through tangles of underbrush. The Prince’s horse, stripped of harness, followed us. We did not go swiftly. The footing was treacherous for the weary horses and the trees dense. I followed the wolf’s elusive presence down into a ravine. The horses clattered along through a rushing stream over slippery wet rocks. The ravine became a vale, then spread wide and we rode under moonlight through a meadow. Startled deer bounded away from us. Into the forest again, our hooves thudded on deep layers of packed ancient leaves. Then we came to a steep place I did not recognize, but when we completed our scrabbling mount of that hill, the night spilled us out onto the road. The wolf’s route had cut the rough country and put us back on the same road we had travelled that morning. I pulled in Myblack and let her breathe. Ahead of us, on the next rise, the stingy light of the quarter moon showed me the silhouette of a wolf waiting for us to appear. As soon as he saw us, he turned, and trotted down the next hill and out of sight. All is clear. Come swiftly.

‘Now we ride,’ I warned the Fool in a low voice. I leaned forwards, spoke a word to Myblack as my knees urged her on. When she was sluggish to respond, I suggested with my predator’s Wit, Pursuit is just behind us. They come swiftly.

Her ears flicked back once. I think she was a bit sceptical, but she gathered herself. As Malta threatened to pass us, I felt her powerful muscles bunch and then she stretched under me and we galloped. Encumbered by our double weight and weary from her day’s work, she ran heavily. Malta gamely kept the pace, her presence pushing Myblack on. The Prince’s horse was left behind. The wolf ran before us, and I fastened my eyes to him as to my final hope. It seemed he had somehow discarded his years; he ran like a yearling, bounding ahead of us.

To our left, the horizon appeared as dawn began its timid creep towards day. I welcomed the light that made our footing surer even as I cursed how it would reveal us to our enemies. We pressed on, varying our pace as the morning grew stronger, trying to ration our mounts’ endurance. The last two days had been hard on both horses. To run them to dropping would not help our situation.

‘When will it be safe to stop?’ the Fool asked me during a period when we had slowed to let the horses breathe.

‘When we reach Buckkeep Castle. Perhaps.’ I did not add that the Prince would not be safe until I had turned back and killed the cat. We had only his body in our keeping. The Piebalds still had his soul.

At midmorning, we passed the tree where their archer had ambushed us. It made me realize how much I was trusting to the wolf to choose our path. He had decided this way was safe and I was following him unquestioningly.

Are we not pack? Of course you must follow your leader. The tease in his thought could not quite mask his weariness.

We were all tired; men, wolf and horses. A sustained trot was the best I could wring from Myblack now. Dutiful was a lolling weight in my arms as we jolted along. The pain in my back and shoulders from supporting his weight vied with the dull throbbing in my head. The Fool still sat his horse well but made no attempt at conversation of any kind. He had offered once to take the Prince on Malta with him, but I had declined. It was not that I thought that he or his horse lacked the strength. I could not define exactly why I felt I must keep possession of Dutiful’s body. I worried that he had been so long insensible. Somewhere, I knew his mind worked, that he saw with the cat’s eyes, felt with the cat’s body. Sooner or later, they would realize –

The Prince stirred in my arms. I kept silent. It took him some little while to come back to himself. As he regained his senses, he twitched unpleasantly in my arms, reminding me of my own seizures. Then he sat up with a sudden hoarse gasp of breath. Breath after breath he took, as he turned his head wildly from side to side, trying to make sense of his situation. I heard him swallow. In a dry and cracked voice he asked, ‘Where are we?’

Useless to lie. Above us on the hill, Laurel’s mysterious standing stones cast their shadows. He would surely recognize them. I didn’t bother to answer him at all. Lord Golden rode closer to us.

‘My prince, are you well? You have been long unconscious.’

‘I am – well. Where are you taking me?’

They come!

In a breath, our situation had changed. I saw the wolf fleeing back towards us. On the road behind him, horsemen had suddenly appeared. I made them five at a quick count. Two hounds, Wit-beasts both, ran alongside them. I swivelled in my saddle. Two rises back, other riders were cresting a hill. I saw one lift an arm, waving a triumphant greeting to the other group of riders.

‘They’ve caught us,’ I said calmly to the Fool.

He looked ill.

‘Up the hill. We’ll put one of those barrows at our back.’ I reined Myblack from the road, and my companions followed.

‘Let me go!’ my prince commanded me. He struggled in my arms, but his long insensibility had left him weak. It was not easy to keep my grip on him, but we had not far to go. As we came abreast of the barrow and the adjacent standing stone, I reined in Myblack. My dismount was not graceful, but I pulled the Prince down with me. Myblack stepped wearily away from us, and then turned to give me a look of rebuke. In an instant the Fool was beside us. I sidestepped Dutiful’s swing at me, caught his wrist and stepped behind him with it. I caught his other shoulder and held him firmly, one arm twisted high behind his back. I was no rougher than I had to be, but he did not give in easily. ‘Breaking your arm or dislocating your shoulder wouldn’t kill you,’ I pointed out to him harshly. ‘But it would keep you from being a nuisance for a time.’

He subsided, grunting with pain. The wolf was a grey streak pouring himself up the hill towards us. ‘Now what?’ the Fool asked me as he stared around us wide-eyed.

‘Now we make a stand,’ I said. The riders below us were already spreading wide. The barrow at our backs would be a poor barrier against attack from behind, blinding us as much as it shielded us. The wolf stood with us, panting.

‘You’ll die here,’ the Prince pointed out through gritted teeth. I still held him quite firmly.

‘That seems very likely,’ I conceded.

‘You’ll die, and I’ll go with them.’ His voice was strained with pain. ‘So why be stupid? Release me now. I’ll go to them. You can run. I promise I’ll ask them to let you go.’

My eyes met the Fool’s over the boy’s head. I knew what my answer to that would be, but then I knew what I’d be sending the Prince to face. It might buy us an opportunity to come after him again, but I doubted it. The woman-cat would see to it that they hunted us down and killed us. Death standing and waiting, or death after flight? I didn’t want to choose how my friends would die.

I’m too tired to flee. I’m dying here.

The Fool’s eyes wavered to Nighteyes. I do not know if he grasped that flicker of thought, or if he simply saw the wolf’s weariness. ‘Stand and fight,’ he said faintly.

He drew his sword from its sheath. I knew he had never fought in his life. As he lifted his blade, he looked very uncertain. Then he took a breath, and set his face in the lines of Lord Golden’s expression. He squared his shoulders and a look of cold competence came into his eyes.

He can’t fight. Don’t be stupid.

The riders were closing in. They walked their horses up the hill towards us, unhurried, letting us watch our deaths come. You have an alternative?

‘You can’t hold me and fight!’ Dutiful’s voice was elated. He obviously believed they had already won. ‘The moment you let go, I’ll run. You’ll die for nothing! Let me go now, let me talk to them. Maybe I can bargain for your life.’

Do not let her have him. Kill him before you let them take him.

I felt a great coward, but shared the thought anyway. I do not know if I can do that.

You must. We both know what they intend. If you cannot kill him then … Then take him into the pillar. The boy can Skill, and you were linked with the Scentless One once. It may be enough. Go into the pillar. Take them with you.

The riders below conferred with one another briefly, then fanned out to flank us as they came. As the woman had promised, they would take no chances. They were grinning and shouting to one another. Like the Prince, they believed they had us trapped.

It won’t work. Don’t you remember what it was like? It took all my strength to hold you together in that passage, and we were tightly linked. I might be able to hold the boy together through the journey, or you, but not both of you. I do not know if I could even pull the Fool in with me. Our Skill-link is old and thin. I might lose you all.

You don’t have to choose. I cannot go with you. I’m too tired, my brother. But I will stay here and hold them back for as long as I can, while you escape.

‘No,’ I groaned, even as the Fool suddenly said, ‘The pillar. You said the boy was Skilling. Could not you –?’

‘No!’ I cried out. ‘I will not leave Nighteyes to die alone! How can you suggest it?’

‘Alone?’ The Fool looked puzzled. A very odd smile twisted his mouth. ‘But he will not be alone. I will be here with him. And,’ he drew himself up, squaring his shoulders, ‘I will die before I allow them to kill him.’

Ah, that would be so much better. Every hackle on Nighteyes’ body was standing as he watched the advancing line of men and horses, but his eyes glinted merriment at me.

‘Send the lad down to us!’ a tall man shouted. We ignored him.

‘Do you think that makes it better for me?’ I demanded of him. They were mad, both of them. ‘I might be able to go through the pillar. I might even be able to drag the boy through, though I wonder if his mind would come through intact. But I doubt that I can take you with me, Fool. And Nighteyes refuses to go.’

‘Go where?’ Dutiful demanded. He tried to shake off my grip and I twisted his arm tighter. He subsided.

‘For the last time, will you yield?’ the tall horseman shouted up at us.

‘I seek to reason with him!’ Lord Golden called back. ‘Give me time, man!’ He put a note of panic in his voice.

‘My friend.’ The Fool set his hand on my shoulder. He pushed me softly, backwards towards the stone. I gave ground and took Dutiful with me. The Fool’s eyes never left mine. He spoke softly and carefully, as if we were alone and had all the time in the world. ‘I know I can’t go with you. It grieves me that the wolf will not. But I still tell you that you must go and take the boy. Don’t you understand? This is what you were born for, why you have stayed alive despite all the odds against you all these years. Why I have forced you to stay alive, despite all that was done to you. There must be a Farseer heir. If you keep him alive and restore him to Buckkeep, that is all that matters. We keep the future on the path I have set for it, even if it must go on without me. But if we fail, if he dies …’

‘What are you talking about?’ the Prince demanded angrily.

The Fool’s voice faded. He stared down the hill at the steadily advancing men, but his gaze seemed to go farther than that. My back was nearly touching the monolith. Dutiful was suddenly quiescent in my grip, as if spelled by the Fool’s soft voice. ‘If we all die here,’ he said faintly, ‘then … it ends. For us. But he is not the only change we have wrought … time must seek to flow as it always has, washing all obstacles away … So … fate finds her. In all times, fate battles against a Farseer surviving. Here and now, we guard Dutiful. But if we all fall, if Nettle becomes the lone focus of that battle …’ He blinked his eyes a number of times, then he drew a ragged breath before he turned back to me. He seemed to be returning from a far journey. He spoke softly, breaking ill tidings to me gently. ‘I can find no future in which Nettle survives after the Prince has died.’ His face went sallow and his eyes were old as he admitted, ‘There are not even any swift, kind ends for her.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘If you care anything at all for me, do this thing. Take the boy. Keep him alive.’

Every hair on my body stood up in horror. ‘But –’ I choked. All the sacrifices I had made to keep her safe? All for nothing? My mind completed the picture. Burrich, Molly and their sons would stand beside her, would fall with her. I could not get my breath.

‘Please go,’ the Fool begged me.

I could not tell what the boy made of our talk. He was a weight I grasped, firmly immobilizing him as my mind raced furiously. I knew there was no escape from this maze fate had set us. The wolf formed my thought for me. If you stay, we all still die. If the boy does not die, the Witted take him, and use him to their own ends. Dying would be kinder. You cannot save us, but you can save the boy.

I cannot leave you here. We cannot end like this, you and I. Tears blinded me just when I needed to see most clearly.

We not only can, we must. The pack does not die if the cub survives. Be a wolf, my brother. Things are clearer so. Leave us to fight while you save the cub. Save Nettle, too. Live well, for both of us, and someday, tell Nettle tales of me.

And then there was no more time. ‘Too late now!’ a man shouted up at us. The line of men and horses had curved to surround us. ‘Send us the lad, and we’ll end you quick! If not –’ And he laughed aloud.

Don’t fear for us. I’ll force them to kill us quickly.

The Fool rolled his shoulders. He lifted his sword in a two-handed grip. He swung it once, experimentally. ‘Go quickly, Beloved.’ Poised, he looked more a dancer than a warrior.

I could either draw my sword or keep a grip on the Prince. The standing stone was right behind me. I gave it one hasty glance over my shoulder. I could not identify the wind-eroded symbol carved in this face of it. Wherever it took me would have to be good enough. I did not recognize my voice as I demanded of the world, ‘How can the hardest thing I have ever done in my life also be the most cowardly?’

‘What are you doing?’ the boy demanded. He sensed something was about to happen, and though he could not have guessed what it was, he began to struggle wildly. ‘Help me!’ he cried to the encircling Piebalds. ‘Free me now!’

The thunder of charging horses was his answer.

Inspiration struck me. As I tightened my grip on the struggling boy, I spoke to the Fool. ‘I’ll come back. I’ll take him through and come back.’

‘Don’t risk the Prince!’ The Fool was horrified. ‘Stay with him and guard him. If you came back for us and were killed, he’d be alone in … wherever. Go! Now!’ The last smile he gave me was his old Fool’s smile, tremulous and yet mocking the world’s ability to hurt him. There was a wildness in his golden eyes that was not fear of death, but acceptance of it. I could not bear to look at it. The closing circle of horsemen engulfed us. The Fool swung his sword and it cut a gleaming arc in the blue day. Then a Piebald charged between us, swinging his blade and yelling. I dragged the Prince back with me.

I caught a last glimpse of the Fool standing over the wolf, a sword in his hands. It was the first time I had ever seen him hold a weapon as if he actually intended to use it. I heard the clash of metal on metal and the wolf’s rising snarl as he sprang for a horseman’s leg.

The Prince yelled wildly, a wordless cry of fury that was more cat than human. A rider charged straight at us, blade lifted high. But the towering black stone was at my back. ‘I’ll return!’ I promised them. Then I tightened one arm around Dutiful, clasping him to my chest. I spoke right by his ear. ‘Hold tight to who you are!’ It was the only warning I could give him. Then I twisted, and pressed my hand against the stone’s graven symbol.

TWENTY-THREE

The Beach

The Skill is infinitely large, and yet intimately small. It is as large as the world and the sky above it, and as small as a man’s secret heart. The way the Skill flows means that one can ride it, or experience its passage, or encompass the whole of it within one’s self. The same sense of immediacy pervades all.

This is why, to master the Skill, one must first master the self.

Hailfire, Skillmaster to Queen Frugal

I had expected darkness and disorientation. I had expected the Skill pulling at me, and a struggle to hold the Prince and myself together. I forced myself to be aware of both of us, and to keep him intact. Holding onto him within my Skill-barriers was much like clutching a handful of salt in a deluge. There was the same sensation that if I relaxed my grip at all, he would trickle away from me. There was all that, and an illogical sensation that we fell upwards. I clutched Dutiful to me, promising myself that it would soon be over. I was not prepared to fall from the pillar into icy seawater.

Salt water flooded my mouth and nose as I gasped in shock. We tumbled together in the water. My shoulder struck something. Dutiful struggled wildly, and I nearly lost my grip on him. The water sucked at us, and then, just as I saw light through a layer of murky green and deduced which way was up, a wave gathered us and flung us against a rocky beach.

The impact broke my grip on the Prince. The wave rolled us on the rocky shore without letting us reach air. The mussel-and-barnacle-encrusted rocks tore at me. Then, as the wave retreated, my body snagged on the rocks hooking my sword-belt and the water stranded me there. I lifted my head, choking and gagging out water and sand. I blinked, trying to see Dutiful, and spotted him still in the water. He was belly-down on the beach, scrabbling to catch hold of rocks as the outgoing wave sucked at him. He slid backwards towards deeper water, then managed to find a grip and lay still, gasping. I found a breath.

‘Get up!’ I yelled. It came out as a hoarse caw. ‘Before the next wave. Get up.’

He looked at me without comprehension. I staggered upright and flung myself towards him. Catching the back of his collar, I dragged him over the shredding barnacles and up the rocky beach towards the higher shoreline. A wave still caught us and flung me to my knees, but the water was not powerful enough to drag us out again. The next time the wave went out, Dutiful managed to get to his feet. Holding on to one another, we staggered up past the toothy rocks and into a belt of black sand festooned with squelching strands of tangled kelp. When we reached the loose dry sand, I let go of Prince Dutiful. He took perhaps three more steps and then dropped to the ground. For a time he just lay on his side, breathing. Then he sat up, spat out sand and wiped his nose on his wet sleeve. He looked all around us with no comprehension, and when his eyes came back to me, his expression was that of a confused child.

‘What happened?’

The sand in my teeth gritted whenever I moved my mouth. I spat. ‘We came through a Skill-pillar.’ I spat again.

‘A what?’

‘A Skill-pillar,’ I repeated. I looked back to point it out to him.

There was nothing out there but ocean. Another wave rushed in, reaching higher up the beach. Scummy white foam laced the sand as the water retreated. I came awkwardly to my feet and stared out over the incoming tide. Just water. Moving waves. Crying gulls above the waves. No Skill-pillar of black stone broke that heaving green surface. There was not even a clue as to where it had spat us out offshore.

No way back.

I had left my friends to die. Regardless of what the Fool had said, I had resolved to return immediately via the pillar. Otherwise, I would not have gone. I would not have done it if I had thought I was not going back to them. Telling myself that did not make me feel a shard less cowardly.

Nighteyes! I quested desperately, flinging the call with all my strength.

No one answered.

‘Fool!’ The word ripped out of me, a futile scream of Wit and Skill and voice. Distant gulls seemed to echo it mockingly. My hope faded with their dwindling cries over the windswept sea.

Unmoving, I stared out over the water until an incoming wave lapped against my feet. The Prince had not moved, except to fall back onto his side on the wet sand. He lay, staring blankly and shivering. I slowly turned away from the surf and surveyed the land. Black cliffs rose up before us. The tide was coming in. My mind put the pieces together.

‘Get up. We have to move before the tide traps us.’

To the south, the rocky cliffs gave way to a half-moon of black sand. A grassy tableland backed it. I reached down and seized the Prince’s arm. ‘Up,’ I repeated. ‘Unless you want to drown here.’

The lad lurched to his feet without protest. We trudged down the shore as the waves reached ever higher towards us. Desolation was a cold weight inside me. I dared not look at what I had just done. It was too monstrous to consider. While I walked down this beach, did their blood flow down swords? I stopped my mind. As if I were setting walls against an intrusive mind, I blocked all feelings from myself. I stopped all thoughts and became a wolf, concerned only with the ‘now’.

‘What was that?’ Dutiful demanded suddenly. ‘That … feeling. That pulling …’ Words failed him. ‘Was that the Skill?’

‘Part of it,’ I answered brusquely. He seemed entirely too interested in what he had just experienced. Had it called to him that strongly? The Skill’s attraction was a terrible trap for the unwary.

‘I … he tried to teach me, but he couldn’t tell me what it felt like. I couldn’t tell if I was doing it or not, and neither could he. But that!’

He expected a response to his excitement. I gave him none. The Skill was the last thing I wanted to talk about just now. I didn’t want to speak at all. I did not want to break the numbness that wrapped me.

When we reached the black sand, I kept Prince Dutiful walking. His wet clothes flapped around his body, and he hugged himself against the chill. I listened to his shivering breaths. A greenish sheen on the sand proved to be a flow of fresh water over the beach to the sea. I walked him upstream, away from the sandy beach and into a field of coarse sedge grasses until I reached a place where the trickle was deep enough for me to cup handfuls of it. I washed out my mouth several times and then drank. I was splashing water on my face to get sand out of my eyes and ears when the Prince spoke again.

‘What about Lord Golden and the wolf? Where are they, what happened to them?’ He looked out over the water as if he expected to see them there.

‘They couldn’t come. By now, I imagine your friends have killed them.’

It amazed me that I could speak the words so flatly. No choking tears, no gasping breath. It was a thought too terrible to be real. I could not allow myself to consider it. Instead, I flung the words at him, hoping to see him flinch from them. Instead he just shook his head, as if my words made no sense, then asked numbly ‘Where are we?’

‘We are here,’ I replied, and laughed. I had never known that anger and despair could make a man laugh. It was not a pleasant sound, and the Prince cowered away from me for an instant. Then in the next, he stood up very straight and pointed an accusing finger at me. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded, as if he had suddenly discovered the one mystery that underlay all his questions.

I looked up from where I still crouched by the water. I drank another handful before I answered. ‘Tom Badgerlock.’ I slicked my hair back with my wet hands. ‘For this. I was born with this white streak at my temple, and so my parents named me.’

‘Liar.’ He spoke the word with flat contempt. ‘You’re a Farseer. You may not have the looks of a Farseer, but you have the Skill of one. Who are you? A distant cousin? Someone’s by-blow?’

I’d been called a bastard many times in my life, but never by someone I might call a son. I looked up at Dutiful, Verity’s and Kettricken’s heir from the seed of my body. Well, if I’m a bastard, I wonder what that makes you? What I said instead was ‘Does it matter?’

While he was still struggling to find an answer to that, I scanned our surroundings. I was stuck here with him, at least until the tide went out. If I was fortunate, it would bare the pillar that brought us here, and I could use it to return. If I was unfortunate, the water wouldn’t retreat that far, and then I’d have to discover just where we truly were and how to get back to Buckkeep from here.

The Prince spoke angrily to mask his sudden uncertainty. ‘We can’t be that far. It only took us a moment to get here.’

‘Magic such as we used makes little of distance. We may not even be in the Six Duchies any more.’ I abruptly decided he needed to know no more than that. Whatever I told him, the woman would likely know as well. The less said, the better.

Slowly he sat down on the ground. ‘But –’ he said, and then fell silent. After a time, I sensed his Wit-keening. The look on his face was that of an apprehensive child reaching out desperately for something familiar. But my heart did not go out to him. Instead, I repressed an urge to give him a firm whack on the back of the head. For this whimpering self-obsessed juvenile, I’d traded the lives of my wolf and my friend. It seemed the poorest bargain I’d ever made. Nettle, I reminded myself. Keeping him alive might keep her safe. Farseer heir or not, it was the only value that I could see in him just then.

I am disappointed in my son.

I examined that, and reasserted to myself that Dutiful was not my son and since I had never accepted any responsibility for his rearing, I had no right to be either disappointed or pleased by him. I walked away from him. I let the wolf in me have ascendancy, and he spoke to me of the need for immediate creature comfort. The wind along the beach was constant and chill, slapping my wet garments against my body. Find wood, get a fire going if I could. Dry out. Look for food at the same time. There was no point to agonizing about what had become of Nighteyes and the Fool. The tide was still coming in. That meant that the next low tide would probably come in the dark of night. The following low tide would be sometime the next morning. I had to be resigned that my next opportunity to return to my friends was nearly a full day away. So, for now, gather strength and rest.

I looked across the grassy tableland at the forest that backed it. The trees here were the green of summer still, yet somehow it impressed me as an unfriendly and lifeless place. I decided that there was no point in hiking across the meadow and hunting under the trees. I had no heart for a chase and a kill. The small creatures of the beach would suffice.

It was a poor decision to make during an incoming tide. There was driftwood to gather for a fire, flung high by a previous storm tide, out of reach of today’s water. The blue mussels and other shellfish were already underwater, however. I chose a place where the cliffs subsided into the tableland, a spot somewhat sheltered from the wind, and kindled a small fire. Once I had it going, I took off my boots and socks and shirt, and wrung as much water from everything as I could. I propped the garments on driftwood sticks to dry near the fire, and put my boots upside-down on two stakes to drain. I sat by the fire, hugging myself against the chill of the fading day. Expecting nothing, I still ventured to quest again. Nighteyes?

There was no response. It meant nothing, I told myself. If he and the Fool had managed to escape, then he would not reach out towards me for fear of being detected by the Piebalds. It might mean only that he was choosing to be silent. Or it might mean he was dead. I wrapped my own arms around myself and held tight. I must not think such thoughts or grief would tear me apart. The Fool had asked me to keep Prince Dutiful alive. I’d do that. And the Piebalds would not dare to kill my friends. They would want to know what had become of the Prince, how he could have vanished before their eyes.

What would they do to the Fool to wring answers from him? Don’t think such things.

Reluctantly, I rose to seek out the Prince.

The boy had not moved from where I had left him. I walked up behind him, and when he did not even turn towards me, I nudged him rudely with my foot. ‘I’ve a fire,’ I said gruffly.

He didn’t respond.

‘Prince Dutiful?’ I could not keep the sneer from my voice. He did not flinch.

I crouched down next to him and set a hand on his shoulder. ‘Dutiful.’ I leaned around him to look into his face.

He wasn’t there.

His expression was slack, his eyes dull. His mouth hung slightly ajar. I groped towards our tenuous Skill-bond. It was like tugging at a broken fishing line. There was no resistance, no sense that anyone had ever been at the other side of that bond.

A terrible echo of a long-ago lesson came to me. ‘If you give in to the Skill, if you do not hold firm against its attraction, then the Skill can tatter you away and you will become as a great drooling babe, seeing nothing, hearing nothing …’ The hair stood up on the back of my neck. I shook the Prince, but his head just lolled and nodded on his neck. ‘Damn me!’ I roared to the sky. I should have foreseen he would try to reach the cat, I should have known this could happen.

I tried to force calmness on myself. Stooping, I lifted his arm and set it across my shoulders. I set my arm around his waist and drew him to his feet. As I hauled him down the beach, his toes dragged in the sand. When I reached the fire, I put him down beside it. He sprawled over on his side.

I spent several minutes replenishing the blaze with nearby driftwood. I built it large and hot, not caring who or what it might draw. My hunger and my weariness were forgotten. I dragged the Prince’s boots from his feet, emptied them of water and set them upside-down to dry. My own shirt was steaming warm now. I peeled Dutiful’s wet shirt from his back and hung it out. I spoke to him the whole time, rebuking him and taunting him at first, but before long I was pleading with him. He made no response at all. His skin was chill. I wrestled his arms into the sleeves and dragged my warmed shirt onto him. I chafed his arms, but his stillness seemed to invite the cold to fill him. With every passing moment, his body seemed to have less life in it. It was not that his breathing laboured or that his heart beat more slowly, but more that my Wit-sense of his presence was fading, exactly as if he were travelling away from me.

Finally, I sat down behind him. I pulled him back against me, his back to my chest and put my arms around him in a vain effort to warm him. ‘Dutiful,’ I said by his ear. ‘Come back, boy. Come back. You’ve a throne to inherit, and a kingdom to rule. You can’t go like this. Come back, lad. It can’t all have been for nothing. Not the Fool and Nighteyes both spent for nothing. What will I say to Kettricken? What will Chade say to me? Gods, gods, what would Verity say to me now?’

It was not so much what Verity would have said to me as what Verity would have done for me. I held his son close to me, and then placed my face next to his beardless cheek. I took a deep breath and dropped all my walls. I closed my eyes, and slipped into the Skill in search of him.

I nearly lost myself.

There have been times when I could scarcely reach the flow of Skill, and in other times and places, I have experienced the Skill as a flowing river of power, incredibly swift and powerful. As a boy, I had nearly lost myself in that river, sustained and rescued only by Verity’s intervention. I had grown in strength and control since then. Or so I had thought. This sensation was like diving into a racing current of Skill. Never before had I felt it so strong and seductive. In my present frame of mind, it seemed to offer the complete and perfect answer to me. Just let go. Stop being this person Fitz trapped in a battle-scarred body. Stop bleeding sorrow for the death of my closest friends. Just let go. The Skill offered me existence without thought. It was not the suicide’s temptation to die and make the world stop for him. This was far more enticing. Change the shape of your being and leave all those considerations behind. Merge.

If I had had only myself to think of, I know I would have yielded to it. But the Fool had charged me with seeing that he did not die in vain, and my wolf had bid me live and tell Nettle of him. Kettricken had asked me to bring her son back to her. Chade was depending on me. And Hap. So I found myself in that seething current of streaming sensations, and I fought to remain who I was. I don’t know how long it took me to do that. Time has no meaning in that place. That alone is one of the Skill’s dangers. Some part of me knew I was burning my body’s strength, but when one is immersed in the Skill it is hard to care about physical things.

When I was sure of myself, I cautiously reached out in search of Dutiful.

I had thought it would be easy to find him. The night before, it had been effortless. I had but clasped his hand then, and found him within the Skill. Tonight, though I knew that somewhere I cradled his chilling body, I could not discover him. It is difficult to describe how I sought him. The Skill is not truly a place nor a time. Sometimes I think it can be described as being without the boundaries of self. At other times, that defining seems too narrow, for ‘self’ is not the only boundaries we set to how we experience being.

I opened myself to the Skill and let it stream through me like water through a sieve, and still I found no trace of the Prince. I stretched myself beneath the flow of the Skill like a hillside full of tiny grasses under sunlight and let it touch each blade of me, and still I could not sense him. I wove myself throughout the Skill, twining over it like ivy, and still I could not separate the lad from its flow.

He had left a sense of himself in the Skill, but like a bootmark in fine dust on a windy day that trace was crumbling to meaningless grains flowing with the Skill. I gathered what I could of him, but it was no more Prince Dutiful than the scent of a flower is the flower. Nevertheless, I took to myself the bits that I recognized and held them fiercely. It was becoming more difficult for me to recall what exactly was the essence of the Prince. I had never known him well, and the body that my body held was rapidly losing its connection to him.

In an effort to find the boy, I engaged completely with the Skill. I did not surrender myself, but I stepped free of all the safety holds that always before I had clung to. It was an eerie feeling. I was a kite cut free and flying, a tiny boat with no hand on the tiller. I had not lost my sense of self, but I had given up the absolute certainty that I could find my way back to my body. Yet it put me no closer to finding Dutiful. It only made me more aware of the vastness that surrounded me and the hopelessness of my task. It would have been easier to net the smoke from an extinguished fire than to gather the boy together again.

And all the while the Skill plucked at me, whispering promises. It was only cold and rushing so long as I resisted it. If I gave in, I knew it would become all warmth and comfort and belonging. If I surrendered to it, I would subside into peaceful existence without individual awareness. What would be so terrible about that? Nighteyes and the Fool were gone. I’d failed in my mission to bring Dutiful back to Kettricken. Molly did not wait for me; she had a life and a love. Hap, I told myself, trying to stir some sense of responsibility. What about Hap? But I knew that Chade would see to Hap’s needs, at first out of a sense of duty to me, but before long for the sake of the boy himself.

But Nettle. What of Nettle?

The answer was terrible. I had already failed her. I knew I could not recover Dutiful, and without him, she was doomed. Did I wish to return to witness that? Could I be aware of it and stay sane? Then a worse thought came to me. In this timeless place, it had all already happened. Even now, she had perished.

That decided me. I let go of the bits of Dutiful and they streamed away from me. How to describe that? As if I stood on a sunny hillside and released a rainbow I had imprisoned in my hand. As he flowed away, I realized that those traces of him had become tangled with my own essence. My being flowed with his. It didn’t matter. FitzChivalry Farseer ribboned away from me, the thread of myself snagged and now unravelling in the streaming Skill.

Once, I had put memories into a stone dragon. I had gratefully thrust away pain and hopeless love and a dozen other experiences. I had given away that part of my life so that the dragon would have enough essence to come to life. This felt different. Imagine bleeding that feels pleasurable and yet is still just as deadly. I passively witnessed the draining.

Now stop that. Warm feminine amusement in the voice that filled my mind. I was helpless to prevent it as she wound the thread of my being around me as if she were gathering yarn back into a skein. I had forgotten how passionately dramatic humans can be at their silliest. No wonder we enjoyed you so. Such ardent little pets as you were.

Who? I could refine the thought no more than that. Her presence left me limp with happiness.

And this is yours too, I suppose. No wait, this is a different one. Two of you here, at once, and coming all apart! Are you lost, then?

Lost. I repeated the thought to her, unable to frame any concept of my own. I was a dandled infant, adored for my mere presence, and it left me helpless with delight. Her love transfused me with warmth. It was something I had never even been able to imagine before: I was loved enough, and valued enough, and I needed nothing more than what I presently had. This enough was more bountiful than plenty, more rich than a king’s gleaming hoard. Never in my life had I experienced this sensation.

Back you go. Be more careful next time. Most of the others would not even notice that they had attracted you.

Like plucking a burr off herself, I thought with dim dismay. While she held me, I was too giddy with pleasure to oppose her, even though I knew she was about to do the unthinkable. Wait wait wait I managed, but the thought was weightless and she gave me no heed. For less than a blink I was aware of Dutiful close beside me.

Then I was back in the horrid confines of my miserable little body. It ached, it was cold and damaged, old damage, new damage, it had never worked that well in the first place, and worst of all, it did not have enough of anything. It was riddled with wants and great gaping needs. In here, I had never had, I would never have enough love or regard or –

I flung myself out of it again.

All that happened was that my body gave a great twitch and fell over on the sand. I could not get out of it. I was cramped and stifling in the ill-fitting flesh that coated and confined me, and I could not find a way out. The discomfort was acute and alarming, akin to having a limb twisted or being choked. The more I struggled, the more I sank into the thrashing limbs of my flesh, until I was hopelessly embedded in my sweating, shaking self. I subsided, feeling the misery of having a physical self. Cold. Sand in the wet waistband of my leggings, sand at the corner of one eye and up my nose. Thirsty. Hungry. Bruised and cut.

Unloved.

I sat up slowly. The fire was nearly out; I’d been gone for quite a time. I got up stiffly and tossed the last piece of wood onto it. The world fell into place around me. My losses engulfed me as completely as the night that surrounded me. I stood perfectly still, mourning the Fool and Nighteyes, but devastated even beyond those losses by my abandonment by … by whatever she had been. It was not like waking from a dream. Rather, it was the opposite. In her, there had been truth and immediacy and the simplicity of being. Plunged back into this world, I sensed it as a tangling web of distractions and annoyances, illusions and tricks. I was cold and my shoulder hurt and the fire was going out, and all those discomforts plucked at me. Larger loomed the problem of Prince Dutiful and how we would get back to Buck and what had become of Nighteyes and the Fool. Yet even those things now seemed but diversions dancing before my eyes to keep my attention from the immense reality beyond them. All of this existence was composed of trivial pains and searing agonies, and each of them was yet another mask between me and the face of the eternal.

Yet the layers of masks were back in place, and must be recognized. My body shivered. The tide was going out again. I could not see anything beyond the ring of our firelight, but I could hear the waters retreat in the rhythm of the falling waves. The unmistakable smell of low tide, of bared kelp and shellfish was in the air.

The Prince lay on his back staring up at the sky. I looked down at him and thought at first that he was unconscious. In the fickle light of my dying fire, I saw only black cavities where his eyes should be. Then he spoke. ‘I had a dream.’ There was wonder and uncertainty in his voice.

‘How nice.’ It was a neutral sneer. I was incredibly relieved that he was back in his body and could speak. To an equal degree, I hated that I was trapped inside my own body again and had to listen to him.

He seemed immune to my nastiness. The edges of his voice were soft. ‘I’ve never had a dream like that. I could feel … everything. I dreamed my father held me together and told me that I was going to be fine. That was all. But the strangest part was, that was enough.’ Dutiful smiled up at me. It was a luminous smile, wise and young. It made him look like Kettricken.

‘I have to find more firewood,’ I said at last. I turned from the light and the fire and the smiling boy and walked away into the darkness.

I didn’t look for wood. The retreating waves had left the sand wet and packed under my bare feet. A fading slice of moon had risen. I looked at it, then up at the sky, and felt my stomach drop. According to the stars, we were substantially south of the Six Duchies. My previous experience with Skill-pillars was that they could save a few days of travel time. This evidence of their power was not reassuring. If tomorrow’s low tide did not bare the stone, we faced a long journey home, with no resources to aid us. The moon reminded me, too, that our time was dwindling. In eight nights, the new moon would herald Prince Dutiful’s betrothal ceremony. Would the Prince stand at the narcheska’s side? It was hard to make the question seem important.

There are times when not thinking requires all of one’s concentration. I don’t know how far I walked before I stepped on it. It shifted in the wet sand beneath my foot, and for an instant I thought I had stepped on a knife blade lying flat on the sand. In the darkness, I stooped and located it by touch. I picked it up. It was about the length of the blade of a butcher’s knife, and somewhat shaped the same. It was hard and cold, stone or metal, I could not tell which. But it was not a knife. I ran my fingers over it cautiously. There was no sharpened edge. A rib ran up the centre of it, and then the object was finely striated in parallel rows at an angle to the rib on both sides. It culminated in a sort of tube at one end. It was heavy, yet not as heavy as it seemed it should have been. I stood holding it in the darkness, feeling sure I knew what it was, but unable to summon up that knowledge. It was familiar in an eerie way, as if I picked up something that had been mine a long time ago.

The puzzle of the object was a welcome distraction from my own thoughts. I held it in my hand as I continued down the beach. I hadn’t gone a dozen steps before I stepped on another one. I picked it up. By touch I compared the two. They were not quite identical, one being slightly longer. I held them, weighing them in my hands.

When I stepped on the third one, I was almost expecting it. I lifted it from the sand and wiped the wet grit from it. Then I stood still where I was. I had a strange sense of something waiting for me. It hovered, unable to take shape without my volition. I had the strangest sensation of standing on the edge of a cliff. One more step, and I would either plummet to my death, or discover I could fly.

I stepped back from it. I turned around and walked back towards the dying campfire on the beach. As I watched, I saw Dutiful’s silhouette pass before the flames, and the sparks leapt up into the night as he dropped more wood on the fire. Well, at least he could do that much for himself.

It was hard to go back to the circle of that light. I didn’t want to face him, didn’t want his questions or his accusations. I did not want to pick up the reins of my life. But by the time I reached the fire, Dutiful was stretched out beside it, feigning sleep. He wore his own shirt, and mine had been draped on the stakes to warm and dry. I put it on silently. As I tugged up the collar, my fingers encountered Jinna’s charm. Ah. Well that explained his smile and kindly words. I lay down on my side of the fire.

Before I closed my eyes, I examined the objects I had found. They were feathers. Of stone or metal, I still could not say. In the fire’s deceptive light, they were dark grey. I instantly knew where they belonged. I doubted they would ever be there. I put them on the ground beside me and closed my eyes, fleeing into sleep.

TWENTY-FOUR

Confrontations

So up strides Jack and stands before the Other, so bold that he rocked from his heels to his toes and back again. ‘Oh, ho,’ says he, and he holds up the bag of red pebbles that he’d gathered. ‘So all that rests on this beach is yours? Well, I say that what I’ve gathered is mine, and he who wants what is mine will not get it without me taking a piece of his flesh in exchange.’ And Jack showed the Other his every tooth, from white in the front to black in the back, and his fist, too, doubled up like a tree knot. ‘I’ll slam you,’ he says, ‘and I’ll rip your ears from the sides of your head.’ And it’s certain that he would have that very moment, save that Others have no more ears than a toad, as any child knows.

But all the same, the Other knew he would not take the sack of red pebbles without a fight. So all in a moment, he shimmered and shook. He reeked of dead fish no longer then, but gave off the scent of every flower that blooms in high summer. He shivered his skin so he sparkled and to Jack’s eyes there was suddenly a maiden standing there, naked as a new leaf and licking her lips as if she tasted honey there.

Ten Voyages with Jack, Voyage the Fourth

I think that for a time I slept dreamlessly. Certainly I was weary enough. Far too much had happened to me, far too swiftly. Sleep was as much a respite from thought as it was rest. Yet after a time, dreams claimed me and tumbled me. I climbed the steps to Verity’s tower. He was sitting at the window, Skilling. My heart leapt joyfully at first sight of him, but when he turned to me, his face was grieved. ‘You did not teach my son, Fitz. I’ll have to take your daughter for that.’ Both Nettle and Dutiful were stones on a game-cloth, and with a single sweep of his hand, he exchanged their positions. ‘It’s your move,’ he said. But before I could do anything, Jinna came to brush all the stones from the cloth into her hand. ‘I’ll make a charm of these,’ she promised me. ‘One to protect all of the Six Duchies.’

‘Put it away,’ I begged her, for I was the wolf and the charm was one against predators. It sickened and cowed me just to behold it. It was potent, far more potent than any of the other charms she had shown me. It was magic stripped to its most basic form, all human sentiment abraded from it. It was magic of an older time and place, magic that cared nothing for people. It was as implacable as the Skill. It was sharp as knives and burning as poison. ‘Put it away!’

He couldn’t hear me. He had never been able to hear me. The Scentless One wore it around his throat, and he had opened his collar wide to bare it. It was all I could do to force myself to stand still and guard his back. Even behind him, I could feel its harsh radiance. I could smell blood, his and my own. I still felt the warm slow seep of my blood down my flank, and my strength dripping away with it.

A man with a whining dog stood guard over us, scowling. Behind him, a fire burned, and Piebalds slept around it. Beyond them was the open mouth of the shelter, and an edge of dawn in the sky. It seemed horribly far away. Our guard’s face was contorted, not just with anger but with fear and frustration. He longed to hurt us, but dared come no closer. It was not a dream. It was the Wit and I was with Nighteyes and he lived. The surge of joy I felt amused him but only for an instant. Your witnessing this will not make it easier for either of us. You should have stayed away from this.

‘Cover that damned thing!’ the guard growled at him.

‘Make me!’ the Scentless One suggested. I heard the Fool’s lilting reply with the wolf’s ears. The whip-snap of his old mockery capered in his words. Some part of him relished this defiance. His sword was gone, taken from him when they had been captured, but he sat defiantly straight, throat bared to show a charm that burned with cold magic. He had placed himself between the wolf and those who would torment him.

Nighteyes showed me a chamber, walls of stone, floor of earth. A cave, perhaps. He and the Fool were in a corner of it. Blood had sheeted down the side of the Fool’s tawny face. Dried, it had cracked so that he looked like a badly-glazed pot. Nighteyes and the Fool were prisoners, violently taken but kept alive, the Fool because he might know where the Prince had gone and how, and the wolf because of his link to me.

They puzzled that out, that we are linked?

I’m afraid it was obvious to all.

From out of the shadows, the cat appeared. She stalked stiffly towards us. Her whiskers vibrated and her intent stare fixed on Nighteyes. When the guard’s dog turned to look at her, she spat and slashed at him. He leaped back with a yipe and the guard’s scowl deepened, but both he and his dog gave ground to her. She prowled back and forth, padding stiff-legged and casting sidelong glances up at the Fool while rumbling a threat in her throat. Her tail floated behind her.

The charm holds her at bay?

Yes. But not for long, I fear. The wolf’s next thought surprised me. The cat is a miserable creature, honeycombed with the woman as a sick deer is riddled with parasites. She stalks about with a human looking out of her eyes. She does not even move like a true cat any more.

The cat halted suddenly and opened her mouth wide as if taking our scent. Then she suddenly spun about and trotted purposefully away.

You should not have come. She senses you are with me. She has gone to find the big man. He is bonded to a horse. The charm does not bother prey, nor those who bond with them.

The wolf’s thought rang with contempt for grass-eaters, but there was an element of dread behind it. I pondered it. The Fool’s charm was a charm against predators; it was logical it would not bother the man bonded to the warhorse.

Before I could follow that thought further, the cat returned with the man behind her. She sat down at his side, insufferably pleased with herself, and fixed us with a very uncatlike stare. The big man stared, too, not at the defiant Fool, but past him at my wolf.

‘There you are. We’ve been waiting for you,’ he said slowly.

Nighteyes would not meet his gaze, but the big man’s words fell on his ears and came to me. ‘I have your friends, you treacherous coward. Will you betray them as you’ve betrayed your Old Blood? I know you’re somewhere with the Prince. I don’t know how you vanished, nor do I care. I say only this to you. Bring him back, or they die slowly.’

The Fool stood up between the man and my wolf. I knew he spoke to me when he said, ‘Don’t listen. Stay away. Keep him safe.’

I could not see past the Fool, but the shadow of the big man loomed suddenly larger. ‘Your hedge-witch charm means nothing to me, Lord Golden.’

Then the Fool’s flying body crashed suddenly into my battered wolf, and my Wit-bond to him vanished.

I jolted awake. I leaped to my feet, but all I saw was the greying of dawn and the empty beach. I heard only the cries of seabirds wheeling overhead. In my sleep, I had drawn my body up into a ball for warmth, but now I shook with something that was not cold. Sweat sheathed me and I was breathing hard. Sleep had fled completely. I stared out over the sea, my dream still vivid in my mind. I did not doubt the reality of it. I took a long, shuddering breath. The tide was rising again, but had not quite peaked. I sought in vain for some sign of a Skill-pillar thrusting up from the waves. I would have to wait until afternoon, when the water would be at full ebb … I dared not wonder what would happen to the Fool and Nighteyes in the intervening hours. If luck sided with me, the retreating waves would bare the pillar that had brought us here, and I would go back to them. The Prince would have to manage here on his own until I could return for him.

If the retreating water did not reveal the pillar – I refused to consider what that might mean. Instead, I focused on the problems I could solve right now. Find food and eat it. Keep up my strength. And break the woman’s hold on the Prince. I turned to the still sleeping boy and nudged him firmly with my foot. ‘Get up!’ I grated at him.

I knew that waking him would not necessarily break his Wit-link with the cat, but it would make it more difficult for him to focus on it exclusively. When I was a lad, I had spent my sleeping hours ‘dreaming’ of hunts with Nighteyes. Awake, I was still aware of the wolf, but not in such an immediate way. When Dutiful groaned, and rolled away from me, stubbornly clinging to his Wit-dreams, I bent over him, seized him by the collar and stood him on his feet. ‘Wake up!’

‘Leave me alone, you ugly bastard,’ he rasped at me. Catlike he glowered at me, head canted, mouth ajar. I almost expected him to hiss and claw at me. Then my temper got the better of me. I gave him a violent shake, then thrust him from me, so that he stumbled back, lost his footing, and nearly fell into the embers of the fire.

‘Don’t call me that,’ I warned him. ‘Don’t you ever call me that!’

He wound up sitting on the sand, staring up at me in astonishment. I doubted that anyone had ever spoken to him that way in his life, let alone given him a shaking. It shamed me that I was the first. I turned away from him and spoke over my shoulder. ‘Build up the fire. I’m going to see if the tide has bared anything for us to eat, before it covers it up again.’ I strode away without looking back at him. Within three strides, I wanted to go back for my boots, but I would not. I didn’t want to face him again just yet. My temper with him was still too high, my thwarted fury at the Piebalds too strong.

The tide had not quite reached the sand of the beach. On the bared black rock I stepped gingerly, trying to avoid barnacles. I gathered black mussels, and seaweed to steam them in. I found one fat green crab wedged under an outcropping of rock. He attempted to defend himself by clamping onto my finger. He bruised me but I captured him and pouched him in my shirt with the mussels. My gathering carried me some little way down the beach. The chill of the day and the simplicity of collecting food cooled my anger towards the Prince. Dutiful was being used, I reminded myself, by folk who should know better. The ugliness of what the woman was doing should prove that the folk who conspired had no ethics. I should not blame the boy. He was young, not stupid or evil. Well, perhaps young and stupid, but had not I been the same once?

I was returning to the fire when I stepped on the fourth feather. As I stooped to pick it up, I saw the fifth one glinting in the sunlight, not a dozen paces away. The fifth one shone with extraordinary colours, dazzling to the eyes, but when I reached it, I decided it had been a trick of the sunlight and damp, for it was as flat a grey as its brethren.

The Prince was not by the fire when I returned, though he had built up the fire before he left. I set the two feathers with the three I had found the night before. I glanced about for the lad and saw him walking back towards me. He had evidently visited the stream, for his face was damp and his hair washed back from his brow. When he reached the fire, he stood over me for a time, watching me as I killed the crab and wrapped it and the mussels in the flat fronds of seaweed. With a stick I nudged some of the burning wood aside and then gingerly placed the packet on the bared coals. It sizzled. He watched me pushing other coals up around it. When he spoke, his voice was even, as if he commented on the weather.

‘I’ve a message for you. If you do not bring me back before sunset, they will kill them both, the man and the wolf.’

I did not even betray that I had heard his words. I kept my eyes on the food, edging the coals closer to it. When I finally spoke, my words were just as cold. ‘Perhaps, if they do not free the man and the wolf before noon, I will kill you.’ I lifted my face to look into his, and showed him my assassin’s eyes. He took a step back.

‘But I am the Prince!’ he cried. An instant later, I saw how he despised those words. But he could not call them back. They hung quivering in the air between us.

‘That would only matter if you acted like the Prince,’ I observed callously. ‘But you don’t. You’re a tool, and you don’t even know it. Worse, you’re a tool used against not just your mother, but the whole of the Six Duchies.’ I looked aside from him as I spoke the words I must. ‘You don’t even know that the woman you worship doesn’t exist. Not as a woman, at any rate. She’s dead, Prince Dutiful. But when she died, instead of letting go, she pushed into her cat’s mind, to live there. She rides the cat, a shameful thing for any Old Blood one to do. And she has used the cat to lure you in and deceive you with words of love. I do not know what she intends in the end, but it will not be good for any of you. And it will cost my friends’ lives.’

I should have known that she was with him. I should have known that that was the one thing that she would not permit me to tell him. He hissed like a cat from his open mouth as he sprang, and the tiny sound gave me an instant of warning. I leaned to one side as he threw himself at me. I turned to his passage, caught him by the back of his shirt, and jerked him back towards me. I pinioned him in a hug. He threw his head back in an effort to smash my face, but got only the side of my jaw. I had long been wise to that trick, as it was one of my own favourites.

It was not much of a fight, as fights go. He was at that lanky stage of his growth when bones and muscles do not yet match one another, and he fought with the heedless frenzy of youth. I had long been comfortable in my body, and I had a man’s weight and years of experience to back it. With his arms tightly pinioned, he could do little more than toss his head about and kick at me with his feet. I recognized abruptly that no one had ever grappled with him this way. Of course. A prince would be trained with a blade, not with fists. Nor had he had brothers or a father for rough play. He did not know what to make of being manhandled this way. He repelled at me, the Wit equivalent of a mental shove. As Burrich had so long ago with me, I deflected it back at him. I felt his shock at that. In the next moment, he redoubled his struggle. I felt the fury that coursed through him. It was like fighting myself, and I knew he set no limits to what he would do in an attempt to injure me. His mindless savagery was limited only by his inexperience. He tried to fling us both to the ground, but I had his balance too well. His efforts to wriggle out of my embrace only made me tighten my grip. His face was bright red before his head suddenly drooped. For a moment he hung limp and gasping in my arms. Then he rasped in a sullen voice, ‘Enough. You win.’

I let go, expecting him to drop to the sand. Instead, he spun, my knife in his hand, and thrust it into my belly. At least, that was his intent. The buckle of my swordbelt deflected it, the blade skidded across the leather of the belt, and then plunged past me, wrapping in my shirt as it went. The blade so near my flesh woke my anger. I caught his wrist, snapped it sharply back, and the knife went flying. A blow from my fist to the side of his neck hammered him to his knees. He yowled in fury as he fell, and the sound stood my hair on end. The glaring glance he turned on me was not the Prince’s, but some awful combination of cat, boy, and a woman who would master them both. Her will was the one that brought him up off his knees and springing towards me.

I tried to catch his charge and control him, but he fought like a mad thing, clawing and spitting and ripping at my hair. I hit him hard in the centre of his chest, a blow that should have at least slowed him, but he came back at me, his fury doubled. I knew then that she had full control of him, and that she would care nothing about pain I dealt him. I’d have to damage him if I wanted to stop him, and even at that moment, I could not bring myself to do that. So I flung myself to meet his charge, wrapped him in my arms and used my weight to bear him down. We came down very near the fire, but I was on top, and resolved to stay there. Our faces were inches apart as I made good my hold on him. He twisted his head about wildly, and tried to strike me in the face with his brow. The eyes that met mine were not the Prince’s. She spat up at me and cursed me. I lifted him and slammed him back against the earth. I saw his head bounce off the ground. He should have been near stunned, but he darted his mouth at my arm as if to bite me. I felt a surge of fury that started somewhere so deep it was outside me.

‘Dutiful!’ I roared. ‘Stop fighting me!’

He went limp in my arms. The woman/cat glared at me furiously, but slowly she faded from his eyes. Prince Dutiful goggled up at me in terror. Then even that faded from his eyes. He stared like a dead man. Blood outlined his teeth. It was his own, leaking from his nose and over his mouth. He lay very still. I felt sickened. I peeled myself away from him and stood slowly, chest heaving. ‘Eda and El, mercy,’ I prayed as I seldom did, but the gods were not interested in undoing what I had done.

I knew what I had done. I had done it before, coldly and deliberately. I had used the Skill to forcefully imprint on my uncle, Prince Regal, that he would suddenly become adamantly loyal to Queen Kettricken, and the child she carried. I had intended that Skill imprint to be permanent, and it had been, though Prince Regal’s untimely death but a few months later had prevented me from ever knowing how long such an imposed command would remain in force.

This time I had acted in anger, with no thought beyond the moment. The furious command I had given him had printed itself onto his mind with the full strength of my Skill behind it. He had not decided to stop fighting me. Part of him doubtless wished to kill me still. His baffled look told me that he had no comprehension of what I had done to him. Neither did I, really.

‘Can you get up?’ I asked him guardedly.

‘Can I get up?’ He echoed my words eerily. His diction was blurred. His eyes rolled about as he seemed to seek an answer in himself, then his gaze came back to me.

‘You can get up,’ I ventured fearfully.

And at my words, he could.

He came to his feet unsteadily, reeling as if I had knocked him cold. The force of my command seemed to have driven the woman’s control away. Yet to have supplanted that with my own will over him was no victory for me. He stood, shoulders slightly hunched, as if investigating a pain in himself. After a time, he lifted his eyes to look at me. ‘I hate you,’ he told me, in a voice divested of rancour.

‘That’s understandable,’ I heard myself reply. Sometimes I shared that sentiment.

I couldn’t look at him. I found my knife on the sand and returned it to its sheath. The Prince lurched around the fire, then sat down on the opposite side. I watched him surreptitiously. He wiped his hand across his mouth and then looked at his bloody palm. Mouth slightly ajar, he ran his tongue past his teeth. I feared he would spit some out, but he did not. He made no complaint at all. Instead, he looked like a man trying desperately to recall something. Humiliated and confused, he stared at the fire. I wondered what he pondered.

For a time I sat, feeling all the new little pains he had given me. Many of them were not physical. I doubted they equalled what I had done to him. I could think of nothing to say to him, so I poked at the food in the fire. The seaweed I’d wrapped it in had shrunken and dried in the heat and was beginning to char. I poked the packet out from the coals. Inside, the mussels had opened, and the crab’s flesh had gone from opaque to white. Close enough to cooked to satisfy me, I decided.

‘There’s food here,’ I announced.

‘I’m not hungry,’ the Prince replied. Voice and eyes were distant.

‘Eat it anyway, while there’s food to eat.’ My words came out as a callous command.

Whether it was my Skill hold upon him, or his own common sense, I couldn’t tell. But after I had taken my share of the food from the seaweed packet, he came cautiously around the fire to claim his share. In some ways, he reminded me of Nighteyes when he had first come to me. The cub had been wary and defiant, yet pragmatic enough to realize he had to depend on me to provide for him. Perhaps the Prince knew that without me, he had no hopes of returning easily to Buck.

Or perhaps my Skill-command had burned so deep that even a suggestion from me must be obeyed.

The silence lasted as long as the food did, and a bit longer. I broke it. ‘I looked at the stars last night.’

The Prince nodded. After a time, ‘We’re a long way from home,’ he admitted grudgingly.

‘We may face a long journey home with few resources. Do you know how to live off the land at all?’

Again, a silence followed my words. He did not want to speak to me, but I had knowledge he desperately needed. His question came grudgingly.

‘What about the way we came here? Can’t we go back that way?’ A frown divided his brows as he asked, ‘How did you learn to do that magic? Is it the Skill?’

I broke a little piece of the truth off and gave it to him. ‘King Verity taught me to Skill. A long time ago.’ Before he could ask another question, I announced, ‘I’m going to walk down the beach and climb up those cliffs. It could be there’s a town nearby.’ If I had to leave the boy here alone, I’d do my best to leave him in a safe place. And if the Skill-pillar did not emerge from the water, then I’d best prepare for a long walk home. My will was iron in that regard. I’d return to Buck if I had to crawl there. And once there, I’d hunt down every one of those Piebalds and kill them slowly. The promise gave purpose to my motions. I began to pull on my socks and boots. The feathers still lay on the sand. A flick of my fingers slid them up my sleeve. I’d secure them better later. I did not wish to discuss them with the Prince. Dutiful made no reply to my words, but when I stood up and walked away from the fire, he followed me. I stopped at the freshwater stream, to wash my hands and face and to drink as well. The Prince watched me, and when I was finished, he walked upstream to drink himself. While he was occupied, a strip from my shirt secured the feathers to my forearm. By the time he looked up from washing the blood from his face, my sleeve once more concealed them. Together we walked on. The silence felt like a heavy thing we carried between us. I could feel him mulling over what I had told him about the woman. I wanted to lecture him, to batter him with words until he understood exactly what the woman was trying to do. I wanted to ask if she was still in his mind with him. Instead I bit my tongue and held back my words. He wasn’t stupid, I told myself. I’d told him the truth. Now I had to let him work out what it meant to him. We kept walking.

To my relief, we found no more feathers on the sand. We found little of anything useful, though the beach seemed to have more than its share of flotsam. There were bits of rotting rope, and worm-bored lengths of ship timbers. The remains of a dead-eye lay not far from a thole. As we walked, the black cliff gradually loomed larger, until it towered above us and promised a good vantage of the land around it. As we drew closer, I saw that its face was pocked with holes. In a sand cliff, I would have thought them swallows’ nests, but not in black stone. The holes seemed too regular and too evenly spaced to be the work of natural forces. The sun striking them seemed to wake glints in some of them. Curiosity beckoned me.

The reality was stranger than anything I could have imagined. When we reached the foot of the cliff, the holes were revealed as alcoves, of graduated sizes. Not all, but many of them held an object. Wordless with wonder, the Prince and I strolled along looking at the lowest levels of alcoves. The variety of objects put me in mind of some mad king’s treasure hoard. One held a jewelled goblet, the next a porcelain cup of amazing delicacy. In a large alcove was something that looked like a wooden helmet for a horse, save that a horse’s eyes are set on the sides of its head, not the front. A net of gold chain studded with tiny blue gems had been draped over a stone about the size of a woman’s head. A tiny box of gleaming wood with images of flowers on it, a lamp carved from some lustrous green stone, a sheet of metal with odd characters graven into it, a delicate stone flower in a vase – treasure after treasure after treasure was displayed there.

Wonder wrapped me. Who would so display such wealth, on an isolated cliff where the wind and waves could batter it? Each item shone as a cherished gem. No tarnish marred the metal, no coating of salt dimmed the wood. To whom did all this belong, and how and why was it here? I looked behind me down the beach, but saw no sign of any inhabitants. No footprints save our own marred the sand. All these marvels were left unguarded. Tempted beyond my control, I reached a finger to touch the flower in the vase, only to encounter resistance. It was as if a soft glass covered the opening of the alcove. Foolishly curious, I pressed my hand against the pliable surface. The harder I pressed, the more unyielding the invisible barrier became. I managed to touch one finger to the flower; it moved and a delicate chiming from its petals just reached my ears. Yet it would have taken a stronger man than I to press a hand in deep enough to grasp that flower. I drew my hand back, and as my flesh left the alcove, my fingers tingled unpleasantly. It reminded me of brushing a nettle, save that it did not last as long.

The Prince had watched me. ‘Thief,’ he observed quietly.

I felt like a child caught in some reckless act. ‘I did not intend to take it. I but wished to touch it.’

‘Certainly,’ he observed sarcastically.

‘Have it as you will,’ I replied. I turned my eyes from the distraction of the treasures and looked up the cliff. I realized then that one series of vertical holes was a ladder rather than a succession of alcoves. I said not a word to the Prince as I approached them. Studying them, I decided they had been cut for a man taller than myself, but that I could probably manage.

Dutiful watched me curiously, but I decided he deserved no explanation. I began my climb. Each handhold was a bit of a stretch for me, and placing my feet demanded that I lift each foot uncomfortably high. I was about a third of the way up the cliff before I realized just how much work the whole climb was going to be. The new bruises the Prince had given me throbbed dully. If I had been by myself, I probably would have backed down.

I kept climbing, though the old injury in my back began to shriek in protest each time I reached for the next handhold. By the time I reached the top, my shirt was stuck to my back with sweat. I hauled myself over the lip of the cliff on my belly, and then lay still for a moment or two, catching my breath. The wind was freer here, and colder. I stood up slowly and surveyed my surroundings.

Lots of water. The shores beyond the point I stood on were rocky and abrupt. No beaches. Behind me I saw forest. Beyond the tableland that fronted our beach was more forest. We were either on an island or a peninsula. I saw no sign of human habitation, no ships on the sea, not even a tendril of smoke rising anywhere. If we had to leave our beach on foot, we’d have to go through the forest. The thought sent a surge of unease through me.

After a time, I became aware of a thin sound. I walked to the cliff’s edge and looked down. Prince Dutiful looked up at me and shouted a question, but the inflection of his words were all that reached my ears. I made a vague hand motion at him, feeling annoyed. If he wanted so badly to know what I saw, let him climb up here himself. My mind was busy with other concerns. Someone had made those alcoves and gathered those treasures. I should see some sign of human occupation somewhere. Logic demanded it. At last I discovered what might be a footpath far down the beach. It led through the tableland and towards the forest. It did not look well-used. It might be no more than a game-trail, I thought, but I fixed it in my mind in case we had to resort to it.

Then I looked out over the retreating water, searching for anything that might indicate worked stone. Nothing was exposed yet, but one area looked promising. As each wave fell back, I had glimpses of what might be several large black stones with straight edges. They were still under a shallow layer of water. I hoped it was not a geological quirk. There was a tangle of driftwood on the beach, with a seaweed-festooned branch that pointed towards the rocks. I noted it as a guide. I wasn’t sure the tide would bare the rocks completely, but when it reached its full ebb, I intended to investigate them as much as I could.

Finally, with a sigh, I lay down on my belly, scrabbled my legs over the edge, and felt for the first foothold. The climb down was even more unpleasant than the journey up, for I had to grope blindly for each step as I descended. By the time I reached the ground, my legs had a tremor of weariness in them. I skipped the last two steps, dropping to the sand and nearly falling to my knees.

‘Well, what did you see?’ the Prince demanded.

I let him wait while I caught my breath. ‘Water. Rocks. Trees.’

‘No town? No road?’

‘No.’

‘So what are we going to do?’ He sounded annoyed, as if it were all my fault.

I knew what I would do. I was going back through the Skill-pillar, even if I had to dive to find it. But what I said to him was, ‘What I tell you, she knows. Isn’t that true?’

That stole all his words from him. He stood for a time just staring at me. When I set off down the beach, he followed me, unaware of how much authority he had ceded to me.

The day was not warm, but hiking on sand demands more effort than walking on solid ground. I was tired from my climb and preoccupied with my own worries, so I made no effort at conversation. It was Dutiful who broke the silence. ‘You said she was dead,’ he abruptly accused me. ‘That’s impossible. If she is dead, how does she speak to me?’

I took a breath to speak, sighed it out after a moment, and then took another. ‘When you are Witted, you bond to an animal. It’s more than sharing thoughts, it’s sharing being. After a time, you can see through the animal’s eyes, experience its life as it does, perceive the world as the animal does. It isn’t just –’

‘I know all that. I am Piebald, you know.’ He gave a snort of contempt for my words.

I don’t think an interruption had ever irritated me more. ‘Old Blood,’ I corrected him sharply. ‘Tell me you’re Piebald again, and I’ll have to beat it out of you. I’ve no respect for what they do with their magic. Now. How long have you known that you’re Witted?’ I demanded suddenly.

‘I – why –’ I saw him struggle to push his mind past my threat. I’d meant it and he knew it. He took a breath. ‘For about five months. Since the cat was given to me. Almost as soon as her leash was given over to me, I felt –’

‘You felt a trap closing on you, one you’ve been too stupid to perceive. The cat was given to you because others knew you were Witted before you knew it yourself. So you’ve shown signs of it, without being aware that you were doing so. Someone noticed, someone decided to use you. So they presented you with an animal to bond with. That’s not how it’s supposed to be, you know. Witted parents don’t just hand their child an animal and say, here, this is your partner for as long as you both live. No. Usually the child is well schooled in the Wit and its consequences before it bonds. Usually the child makes a quest of some sort, seeking a like-minded animal. When it’s done right, it’s like getting married. This wasn’t done right. You weren’t educated about the Wit by people that cared about you. A group of Witted saw an opening, and took advantage of it. The cat didn’t choose you. That’s bad enough. But I don’t think the cat was even allowed to choose the woman. She stole it, as a kit, from the mother’s den, and forced the bond. Then the woman died, but she kept on living in the cat.’

His eyes were wide and dark, staring up at me. He looked slightly aside from me, and I felt the Wit working between them.

‘I don’t believe you. She says she can explain it all, that you’re trying to confuse me.’ The words spilled out of him hastily, as if he tried to hide behind them.

I glanced over at the boy. Scepticism and confusion had closed his face.

I took a breath and kept my temper. ‘Look, lad. I don’t know all the details. But I can speculate. Perhaps she knew she was dying; maybe that’s why she chose such a helpless creature and forced the bond. When a bond is uneven, as that one would have been, the stronger partner can control the weaker one. She could dominate the kit, and move in and out, sharing the cat’s body as she pleased. And when she died, instead of dying with her own body, she stepped over to the cat’s.’

I stopped walking. I waited until Dutiful met my eyes. ‘You’re next,’ I said quietly.

‘You’re mad! She loves me!’

I shook my head. ‘I sense great ambition in her. She’ll want a human body of her own again, not to be a cat, not to die when the cat’s days are done. She’d have to find someone. It would have to be someone that was both Witted, and ignorant of the Wit. Why not someone well placed? Why not a prince?’

Conflicting expressions flickered over his face. Some part of him knew I spoke truth, and it shamed him that he had been so deceived. He struggled to disbelieve me. I tried to temper my words, so that he did not feel so foolish.

‘I think she selected you. You never had any choice at all, any more than the cat did. The woman/cat is what you’re bonded to, not the cat itself. And it wasn’t done for love of you, any more than she loved the cat. No. Somewhere, someone has a very careful plan, and you’re just a tool for it. A tool for the Piebalds.’

‘I don’t believe you!’ His voice rose on the words. ‘You’re a liar!’ On those words, his voice cracked.

I saw his shoulders heave with the breath he took. I almost felt my Skill-command hold him back from attacking me. For a time I was carefully quiet. When I judged he had mastered himself, I spoke very quietly. ‘You’ve called me a bastard, a thief, and now a liar. A prince should be more mindful of what insults he flings, unless he thinks that his title alone will protect him. So here’s an insult for you, and a warning. Hide behind being a prince while calling me nasty names, and I’ll call you a coward. The next time you insult me, your bloodlines won’t stop my fist.’

I held his gaze until he looked aside from me, a cub cowed by a wolf. I lowered my voice, forcing him to listen carefully to catch my words. ‘You’re not stupid, Dutiful. You know I’m not a liar. She’s dead, and you are being used. You don’t want it to be true, but that’s not the same as disbelieving me. You’ll probably keep hoping and praying that something will happen to prove I’m wrong. It won’t.’ I took a deep breath. ‘About the only thing I can offer you right now is that none of this is really your fault. Someone should have protected you from this. Someone should have taught you about Old Blood from the time you were small.’

There was no way to admit to either of us that that someone was me. The same person who had introduced him to the Wit and all it could be, through Skill-dreams when he was four.

We walked for a long time without speaking. I kept my eyes on my seaweed-festooned snag. Once I’d left the Prince here, I could not predict how long I’d be gone. Could he care for himself? The treasures in the alcove made me uneasy. Such wealth belonged to someone, and that person might resent an intruder on his beach. Yet I could not take him back with me. He’d be a hindrance. A time alone, taking care of himself might do him good, I decided. And if I died trying to save the Fool and Nighteyes? Well, at least the Piebalds would not have the Prince.

I set my teeth, trudged through the sand and kept my grim thoughts to myself. We had nearly reached my snag when Dutiful spoke. His voice was very low. ‘You said my father taught you to Skill. Did he teach you to –’

Then he tripped on something. As he fell, the toe of his boot jerked a silver chain free of the sand that had covered it. He sat up, cursing, and then reached down to free his boot. As he dragged the looped chain clear of the sand, I gaped at it. It was an intricately woven thing, each thread of metal the thickness of a horsehair. He coiled it into his hand, a necklace-length of chain that filled his palm. He gave a final tug to free the last loop, and a figurine popped from the sand. It was fastened to the chain as a dangling charm. It was the length of Dutiful’s little finger. Bright colours had been enamelled onto the metal.

It was the image of a woman. We stared down at the proud face. The artist had given her black eyes and let the dark gold shine through for the tone of her skin. Her hair was painted black with a standing blue ornament crowning it. The draped garments bared one of her breasts. Bare feet of dark gold peeped from beneath the hem.

‘She’s beautiful,’ I said. He made no reply.

The Prince was engrossed by her. He turned the figurine over in his hand and traced the fall of hair down her back.

‘I don’t know what this is made from. It weighs scarcely anything.’

We both lifted our heads at the same instant. Perhaps it was our Wit warning us of the presence of another living being, but I do not think so. I had caught the scent of something indescribably foul on the air. Yet even as I turned my head to seek the source of the stench, I almost became persuaded it was a sweet perfume. Almost.

Some things one never forgets. The insidious tendrilling of mind-touch is one of them. Terror spasmed through me and I slammed up the Skill-walls around my mind in a reflex I thought I had forgotten. My reward was that I perceived the full foulness of its stench as I turned to confront a nightmare creature.

It stood as tall as I did, but that was only the portion of its body that reared upright. I could not decide if it reminded me of a reptile or a sea mammal. The flat flounder eyes on the front of its face looked unnatural in their orientation. The brain-bump of its skull seemed tumescently large. Its lower jaw dropped like a trap door as it stared at us. Its mouth could have engulfed a rabbit. A stiff, fishy tongue protruded from it briefly. As we stared, it jerked its tongue back in and closed its jaws with a snap.

To my horror, the transfixed prince was smiling at the creature in an addled way. He swayed a step closer to it. I set my hand firmly to his shoulder and gripped hard. I set my thumb to his flesh and tried to invoke the earlier Skill-bond I had laid on him without breaching my own walls. ‘Come with me,’ I said quietly but firmly. I drew him back towards me, and if he did not actively obey at least he did not resist me.

The thing reared up even taller. Sacs at the sides of its throat puffed up as it lifted its flipper-like limbs. It suddenly spread finny hands that were large and wide. Claws like bullfish spines stood out from the ends of the digits. Then it spoke, wheezing and belching the syllables. The shock of its distorted words felt like pebbles pelting against me. ‘You did not come by the path. How came you?’

‘We came by –’

‘Silence!’ I warned the Prince and gave him a rough shake. I was backing us away from the creature, but it hummocked its ungainly body over the sand towards us. Where had it come from? I glanced about wildly, fearing to see more of the creatures, but there was only the one. It made a sudden rush forwards, interposing its huge body between the tableland and us. I responded by retreating towards the water. It was where I wished to go anyway, the only possible escape that I could imagine. I prayed the tide would bare the Skill-pillar.

‘You must leave it!’ the creature belched at us. ‘What the ocean washes up on the treasure-beach must always remain here. Drop what you have found.’

The Prince opened his hand. The figurine fell but the chain tangled on his lax fingers, to dangle from his hand like a puppet.

‘Drop it!’ the creature repeated more urgently.

I decided the time for subtlety was past. I drew my sword awkwardly with my left hand, for I feared to let go of the Prince. ‘Stay back,’ I warned. My feet were crunching over barnacles on the uneven rocks. I risked a glance behind me. I could see my squared-off black stones, but they barely stuck up above the water. The creature mistook my look.

‘Your ship has left you here! There is nothing out there but ocean. Drop the treasure.’ There was a hissing quality to its speech, most unnerving. It had no more lips than a lizard, but the teeth that the opened mouth bared were multitudinous and sharp. ‘The treasures of this beach are not for humans! What the sea brings here is meant to be lost to humankind! You were not worthy of it.’

Seaweed squelched underfoot. The Prince slipped and nearly went down. I kept my grip on his shoulder and dragged him back to his feet. Three more steps, and water lapped around my feet.

‘You cannot swim far!’ the creature warned us. ‘The beach will have your bones!’

Like a distant wind, I faintly felt the buffeting of fear that he directed at us. The Prince’s mind was unshielded, and he gave a sudden cry of wild terror. ‘I don’t want to drown!’ he cried out. ‘Please, I don’t want to drown!’ When he turned to me, the whites showed all round the edges of his eyes. I did not think him a coward. I knew only too well what it was like to have another mind impose panic on my unguarded thoughts.

‘Dutiful. You have to trust me. Trust me.’

‘I can’t!’ he bellowed, and I believed him. He was torn between us, my Skill-command for obedience warring with the insidious waves of fear the creature gushed at him. I tightened my grip and dragged him back with me as I retreated. The water was up to our knees. Every wave nudged against us in its passage. The wallowing creature did not hesitate to follow us. Doubtless it would be more at home in the sea. I risked another glance behind me. The Skill-pillar was close. I felt that vague confusion that the black memory stone always inflicted on me. It was strange, to push myself towards disorientation in the hopes of salvation.

‘Give me the treasure!’ the creature commanded, and virulent green droplets shimmered suddenly at the end of its claws. It lifted them menacingly.

In one motion, I sheathed my sword, threw my left arm around Dutiful, and flung us both backward into the water. As the creature dived towards us, I thought I saw a sudden flash of comprehension in those inhuman eyes, but it was too late. We fell full-length into the cold salt water, and my groping fingers sought and found the canted surface of the fallen pillar. I had no time to warn the Prince as it swallowed us.

We stumbled out into an almost-warm afternoon. The Prince dropped nervelessly from my grip to sprawl on a cobblestoned street in the gush of saltwater that had accompanied us. I drew a deep breath and looked around us. ‘Wrong face!’ I had known this could happen but had been too intent on escaping the thing on the beach to consider it. Each face of a Skill-pillar was carved with a rune that told where that surface would transport you. It was a wonderful system, if one understood what the runes meant. With a jolt, I suddenly grasped how much I had just risked. What if this pillar had been buried under stone, or shattered to pieces? I dared not think what might have become of us. Shaking, I stared at the foreign landscape. We stood in the windswept ruins of an abandoned Elderling city. It looked vaguely familiar and I wondered if it were the same city that a similar pillar had once carried me to. But there was no time for exploration or speculation. All had gone wrong. My original plan had been to return alone through the pillar, to rush unhindered to the aid of my friends. But I could not leave Dutiful stunned and alone in this barren place any more than I could have left him on the hostile beach. I’d have to take him with me. ‘We have to go back,’ I told the Prince. ‘We have to get back to Buck exactly as we came.’

‘I didn’t like that at all.’ His voice shook, and I knew instinctively that he was not speaking about the creature on the beach. Going through a pillar was a harrowing experience for an untrained mind. Regal had used the pillars recklessly in transporting his young Skill-users, little caring how many of them went mad from the process. I would not use my prince so recklessly. Except that I had no other choice, and no time.

‘I know,’ I said gently. ‘But we have to go now, before the tide comes in any deeper.’ He stared at me without comprehension. I weighed him keeping his sanity against what the woman might know through him. Then I threw that concern aside. He had to understand, at least a little, or I’d emerge from the pillar with a drooling idiot. ‘We have to go back to the pillar on the beach. We know it has a facet that will take us back to Buck. We’ll have to discover which one.’

The boy made a small retching sound. He hunkered down on the cobblestones, pressing the heels of his hands to his temples. ‘I don’t think I can,’ he said faintly.

My heart smote me. ‘Waiting won’t make it any better,’ I warned him. ‘I’ll hold you together as best I can. But we have to go now, my prince.’

‘That thing might be waiting for us!’ he cried wildly, but I think he feared the passage more than any lurking creature.

I stooped and put my arms around him, and although he struggled wildly, I dragged him back into the pillar with me.

I had never used a pillar twice in such swift succession. I was unprepared for the sharp sensation of heat. As we emerged, I accidentally snuffed warm seawater up my nose. I stood up, holding Dutiful’s head above water. The water around the pillar was seething with the heat from it. And the Prince had been right. As I held his lax body in my arms and shook water from my face, I heard startled grunts from the beach. Not one, but four of the ungainly creatures had congregated there. At the sight of us, they charged, hunching across the sand and into the waves. No time to think or look or choose. The Prince was limp and lolling. I clutched him to me, and risked dropping my Skill-walls to try to hold his mind intact. As an incoming wave drove me to my knees, I slapped a hand to the steaming surface of the Skill-pillar. It dragged me in.

The transit this time seemed unbearable. I swear I smelled a strange odour, oddly familiar and yet repulsive. Dutiful. Dutiful, prince. Heir to the Farseer throne. Son of Kettricken. I wrapped his tattering thoughts in my own and named him by every name I could think of.

Then came a moment he reached back to me. I know you. That was all I sensed from him, but after that, he held onto himself and to me. There was a queer passivity to our bond, and when at length we washed out onto green grass under a lowering sky, I wondered if the Prince’s mind had survived our escape from the treasure-beach.

TWENTY-FIVE

Ransom

By these signs may you know one who has the potential for the Skill:

A child who comes of Skilled parents.

A child who wins often at games of physical skill, and his opponents stumble, lose heart, or play poorly against him.

A child who possesses memories not rightfully his.

A child who dreams, and his dreams are detailed and contain knowledge beyond the child’s own experience.

Dun Needleson, Skillmaster to King Wielder

The barrow crouched on the hillside above us. It was raining, a misty but determined fall of water. The grass was deep and wet. I suddenly didn’t have the strength to stand by myself, let alone support the Prince. As one, we sank down until I knelt on the wet earth. I lowered his body to the sward. His eyes were open but they stared blindly. Only the rasping of his breath showed me he was alive. We were back in Buck, but our situation was only marginally better than when we had last left here.

We were both soaking wet. After a moment, I became aware of an odd smell and realized that the pillar behind us was radiating warmth. The smell was the dampness forced out of the stone. I decided I would rather be cold than get too close to it. The figurine still dangled from the chain tangled in the Prince’s fingers. I plucked it free, gathered up the chain, and put it inside my pouch. The Prince made no response to any of this. ‘Dutiful?’ I leaned closer and looked directly into his eyes. They didn’t focus on me. The rain was falling on his face and his open eyes. I tapped him lightly on the cheek. ‘Prince Dutiful? Do you hear me?’

He blinked slowly. It was not much of a response, but it was better than nothing.

‘You’ll feel better in a little while. Just rest here for a time.’ I wasn’t sure that was true, but I left him on the wet grass and climbed up on top of the barrow. I surveyed the surrounding lands, but saw no other humans. There wasn’t much of anything to see, just rolling countryside and a few copses of trees. A flock of starlings wheeled in unison, and settled again, squabbling over feed. Beyond the wild meadow, there was forest. There was nothing that looked like an immediate threat, but nothing that looked like food, drink and shelter either. I was fairly certain that Dutiful would benefit from all three, and feared that without them he would sink further into unresponsiveness but what I needed was even more basic. I wanted to know if my friends lived. I wanted beyond all rationality to reach out for my wolf. I longed to howl for him, to put my whole heart into that questing. I also knew it was the most foolish and reckless thing I could do. It would not only alert any Witted ones nearby that I was here, it would also warn them that I was coming.

I forced order onto my thoughts. I needed a refuge, and quickly. It seemed likely to me that the woman and the cat would be constantly questing for the Prince. Even now, they might be coming for him. The afternoon was already venturing towards evening. Dutiful had told me the Piebalds would kill Nighteyes and the Fool at sunset if I had not returned him. Somehow, I must get the Prince to a safe place before the woman could find us, then slip off on my own to discover where the Piebalds held my friends and then free them. Before sunset. I racked my brain. The closest inn I knew of was The Piebald Prince. I doubted that Dutiful would get a fond welcome there. Yet Buckkeep was a long walk and a river fording away. I pondered but could think of no other refuge for him. In his present condition, I could scarcely leave him here alone, and another trip through a pillar would be the end of Dutiful’s mind, even if we emerged physically unscathed. I once more scanned the empty landscape. I reluctantly admitted that though I had choices, none of them were good. I abruptly decided that I would get us moving, and try to think of something better along the way.

I gave one final glance around before descending from the barrow. As I did so, my eye caught something, not a shape, but a movement beyond a cluster of trees. I crouched low and stared at it, trying to resolve what I had seen. In a few moments, the animal emerged. A horse. Black and tall. Myblack. She stared towards me. Slowly I stood again. She was too far off to go chasing after her. She must have fled when the Piebalds captured Nighteyes and the Fool. I wondered what had become of Malta. I watched her for a moment longer, but she only stood and stared back at me. I turned my back on her and descended to the Prince.

He was no more coherent, but at least had reacted to the chill rain by drawing into a ball and shivering. My apprehension for him was mixed with a guilty hope. Perhaps in his present condition, he could not use his Wit to let the Piebalds know where we were. I set my hand to his shoulder and tried to make my voice gentle as I told him, ‘Let’s get you up and walking. It will warm both of us.’

I don’t know if my words made sense to him. He stared ahead blankly as I pulled him to his feet. Once up, he hunched over his crossed arms. The shivering did not abate. ‘Let’s walk,’ I suggested, but he did not move until I put an arm around him and told him, ‘Walk with me. Now.’ Then he did, but it was a stumbling, staggering gait. At a snail’s pace, we fled across the wet hillside.

Very gradually, I became aware of the thud of hooves behind us. A glance back showed Myblack following us, but when I stopped, she stopped also. When I let go of the Prince, he sagged towards the earth and the horse immediately became suspicious. I dragged the Prince back to his feet. As we plodded on again, I could hear her uneven hoof beats behind us again.

I ignored Myblack until she had nearly caught up with us. Then I sat down and let Dutiful lean against me until her curiosity overcame her native wariness. I paid no attention to her until her breath was actually warm on the back of my neck. Even then I did not turn to her, but snaked a hand stealthily around to catch hold of the dangling reins.

I think she was almost glad to be caught. I stood slowly and stroked her neck. Her coat was streaked with dried lather, and all her tack was damp. She had been grazing around her bit. Mud was crusted into one side of the saddle where she had tried to roll. I led her in a slow circle and confirmed what I feared. She was lamed. Something, perhaps the Wit-hounds, had tried to run her down, but her fleetness had saved her. I was amazed that she had even stayed in the area, let alone come back to me when she saw me. Yet there would be no wild gallop to safety for any of us. The best we would do was a halting walk.

I spent some little time trying to cajole the Prince into standing and mounting the horse. It was only when I lost my patience and ordered him to get to his feet and get on the damned horse that he obeyed me. Dutiful did not respond to conversation, but he obeyed simple orders from me. Then I appreciated how deep that jolt of Skill-command had gone, and how firmly linked we remained. ‘Don’t fight me,’ I had charged him, and some part of him interpreted that as ‘Don’t disobey me.’ Even with his cooperation, the mount was an awkward manoeuvre. As I heaved him up into the saddle, I feared he would topple off the other side. I didn’t try to ride behind him. I doubted that Myblack would have tolerated it. Instead I led her. The Prince swayed with Myblack’s hitching gait but did not fall. He looked terrible. All the maturity had been stripped from his features, leaving him a sick child, his dark-circled eyes wide, his mouth drooping. He looked as if he could die. The full impact of that possibility seized my heart in a cold grip. The Prince dead. The end of the Farseer line and the shattering of the Six Duchies. A messy and painful death for Nettle. I could not let it happen that way. We entered a strip of open woods, startling a crow who rose, cawing like a prophet of doom. It seemed an ill omen.

I found myself talking to both prince and horse as we walked. I spoke in Burrich’s soothing cadence, using his reassuring words, in a calming ritual remembered from my childhood. ‘Come along now, we’re all going to be fine, there, there, the worst part is over, that’s right, that’s right.’

From that I progressed to humming, and again it was some tune that Burrich had often hummed when he worked on injured horses or labouring mares. I think the familiar song calmed and settled me more than it did the horse or the Prince. After a time, I found myself talking aloud, as much to myself as to them. ‘Well, it looks as if Chade was right. You’re going to Skill whether you’re taught to or not. And I’m afraid the same holds true for the Wit. It’s in your blood, lad, and unlike some, I don’t think it can be beaten out of you. I don’t think it should be. But it shouldn’t be indulged the way you’ve indulged it either. It’s not that different from the Skill, really. A man has to set limits on his magic and on himself. Setting limits is part of being a man. So if we come out of this alive and intact, I’ll teach you. I guess I’ll teach myself as well. It’s probably time for me to look into all those old Skill-scrolls and find out what’s really in them. It scares me, though. In the last two years, the Skill has come back on me like some sort of spreading ulcer. I don’t know where it’s taking me. And I fear what I don’t know. That’s the wolf in me, I guess. And Eda’s breath, let him be safe right now, and my Fool. Don’t let them be in pain or dying simply because they knew me. If anything happens to either of them … it’s strange, isn’t it, how you don’t know how big a part of you someone is until they’re threatened? And then you think that you can’t possibly go on if something happens to them, but the most frightening part is that actually, you will go on, you’ll have to go on, with them or without them. There’s just no telling what you’ll become. What will I be, if Nighteyes is gone? Look at Small Ferret, all those years ago. He went on and on, even though the only thing left in his little mind was to kill –’

‘What about my cat?’

His voice was soft. Relief washed through me that he had enough mind left to speak. At the same time, I hastily reviewed my thoughtless rambling and hoped he had not been paying too much attention.

‘How do you feel, my prince?’

‘I can’t feel my cat.’

A long silence followed. I finally said, ‘I can’t feel my wolf, either. Sometimes he needs to be separate from me.’

He was silent for so long that I feared he wasn’t going to reply. Then he said, ‘It doesn’t feel like that. She’s holding us apart. It feels as if I am being punished.’

‘Punished for what?’ I kept my voice even and light, as if we discussed the weather.

‘For not killing you. For not even trying to kill you. She can’t understand why I don’t. I can’t explain why I don’t. But it makes her angry with me.’ There was a simplicity to his heart-spoken words, as if I conversed with the person behind all the manners and artifice of society. I sensed that our journey through the Skill-pillar had stripped away many layers of protection from him. He was vulnerable right now. He spoke and reasoned as soldiers do when they are in great pain, or when ill men try to speak through a fever. All his guards were dropped. It seemed as if he trusted me, that he spoke of such things. I counselled myself not to hope for that, nor believe it. It was only the hardships he had been through that opened him to me like this. Only that. I chose my words carefully.

‘Is she with you now? The woman?’

He nodded slowly. ‘She is always with me now. She won’t let me think alone.’ He swallowed and added hesitantly, ‘She doesn’t want me to talk to you. Or listen. It’s hard. She keeps pushing me.’

‘Do you want to kill me?’

Again there was that pause before he spoke. It was as if he had to digest the words, not simply hear them. When he spoke, he didn’t answer my question.

‘You said she was dead. It made her very angry.’

‘Because it is true.’

‘She said she would explain. Later. She said that should be enough for me.’ He was not looking at me, but when I gazed at him, he turned his whole head aside as if to be sure he would not see me. ‘Then she … she was me. And she attacked you with the knife. Because I … hadn’t.’ I couldn’t tell if he was confused or ashamed.

‘Wouldn’t kill me?’ I suggested the word.

‘Wouldn’t.’ Dutiful admitted. I was amazed at how grateful I was for the small piece of knowledge. He had refused to kill me. I had thought only my Skill-command had stopped him. ‘I wouldn’t obey her. Sometimes I’ve disappointed her. But now she is truly angry with me.’

‘And they’re punishing you for that disobedience. By leaving you alone.’

He gave his head one slow, grave shake. ‘No. The cat does not care if I kill you or not. She would always be with me. But the woman … she is disappointed that I am not more loyal. So she … separates us. Me from the cat. The woman thinks that I should have been willing to show that I was worthy of her. How can they trust me if I refuse to prove my loyalty?’

‘And you prove your loyalty by killing when you’re told to kill?’

He was silent for a long time. It gave me time to reflect. I had killed when I was told to kill. It had been part of my loyalty to my king, part of my bargain with my grandfather. He would educate me if I would be loyal to him.

I discovered I did not want Kettricken’s son to be that loyal to anyone.

He sighed. ‘It was … even more than that. She wants to make the decisions. All the decisions. Every time. Just as she told the cat what to hunt, and when, and took her kills away. When she holds us close, it feels like love. But she can also hold back from us, and yet we are still held …’ He could see that I did not understand. After a time he added quietly, ‘I didn’t like it when she used my body against you. Even if she hadn’t been trying to kill you, I wouldn’t have liked it. She pushed me to one side, just like …’ He didn’t want to admit it. I admired that he forced himself to it. ‘Just like I’ve felt her push the cat aside, when she didn’t want to do cat-things. When she was tired of grooming, or didn’t want to play. The cat doesn’t like it either, but she doesn’t know how to push back. I did. I pushed her back and she didn’t like it. She didn’t like that the cat felt me do it, either. I think that’s the biggest reason why I’m being punished. That I pushed her back.’ He shook his head, baffled himself, and then asked, ‘She’s so real. How can you be sure she’s dead?’

I found I could not lie to him. ‘I … feel it. So does Nighteyes. He says the cat is riddled with her, as if she were parasites worming through her flesh. He felt sorry for the cat.’

‘Oh.’ The word was very small. I glanced back at him, and thought he looked more grey than pale now. His eyes went distant and his thoughts travelled back. ‘When I first got her, she loved for me to groom her. I kept her coat like silk. But after we left Buckkeep … sometimes the cat would want to be brushed, but the woman always said there was no time for that. Cat lost weight and her fur was rough. I worried, but she always set my worry aside. She said it was just the season, that it would pass. And I believed her. Even though the cat wanted to be brushed.’ He looked stricken.

‘I took no pleasure in telling you that.’

‘I suppose it doesn’t matter now.’

For a long time, I led the horse in silence as I tried to puzzle out what his last words meant. Didn’t matter that I was sorry, or didn’t matter that she was dead?

‘I believed so many things she told me. But I already knew that – They’re coming now. The crow has fetched them.’ A sudden note of remorse came into his voice. His words were halting. ‘They knew to watch the standing stone. From all the legends of such stones. But she wouldn’t let me tell you that. Until now. When it doesn’t matter. She finds it humorous, now.’ He suddenly sat up straight in the saddle. Life came back into his face. ‘Oh, cat!’ he breathed.

Panic raced over me. I tried to set it aside. A quick scan of all horizons showed me no one, nothing. But he had said they were coming, and I was sure he had not lied. As long as he was with me and linked to the cat, I could not hope to hide from them. I could mount Myblack behind him, and run her to death, and we still would not escape. We were too far from Buckkeep, and I had no other safe place, no other allies. And a crow keeping watch for them. I should have guessed.

I dropped all restraint and reached out for my wolf. At least I would know he was alive.

I touched him. But the wave of pain that immersed me was scalding. I had discovered the only thing worse than not knowing his fate. He was alive and he suffered, and he still excluded me from his thoughts. I threw myself against his walls, but he had locked me out. In the fierceness of his defence, I wondered if he was even aware of me. It reminded me of a soldier clutching his sword beyond his ability to use it – or of wolves, jaws locked on each other’s throats, dying together.

In the space of that moment, in the tortured drawing of a breath, the Piebalds appeared. They crested the hillside above us, and some emerged from the forest to our left. Behind us, they came across the wild meadows, perhaps six of them. The big man on the warhorse rode with them. The crow sailed over us once, and this time his caw was mocking. I looked in vain for a gap in their circle that might permit escape. There was none. By the time I mounted Myblack and charged towards an opening, the others could effortlessly close it. Death rode towards me from every direction. I halted and drew my sword. The foolish thought came to me that I would rather have died with Verity’s sword in my hand instead of this guardsman’s blade. I waited.

They did not race towards me. Rather, they came at a steady pace like the slow closing of a noose. Perhaps it amused them to think of me standing there, watching them come. It gave me far too much time to think. I sheathed my sword and took out my knife instead. ‘Get down,’ I said quietly. Dutiful looked down at me in vague confusion. ‘Get off the horse,’ I ordered him, and he obeyed, though I had to steady him before his second foot hit the ground. I wrapped an arm around his chest and carefully set the knife to his throat. ‘I’m sorry,’ I told him with great sincerity. Conviction was running through my veins like icy water. ‘But you are better dead than what the woman plans for you.’

He stood quite still in my grip. I didn’t know if he didn’t want to risk resistance or if he didn’t care to resist. ‘How do you know what she intends for me?’ he asked me evenly.

‘Because I know what I would do.’

That statement wasn’t quite true, I told myself. I’d never take over another person’s body and mind simply for the sake of extending my life. I was too noble for that. So noble that I’d kill my prince before I’d let him be used that way. So noble that I’d kill him, knowing my daughter must then die as well. I didn’t want to look too closely at that reasoning. So I held my knife to the throat of Verity’s only heir and watched the Piebalds come. I waited until they were within shouting distance, and then I raised my voice. ‘Come any closer and I kill him.’

The big man on the warhorse was their leader. He lifted his hands to stop the advance of the others, but then he himself rode slowly forwards as if to test my resolve. I watched him come and my grip on the Prince tightened. ‘It takes one motion of my hand and the Prince is dead,’ I warned him.

‘Oh, come, you’re being ridiculous,’ the big man replied. He continued to walk his horse towards me. Myblack snorted a query at his beast. ‘For what will you do if we obediently halt here? Stand in our midst and starve to death?’

‘Let us go, or I’ll kill him,’ I amended.

‘Equally silly. Where’s the benefit to us in that? If we can’t have him, he might as well be dead.’ His voice was deep and resonant and it carried well. He had a dark, handsome face and sat his horse like a warrior. In another time and place, I would have looked at him and judged him a man worthy of my friendship. Now his followers laughed aloud at my pathetic efforts to defy him. He and his horse came closer still. The big horse stepped high as he came and his eyes shone with their Wit-bond. ‘And consider what happens if you do kill him as I advance. Once he’s dead, we’ll all be very annoyed with you. And you still won’t have a chance of escape. I doubt that you can even make us kill you swiftly. So. That’s my counter offer. Give us the boy and I’ll kill you quickly. You have my word on that.’

Such a kind offer. His grave manner and careful speech convinced me he would honour it. Quick death sounded very appealing when I considered the alternatives. But I hated dying without having the last word.

‘Very well,’ I conceded. ‘But he costs you more than my life. Release the wolf and the tawny man. Then I’ll give you your prince, and you can kill me.’

The Prince stood motionless in the circle of my arm and knife. I scarcely felt him breathe, and yet I could feel him listening, as if my words soaked into him like water into dry earth. The fine web of Skill between us warned me that there was something else going on. He reached out with his unholy combination of Wit and Skill to someone. I readied my muscles lest the woman wrest control of his body from him.

‘Are you lying?’ Dutiful asked me so softly that I scarce heard him. But was the question from Dutiful or the cat’s woman?

‘I’m telling the truth,’ I lied sincerely. ‘If they release Lord Golden and the wolf, I’ll free you.’ To your death. And the second throat I’d cut would be mine.

The big man on the big horse gave what might have been a chuckle. ‘Too late for that, I’m afraid. They’re already dead.’

‘No. They aren’t.’

‘Aren’t they?’ He rode his horse closer.

‘I’d know if the wolf died.’

He no longer needed to shout for his voice to reach me. He spoke in a confidential manner. ‘And that is why it is so unnatural that you should oppose us. I confess, having you answer that one question alone is enough to make me postpone your death.’ Warmth for me shone in his eyes and genuine curiosity came into his voice. ‘Why, in the name of the life and death that Eda and El encircle, do you stand like this against your own kind? Do you like what is done to us? The floggings, the hangings, the quartering and burning? Why do you support it?’

I let my own voice ring out to all of them. ‘Because what you seek to do to this boy is wrong! What the woman did to her cat is wrong! You take to yourself the name of Piebalds and claim pride in your lineage, yet you go against what Old Blood teaches. How can you condone what she has done to her cat, let alone what she wishes to do to the Prince?’

The light in the big man’s eyes went cold. ‘He is a Farseer. Can anything be done to him that he does not merit, a thousand times over?’

At those words, the Prince stiffened in my grasp. ‘Laudwine, is that truly what you believe?’ The youth and incredulity in Dutiful’s voice was heartbreaking. ‘You spoke me fair when I rode with you. You said that eventually I could become the king who would unite all my folk under equal justice. You said …’

Laudwine shook his head in disdain for Dutiful’s gullibility. ‘I would have said anything to have you come along quietly. I bought time with fair words, until the bond was knitted strong enough. I’ve had signs through the cat that the task is done. Peladine can take you any time now. If there were not a knife at your throat just now, she’d already have you. But Peladine has no wish to die twice. Once was quite enough for her. Hers was a slow death, coughing and gasping as she grew weaker every day. Even my mother’s was swifter. They hung her, true, but she was not quite dead when they cut her in quarters to feed their fire. And my father, well, I am sure that the time in which he watched Regal Farseer’s soldiers dispose of my mother seemed to last years.’ He smiled unpleasantly at Dutiful. ‘So you see, my family’s relationship with the Farseers is a long one. The debt is an old one, Prince Dutiful. I think the only pleasant time that Peladine had in her last year were the hours in which we spent planning this for you. It is only fitting that a Farseer should actually restore a life for the ones that have been taken from me.’

And there it was. The seed of hate from which all this had sprung. Once more, the Farseers did not have to see far to know whence their ill fortune came. The Prince’s pitfall was built from his uncle’s arrogance and cruelty. Hatred was the legacy Regal had bequeathed to me as well, but my heart closed against the sympathy that flared in me. The Piebalds were my enemies. Regardless of what they had suffered, they had no right to this boy. ‘And what was Peladine to you, Laudwine?’ I asked evenly. I suspected I knew the answer, but he surprised me.

‘She was my womb-sister, my twin, as like to me as woman can be to man. Bereft of her, I am the last of my line. Is that reason enough for you?’

‘No. But it is for you. You would do anything to have her live again in human flesh. You’d help her steal this boy’s body to house her mind. Even though that goes against every Old Blood teaching we hold dear.’ I let my voice ring with righteousness. If my words shocked any of his warriors, they hid it well.

Laudwine halted his horse a sword’s length away from us. He leaned down to fix me with his stare. ‘There’s more to it than a brother’s grief. Break your lackey’s bonds to the Farseer family and think for yourself. Think for your own kind. Forget our old customs of limiting ourselves. Old Blood is a gift from Eda, and we should use it! There is great opportunity here, for all of us who bear Old Blood. We have a chance to be heard. Let the Farseers admit to themselves what legend has long said is true; the Wit is in their blood as thick as the Skill. This boy will be king someday. We can make him ours. When he steps into power, he can end the persecution we have endured so long.’

I bit my lower lip in a show of thoughtfulness. Laudwine could little imagine what decision I truly weighed. If I did as he wished, the Farseer line would still have its heir, in body at least. Nettle could live a life of her own, free of fate’s entangling web. And there might be good in it, for the Old Blood and the Six Duchies. All I had to do was surrender Dutiful to a life of torment. The Fool and my wolf could go free, and Nettle could live, and perhaps the Old Blood could eventually be free of persecution. Even I could live. Give up a boy I scarcely knew to buy all that. One single life, weighed against all those others.

I made my decision.

‘If I thought you spoke true –’ I began, and then halted. I stared at Laudwine.

‘You might come over to us?’

He believed me to be a man caught between death and compromise. I let uncertainty show in my eyes, and then gave the briefest possible nod. I reached up one-handed and tugged at my collar, loosening it. Jinna’s beads peeped out at him. You like me, I begged him. Trust my words. Desire me for a friend. Then I spoke my coward’s speech. ‘I could be useful to you, Laudwine. The Queen expects Lord Golden to bring the Prince back to her. If you kill him and the Prince goes back alone, they will wonder what became of Golden, and why. If you let us live, and we take the Prince back to them, well, I can explain away the changes in his demeanour. They’ll accept him back unquestioningly.’

His eyes wandered over me, deliberating. I watched him convince himself. ‘And Lord Golden would go along with what you said?’

I made a small sound of derision. ‘He has not the Wit. He has only his eyes to tell him that we have regained the Prince alive and unharmed. He will think only of his hero’s welcome at Buckkeep. He will believe that I negotiated the Prince’s freedom, and be glad to claim the credit for it at court. In fact, he will witness me doing it. Take us to where you hold him. Let us make a show for him. Send him on his way with my wolf, assuring him that the Prince and I will follow.’ I nodded sagely as if confirming the thought to myself. ‘Actually, it is best if he is well on his way. He should not witness the woman taking over the boy. He might wonder what was amiss with him. Let Lord Golden be gone first.’

‘You seem very concerned for his safety,’ Laudwine probed.

I shrugged. ‘He pays me well to do very little. And he tolerates my wolf. We are both getting on in years. Such a post is not easily found.’

Laudwine grinned, but in his eyes I saw his secret contempt for my servant’s ethic. I opened my collar more.

He glanced at Dutiful. The boy’s eyes were fixed on his face. ‘A problem,’ Laudwine observed softly. ‘The boy has no benefit in our bargain. He may well betray it to Lord Golden.’

I felt Dutiful draw breath to speak. I tightened my grip on him, asking for silence while I thought, but he spoke anyway. ‘My interest is in living,’ he said clearly. ‘However poor an existence it may become. And in my cat. For she is true to me, even if your sister is false to both of us. I will not abandon the cat to her. And if she takes my body from me, then perhaps that is the price I must pay, for letting a Piebald make a fool of me with promises of fellowship. And love.’ His voice was steady, and pitched to carry. Beyond Laudwine’s shoulder, I saw two of his riders look aside, as if Dutiful’s words pained them. But no one spoke up on his behalf.

A thin smile twisted Laudwine’s mouth. ‘Then our pact is made.’ He extended his free hand towards me, as if we would seal the bargain with a touch. He smiled disarmingly at me. ‘Take your knife from the boy’s throat.’

I gave him a wolf’s smile in return. ‘I think, not just yet. You have said this Peladine can take him at any time? Perhaps, if she does, you will think you have no need of me. You might kill me, let your sister have the boy, and then present him to Lord Golden, the hostage freed to return to court. No. We will do it my way. Besides, this lad may change his feelings about what we do. The knife helps him remember that my will is what will be.’ I wondered if Dutiful would hear my promise enfolded in those words. I kept my eyes fixed on Laudwine and did not vary my tone. ‘Let me see Lord Golden remounted and set free, with my wolf at his side. Then, when I see how you keep your word, I will surrender us both to your will.’

Feeble, feeble plan. My true strategy went no further than getting them to take us to the Fool and Nighteyes. I continued to hold my smile and gaze on Laudwine but I was aware of the others edging their horses closer. My grip on the knife was steady. At some point, the Prince had reached up to grasp my wrist. I had scarcely been aware of his touch, for although it looked like he resisted my blade, he did not. In truth, it was almost as if he held the knife steady against his own throat.

‘We will do it your way,’ Laudwine conceded at last.

It was an awkward business to mount Myblack whilst keeping my knife a threat to the Prince, but we managed it. Dutiful was almost too co-operative a victim; I feared Laudwine would see. I would have given much, just then, for the Prince to have been trained in Skilling. Our thread of joining was too fine for me to know his thoughts, nor did he know how to focus his mind towards mine. All I could sense was his anxiety and determination. Determination to do what, I could not divine. Myblack was not pleased with the doubled burden she had to carry, and my heart misgave me. Not only did I risk making her injury worse, or permanent, but if it became necessary to flee, she would already be weary and sore. Every hitch of Myblack’s limp was a rebuke to me. But I had no alternative. We rode, following Laudwine, and his companions closed in around us. They did not look well disposed towards me. I recognized a woman from our brief battle. I did not see either of the men I had fought. The Prince’s former companions showed no evidence of sympathy or friendship for him now. He did not seem to see them, but rode looking forwards with the point of my knife pressed high against his ribs.

We turned back and cut across the hillsides, past the barrow and towards the forest. The land we crossed hummocked oddly, and I soon decided that many years ago, a town of some sort had stood here. Meadow and woods had taken the land again, but land that has borne the plough ever after lies flatter. Moss had coated the stony walls that had once divided pastureland, and grass grew upon that, amidst the thistle and bramble that seem to love such stony places. No one lives forever; the walls seemed to say. Four stones stacked atop one another will outlive all your dreams and still stand when your descendants have long forgotten that you lived here.

Dutiful was silent as we rode. I kept my knife at his ribs. I do believe that if I had felt the woman take over his body, I would have pushed the blade home. His mind seemed far away. I used the time to assess our captors. There was an even dozen, including Laudwine.

We came at last to a cave cut into the side of a hill. Long ago, someone had added stone walls to extend the space. The remnants of a wooden gate hung drunkenly to one side. Sheep, I thought. It would be a good place to hold sheep at night, with the cave for shelter if rain or snow came too strong. Myblack lifted her head and gave a whinny of greeting to Malta and the three other horses tethered there. I made it fifteen of them, a respectable force to take on, even if there had been more than one of me.

I dismounted with the others and pulled the Prince down after me. He staggered as he landed on his feet and I caught him. His lips were moving as if he whispered to himself, but I heard nothing. His eyes seemed glassy and distant. I set the knife firmly to his throat. ‘If she tries to take him before the others are freed, I’ll still kill him,’ I warned them. Laudwine looked surprised by my threat. Then, ‘Peladine!’ he bellowed. In reply, a hunting cat came bounding out of the cave. She fixed me with a hateful stare. Her slow advance towards me was the angry step of a thwarted woman, not a cat’s stalk.

The Prince had dropped his gaze to the cat. He said nothing, but I felt the ragged sigh of his breath as it escaped him. Laudwine advanced to the cat and then went down on one knee to speak quietly to her. ‘I’ve struck a bargain,’ he told her quietly. ‘If we let his friends go free, he gives us the Prince unscathed. More, he escorts you back to Buckkeep and helps you become accepted there.’

I don’t know if some sign of affirmation passed between them, or if Laudwine simply assumed her consent. When he stood, he spoke more loudly. ‘Inside. Your companions are there.’

I was horribly reluctant to follow him into that cave. Out in the open, we had some small chance of escape. Inside, we would be cornered. The only thing I could promise myself was that they would not get Dutiful. To cut his throat would be the work of an instant. I was not so certain I could give myself a quick death let alone Nighteyes or the Fool.

Within the cave, a small fire burned, and my stomach complained at the smell of roasting meat. A camp of sorts had been pitched there, but to my eyes it had the look of a brigands’ den rather than a military encampment. The thought warned me that I should not be entirely confident that Laudwine had control of his people. Because they followed him did not mean they were subject to him. That cheery thought was entertaining me as I searched the shadowy interior of the cave while Laudwine was quietly conferring with the folk he had left on guard there. He had not placed anyone in charge of us. All eyes were on him, and I eased away from the crowd. A few noticed my movement, but no one protested it. Jinna’s charm still rode outside my shirt and I smiled disarmingly. Obviously, I was going deeper into the cave, not trying to escape to the outdoors. It was another indication of how informal Laudwine’s command was. My fear that the Piebalds were some sort of Witted army dissolved into a sickening suspicion that they were actually a Witted mob.

My heart found my friends before my eyes. I saw two huddled shapes on the floor at the back of the cave. I did not ask permission. With my knife at Dutiful’s throat, I walked us to them.

Towards the back of the cave, the ceiling dropped and the rock walls narrowed. In that little space, they slept. Their bed was the Fool’s cloak, or what remained of that fine garment. Nighteyes sprawled on his side, caught in the sleep of exhaustion. The Fool lay beside him, his body curled protectively around the wolf’s. They were both filthy. The Fool had a strip of bandaging tied around his brow. The gold of his skin had gone sallow and one side of his face was marred with bruises. Someone had taken his boots, and his narrow, pale feet looked bruised and vulnerable. The wolf’s throat was matted with blood and saliva, and his breathing had a whistle in it.

I wanted to drop to my knees beside them, but I feared to take my knife from Dutiful’s throat.

‘Wake up,’ I bade them, quietly. ‘Wake up, you two. I’ve come back for you.’

The wolf’s ears flicked, and then he opened an eye to me. He shifted, trying to lift his head and the stirring woke the Fool as well. He opened his eyes and stared at me, unbelieving. Despair dragged at his face.

‘You have to get up,’ I warned him quietly. ‘I’ve struck a bargain with the Piebalds, but you’ll have to get up and be ready to move. Can you walk? Both of you?’

The Fool had the owlish look of a child awakened in deep night. He sat up stiffly. ‘I … what sort of a bargain?’ He looked at the charm at my throat, made a small sound, and deliberately pulled his eyes away. Hastily I tugged my collar closed. Let no charm cloud his mind now, no artificial affection make him reluctant to leave when he could.

Laudwine was coming towards us, Dutiful’s hunting cat at his side. He did not look pleased that I had managed to talk to his captives without him present. I spoke quickly, letting my voice carry to him. ‘You two go free or I kill the Prince. But once you are free, the Prince and I will follow. Trust me.’

And my time to speak to them alone had gone. The wolf sat up ponderously, levering himself off the floor. When he stood, his hindquarters swayed and he staggered a step sideways before he recovered. He smelled foul, of old blood and piss and infection. I did not have a hand free to touch him. I was too busy threatening Dutiful’s life. He came to lean his bloodied head against my leg, and our thoughts flowed in the contact. Oh, Nighteyes.

Little brother. You lie.

Yes. I lie to them all. Can you get the Scentless One back to Buckkeep for me?

Probably not.

It eases my heart to hear you say that. It’s so much better than ‘We’ll all die here.’

I would rather stay and die beside you.

I would rather not witness that. It would distract me from what I must do.

What of Nettle, then?

This thought was harder to share with him. I cannot steal the life of one for the sake of the other. I do not have that right. If we all must die, then … My thoughts sputtered to a halt. I thought of the strange moments that I’d shared in the flow of the Skill with that great other presence. I groped for some sort of comfort for us. Perhaps the Fool is wrong, and time cannot be shifted from its course. Perhaps it is all determined before we are born. Or perhaps the next White Prophet will choose a better Catalyst.

I felt him dismiss my philosophical musing. Give him a clean death, then.

I will try.

It was the merest trickle of thought between us, sieved through his pain and caution. It was like rain after a drought. I cursed myself for all the years we had shared this, and I had let my soul go yearning after the Skill. The end of this sharing loomed before me, and I only now perceived the full sweetness of all we had known. My wolf was a tottering step or two from death. I would likely kill myself, or be killed, before the afternoon was over. The dilemma of what one of us would do when the other died had been snatched away from us, and replaced with the reality. Neither of us would go on forever.

The Fool had managed to stand. His golden eyes searched my face desperately but I dared show him nothing. He drew himself up and became Lord Golden when Laudwine began speaking. The Piebald leader’s voice was rich and polished, his powers of persuasion like a warming cloak. Behind him, his followers fanned out to witness.

‘Your friend has summed it up for you. I have proven to his satisfaction that we never intended to hurt the Prince, only to let him see for himself that those of us you call Witted are not evil beings to be torn to pieces, but simply humans with a special gift from Eda. It was all we desired, that our prince could be shown that. We regret the depth of our misunderstanding, and that you have been injured in the process of sorting it out. But now you may take your horse and go free. The wolf also. Your friend and the Prince will come after you shortly. All of you will return to Buckkeep, where it is our earnest hope that Prince Dutiful will speak out on our behalf.’

Lord Golden’s eyes travelled from Laudwine to me and back again. ‘And the reason for the knife is?’

Laudwine’s deprecatory smile spoke volumes. ‘Your servant has little trust of us, I fear. Despite our assurances, he feels he must threaten Prince Dutiful until he is satisfied you are freed. I commend you for having such a loyal servant.’

I could have driven cattle through the gap in his logic. A slight flicker in Lord Golden’s eyes told me of his doubts, but at my slow nod, he bobbed his own assent. He did not know the game, but he trusted me. Before the day was out, he would curse that trust. I closed my heart against that thought. This poor bargain was the best I could do for any of us. I forced the betrayal from my lips. ‘My lord, if you would take my good dog and go, I will soon follow after with the Prince.’

‘I doubt we shall go far or swift this day. As you can see, your dog is grievously hurt.’

‘No need to hurry. I shall be along to join you soon, and we can make our way home together.’

Lord Golden’s face remained concerned but calm. Perhaps only I was aware of all that battled within him. The situation did not make sense to him, but I obviously wanted him to take the wolf and leave. I almost saw him make his choice. He stooped to take up his once-rich cloak, now stained with blood and earth. He shook it out, and then swept it over his shoulders as if it were still a fine garment. ‘I will have my boots returned to me, of course? And my horse?’ The nobleman, conscious of his superior birth, was back in his voice.

‘Of course,’ Laudwine agreed, but I saw several scowling faces in the crowd behind him. Malta was a fine horse, a rich prize for whoever had captured Lord Golden.

‘Then we shall go. Tom, I shall expect you to follow immediately.’

‘Of course, master,’ I humbly lied.

‘With the Prince.’

‘I shall not leave until he precedes me,’ I promised heartily.

‘Excellent,’ Lord Golden confirmed. He nodded to me, but the Fool’s eyes shot me a troubled glance. The look he turned on Laudwine was chill. ‘You have treated me no better than common ruffians and highwaymen would have. I will be unable to conceal my condition from the Queen and her guard companies. You are fortunate indeed that Tom Badgerlock and I are willing to confirm to her that you have seen the error of your ways. Otherwise, I am sure she would send her troops to hunt you down like vermin.’

He was perfection as the affronted nobleman, yet I nearly roared at him to shut up and get away while they could. Throughout, the mistcat watched Dutiful as a housecat watches a mousehole. I could almost feel the woman’s hunger to possess him completely. I had no faith that she would be bound by Laudwine’s bargain any more than his mob. If she moved to take him, if Dutiful showed any sign of her invading him, I would have to kill him whether the Fool had escaped or not. I desperately wanted them gone. I smiled, hoping it did not look too much like a snarl as Lord Golden gripped Laudwine with his eyes. Then he dared to sweep the gathered mob with that golden glance. I was not certain what they thought, but I firmly believed that he memorized every face he gazed upon. I saw anger stir in many of them at his look.

And all the while the Prince stood in the circle of my arm, my knife to his throat, ransom for my friends’ lives. He stood very still, as if thinking of nothing at all. He met the cat’s gaze evenly. I dared not guess what passed between them, not even when the cat glanced aside and stared resolutely past him.

Anger hardened Laudwine’s features for a moment, but then he mastered them. ‘Of course, you must report to the Queen. But when she has heard an accounting from her son of his experiences with us, perhaps she will be more sympathetic to our position.’

He made a small motion with his hand, and after a pause, his followers parted. I did not envy Lord Golden his walk through that tunnel of animosity.

I looked down at Nighteyes. He leaned against my leg and pressed hard there for a moment. I focused my mind to the point of a pin. Go to earth as soon as you may. Lead him off the road and hide as best you can.

Such a dolorous look he gave me. Then our minds parted. Nighteyes tottered after him, stiff-legged but dignified. I did not know how far he would get, but at least he would not die in this cave surrounded by hounds and hunting cats that hated him. The Fool would be beside him. That was as much comfort as I could find for myself.

The mouth of the cave was an arch of light. In that halo, I saw Malta brought to the Fool. He took her reins but did not mount her. Instead, he led her in a slow walk, one that matched the pace Nighteyes could sustain. I stared after them, a man and a horse and a wolf walking away from me. Their figures dwindled smaller, and I became aware of Dutiful standing in the circle of my arm, his breathing matching mine. Life walked away from me, and I embraced death here. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered by his ear. ‘I’ll make it fast.’

He already knew. My son’s reply was the barest stirring of air. ‘Not yet. A small corner still belongs to me. I can hold her off for a time, I think. We will let them get as far as they can.’

TWENTY-SIX

Sacrifice

Although it is commonly spoken of as the Mountain Kingdom, that territory and its rulers do not at all follow the Six Duchies concept of what constitutes a true kingdom. A kingdom is most often visualized as a single people in a common territory, ruled over by a monarch. The Mountains do not lend themselves to any of those three defining limits. Rather than a single folk, there are the roving hunters, the migratory herd-folk, traders and travellers with set patterns of routes, and those who choose to eke out a living on scattered little farms throughout the region. It is easy to understand that these folk may share few common interests.

It is natural then that the ‘ruler’ of these folk is not a king in the traditional sense. Rather, the line began with a mediator, a wise man who was adept at arbitrating the disputes that were bound to arise between such disparate peoples. The legends of the Chyurda ‘kings’ abound with tales of rulers willing to offer themselves as ransom, to risk not only wealth but also their own lives for their people. From this tradition comes the honorific the Mountain people bestow on their ruler. Not King or Queen do they call their monarch, but Sacrifice.

Chivalry Farseer, Of the Mountain Kingdom

They moved in, drifting like silt, until Laudwine’s folk stood dark between the light and me. I gazed round at the staring circle of my enemies. The daylight behind them made it hard to distinguish their features in the dim cave, but as my eyes adjusted, I studied each face. They were mostly young men, and among them four young women. None looked older than Laudwine. No Old Blood elders here; the Piebalds were a young man’s cause. Four of the men had the same large, square teeth: brothers or at least cousins. Some seemed almost neutral, but none looked friendly. The only smiles I saw were gloatingly hostile. I loosened my collar again. If Jinna’s charm made any difference, I did not perceive it. I wondered if any were related to the man I had killed at the trailhead. There were animals with them, though not so many as I would have expected. Two hounds and a cat were there, and one man had a raven on his shoulder.

I kept my silence, waiting, with no idea as to what would happen next. The Prince’s cat had never moved from where she crouched on the floor before us. Several times I had seen her glance aside, but each time her eyes had eventually returned to the lad, burning with a peculiar fixation that made them seem human. Laudwine had gone to the mouth of the cave to make his false farewell to Lord Golden. Now he smiled confidently as he came back to confront us.

‘I think we can dispense with your knife,’ Laudwine observed evenly. ‘I’ve kept my part of the bargain.’

‘It might not be wise,’ I cautioned him. Then I lied. ‘The boy tried to get away just a minute ago. The only thing that kept him still was the knife. Best I keep it on him until she’s …’ I sought for words. ‘All the way in,’ I finished lamely. I saw one or two faces twitch with uneasiness. Deliberately, I added, ‘Until Peladine takes his body as her own completely.’ I saw one woman swallow.

Laudwine seemed unaware that this troubled some of his followers. His affable manner never wavered. ‘I think not. It pains me to see you menace a throat that will soon belong to my kin. Your knife, sir. You are among your own kind here, you know. You have nothing to fear.’ He extended a hand for it.

Experience had taught me that those most like me presented the greatest threat to me. But I let a slow smile spread over my face and took my knife from the Prince’s throat. I did not give it to Laudwine, but sheathed it at my belt. I kept one hand always on Dutiful’s shoulder, holding him at my side. Here, where the cave narrowed, I could thrust him behind me if need be. I doubted that need would arise. I intended to kill him myself. Twenty years ago, Chade had drilled me repeatedly in all the ways there were to kill a man with my hands. I had learned silent ways, and swift ways, and ways that were slow. I hoped I would be as quick and accurate as I had once been. The most satisfying tactic would be to wait until the woman took the boy’s body, and then kill Dutiful so quickly that the woman would die with him, unable to flee back into her little cat’s body. Would I still have time to kill myself before they pulled me down? I doubted it. Best not to dwell on such thoughts.

Suddenly, the Prince spoke up for himself. ‘I won’t struggle.’ He shrugged clear of my hand on his shoulder and stood as straight as the low ceiling would allow. ‘I’ve been a fool. Perhaps I deserve this for my foolishness. But I thought …’ His gaze had been travelling the faces that surrounded us. His eyes seemed to know where to linger, and in the wake of his glance, I saw uncertainty kindle on a few faces. ‘I thought you genuinely believed me one of your own. Your welcome and aid seemed so real. My bond with the cat – I had never felt anything like that. And when the woman came into my mind and said that she, that she loved me –’ His voice hesitated over those words, but he forced it on. ‘I thought I had found something real, something worth more than my crown or my family or even my own duty to my people. I was a fool. So. Her name was Peladine, was it? She never told me her name, and of course I never saw her face. Well.’ He folded his knees and sat cross-legged. He opened his arms to the staring cat. ‘Come, cat. You, at least, loved me for myself. I know you like this no better than I do. Let us both be done with this.’

He glanced up at me, a swift glance fraught with a meaning I could not discern. It chilled me. ‘Don’t despise me as a complete fool. The cat loves me, and I love the cat. That much, at least, was always true.’ I knew that when the creature climbed into his lap, the contact would strengthen their bond. The woman would cross into him easily. His dark eyes were steady on mine. I saw Kettricken suddenly in his features, in his calm acceptance of what would be. His words were for me. ‘If by doing this I would be freeing the cat of her, I would rejoice. Instead, I go to share her entrapment. We shall be two that she bonded to, simply for the use of our bodies. She never had any need for our hearts, save to use them against us.’

Dutiful Farseer turned away from me, closing his eyes. He bowed his head to the advancing animal. There was not a sound, not even an indrawn breath, in the cave. All watched, all waited. Several faces were white and taut. One young man turned aside, shuddering, as the cat stalked up to him. She pressed her striped brow to the Prince’s, marking him as cats do. As she swiped her face against his, her green gaze brushed mine.

Kill me now.

The sharp mind to mind contact was so unexpected, I could not react to it.

What had Jinna’s cat told me? That all cats can speak, but that they choose when and to whom. The mind that touched mine was a cat’s mind, not a woman’s. I stared at the little hunting cat, unmoving. She opened her jaws wide but soundlessly, as if a twinge of pain too great to express had passed through her. Then she gave her head a shake.

Stupid brother-to-a-dog! You waste our chance. Kill me now!

These words struck my mind with the impact of a blow. ‘No!’ cried Dutiful and belatedly I realized he had not been privy to her first words to me. He clutched at the mistcat but she launched, from the floor to Dutiful’s shoulder and at me, heedless of how her claws scored him in that spring. She flew at me, claws raw and mouth wide. What is so white as a cat’s teeth against her red mouth? I tried to reach my knife, but she was too fast. She landed on my chest, the curved claws of her front paws hooking securely into my flesh as her hind legs ripped at my belly. She turned her face sideways, and all I saw were teeth descending on my face as I fell backwards into the corner of the cave.

Other voices shouted. ‘Peladine!’ Laudwine roared, and I heard the Prince’s agonized cry of ‘No, no!’ but I was occupied with saving my eyes. I pushed at the cat with one hand as I dragged at my sheathed knife with the other, but her claws were well set in my flesh. I could not budge her. I twisted my face aside as we went down, inadvertently baring my throat to her fangs. She seized that opportunity quite literally, and as I felt her teeth enter my flesh, thwarted only by the beads of Jinna’s charm, I managed to pull my knife free. I did not know if I fought the woman or the cat, only that the creature intended to kill me. It mattered, but not in a way that would stay my hand. It was awkward to stab her as she clung to my chest, for her spine and ribs turned my blade twice. On the third time, I finally managed to sink the metal into her. She let go of my throat to sound her death yowl, but her claws remained firmly fixed in my chest. Her hind legs had shredded my shirt. My belly was striped with fire. I pulled her body off mine, cursing, but when I would have flung it aside, Dutiful snatched it from me.

‘Cat, oh, cat!’ he cried, and clutched the lifeless body to his as if it were his child. ‘You killed her!’ he cried accusingly.

‘Peladine?’ Laudwine asked wildly. ‘Peladine!’

Perhaps if his bond-animal had not just been slain, Dutiful would have had the presence of mind to pretend his body held the woman’s mind. But he did not, and before I could regain my feet, I saw Laudwine’s boot flying towards my head. I flung myself aside into a roll and sprang to my feet in a performance worthy of the Fool’s younger self. My knife was still in the cat’s body, but my sword still hung at my belt. I dragged it free and charged at Laudwine.

‘Run!’ I bellowed at the Prince. ‘Get away. She bought your freedom with her life. Don’t waste that!’

Laudwine was a bigger man than I, and the sword he was drawing would give him a sizeable advantage in reach. I gripped my hilt two-handed and took off his forearm before his weapon cleared his sheath. He went down with a shriek, clutching at the spurting stump as if it were a cup held aloft in a toast. Shock held the mob back for an instant, barely time for me to take two steps and crowd Dutiful into the alcove behind me. He had not fled and now it was too late. Perhaps it had always been too late. He went to his knees, the cat in his arms. I swung my blade in a mad man’s wild arc, forcing the mob back. ‘Get up!’ I roared at him. ‘Use that knife!’

I was peripherally aware of him coming to his feet behind me. I had no idea if he had the knife from the cat’s body. Fleetingly, I wondered if he would put it in my back. Then the wave of men surged forwards, some in the front propelled only by the push of men behind them. Two grabbed Laudwine and dragged his curled body out of my reach. Someone jumped past them to confront me. The quarters were too close for anything except butchery. My first wide cut laid open his belly and slashed the face of another man as it finished. That slowed their rush, but then they bunched towards me. The men attacking us were hampered by their own numbers. When I was forced back, I felt the Prince step aside, and suddenly both our backs were to the wall of the cave. He darted past me to stab a man who had just managed to slip inside my guard, and then spun to his right to defend himself. He screamed like a wildcat as he struck out at his man, and the man answered with a shriek of pain.

I knew we had no chance, so when the arrow flew past my ear to shatter on the wall behind me, I was not too alarmed. Some fool wasted breath sounding a horn. I ignored it, as I ignored the cries of the men falling in front of me. One was dying and I finished another on the backstroke. I swung my blade wide, and unbelievably, they gave ground before me. I roared my triumph and stepped forwards into the gap. My body shielded Dutiful’s now. ‘Come and die!’ I snarled at them all. My free hand beckoned them in.

‘Blades down!’ someone shouted.

I swung my sword again, but those confronting me gave ground, tossing their swords to the earth. They cleared the way for an archer to advance on me. Other bowmen backed him, but his nocked arrow pointed straight at my chest. ‘Put it down!’ he shouted again. It was the boy who had ambushed us, the one who had shot Laurel, and then fled with her. As I stood panting, wondering if I should force him to kill me, Laurel spoke behind him. She tried to speak calmingly, but her voice shook.

‘Blade down, Tom Badgerlock. You’re among friends.’

Battle makes the world a small place, makes all life no bigger than the sweep of your sword’s length. It took me a time to come back to myself, and I was fortunate that they allotted me that time. I stared about, trying to make sense of what I saw, the archer and Laurel, and the folk who stood behind her, bows drawn. These were strangers, older folk than Laudwine’s band. Six men, two women. Most carried bows but a few had only staffs. Some of the arrows were pointed at Laudwine’s folk. They had dropped their swords and stood as much at bay as I was. Laudwine was on the floor, rolling in their midst, still clutching at his stump. Two steps and I could finish him at least. I drew a breath. Then I felt Dutiful’s hand on my upper arm. He pushed down firmly. ‘Blade down, Tom,’ he said evenly, and for a moment it was Verity’s calming voice in my ear. The strength went out of my arm and I let the tip of my weapon drop to the floor. Each panting breath I took was a flow of torment down my parched throat.

‘Drop it!’ the archer repeated. He stepped closer, and I heard the small sounds of a bow drawn tauter. I felt my heart begin to race again. I calculated the distance I’d have to cover.

‘Hold!’ Lord Golden interceded suddenly. ‘Give him a moment to come to himself. Battle-fury takes him and his mind is not his own.’ He came, pushing his way to the front of the massed archers and then stepped out between them and me with a fine disregard for the arrows that now pointed at his back. He did not even glance at the Piebalds who grudgingly parted to let him through. ‘Easy, Tom.’ He addressed me as if calming a horse. ‘It’s done now. It’s all done.’

He stepped forwards and set his hand on my arm, and I heard a murmur run through the crowd as if he had done something amazingly brave. At his touch, the sword fell from my grasp. Beside me, Dutiful dropped suddenly to his knees. I looked down at him. There was blood on his hand and shirtfront, but it did not seem to be his. He dropped my knife now and gathered the limp cat from the floor into his arms. He held it to his breast as if it were a child and rocked back and forth, keening. ‘My cat, my friend.’

A look of terrible concern washed over Lord Golden’s face. ‘My prince,’ he began worriedly. He stooped to touch the lad, but I caught him and turned him aside.

‘Leave him alone,’ I suggested quietly. ‘Give him his time to mourn.’

Then, tottering stiffly through the crowd came my wolf. When he reached my side, it was my turn to sink down beside him.

After that, little enough attention was paid to Tom Badgerlock and his wolf. They left us where we huddled as they moved Laudwine’s followers away from the Prince. That suited us both, for it gave us time to be together, and freed me to observe all around us. What we mostly watched was the Prince. The archer, one Deerkin by name, had brought an old healer with him. She set aside the bow she had carried and came to the Prince’s side. She made no effort to touch him, but only sat beside him and watched him as he mourned. Nighteyes and I kept vigil on the other side of him. She looked at me once. When our eyes met, her gaze was old and tired and sick with sadness. I fear mine was the same.

The bodies of the Piebalds I had killed were dragged outside, and slung over their horses. Too late I heard the clatter of departing hooves and realized that the Piebalds had been allowed to flee. I set my teeth. I could not have stopped it from happening. Laudwine had gone last, no longer their leader, swaying in the saddle atop his frothing warhorse and steadied by a young rider behind him. That had disturbed me most of all. Not only had I snatched the Prince from him, but I had slain the animal that held his sister’s soul, and maimed him as well. I needed no more enemies than I already had, but it had been beyond my control. He had gone free, and I hoped I would not live to regret that.

The healer let the Prince hold and mourn the cat until the sun touched the horizon. Then she looked past him to me. ‘Take the cat’s body from him,’ she said quietly.

It was not a task I wanted, but I did it.

It was hard to coax him to give up the cat’s cooling body. I chose my words with great care. This was not a time to let the Skill-command force him to do what he was not ready to do on his own. When finally he allowed me to lift the mistcat from his lap, I was astonished at how light the creature seemed. Usually, a dead animal, lax and lolling, seems to weigh more than a live one, but with the loss of its life, the pathetic condition of the little cat was revealed. ‘As if she were eaten through with worms,’ Nighteyes had said, and he was not far off the mark. The cat was a wasted little creature, her once-sleek fur gone dry and brittle, and bumps of bone defining her spine. At her death, her fleas were leaving her, far too many for a healthy animal. As the healer took the cat from me, I saw anger flicker over her face. She spoke softly. I do not know if Dutiful heard her words, but I did. ‘She did not even let it keep itself as a cat would. She possessed it too completely, and tried to be a woman in a cat’s fur.’

Peladine had imposed a human’s ways on the mistcat. She had denied her the long sleeps, the gorging to satiation, and the grooming sessions that were the natural right of a lithe little cat. Play and hunting had been denied her. It was the way of the Piebalds to use the Wit only for their own human ends. It sickened me.

The healer carried the cat’s body outside and the Prince and I followed with Nighteyes walking between us. A half-built cairn awaited the little corpse. All Deerkin’s people came outside to witness the interment. Their eyes were saddened, but they brimmed with respect.

Their healer spoke words, for Dutiful was too numbed with grief. ‘She goes on without you. She died for you, to free you both. Keep within you the cat-tracks she left on your soul. Let go with her the humanness that you shared with her. You are parted now.’

The Prince had swayed as they put the last stones on the cat, covering her death snarl. I set a hand to his shoulder to steady him, but he shrugged away my touch as if I were tainted. I did not blame him. She had commanded me to kill her, had done all she could to force me to the act, and yet I did not expect him to forgive me for having obeyed her. As soon as the cat was interred, the Old Blood healer had brought the Prince a draught. ‘Your share of her death,’ she said as she offered it to him, and he had quaffed it down before either Lord Golden or I could interfere. Then the healer gestured to me that I should take him back into the cave. There, he lay down where his cat had died, and his mourning broke loose anew.

I don’t know what she gave him in that drink, but the boy’s heartbroken sobs wound slowly down into the hoarse breathing of sodden sleep. There was nothing of rest in the limp way he sprawled beside me. ‘A little death,’ she had confided to me, thoroughly frightening me. ‘I give him a little death of his own, a time of emptiness. He died, you know, when the cat was killed. He needs this empty time to be dead. Do not try to cheat him of it.’

Indeed, it plunged him into a sleep but one step shy of death. She settled him on a pallet, arranging his body as if it were a corpse. As she did so, she muttered scathingly, ‘Such bruises on his neck and back. How could they beat a mere boy like that?’

I was too shamed to admit I had given him those marks. I held my silence and she covered him well, shaking her head over him. Then she turned and brusquely motioned me to her side for her services. ‘The wolf, too. I’ve time for you, now that the boy’s hurts are tended. His hurt was far more grievous than anything that bleeds.’

With warm water she washed our wounds and salved them with a greasy unguent. Nighteyes was passive to her touch. He held himself so tightly against the pain I could scarcely feel him there. As she worked on the scratches on my chest and belly, she muttered sternly to me. I gave Jinna’s charm the credit that she deigned to speak to a renegade like me at all.

But the healer’s only comment on it was that my necklace had probably saved my life. ‘The cat meant to kill you, and no mistake about that,’ she observed. ‘But it was no will nor fault of her own, I’m sure. And not the boy’s fault either. Look at him. He is a child still, far too young to bond,’ she lectured me severely, as if it were my fault. ‘He is unschooled in our ways, and look how it has hurt him. I will not tell you lies. He is like to die of this, or take a melancholy madness that will plague him to the end of his days.’ She tightened the bandage around my belly with a tug. ‘Someone should teach him Old Blood ways. Proper ways of dealing with his magic.’ She glared at me, but I did not reply. I only pulled what was left of my shirt back over my head. As she turned away from me, I heard her snort of contempt.

Nighteyes wearily lifted his head and set it on my knee. Salve and clotted blood smeared me. He looked at the sleeping boy. Are you going to teach him?

I doubt he’d wish to learn anything from me. I killed his cat.

Who will, then?

I left that question hanging. I stretched out in the darkness beside the wolf. We lay between the Farseer heir and the outside world.

Not far from us, in the central part of the shelter, Deerkin sat in council with Lord Golden. Laurel sat between them. The healer had joined them, and there were two other elders present in the circle closest to the fire. I regarded them through my lashes. In the rest of the cave, the other Old Blood folk appeared casually engaged in the ordinary evening chores of a campsite. Several lounged on their blanket rolls behind Deerkin. They seemed content to let the young man speak for them, but I sensed that perhaps they were the true holders of power in the group. One was smoking a long-stemmed pipe. Another, a bearded fellow, was working a careful edge onto his sheath knife. The whetting of the blade was a monotonous undertone to the conversation. For all their casual postures, I sensed how keenly they listened to what went on. Deerkin might speak for them, but I sensed they would listen to be sure his words were what they wished said.

It was not to Tom Badgerlock that these Old Blood riders explained themselves, but to Lord Golden. What was Tom Badgerlock but a renegade to his kind, a lackey of the crown? He was worse by far than Laurel, for all knew that though she had been born to an Old Blood family, the talent was dead in her. It was expected of her that she must make her way in the world however she might, forever half-dead to all the life that blossomed and buzzed and burned about her. No shame to her that she was a huntswoman to the Queen. I even sensed an odd pride in the Old Bloods, that one so impaired had risen so far. I had chosen my treason, however, and all the Witted folk walked a wide swathe around me. One brought meat on spits and propped it over the fire. The smell was vaguely tantalizing.

Food? I asked Nighteyes.

Too tired to eat, he declined, and I agreed with him. But for me there was the added reluctance of asking food of folk who ostracized us. So we rested, ignored in the outer circle of darkness. I refused to feel hurt that the Fool had spoken so little to me. Lord Golden could not be concerned with a servant’s injuries, any more than Tom Badgerlock should fret about his master’s bruises. We had our roles to play still. So I feigned sleep, but from beneath lowered lashes I watched them, and listened to their talk.

The talk was general at first, and I gathered my facts in bits and by assumption. Deerkin was telling Laurel some news of an uncle they had in common. It was old news, of sons grown and wed. So. Estranged cousins, separated for years. It made sense. She had admitted she had family in this area, and as much as told me they were Witted. The rest came out in an explanation to Lord Golden. Deerkin and Arno had ridden with Laudwine’s Piebalds for only a summer. They had both been sickened and angry over how the Old Blood folk were treated. When Laudwine’s sister had died, he had devoted himself to his people’s cause and risen as a leader. He had nothing save himself to lose, and change, he had told them, demanded sacrifice. It was time the Old Blood took the peace that was rightfully theirs. He made them feel strong and daring, these Old Blood sons and daughters rising up boldly to take what their parents feared to reach for. They would change the world. Time once more to live as a united folk in Old Blood communities, time to let their children openly acknowledge their magic. Time for change. ‘He made it sound so logical. And so noble. Yes, we would have to take extreme measures, but the end we sought was no more than what we were rightfully entitled to. Simple peace and acceptance. That was all. Is that so much for any man to ask?’

‘It seems a righteous goal,’ Lord Golden murmured attentively. ‘Though his means to it seem …’ He left it dangling, for them to fill in. Disgusting. Cruel. Immoral. The very lack of a description let the full baseness of it be considered.

A short silence fell. ‘I didn’t know that Peladine was in the cat,’ Deerkin asserted defensively. A sceptical quiet followed his words. Deerkin looked around at the elders almost angrily. ‘I know you say I should have been able to sense her, but I did not. Perhaps I have not been taught as well as I should. Or perhaps she was more adept at hiding than you know. But I swear I did not know. Arno and I took the cat to the Bresingas. They knew it was an Old Blood gift, intended for Prince Dutiful, to sway him to our cause. But I swear by my Old Blood, that was all they knew. Or I. Otherwise, I would not have been a party to it.’

The old healer shook her head. ‘So many will say of an evil thing, after the fact,’ she charged him. ‘Only this puzzles me. You know a mistcat must be taken young, and that it hunts only for the one who takes it. Did not you wonder?’

Deerkin reddened but, ‘I did not know Peladine was in the cat,’ he insisted. ‘Yes, I knew she had been bonded with the mistcat. But Peladine was dead. I thought the cat alone, and put her odd ways down to her mourning. What else could be done with the cat? She could not make her own way in the hills; she had never lived a wild life. And so I took her to the Bresingas, a gift fit for a prince. I thought it possible,’ and a hitch in his voice betrayed him, ‘that she might want to bond again. She had that right, if she so chose. But when the Prince came to us, I thought it was what Laudwine said it was. That he came of his own will, to learn our ways. Do you think I would have helped otherwise, do you think Arno would have sacrificed his life for such an end?’

Some, I think, must have doubted his story as much as I did. But it was not a time for such accusations. All let it pass and he continued his tale.

‘Arno and I rode with Laudwine and the Piebalds, as escort for the Prince. We intended to take him to Sefferswood, where he could live among the Piebalds and learn our ways. So Laudwine told us. When Arno was taken at Hallerby outside the Piebald Prince, we knew we had to ride for our lives. I hated to leave him, but it was what we had sworn as Piebalds: that each of us would sacrifice our life for the others as needed. My heart was full of fury when we first turned and set our ambush for the cowards that chased us. I do not regret a single one of those deaths. Arno was my brother! Then we rode on, and when next we came to a good place, Laudwine once more left me to guard the trail. “Stop them,” he told me. “If it takes your life to do it, so be it.” And I agreed with him.’

He paused in his narrative and his eyes sought Laurel. ‘I swear I did not recognize you, cousin. Not even when my arrow stood in you did I know you. All I could think was to kill all those who had helped to kill Arno. Not until Badgerlock dragged me from the tree and I looked up at you did I realize what I had done. Shed more of my own family’s blood.’ He swallowed and suddenly fell silent.

‘I forgive you.’ Laurel’s voice was soft but carrying. She looked at the gathered Old Bloods. ‘Let all here witness that. Deerkin hurt me unknowingly, and I forgive him. There is no debt of vengeance or reparation between us. At the time, I knew none of this. All I could think was that, because I lacked the magic you possessed, you had marked me as fit to kill.’ A laugh twisted from her throat. ‘It was only when Badgerlock was brutalizing you did I realize that … that it didn’t matter.’ She suddenly turned to look at him. Shamefaced, Deerkin still forced himself to meet her earnest gaze. ‘You are my cousin, and my blood,’ she asserted softly. ‘What we share far outweighs our differences. I feared he would kill you, trying to get you to speak. And I knew that, despite what you had done, even regardless of my loyalty to the Queen, I could not let that happen. So I rose in the night while Lord Golden and his man were sleeping, and spirited my cousin away.’ She transferred her gaze to Lord Golden. ‘Earlier, you had told me I must trust you when you excluded me from the confidences you shared with Badgerlock. I decided I had the right to demand the same from you. So I left you sleeping, and did what I thought best to save my prince.’

Lord Golden bowed his head for a moment, and then nodded to her gravely.

Deerkin rubbed a hand across his eyes. He spoke as if he had not even heard her words to Lord Golden. ‘You are wrong, Laurel. I owe you a debt, and I will never forget it. When we were children, we were never kind to you when you came to visit your mother’s kin. We always excluded you. Even your own brother called you the mole, blind and tunnelling where we ran free and wise. And I had shot you. I had no right to expect any help from you. But you came to me. You saved my life.’

Laurel’s voice was stiff. ‘Arno,’ she said. ‘I did it for Arno. He was as blind and deaf as I was to this “family” magic that excluded us. He alone was my playmate when I visited. But he loved you, always, and in the end he thought you worth his life.’ She shook her head. ‘I would not have let his death be for nothing.’

Together, they had crept away from the cave that night. She had convinced him that the taking of Prince Dutiful could only bring harsh persecution down on the Old Blood, and demanded that he find elders powerful enough to demand Laudwine surrender him. Queen Kettricken, she reminded him, had already spoken out against those who lynched the Witted. Would he turn that queen, the first who had taken their part in generations, against them? Laurel had convinced Deerkin that, as Piebalds had stolen the Prince, so the Old Blood must return him. It was the only reparation they could make.

She turned to Lord Golden. Her voice pleaded. ‘We returned with aid as swiftly as we could. It is not the fault of Old Blood that they must live scattered and silent. From farm to cottage we rode, gathering those of influence who were willing to speak sense to Laudwine. It was hard, for that is not the Old Blood way. Each man is supposed to rule himself, each household have its own integrity. Few wanted to stand over Laudwine and demand he do what was right.’ Her gaze left Lord Golden and travelled over the others gathered there. ‘To those of you who came, I give great thanks. And if you would let me, I would make your names known to the Queen, so she would know where her debt lies.’

‘And where to bring the rope and the sword?’ the healer asked quietly. ‘Times are not yet kind enough for names to be given, Laurel. We have yours. If we need the Queen’s ear, we can seek her out through you.’

Those they had gathered were Old Blood folk, but they did not style themselves Piebalds, nor did they condone the latter’s ways. They clove to the old teachings, Deerkin told Lord Golden earnestly. It shamed him that for a time he had followed Laudwine. Anger had made him do it, he swore, not a desire to master animals and turn them to his own purposes as the Piebalds did. He had seen too many of his own folk hung and quartered these last two years. It was enough to turn any man’s reason, but he had seen the error of his ways, thank Eda. And thanks to Laurel, and he hoped his cousin would forgive him the cruelty of their childhood years.

The conversation lapped against me like the rhythmic washing of waves. I tried to stay awake and make sense of his words, but we were so weary, my wolf and I. Nighteyes lay beside me and I could not separate where his pain ended and mine began. I did not care. Even if pain had been all we could share any more, I would have taken it gladly. We still had one another.

The Prince was not so fortunate. I rolled my head to look at him, but he slept on, his breath sighing in and out as if even in his dreams, he grieved.

I felt myself wavering in and out of awareness. The wolf’s heavy sleep tugged at me, a pleasant lure. Sleep is the great healer, Burrich had always told me. I prayed he had been right. As if they were the notes of far-off music, I sensed Nighteyes’ dreams of hunting, but I could not yet give in to my longing to share them. The Fool might be confident of Laurel and Deerkin and their fellows, but I was not. I would keep watch, I promised myself. I would keep watch.

In my seeming sleep, I shifted to observe them. I idly marked that though Laurel sat between Lord Golden and Deerkin, she sat closer to the noble than she did to her own cousin. The talk had moved nearer to negotiation than explanation. I listened keenly to Lord Golden’s measured and reasonable words.

‘I fear you do not completely understand Queen Kettricken’s position. I cannot, of course, presume to speak for her. I am but a guest at the Farseer court, a newcomer and a foreigner at that. Yet perhaps these very limitations let me see more clearly what familiarity blinds you to. The crown and the Farseer name will not shield Prince Dutiful from persecution as a Witted one. Rather they will be as oil thrown on a fire; it will immolate him. You admit Queen Kettricken has done far more than any of her predecessors to outlaw persecution of your people. But if she reveals that her son is Witted, not only may both he and she be thrown down from power, but her very efforts to shelter your folk will be seen as a suspicious attempt to shield her own blood.’

‘Queen Kettricken has outlawed putting us to death simply for being “Witted”, that is true,’ Deerkin replied. ‘But it does not mean we have stopped dying. The reality is obvious. Those who seek to kill us all fabricate injuries and invent supposed wrongs we have done to them. One man lies, another swears to it, and an Old Blood father or sister is hanged and quartered and burnt. Perhaps if the Queen sees the same threat to her son that my father sees to his, she will take greater action on our behalf.’

Behind Deerkin, a man gave a slow nod.

Lord Golden spread his hands gracefully. ‘I will do what I can, I assure you. The Queen will hear a full accounting of all you did to save her son. Laurel, too, is more than a simple Huntswoman to Queen Kettricken. She is friend and confidante as well. She will tell the Queen all you did to recover her son. More, I cannot do. I cannot make promises for Queen Kettricken.’

The man who had nodded behind Deerkin leaned forwards. He touched him on the shoulder, a ‘go on’ nudge. Then he leaned back and waited. Deerkin looked uncomfortable for a moment. Then he cleared his voice and spoke. ‘We will be watching the Queen and listening for what she will say to her nobles. We know better than any the threat that Prince Dutiful would face, were it known that he has Old Blood in his veins. They are the dangers that our brothers and sisters face every day. We would that our own were not at jeopardy. If the Queen sees fit to stretch forth her hand and shield our folk from persecution, then Old Blood will shield her son’s secret. But if she ignores our situation, if a blind eye is turned to the bloodshed … well …’

‘I take your meaning,’ Lord Golden replied swiftly. His voice was cool but not harsh. He took a breath. ‘Under the circumstances, it is, perhaps, the most we could ask of you. You have already restored the Farseer heir to us. This will dispose the Queen kindly towards you.’

‘So we expect,’ Deerkin responded heavily, and the men behind him nodded gravely.

Sleep beckoned me. Nighteyes was already in a torpor. His coat was sticky with salve, as was my chest and belly. There was almost no place that we didn’t hurt, but I rested my brow against the back of his neck and draped a careful arm over him. His fur stuck to my skin. The words of the conference beside the fire faded and became insignificant as I opened myself to him. I sank my consciousness past the red pain that bounded him until I found the warmth and humour of his soul.

Cats. Worse than porcupines.

Much worse.

But the boy loved the cat.

The cat loved the boy. Poor boy.

Poor cat. The woman was selfish.

Past selfish. Evil. Her own life wasn’t enough for her.

That was a brave little cat. She held tight and took the woman with her.

Brave cat. A pause. Do you think it will ever come, that Witted folk can openly declare the magic?

I don’t know. It would be good. I suppose. Look how the secrecy and evil reputation of it has shaped our lives. But … but it has also been good as it has been. Ours. Yours and mine.

Yes. Rest now.

Rest.

I could not sort out which thoughts were mine and which the wolf’s. I didn’t need to. I sank into his dreams with him and we dreamed well together. Perhaps it was Dutiful’s loss that put us so much in mind of all we still possessed, and all we had had. We dreamed of a cub hunting mice beneath the rotting floor of an old outbuilding, and we dreamed of a man and a wolf pulling down a great boar between them. We dreamed of stalking one another in deep snow, tussling and yelping and shouting. Deer blood, hot in the mouth, and the rich soft liver to squabble over. And then we sank past those ancient memories into perfect rest and comfort. Healing begins in deep sleeps such as that.

He stirred first. I nearly woke as he rose, gingerly shook himself, and then stretched more bravely. His superior sense of smell told me that the edge of dawn was in the air. The weak sun had just begun to touch the dew-wet grasses, waking the smells of the earth. Game would be stirring. The hunting would be good.

I’m so tired, I complained. I can’t believe you’re getting up. Rest for a while longer. We’ll hunt later.

You’re tired? I’m so tired that rest won’t ease me. Only the hunt. I felt his wet nose poke my cheek. It was cold. Aren’t you coming? I was sure you’d want to come with me.

I do. I do. But not just yet. Give me just a bit longer.

Very well, little brother. Just a bit longer. Follow me when you will.

But my mind rode with his, as it had so many times. We left the cave, thick with man-stink, and walked past the cat’s new cairn. We smelled her death, and the musk of a fox who had come to the scent, but turned aside at the smell of the campfire’s smoke. Swiftly we left the camp behind. Nighteyes chose the open hillside instead of the wooded vale. The sky overhead was blue and deep, and the last star fading in the sky. The night had been colder than I had realized. Frost tipped some of the grasses still, but as the rising sun touched it, it smoked briefly and was gone. The crisp edge of the air remained, each scent as sharp as a clean knife-edge. With a wolf’s nose, I scented all and knew all. The world was ours. The turning time, I said to him.

Exactly. Time to change, Changer.

There were fat mice hastily harvesting seedheads in the tall grass, but we passed them by. At the top of the hill, we paused. We walked the spine of the hill, smelling the morning, tasting the lip of the day to come. There would be deer in the forested creek bottoms. They would be healthy and strong and fat, a challenge to any pack let alone a single wolf. He would need me at his side to hunt those. He would have to come back for them later. Nevertheless, he halted on top of the ridge. The morning wind riffled his fur and his ears were perked as he looked down to where we knew they must be.

Good hunting. I’m going now, my brother. He spoke with great determination.

Alone? You can’t bring a buck down alone! I sighed with resignation. Wait, I’ll get up and come with you.

Wait for you? Not likely! I’ve always had to run ahead of you and show you the way.

Swift as thought, he slipped away from me, running down the hillside like a cloud’s shadow when the wind blows. My connection to him frayed away as he went, scattering and floating like dandelion fluff in the wind. Instead of small and secret, I felt our bond go wide and open, as if he had invited all the Witted creatures in the world in to share our joining. All the web of life on the whole hillside suddenly swelled within my heart, linked and meshed and woven through with one another. It was too glorious to contain. I had to go with him; a morning this wondrous must be shared.

‘Wait!’ I cried, and in shouting the word, I woke myself. Nearby, the Fool sat up, his hair tousled. I blinked. My mouth was full of salve and wolf-hair, my fingers buried deep in his coat. I clutched him to me, and my grip sighed his last stilled breath out of his lungs. But Nighteyes was gone. Cold rain was cascading down past the mouth of the cave.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Lessons

Before the Skill can be taught, resistance to the teaching must be eliminated. Some Skillmasters have held that they must know each student a year and a day before teaching can even begin. At the end of that time, the master will know which students are ready to receive instruction. The others, no matter how likely they seemed, are then released back to their previous lives.

Other masters have held that this technique is a waste of valuable talent and potential. They espouse a more direct path to eliminating the student’s resistance, one that does not focus so much on trust as on compliance to the master’s will. A strict regimen of austerity becomes the basis for focusing the student’s will on pleasing his master. Tools to achieve this humbled attitude are fasting, cold, reduced sleep and discipline. The use of this method is recommended in times of need when coteries have to be trained and formed quickly and in quantity. The quality of Skill-user created may not be as admirable, but almost every student with any level of talent can be forced to function this way.

Observations, Wemdel, Journeyman to Skillmaster Quilo

For a day and a night, the Old Blood healer kept Prince Dutiful in a stupor. I knew it frightened Lord Golden, despite Laurel’s efforts to reassure him that she had seen this before and the healer was only doing what needed to be done. For myself, I envied Dutiful. No such comfort was offered me, and very little was said to me. Perhaps part of it was ostracism; when one separates oneself from supporting a society, one loses the support of that society as well. But I do not think it was completely callous cruelty. I was an adult as well as an outcast, and they expected me to deal with my loss in my own way. As strangers, there was very little they could say, and absolutely nothing they could do that would help me.

I was aware of the Fool’s sympathy, but in a peripheral way. As Lord Golden, he could say little to me. The death of my wolf was an isolating and numbing thing. The loss of Nighteyes’ companionship was cutting enough, but with him had gone my access to his keener senses. Sound seemed muted, and night darker, scent and taste dulled. It was as if the world had been robbed of its brightness. He had left me behind to dwell alone in a dimmed and stale place.

I built a funeral pyre and burned my wolf’s body. This obviously distressed the Old Blood folk, but it was my way of mourning and I took it. With my knife, I cut my hair and burned it with him, thick hanks of both black and white. With him went a long, airy lock of tawny gold. As Burrich had once done for Vixen, I stayed the day by the fire, battling the rain that strove to quench it, adding wood whenever it began to die, until even the wolf’s bones were ash.

On the second morning, the healer allowed the Prince to wake. She sat by him, watching him come out of his drugged stupor. I stood aside, but kept my own watch. I saw awareness come back slowly, first to his eyes and then to his face. His hands began to make a little nervous kneading motion, but the healer reached over and stilled them with one of her own. ‘You are not the cat. The cat died. You are a man, and you must go on living. The blessing of Old Blood is that they share their lives with us. The curse is that those lives are seldom as long as our own.’

Then she rose and left him, with no more than that to ponder. In a short time, Deerkin and his fellows mounted and rode away. I noticed that he and Laurel found a time to speak privately before he left. Perhaps they mended some broken family tie. I knew that Chade would ask me what they had said, but I was too dispirited to attempt to spy on them.

The Piebalds had left several horses behind when they fled. One was given over by the Old Bloods to the Prince’s use. It was a little dun creature, its spirit as dull as its hide. It suited Prince Dutiful perfectly, as did the steady drizzle of rain. Before noon, we mounted and began our journey back to Buckkeep.

I rode alongside the Prince on Myblack. She had recovered from the worst of her limp. Laurel and Lord Golden rode ahead of us. They talked to one another, but I could not seem to follow their conversation. I do not think they spoke softly and privately. Rather, it was part of the deadening of my world. I felt numbed and dazed, half-blind. I knew I was alive because my injuries hurt and the rain was cold. But all the rest of the world, all sense and sensation, was dimmed. I no longer walked fearlessly in the darkness; the wind no longer spoke to me of a rabbit on a hillside or a deer that had recently crossed the road. Food had lost all savour.

The Prince was little better. He managed his grief as graciously as I did, with surliness and silence. There was, I suppose, an unspoken wall of blame between us. But for him, my wolf would live still, or at least would have died in kindlier circumstances. I had killed his cat, right before his eyes. Somehow it was even worse that a spiderweb of Skill attached us still. I could not look at him without being aware of just how completely miserable he was. I suspect he could feel my unspoken accusation of him. I knew it was not just, but I was in too much pain to be fair. If the Prince had kept to his name and his duty, if he had stayed at Buckkeep, I reasoned, then his cat would be alive, and my wolf as well. I never spoke the words aloud. I didn’t need to.

The journey back to Buckkeep was miserable for all of us. When we reached the road, we followed it north. None of us desired to visit Hallerby and the inn of the Piebald Prince again. And despite Deerkin’s assurances that Lady Bresinga and her family had had no hand in the Piebalds’ plot against the Prince, we stayed well away from their lands and keep. The rains came down. The Old Blood folk had left us what they could of supplies, but it was not much. At the first small town we came to, we spent the night in a dismal inn. There Lord Golden paid handsomely for a messenger to take a scroll by the swiftest way possible to ‘his cousin’ in Buckkeep Town. Then we struck out cross-country, heading for the next settlement that offered a ferry across the Buck River. The detours took us two extra days. We camped in the rain, ate our scanty rations, and slept cold and wet. I knew the Fool anxiously counted the dwindling days before the new moon and the Prince’s betrothal ceremony. Nonetheless, we went slowly, and I suspected that Lord Golden bought time for his messenger to reach Buckkeep and alert the Queen to the circumstances of our return. It might have been, also, that he tried to give both the Prince and me some time to deal with our bereavement before we returned to the clatter and society of Buckkeep Castle.

If a man does not die of a wound, then it heals in some fashion, and so it is with loss. From the sharp pain of immediate bereavement, both the Prince and I passed into the grey days of numb bewilderment and waiting. So grief has always seemed to me, a time of waiting not for the hurt to pass, but to become accustomed to it.

It did not help my temperament that Lord Golden and Laurel did not find the way as tedious and lonely as the Prince and I did. They rode before us, stirrup to stirrup, and though they did not laugh aloud or sing gay wayfaring songs, they conversed near continuously and seemed to take a good deal of pleasure in one another’s company. I told myself that I scarcely needed a nursemaid, and that there were excellent reasons why the Fool and I should not betray the depth of our friendship to either Laurel or Dutiful. But I ached with loss and loneliness, and resentment was the least painful emotion I could feel.

Three days before the new moon, we came to Newford. As it was named, so it was, a fording and ferry that had not existed on my last journey through this area. It had a large dockyard, and a good fleet of flat-bottomed river barges was tied there. The little town around it was new, raw as a scab with its rough timbered houses and warehouses. We did not linger but went straight to the ferry dock and waited in the rain until the evening ferry was ready to cross.

The Prince held the reins of his nondescript horse and stared silently across the water. The recent rains had swelled the river and thickened it with silt, but I could not find sufficient love of life to be scared of death. The tossing and spray as the ferrymen struggled against the current seemed but one more annoying delay. Delay, I wondered sarcastically to myself. And what did I rush toward? Home and hearth? Wife and children? I had Hap still, I reminded myself, but on the heels of that thought I knew I did not. Hap was a young man striking out on his own. For me to cling to him now and make him the focus of my life would have been the act of a leech. So who was I, when I stood alone, stripped of all others? It was a difficult question.

The ferry lurched as we scraped gravel, and then men were drawing it in tighter to the bank. We were across. Buckkeep was a day’s ride away. Somewhere above the dense clouds, the sliver of old moon lingered. We would reach Buckkeep before Prince Dutiful’s betrothal ceremony. We had done it. Yet I felt no sense of elation or even accomplishment. I only wanted this journey to be finished.

The rain came down in torrents as we reached the landing, and Lord Golden declared firmly that we would go no further that night. The inn there was older than the town on the other side of the river. Rain masked the other buildings of the hamlet, but I thought I glimpsed a small livery stable, and a scatter of homes beyond it. The inn’s signboard was an oar painted on an old tiller, and the lumber of its walls showed weathered grey where its whitewashing had faded. The savage night had crowded the inn near full. Lord Golden and his party were too bedraggled to invoke the assumptions of nobility. Fortunately, he had sufficient coin to buy both the respect and awe of the innkeeper. Merchant Kestrel, as he identified himself, obtained two rooms for us, although one was a small one up under the rafters. This his ‘sister’ gamely declared would suit her admirably, and the merchant and his two servants would have the other. If the Prince had any qualms about travelling in disguise, he did not show them. Hooded and cloaked, he stood dripping on the porch with me until a serving-boy came out to tell us that our master’s room was ready.

As I passed through the entry, I heard a woman’s clear voice lifted in song from the common room. Of course, I thought to myself. Of course. Who else could better keep watch at an inn than a minstrel? Starling sang that ancient lay of the two lovers who defied their families and ran off to leap to their deaths for love of one another. I did not even glance into the room, though I saw Laurel had paused to listen by the door. The Prince followed me listlessly up the stairs to a large but rustic chamber.

Lord Golden had preceded us. An inn-boy was making up the fire while two others set up a bathing tub and draught screens in the corner. There were two large beds in the room, and a pallet near the door. There was a window at one end of the room. The Prince walked to it and morosely stared out into the night. There was a rack near the fire, and I fulfilled my role by helping Lord Golden out of his soaked and dirty cloak. I shrugged out of mine, hung them both to dry on the rack, and then pulled his wet boots off as a stream of servants moved in and out of the room, bringing buckets of hot water and a repast of meat pies, stewed fruit, bread and ale. They all moved with such precision that they reminded me of a troop of jugglers as they swept in as a wave and then likewise receded from the room. When they had vanished out of the door once more, I shut it firmly behind them. The hot water in the tub filled the room with the aroma of bathing herbs and I suddenly longed to lean back in it and seek oblivion.

Lord Golden’s words recalled me to the reality. ‘My prince, your bath is ready. Do you require assistance?’

The Prince stood. He let his wet cloak fall to the floor with a slap. He looked at it for a moment, then picked it up and brought it to the drying rack. He spread it there with the air of a boy used to attending to his own needs. ‘No assistance. Thank you,’ he said quietly. He glanced at the food steaming on the table. ‘Do not wait on me. I do not stand on formalities. I see no sense in your going hungry while I am bathing.’

‘In that, you are your father’s son,’ Lord Golden observed approvingly.

The Prince inclined his head gravely to the compliment but made no other response.

Lord Golden waited until Prince Dutiful had vanished behind the screens. From the landlord, he had secured paper, ink and quill. He sat down at a little table with these supplies, and busied himself silently for some moments. I walked over to the hearth with a meat pie from the table. I ate it standing while the fire at my back steamed some of the wet from my clothes. Lord Golden spoke to me as his quill scratched out a final line. ‘Well, at least we’re out of the weather for a time. I think we shall have a good sleep here, and go on tomorrow, but not too early in the morning. Does that suit you, Tom?’

‘As you wish, Lord Golden,’ I replied as he blew on the missive, then rolled it. He tied it with a thread drawn from his once-grand cloak. He handed it to me, one eyebrow raised.

I did not mistake his meaning. ‘I’d rather not,’ I said very quietly.

He left the writing table and went to where the food was spread. He began to serve himself, deliberately clattering dishes and pots as he did so. His voice was soft as he muttered, ‘And I would rather you did not have to go. But I cannot. Unkempt as I am, there are still folk here that might recognize Lord Golden and mark his interest in the minstrel. I’ve earned enough scandal to my name on this journey. Have you forgotten my actions at Galekeep? I’ve all of that to explain away when I return to Buckkeep. Nor can Dutiful go, and as far as I know, Laurel is ignorant of the connection. Starling might recognize her, but would look askance at a note delivered by her. So you it must be, I fear.’

I feared the same, and feared more the traitorous part of me that actually wished to go down the stairs and catch the minstrel’s eye. There is a part of any man that will do anything to stave off loneliness. It is not necessarily the most cowardly part of a man’s soul, but I’ve seen any number of men do shameful things to indulge it. Worse, I wondered if the Fool were not deliberately sending me down to her. Once before, when loneliness had threatened to devour my heart, he had told her where to find me. It had been a misguided comfort I took in her arms. I vowed I would not do so again.

But I took the tiny rolled message from his hand and slipped it up my bedraggled sleeve with the artless practice of long years of deceit. The feathers from the treasure-beach still rode there, securely strapped to my forearm. That secret, at least, still remained my own, and would until I had time to share it with him privately.

Aloud, he said, ‘I see you’re restless despite our long day. Go along, Tom. The Prince and I can fend for ourselves for an evening, and you deserve a bit of song and a quiet beer on your own. Go on now, I saw you cast a longing eye that way. We won’t mind.’

I wondered whom he thought to deceive. The Prince would know that my heart had no interest in anything but grief just now. In the Piebald camp, he had seen Lord Golden give way to my command and leave with the wolf. Nevertheless, I loudly thanked my master for his permission, and left the room. Perhaps it was a play we all acted for each other. I went slowly down the stairs. Laurel was coming up as I descended. She gave me a curious look. I tried to think of some words, but nothing came to me. I passed her silently, intending no slight but unable to care if she took offence. I heard her pause on the stair behind me as if she would speak to me, but I continued down.

The common room was crowded. Some had probably come for the music, for Starling’s reputation was grand now, but many others looked to be folk trapped by the downpour and unable to afford a room. They would shelter here for the night, and when the music stopped, doze the storm away at the tables and benches. I managed to get both food and a mug of beer on my assurances that my master would pay for it on the morrow. Then I walked to the hearth end of the room, and crowded myself into a corner table just behind Starling’s elbow. I knew it was no coincidence she was here. She had been watching for us to return, and likely she had access to a bird to pass word of us on to Buckkeep. So I was not surprised when she feigned not to notice me, and kept playing and singing.

After three more songs, she declared she needed to rest her voice and wet her pipes. The serving-boy who brought her wine set it on the corner of my table. When she sat down beside me to drink, I passed her Lord Golden’s note under the table. Then I tossed off the last mouthful of beer in my mug and went out to the backhouse.

She was waiting for me under the dripping eaves when I returned to the inn. ‘The message has been sent,’ she greeted me.

‘I’ll tell my master.’ I started to walk past her, but she caught my sleeve. I halted.

‘Tell me,’ she said quietly.

Ancient caution guarded my tongue. I did not know how much information Chade had given her. ‘We completed our errand.’

‘So I guessed,’ she replied tartly. Then she sighed. ‘And I know better than to ask you what Lord Golden’s errand was. But tell me of you. You look terrible … your hair chopped short, your clothes in rags. What happened?’

Of all I had been through, only one event was mine to share or not as I pleased. I told her. ‘Nighteyes is dead.’

Rainfall filled her silence. Then she sighed deeply and put her arms around me. ‘Oh, Fitz,’ she said quietly. She leaned her head against my scratched chest. I could see the pale parting in her dark hair, and I smelled her scent and the wine she had drunk. Her hands moved softly on my back, soothingly. ‘Alone again. It isn’t fair. Truly it isn’t. You’ve the saddest song of any man I’ve ever known.’ The wind gusted and rain rode it, to spatter against us, but still she held me, and a small warmth gathered between us. She said nothing more for a long time. I lifted my arms and put them around her. Just as it once had, it seemed inevitable. She spoke against my chest. ‘I’ve a room to myself. It’s at the river end of the inn. Come to me. Let me take your hurt away.’

‘I … thank you.’ That won’t mend it, I wanted to tell her. If she had ever known me at all, she would know that now. But words would not make her understand it if she could not sense it on her own. I suddenly appreciated the Fool’s silence and distance. He had known. No other closeness could make up for the lack of my wolf.

The rain went on falling. She loosened her hold on me and looked up into my face. A frown divided her fine brows. ‘You aren’t going to come to me tonight, are you?’ She sounded incredulous.

Strange. I had been wavering in my resolve, but the very way she phrased the question helped me to answer it correctly. I shook my head slowly. ‘I appreciate the invitation. But it wouldn’t help.’

‘Are you sure of that?’ She tried to make her voice light and failed. She moved, her breasts brushing against me in a way that might have been accidental but was not. I stepped a little back from her, my arms falling to my sides.

‘I’m sure. I don’t love you, Starling. Not that way.’

‘It seems to me that you told me that once before, a long time ago. But for years, it did help. It did work.’ Her eyes searched my face. She smiled confidently.

It hadn’t. It had only seemed to. I could have told her that, but it would have been an unnecessary honesty. So I said only, ‘Lord Golden expects me. I have to go up to him.’

She shook her head slowly. ‘What a grievous end to a sad tale. And I am the only one who knows the whole of it, and still I am not allowed to sing it. What a tragic lay it would make. You are the son of a king, who sacrificed all for his father’s family, only to finish as the ill-used servant of an arrogant foreign noble. He doesn’t even dress you well. The ignominy must cut you like a blade.’ She looked deep into my eyes, seeking … what? Resentment? Outrage?

‘It doesn’t really bother me,’ I replied in some confusion. Then, as if someone had drawn a curtain open and spilled out light, I understood. She did not know that Lord Golden was the Fool. She truly saw me as but his servant, passing a message to her on his behalf. For all of her minstrel cleverness, she looked at him and saw the wealthy Jamaillian lord. I fought the smile away from my face. ‘I am content with my position with him and grateful to Chade for arranging it. I am satisfied to be Tom Badgerlock.’

For a moment she looked incredulous. The look faded into disappointment in me. Then she gave a small shake of her head. ‘I should have known you would be. It’s what you always wanted, isn’t it? Your own little life. To have no responsibility for your line or for what happens at court. To be one of the humble folk, counting for nothing in the long run.’

All my earlier efforts to spare her feelings seemed vapid now. ‘I have to go,’ I repeated.

‘Hurry along to your master,’ she released me. Her voice was a trained talent, and her scorn danced in it with a scorpion’s sting.

By a vast effort of will, I said nothing in reply. I turned and walked away from her back into the inn. I climbed the servants’ stairs to our quarters, tapped, and let myself in. Dutiful lifted his head from the pillow to regard me. His dark hair was sleeked back, his skin flushed from his bath. The effect made him look young. The Fool’s bed was empty.

‘My prince,’ I greeted him. Then, ‘Lord Golden?’ I queried the screened bath.

‘He left.’ Dutiful let his head drop back to the pillow. ‘Laurel tapped on the door and wished to speak with him privately.’

‘Ah.’ It almost made me smile. Wouldn’t that have intrigued Starling?

‘He asked me to be sure you knew we had left you the bathwater. And leave your clothes outside the door. He’s arranged for a servant to wash them and return them by morning.’

‘Thank you, my prince. It is most kind of you to tell me.’

‘Please lock the door, he said. He said he would knock and awaken you when he returned.’

‘As you wish, my prince.’ I stepped to the door and locked it. I doubted he would be back before dawn. ‘Is there anything else you require before I bathe, my prince?’

‘No. And don’t talk to me like that.’ He turned his back on me, shouldering into the bed.

I undressed. As I peeled off my shirt, I made sure the feathers went with it. I sat down for a moment on my low pallet before removing my boots. The feathers from the beach slipped from the shirt’s sleeve and under the thin blanket. I removed Jinna’s charm and set it on the pillow. I arose, set my clothes outside the door, locked it again and walked to the screened tub. As I climbed into the water, Dutiful’s voice followed me. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me why?’

The water in the tub had cooled to lukewarm, but it was still far hotter than the rain outside had been. I peeled the healer’s bandaging from my neck. The scratches on my belly and chest stung as I lowered myself into the water. Then they eased. I sank further down to soak my neck as well.

‘I said, aren’t you going to ask me why?’

‘I suppose it’s because you don’t want me to call you my prince, Prince Dutiful.’ The salve on my injuries was melting in the water, perfuming the air with its aromatic scent. Golden seal. Myrrh. I closed my eyes and ducked under the water. When I came up, I helped myself to the little bowl of soap that had been left for the Prince. I worked it through what was left of my hair and watched the brown suds drip into the water. I ducked again to rinse it.

‘You shouldn’t have to thank me and wait on me and defer to me. I know who you are. Your blood’s as good as mine.’

I was grateful for the screen. I splashed a bit while I tried to think, hoping he would believe I hadn’t heard him.

‘Chade used to tell me stories. When he first started teaching me things. Stories about another boy he had taught, how stubborn he was, and also how clever. “When my first boy was your age,” he’d say, and then tell a story about how you’d played tricks on the washerfolk, or hidden the seamstress’s shears to perplex her. You had a pet weasel, didn’t you?’

Slink had been Chade’s weasel. I’d stolen Mistress Hasty’s shears on his orders, as part of my assassin’s training in theft and stealth. Surely Chade hadn’t told him that as well. My mouth was dry. I splashed loudly and waited.

‘You’re his son, aren’t you? Chade’s son and hence my – would it be a second cousin? On the wrong side of the sheets, but a cousin all the same. And I think I know who your mother was, too. She is a lady still spoken of, though none seem to know a great deal about her. Lady Thyme.’

I laughed aloud, then changed it into a cough. Chade’s son by Lady Thyme. Now there was an apt pedigree for me. Lady Thyme, that noxious old harpy, had been an invention of Chade’s, a clever disguise for when he wished to travel unknown. I cleared my throat and nearly recovered my aplomb. ‘No, my prince. I fear you are in vast error there.’

He was silent as I finished washing myself. I emerged from the tub, dried myself, and stepped out from behind the screen. There was a nightshirt on the pallet. As usual, the Fool had thought of everything. As I pulled it over my wet and bristly head, the Prince observed, ‘You’ve got a lot of scars. How’d you get them?’

‘Asking questions of bad-tempered folk. My prince.’

‘You even sound like Chade.’

An unkinder, more untrue thing had never been said of me, I was sure. I countered it with, ‘And when did you become so talkative?’

‘Since there was no one around to spy on us. You do know Lord Golden and Laurel are spies, don’t you? One for Chade and the other for my mother?’

He thought he was so clever. He’d have to learn more caution if he expected to survive at court. I turned and gave him a direct stare. ‘What makes you believe that I’m not a spy as well?’

He gave a sceptical laugh. ‘You’re too rude. You don’t care if I like you; you don’t try to win my confidence or my favour. You’re disrespectful. You never flatter me.’ He laced the fingers of his hands and put them behind his head. He gave me an odd half-smile. ‘And you don’t seem concerned that I’ll have you hanged for manhandling me back on that island. Only a relative could treat someone so badly and not expect ill consequences from it.’ He cocked his head at me, and I saw what I most feared in his eyes. Behind his speculation was stark need. His eyes bled unbearable loneliness. Years ago, when Burrich had forcibly parted me from the first dog I had ever bonded to, I had attached myself to him. I had feared the Stablemaster and even hated him, but I had needed him even more. I had needed to be connected to someone who would be constant and available to me. I’ve heard it said that all youngsters have such requirements. I think that mine went deeper than a child’s simple need for stability. Having known the complete connection of the Wit, I could no longer abide the isolation of my own mind. I counselled myself that Dutiful’s turning to me probably had more to do with Jinna’s charm than with any sincere regard for me. Then I realized it still lay on my pillow.

‘I report to Chade.’ I said the words quickly, without embellishment. I would not traffic in deceit and betrayal. I would not let him attach himself to me, believing me to be someone I was not.

‘Of course you do. He sent for you. For me. You have to be the one he said he’d try to get for me. The one who could teach me the Skill better than he can.’

Truly, Chade’s tongue had grown loose in his old age.

He sat up in his bed and began to tick his reasoning off on his fingers. I looked at him critically as he spoke. Deprivation and grief still shadowed his eyes and hollowed his cheeks, but sometime in the last day or so, he had realized he would live. He held up his first finger. ‘You’ve a Farseer cast to your features. Your eyes, the set of your jaw … not your nose, I don’t know where you got that from, but that’s not family.’ He held up a second finger. ‘The Skill is a Farseer magic. I’ve felt you use it at least twice now.’ A third finger. ‘You call Chade, Chade, not Lord Chade or Counsellor Chade. And once I heard you speak of my lady mother as Kettricken. Not even Queen Kettricken, but Kettricken. As if you’d been children together.’

Perhaps we had. As for my nose, well, that had come from a Farseer, too. It was Regal’s permanent memento to me of the days I’d spent in his dungeon.

I walked to the branch of candles on the table, and blew them all out save one. I felt Dutiful’s eyes follow me as I walked back to my pallet and sat down on it. It was low and hard, placed near the door where I could guard my good masters. I lay down on it.

‘Well?’ he demanded.

‘I’m going to sleep now.’ I made it the end of the conversation.

He snorted contemptuously. ‘A real servant would have begged my leave to extinguish the candles. And to go to sleep. Goodnight, Tom Badgerlock Farseer.’

‘Sleep well, most gracious prince.’

Another snort from him. Then silence, save for the rain thundering on the roof and splatting on the innyard mud. Silence, save for the soft crackling of the fire, and the distant music from the common room below. Silence but for unsteady footsteps making their way past our door. But most of all, the crashing silence in my heart where for so long Nighteyes’ awareness had been a steady beacon in my darkness, a warmth in my winter, a guide star in my night. My dreams were thin, illogical human things now that frayed at a moment’s waking. Tears flooded warm under my closed eyelids. I opened my mouth to breathe silently through my constricted throat and lay on my back.

I heard the Prince shift in his bedding, and shift again. Very quietly, he rose from his bed and went to the window. For a time he gazed out at the rain falling in the muddy innyard. ‘Does it go away?’ He asked the question in a very soft voice, but I knew it was for me.

I took a breath, forced steadiness into my voice. ‘No.’

‘Not ever?’

‘There may be another for you some day. But you never forget the first.’

He did not move from the windowsill. ‘How many bond-animals have you had?’

I nearly didn’t answer that. Then, ‘Three,’ I said.

He turned away from the night and looked at me through the darkness. ‘Will there be another one for you?’

‘I doubt it.’

He left the window and returned to his bed. I heard him pull up his blankets and settle into them. I thought he would go to sleep, but he spoke again. ‘Will you teach me the Wit also?’

Someone had better teach you something, if it’s only not to trust so quickly. ‘I haven’t said I’d teach you anything.’

He was silent for a time. He sounded almost sulky when he said, ‘Well, it were better if someone taught me something.’

A long silence followed and I hoped he had gone to sleep. The uncanny way his words echoed my thought unnerved me. Rain beat against the thick whorl of glass in the window, and dark flowed into the room. I closed my eyes and centred myself. As gingerly as if I handled broken glass, I reached towards him.

He was there, still and taut as a crouching cat. I sensed him waiting and watching for me, yet unaware I stood at the borders of his mind. His rough Skill-sense was an awkward, unhoned tool. I drew back a bit and studied him from all angles, as if he were a colt I was thinking of breaking. His wariness was a mix of apprehension and aggression. It was a weapon as much as a shield that he inexpertly wielded. Nor was it pure Skill. It is a hard thing to describe, but his Skill was like a white beacon edged with green darkness. His Wit awareness of me was what he used to focus. The Wit does not reach from a man’s mind to another man’s mind, but the Wit can make me aware of the animal that the man’s mind inhabits. So it was with Dutiful. Bereft of the cat as a focus, his Wit was a wide-flung web, seeking a kinship. As was mine, I suddenly realized.

I recoiled from that and found myself back in my own flesh. I set my walls against the untrained fumbling of his Skill. Yet even as I did so, there were two things I could not deny. The thread of Skill that connected me to Dutiful grew stronger each time I ventured along it. And I had no idea of how to sever it, let alone remove my Skill-command from his mind.

The third piece of knowledge was as bitter as the other parts were disturbing. I quested. I had no desire to form a bond with another animal. But without Nighteyes to contain it, my Wit sprawled out like seeking roots. Like water that overbrims a vessel and must seek a place to flow, the Wit went forth from me, silent yet reaching. Earlier I had seen need in the Prince’s eyes, a desperate longing for connection and belonging. Did I radiate that same privation? I closed my heart and willed myself to stillness. Time would heal my grief. I repeated that lie until sleep claimed me.

I awoke when the light spilling in the window touched my face. I opened my eyes but lay still. The pale light filling the room after the dark of the storm was like being immersed in clear water. I felt curiously empty, as one does when one has been ill for a long time and then begins to mend. I caught at the edges of a fleeing dream, but clutched only the edges of a shining morning, the sea below me and wind in my face. Sleep had left me, but I had no inclination to rise and face the day. I felt as if I were inside a bubble of safety, and that if I remained motionless, I could cling to this moment in peace. I lay on my side, my hand and arm under the flat pillow. After a time, I became aware of the feathers under my hand.

I lifted my head, intending to look at them, but the room swung suddenly about me as if I’d had too much to drink. The realities of the day to come – the long ride to Buckkeep, the meetings with Chade and Kettricken that would follow, the resumption of my life as Tom Badgerlock – crashed down on me. I sat up slowly.

The Prince slept on in his bed. I turned and found the Fool regarding me sleepily. He lay on his side in his bed, his chin propped on his fist. He looked weary, but insufferably pleased about something. The effect made him look years younger.

‘I didn’t expect to see you in your bed this morning,’ I greeted him, and then, ‘How did you get in? I latched that door last night.’

‘Did you? Interesting. But you can scarcely be more surprised to see me in my own bed than I am to see you in yours.’

I let that barb go past me. I scratched the bristle on my cheek. ‘I should shave,’ I said to myself, dreading the idea. I hadn’t touched a blade to my face since we’d left Galekeep.

‘Indeed you should. I’d like us to look as presentable as possible when we return to Buckkeep.’

I thought of my cat-shredded shirt, but nodded acquiescence. Then I recalled the feathers. ‘I’ve something I want to show you,’ I began, reaching under the pillow, but just then the Prince drew a deeper breath and opened his eyes.

‘Good morning, my prince,’ Lord Golden greeted him.

‘Morning,’ he acknowledged wearily. ‘Lord Golden, Tom Badgerlock.’ He looked and sounded marginally better than he had at the end of yesterday’s ride. His formality towards me was back in place. I felt relief.

‘Good morning, my prince,’ I greeted him.

And so the day began. We ate in our room. Our cleaned and mended clothing arrived shortly after our breakfasts. Lord Golden looked almost restored to his former glory, and the Prince looked tidy if not exactly royal. As I had suspected, washing had done little to make my clothing more presentable. I begged a needle and thread from the servant who brought our food, saying I wished to tighten the sleeve in my mended shirt. The reality was that I required a pocket in it. Lord Golden looked at me and sighed. ‘Keeping you decently clothed may become the most expensive part of keeping you as a servant, Tom Badgerlock. Well, see what you can do with the rest of yourself.’

I was the only one with any need to shave. Lord Golden commanded hot water and a razor and glass for me. He sat by the window, gazing out over the little landing town as I worked. I had scarcely begun my task when I became aware of the Prince’s scrutiny. For a time, I ignored his intense fascination. The second time I nicked myself, I suppressed a curse, but did demand, ‘What? Have you never seen a man shave himself before?’

He coloured slightly. ‘No.’ He looked away as he added, ‘I have spent little time in the company of men. Oh, I’ve dined with our nobles, and hawked with them, and taken my sword lessons with the other lads of good houses. But …’ He seemed at a loss suddenly.

Just as abruptly, Lord Golden arose from his window seat. ‘I’ve a mind to see a bit of this town before we depart it. I think I shall take a stroll about it. With my prince’s permission.’

‘Of course, Lord Golden. As you will.’

When he left, I expected the Prince to go with him. Instead, he lingered with me. He watched me finish shaving, and when I rinsed the last of the soap from my smarting face, he asked with intense curiosity, ‘It hurts, then?’

‘Stings a little. Only if you hurry, as I always seem to do, and cut myself in the process.’ My mourning-shortened hair stuck up in thickets. Starling would have cut it for me, I thought, and then damned the thought and plastered it down to my head with water.

‘It won’t stay. Once it dries, it will just stick up again,’ the Prince pointed out helpfully.

‘I know that. My prince.’

‘Do you hate me?’

He asked it so casually, it set me completely off-balance. I put aside the towel and met his earnest gaze. ‘No. I do not hate you.’

‘Because I would understand if you did. Because of your wolf and all.’

‘Nighteyes.’

‘Nighteyes.’ He said the name carefully. Then he looked aside from me suddenly. ‘I never knew my cat’s name.’ I knew tears threatened to choke him. I sat carefully still and silent, waiting for him. After a moment, he drew a deep breath. ‘I don’t hate you, either.’

‘That’s good to know,’ I admitted. Then I added, ‘The cat told me to kill her.’ Despite my effort, the words sounded defensive.

‘I know. I heard her.’ He sniffed a little, then tried to disguise it as a cough. ‘And she would have forced you to kill her. She was completely determined.’

‘I think I knew that,’ I replied ruefully, and touched the renewed bandages at my throat. The Prince actually smiled, and I found myself returning the smile.

He asked the next question quickly, as if it were important to ask, so important that he feared the answer. ‘Will you be staying?’

‘Staying?’

‘Will I see you around Buckkeep Castle?’ He sat down suddenly at the table across from me and met my eyes directly with Verity’s blunt stare. ‘Tom Badgerlock. Will you teach me?’

Chade, my old master, had asked me and I’d been able to say no. The Fool, my oldest friend, had asked me to return to Buckkeep, and I’d refused him. If the Queen herself had asked me, I could have said no. The best I could manage with this Farseer heir was, ‘I don’t know that much to teach. What your father taught me, he taught me in secret, and he seldom had time for lessons.’

He regarded me soberly. ‘Is there anyone who knows more of the Skill than you do?’

‘No, my prince.’ I did not add that I’d killed them all. I could not have said why I suddenly added his title. Only that something in his manner demanded it.

‘Then you are Skillmaster now. By default.’

‘No.’ That I could answer, my tongue moving as swiftly as my thoughts. I took a breath. ‘I’ll teach you,’ I said. ‘But it will be as your father taught me. When I can and what I can. And in secret.’

Without a word, he reached his hand across the table to me, to seal the agreement with a touching of hands. Two things happened as our hands met. ‘The Wit and the Skill,’ he stipulated. As the skin of my palm touched his, the leap of Skill-spark between us sang.

Please.

His plea was sloppily done, pushed by the Wit, not the Skill. ‘We’ll see,’ I said aloud. I was already regretting it. ‘You may change your mind. I’m neither a good teacher, nor a patient one.’

‘But you treat me like a man, not “the Prince”. As if your expectations of a man were higher than those for a prince.’

I didn’t reply. I looked at him, waiting. He spoke hesitantly, as if the answer shamed him. ‘To my mother, I am a son. But I am also, always, the Prince and Sacrifice for my people. And to all others, always, I am the Prince. Always. I am no one’s brother. I am no man’s son. I am not anyone’s best friend.’ He laughed, a small strangled laugh. ‘People treat me very well as “my prince”. But there is always a wall there. No one speaks to me as, well, as me.’ He shrugged one shoulder and his mouth twisted to one side wryly. ‘No one except you has ever told me I was stupid, even when I was most definitely being stupid.’

I understood suddenly why he had so swiftly succumbed to the Piebalds’ plot. To be loved, in a familiar, unfearing way. To be someone’s best friend, even if that someone was only a cat. I could recall a time when I thought Chade was the only one in the world who would give me that. I recalled how terrifying the threat of losing that had been. I knew that any boy, prince or beggar, needed that from a man. But I wasn’t sure I was a wise choice for that. Chade, why couldn’t he have chosen Chade? I was still formulating an answer to that when there was a knock at the door.

I opened it to discover Laurel. Reflexively, I looked past her for Lord Golden. He wasn’t there. She glanced over her own shoulder with a small frown, and then back to my face. ‘May I come in?’ she asked pointedly.

‘Of course, my lady. I just thought –’

She entered and I closed the door behind her. She considered Prince Dutiful for a moment, and something almost like relief dawned on her face as she made a courtesy to him. She smiled as she greeted him with ‘Good morning, my Prince.’

‘Good morning, Huntswoman.’ His reply was solemn, but he did reply. I glanced at the boy, and realized what she saw. The Prince had come back to himself. His face was solemn, his eyes shadowed, but he was with us. He no longer stared within himself to a distance no one else could see.

‘It is good to see you so well recovered, my prince. I came to enquire as to when you wished to depart for Buckkeep. The sun is climbing and the day looks fair, if cold.’

‘I am pleased to leave that decision to Lord Golden.’

‘An excellent decision, my prince.’ She glanced about the room and then asked, ‘Lord Golden is not here?’

‘He said he was going out,’ I replied.

My words startled her. It was almost as if a chair had spoken, and then I realized fully my error. In the presence of the Prince, a mere servant like myself would not presume to speak out. I glanced down at my feet so no one would see the chagrin in my eyes. Yet again, I resolved to focus more closely on the role I must play. Had I forgotten all of Chade’s earlier training?

She glanced at Dutiful, but when he added nothing to my words, she said slowly, ‘I see.’

‘You are, of course, welcome to wait here for his return, Huntswoman.’ His words said one thing, his tone another. I had not heard it done so well since Shrewd was king.

‘Thank you, my prince. But if I may, I think I will seek my own room until I am sent for.’

‘As you wish, Huntswoman.’ He had turned to look out the window.

‘Thank you, my prince.’ She dipped a courtesy to his back. Our eyes met for a fleeting moment as she went to the door, but I read nothing there. When the door had closed behind her, the Prince turned back to me.

‘There. Do you see what I mean, Tom Badgerlock?’

‘She was not unkind to you, my prince.’

He came back to the table and sat down. He made a motion to me to do the same. As I took a chair opposite him, he said, ‘She was not anything to me. She treats me as they all do. “As it please you, my prince.” But in all the Six Duchies, I haven’t a true friend.’

I took a breath then asked, ‘What of your companions? Your friends who ride and hunt with you?’

‘I have far too many of them. I must call each one a friend, and to none of them may I show favour, lest the father of another one feel slighted. And Eda forbid that I should smile at a young woman. At my slightest attempt to form a friendship, she is whisked away, lest my attention be interpreted as courtship. No.’ He came back to the table and dropped into a chair. ‘I am alone, Tom Badgerlock. Forever alone.’ He sighed heavily and looked down at his hands on the table’s edge. It was a bit too dramatic to befit the young man.

I spoke before I thought. ‘Oh, poor deprived lad.’ He lifted his head and glowered at me. I returned his look levelly. Then a slow smile came to his face. ‘Spoken like a true friend,’ he said.

A moment later Lord Golden came through the door. In a flicker of his long fingers, he showed me a bird’s message-tube. In the next instant, it had vanished up his sleeve. Of course. He’d gone to see Starling, to see if we’d received word back from Buckkeep. And we had. No doubt Chade would have all in readiness for our return. In the next moment, his eyes took in the Prince seated at the other end of the table. If he thought it odd to find the Farseer heir sitting at table with me, watching me mend the sleeve of my shirt, he did not show it.

Not even a flick of his eyes betrayed that he had greeted me first. Instead, all his attention seemed fixed on the Prince as he addressed him. ‘Good day, my prince. If it please you, we can ride as soon as we may.’

The Prince drew a long breath. ‘It would please me, Lord Golden.’

Now Lord Golden turned to me, and gave me a smile such as I had not seen on his face for days. ‘You have heard our prince, Tom Badgerlock. Stir yourself to readiness and pack our things. And you can leave off mending that, my good man, at least for now. Never can it be said that I am a niggardly master, even to such a wretched servant as yourself. Put this on, lest you shame us all riding back into Buckkeep.’ He tossed me a bundled packet. It proved to be a shirt of homespun, far sturdier than the tattered garment in my hands. So much for a pocket up my sleeve today.

‘My thanks to you, Lord Golden,’ I replied with humble gratitude. ‘I shall strive to take better care of this one than I did of the last three.’

‘See that you do. Put it on, and then haste to Mistress Laurel, to let her know we’ll be riding soon. And on your way down to the stables to ask that the horses be readied, stop at the kitchens and request that they pack us a luncheon as well. A couple of cold birds and a meat pie, two bottles of wine, and some of the fresh bread I smelled baking as I entered.’

‘As it please you, master,’ I replied.

As I was pulling the new shirt on over my head, I heard the Prince ask sourly, ‘My Lord Golden, is it you who thinks I am an idiot, that you put on this show for me? Or is it the wish of Tom Badgerlock?’

I popped my head out hastily, not wishing to miss the look on Lord Golden’s face. But it was the Fool who greeted me. His grin was nothing short of dazzling, as he swept a wide minstrel’s bow to Dutiful, his non-existent hat brushing his knees. As he straightened, he gave me a look of triumph. It baffled me, but I found myself answering his grin with one of my own as he replied, ‘Good prince, it is neither my wish nor that of Tom Badgerlock, but of Lord Chade. He desires that we practise as much as we may, for poor actors such as ourselves need many rehearsals if we are to fool even an eye or two.’

‘Lord Chade. I should have known you both belonged to him.’ It pleased me that he did not betray I had already told him that. He was learning some discretion at least. He gave the Fool a piercing look, one with much mistrust in it. The look shifted sideways to include me. ‘But who are you?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘Who are you, the both of you?’

Without thinking, the Fool and I exchanged a look. That we conferred before we answered incensed the Prince. I could tell by the slow spots of colour that rose in his cheeks. Beyond the anger, hidden in the back of his eyes, was the boy’s fear that he had made a fool of himself to me. Had his trust been won by a contrived performance? Did the affection between the Fool and me preclude any friendship I would share with him? I saw his candour begin to close; I could see him retreating behind his regal wall. I reached hastily across the table, and violated every noble protocol that existed by seizing his hand. I let honesty flow through that touch, convincing him with Skill just as Verity had once won his mother’s trust.

‘He is a friend, my prince. The best friend I have ever had, and like to be yours as well.’ My gaze did not leave the Prince’s face as I reached my free hand towards the Fool. I heard him step up beside Dutiful. An instant later, I felt him set his ungloved fingers in mine. I brought his hand to join our clasp, his long fingers closing around both our hands.

‘If you will have me,’ the Fool offered humbly, ‘I will serve you as I served your father, and your grandfather before him.’

TWENTY-EIGHT

Homecoming

As far back as our traditions go, there has been both trade and war between the Six Duchies and the Out Islands. Like the regular ebb and flow of the tides, we have traded and intermarried, and then warred and killed our own kin. What set the Red Ship War apart in that long and bloody tradition is that for the first time, the Outislanders were united under a single war leader. Kebal Rawbread was his name. Accounts of him differ, but by most tellings, he began as a pirate and raider. As both sailor and fighter, he excelled, and the men who followed him prospered. Word of their successes and the richness of the plunder they claimed brought men of like minds to follow him. He soon commanded a fleet of raiding vessels.

Even so, he might have remained no more than a prosperous pirate, raiding wherever the wind took him. Instead, he began to take steps to force all of the Out Islands under his reign. The form of coercion he used was remarkably similar to the Forging that he later employed against the people of the Six Duchies. At about that time, he decreed that all the hulls of his raiding vessels must be painted red, and that the force of his raids would be expended only on the Six Duchies coastline. It is interesting to note that at the same time that these tactical changes were occurring in Kebal Rawbread’s fleet, those in the Six Duchies first began to hear rumours of a Pale Woman at his side.

Fedwren’s An Account of the Red Ship War

We reached Buckkeep Town as the afternoon faded. We could have made far better time, but the Fool deliberately delayed us. We had stopped overlong on a stretch of sandy riverbank for our late afternoon luncheon. I believe he thought to buy the Prince one more day of quiet before he plunged into the whirl of court again. None of us had mentioned the chaos and gaiety of the betrothal ceremony that the new moon would bring. It had pleased the Prince to join in our charade, so that for the ride home he kept his mount beside Malta, as disdainful of Lord Golden’s coarse servant as any well-born young man might be. He allowed Lord Golden’s aristocratic talk of hunts and balls and exotic travel to amuse him while never compromising his princely demeanour. Laurel rode at Lord Golden’s other stirrup, but was mostly silent. I think the Prince enjoyed his new role. I could sense his relief that we included him now. He was not a wayward boy being dragged home by his elders, but a young man returning from a misadventure, with friends. His desperate loneliness had eased. Nonetheless, I also felt his rising anxiety as we drew nearer and nearer to Buckkeep. It pulsed through the Skill-connection we shared. I wondered again if he were as aware of it as I was.

I think poor Laurel was baffled by the change in the young man. He seemed to have recovered his spirits entirely, and set behind him his misfortune among the Piebalds. I do not know if she heard the brittleness at the edges of his laughter, nor marked how well Lord Golden carried the conversation during the times when the Prince could not seem to keep his mind on it. I did. I was relieved that the boy had latched onto Lord Golden so firmly. So I rode alone until, in the early afternoon, the Huntswoman dropped back to ride beside me, leaving the Prince and Lord Golden to their newfound companionship.

‘He seems a different young man entirely,’ she observed quietly.

‘He does,’ I agreed. I tried to keep any cynicism from my voice. With both Dutiful and Lord Golden occupied, she deigned to speak to me again. I knew I should not fault her for choosing wisely where to let her attention and fondness come to rest. For Lord Golden to honour her with his attention was no small coup for her. I wondered if she would try to continue their connection when we returned to Buckkeep Castle. She would be the envy of the ladies if she did. I even wondered how deep his affection for her went. Was my friend honestly losing his heart to her? I considered her silent profile as she rode alongside me. He could do far worse. She was healthy and young and a good hunter. I abruptly heard the echo of the wolf’s values in my thoughts. I caught my breath for a moment, and then let the pain pass.

She was more astute than I had realized. ‘I’m sorry.’ She spoke softly, and her words barely reached me. ‘You know I do not have the Old Blood myself. Somehow it passed me, to settle on my brothers and sister instead. Nonetheless, I can guess what you suffer. I saw what my mother went through when her gander died. That bird was forty years old, and had outlived my father … Truth to tell, it is why I think Old Blood as much a curse as a blessing. And I confess, when I consider the risk and the pain, I do not know why you practise this magic. How can anyone let an animal seize his heart so completely, when their lives are so short? What can you gain that is worth all the pain each time your partner dies?’

I had no answer to that. In truth, it was a rock-hard sympathy she gave me.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again when some little time had passed. ‘You must think me heartless. I know my cousin Deerkin does. But all I can say to him is what I’ve said to you. I do not understand. And I cannot approve. I will always think Old Blood a magic better left alone.’

‘If I had a choice, perhaps I would feel the same,’ I replied. ‘But I am as I was born.’

‘As is the Prince,’ she said after a long moment’s consideration. ‘Eda save us all, and keep his secret safe.’

‘Amen to that,’ I said heavily. ‘And mine as well.’ I gave her a sideways glance.

‘I do not think Lord Golden would betray you. He values you far too highly as a servant,’ she replied. It was a reassurance that she never even considered I might be thinking of her tongue wagging. A moment later, she set my thoughts on a different trail when she delicately added, ‘And may my bloodlines not become common talk.’

I replied as she had. ‘I am certain that as Lord Golden values you, both as a friend and as the Queen’s devoted Huntswoman, he would never breathe a word that might discredit or endanger you.’

She gave me a sidelong glance, then asked shyly, ‘As his friend? Do you think so?’

Something in her eyes and at the corners of her mouth warned me not to answer that question lightly. ‘So it would appear to me,’ I said, somewhat stiffly.

Her shoulders lifted as if I had offered her a gift. ‘And you have known him well and long,’ she embroidered my words. I refused to confirm that speculation. She looked away from me for a time, and after that we did not speak much, but she hummed as she rode. She seemed light of heart. Ahead of me, I marked that the Prince’s voice had faltered to a halt. Lord Golden chatted on, but the Prince rode looking ahead, and silent.

Buckkeep Castle was a dark silhouette on the black stone cliffs against a bank of dark clouds when we reached Buckkeep Town. The Prince had pulled his hood well up over his face and dropped back to ride beside me. Laurel rode by Lord Golden now, and seemed well pleased with the change. Dutiful and I spoke little, each busy with our own thoughts. Our journey back to Buckkeep would take us up the steep path to the lesser-used West Gate. As we had left, so would we enter. We passed once more the scattering of cottages at the bottom of the climb. When I saw the first drape of greenery on a door lintel, I thought it was but an over-eager celebrant. But then I saw another, and as we rode on, we eventually came to a group of workmen setting up a celebratory arch. Nearby, townsfolk busily plaited ivy with heffelwhite vines, ready to drape the arch. ‘A bit early, aren’t you?’ Lord Golden called to them congenially as we passed.

A guardsman spat and laughed aloud. ‘Early, milord? We’re damn near too late! All thought the storms would delay the betrothal ship, but the Outislanders seem to have used them to fly here with the wind’s own wings. The treaty galleys arrived at noon with the Princess’s honour guard. We’ve heard she’ll make landfall before the sun sets, and all must be ready.’

‘Really?’ Lord Golden enthused. ‘Well, I dare not be late for the festivities.’ He turned his smile on Laurel. ‘My lady, I fear we must ride as swift as we can. You lads may follow at your own pace …’ And with that he set his heels to Malta, and she plunged nimbly forwards. Laurel matched him. The Prince and I followed, but at a more sedate gait. As we trailed them up the winding road to Buckkeep Castle, Lord Golden and Laurel continued up the main road and entered at the gate. But in a thicker patch of woods, I turned Myblack’s head from the path and motioned for the Prince to follow. There was little more than a game trail, but I pushed Myblack through the tangles of brush, along a path I scarce remembered, and Dutiful followed. We followed the keep wall until we came to the place the wolf had shown me so long ago. Thick brambles still covered that old breach in the wall, but I had my suspicions. In the shadow of the keep wall, we dismounted.

‘What is this place?’ he demanded. He pushed his hood back and looked about curiously.

‘A place to wait. I will not chance taking you in either of the gates. Chade will send someone to meet us here, and I am certain he will devise a way for you to re-enter the keep, so it may seem that you have never left. You have seen fit to spend these days in meditation, and now you will emerge to meet your betrothed. None need be the wiser.’

‘I see,’ he replied bleakly. Overhead the clouds were growing thicker, and the wind began to pick up. ‘What do we now?’ the Prince asked softly.

‘We wait.’

‘Waiting.’ He sighed. ‘If a man can become perfect at something by practising it, I should be perfect at waiting by now.’

He sounded both tired and older than his years.

‘At least, you’re home now,’ I said comfortingly.

‘Yes.’ He did not sound glad. After a moment, he asked, ‘It seems a year since I was last at Buckkeep, and it is not even a full month. I remember lying on my bed and counting the days I still had before the new moon, before I had to face this. Then – for a time I thought I might never have to face it. It seemed strange, all day today, to know I was riding back to my old life, that I would pick up all the threads, all the details, and go on as if I had never left. It was overwhelming. All day, riding back here, I promised myself a quiet day or two. I wanted some time alone, to decide how much I had changed. Now … this very night the delegation arrives from the Out Islands to formalize my betrothal. This night my mother and the Outislander nobles set the course of the rest of my life.’

I tried to smile, but I felt I was delivering him to his execution. I had come near as a knife’s edge to a similar fate once. I found something to say. ‘You must be very excited to meet your bride.’

He gave me a look. ‘Apprehensive is perhaps a better word. There is something rather dreadful about meeting the girl you will marry when you know that your own preferences have absolutely no bearing on the situation.’ He gave a small, sour laugh. ‘Not that I did so well when I thought I was choosing someone for myself.’ He sighed and looked aside from me. ‘She’s eleven. Eleven summers old.’ He looked away from me. ‘What shall I discuss with her? Dolls? Embroidery lessons?’ He crossed his arms on his chest and leaned against the cold stone wall. ‘I do not think they even teach women to read in the Out Islands. Nor men, for that matter.’

‘Oh.’ I struggled desperately but could think of nothing more to say. To say that fourteen was not that much older than eleven seemed a cruelty. We waited in silence.

With no warning at all, the threatened rain suddenly sluiced down on us. It began abruptly, one of those downpours that soak a man and fills his ears with the sound of falling water. I was almost grateful that it made conversation impossible. We huddled miserably, the water streaming down the horses who stood with their heads hanging.

We were both completely drenched and cold when Chade appeared to escort the Prince back into the castle. He spoke little, a hasty greeting in the cascading downpour and a promise to see me soon, and then they were gone. I grinned sourly to myself as they left me there in the wet. It was as I had expected. The old fox had not closed off this secret back door, but he was not going to show the entrance to me. I drew a deep breath. Well. My errand was done. I’d brought the Prince safely back to Buckkeep Castle in time for his betrothal. I tried on emotions. Triumph. Joy. Elation. No. Wet, tired and hungry. Cold to my bones. Alone.

Empty.

I mounted Myblack and rode through the downpour, leading the Prince’s horse. The light was fading and the horses’ hooves slipped on the layers of wet leaves. I was forced to go slowly. The bushes we pushed through were laden with rain. I had not thought it was possible to get wetter, but I did. Then, as I reached the main road up to the keep, I found the way choked with men and horses and litters. I somehow doubted they were going to make way for me, or allow me to join the betrothal procession. So I sat Myblack in the rain and held the reins of the miserable dun, and watched them go by.

First came the torchbearers, holding their blazing brands aloft to show the way. They were followed by the Queen’s Guards, in purple and white with the fox badge, riding white horses, very showy and dripping wet. They passed, leading the way, and then came an interesting mix of the Prince’s Guard and the Outislander warriors. The Prince’s Guard wore Buckkeep blue with the Farseer stag badge, and they were afoot, I suppose out of courtesy to the Outislanders. The guardians who had accompanied their narcheska were sailors and fighters, not horsemen. Their furs and leathers dripped, and I suspected the Great Hall would be rich with the stench of wet fur tonight as the warmth dried them. They strode along, rank after rank, with the rolling gait of men who had been long at sea and still expected a deck to rise to greet them at every step. They wore their weapons as their wealth, and their wealth as their weapons. Jewels glittered on swordbelts, and I glimpsed axe-hafts banded with gold. I prayed no fighting would break out among the mingled guard companies tonight. There strode together veterans from both sides of the Red Ship War.

The Outislander nobles came next, riding borrowed horses, and looking singularly uncomfortable on them. I saw an assortment of Six Duchies nobles riding welcome among them. I recognized them more by their badges than by their faces. The Duke of Tilth was younger by far than I had expected him to be. There were two young women wearing Bearns insignia, and though I recognized the stamp of their bloodlines in their faces, I had never seen them before. And still the folk, both grand and martial, paraded past and I stood in the rain and watched them go by.

Then came the litter of Prince Dutiful’s betrothed. It floated like a tethered cloud, immense and white, borne on the shoulders of the King’s Best. The young noblemen who walked beside it bearing torches were wet and spattered with mud to the knee. The flowers and garlands that draped it looked battered by the wind and rain of the storm. It would have seemed an ominous omen, this storm-tossed litter, but for the girl inside it. The curtains of the litter were not drawn against the wind’s rough kiss, but thrown wide. The three Six Duchies ladies within looked drenched and much aware of how the rain dripped from their coiffed hair and soaked their dresses. But in their midst sat a little girl revelling in the storm. Her inky black hair was long and unbound. The rain had sleeked it to her head tight as a seal’s fur, and her eyes, too, reminded me of a seal’s, immense and dark and liquid. She stared at me as they passed me, her teeth white in an excited smile. She was, as the Prince had said, a child of eleven. She was a sturdy little thing, wide-cheeked and square-shouldered and obviously determined not to miss a moment of her journey to the castle on the hill. Perhaps to honour her intended, she was dressed in Buck blue with an odd blue ornament in her hair, but her high-collared overblouse was of fine white leather embroidered in gold with leaping narwhals. I stared back at her, thinking I had seen her before, or met someone of her house, but before I could snag the memory, the litter was borne past me and on up the hill. And still I must wait, as the rain spattered down around me, for behind her came more ranks of her own men, and ours, to honour her.

When finally all the nobility and their guards had passed, I nudged Myblack onto the well-churned road. We joined a stream of merchants and tradefolk heading up to the keep. Some bore their wares on their shoulders, wax-coated wheels of cheese or kegs of fine liquor, and some brought theirs in carts. I became a part of the flow and entered the main gate of Buckkeep with them, unremarked.

There were stable boys to take the horses, struggling hard to keep up with the flow of animals. I gave them the Prince’s dun but I told them I wanted to care for Myblack myself, and they were glad of it. It was, perhaps, a foolish chance to take. I suppose I could have encountered Hands and he might have somehow recognized me. But in the bustle of all the strangers and extra animals to stable, I did not think it likely. The stable boys directed me to take Myblack to the ‘old stable’ for that was the one allotted to servants’ mounts now. I found it was the stable of my childhood where Burrich had reigned and I had once been his right hand. The old familiar tasks of putting the horse to rights before I left her in her stall brought an odd measure of peace to my heart. The smell of animals and hay, the muted light of the spaced lanterns, and the sounds of beasts settling for the night all soothed me. I was cold and wet and tired, but here in the Buckkeep stables, I was as close to home as I had been in a long time. All had changed in the world, but here in the stables, all was very much the same.

As I trudged across the busy yard and went in at the servants’ door, the thought followed me. All had changed yet was much the same in Buckkeep. There was still the heat and clatter and chatter from the kitchens as I passed. The flagged entry to the guardroom was still muddy, and it still smelled of wet wool and spilled ale and steaming meat as I walked past the door. From the Great Hall spilled the sounds of music and laughter and eating and talk. Ladies swished past me, their maids scowling at me as if I might dare to drip on their mistresses. Outside the entrance to the Great Hall, two young lordlings were chivvying a third about a girl that he dared not speak to. The sleeves of one boy’s shirt were trimmed with black-tipped ermine’s tails, and another wore a collar so filigreed with silver rings that he scarce could turn his head. I recalled how Mistress Hasty had once tormented me with fashionable clothing, and could only pity them. The homespun on my back was coarse, but at least I could move freely in it.

Once, I would have been expected to make an appearance at such an occasion, even if I were no more than a bastard. When Verity and Kettricken had sat at the high table, I had sometimes been seated almost near them. I had dined on elaborately-cooked delicacies, made conversation with noble ladies, and listened to the Six Duchies’ finest musicians in my time as FitzChivalry Farseer. But tonight I was Tom Badgerlock, and I would have been the greatest fool in the world to regret that I walked unknown amongst such gaiety.

Swept up in remembering, almost I climbed the stair that would have led to my old chamber but I caught myself in time, and made my way up to Lord Golden’s rooms instead. I tapped and then entered. He was not there, but there were all the indications he had been. He had obviously bathed and donned fresh attire, and his hurry was evident. A box of jewellery was still out on the table, plundered of something and the rest left scattered across the polished wood. Four shirts had been tried on, then flung across the bed. Several pairs of disdained shoes cluttered the floor. I sighed, and put the room to rights, wedging two shirts back into his wardrobe, packing two others into a chest and shutting the door upon the clothing and heaped shoes. I fed the hearth fire, put fresh candles in the holders against his late return, and swept up the hearth. Then I glanced about. The pleasant room seemed suddenly terribly empty. I took a deep breath and yet again explored the space in my mind where the wolf was not. Some day, I told myself, it would feel natural for that place to be empty. But just now, I did not want to be alone with myself.

I took up a candle and went into my own dark chamber. All was exactly as I had left it. I shut the door firmly behind me, worked the catch, and began the weary climb up the narrow stairs to Chade’s tower.

I had half-expected to find him waiting there for me, anxious for my report. Of course he was not; he must be at the festivities below. But if Chade was not there, the rooms welcomed me all the same. A tub had been left out by the hearth and a large kettle of water was steaming on the hook. Food, obviously from the same dishes the nobles shared below, waited on the table, and a bottle of wine. One plate. One glass. I could have felt sorry for myself. But I did note that a second comfortable chair now rested beside his near the hearth. On that chair was a stack of towels, and a robe of blue wool. Chade had left out lint and bandaging as well, and a pot of smelly salve. In the midst of all he undoubtedly had to tend to, he had thought of me. I reminded myself of that, even as I knew he would not have hauled the buckets of water up here on his own. So. He had a servant, or was it his apprentice? That was still a mystery I had not solved.

I poured the steaming water into the tub, and added cold from a bucket to adjust it. I heaped a plate with food and set it with the open bottle of wine next to the tub. I shed my sodden clothing where I stood, put Jinna’s charm on the table, and hid my feathers inside one of Chade’s dustiest scrolls. Then I peeled off the bandaging on my neck and climbed into the tub. I eased into the water and leaned back. I ate while soaking in hot water, and drank a glass of wine, and washed myself in a desultory fashion. Slowly the cold began to seep out of my bones. The sadness that remained and weighted me seemed a tired and familiar thing. I wondered if Starling played and sang in the Great Hall. I wondered if Lord Golden led Huntswoman Laurel to the dance floor. I wondered what Prince Dutiful thought of the child bride the sea-storm had washed to his doorstep. I leaned back in the tub and I drank wine from the bottle’s mouth, and I suppose I dozed off.

‘Fitz?’

The old man’s voice was worried. It startled me awake and I sat up in the tub, sloshing water. The neck of the winebottle was still in my hand. He caught it before I overset it and placed it on the table with a thump. ‘Are you all right?’ he demanded.

‘I must have fallen asleep.’ I was disoriented. I stared at him, in his court finery, with the dying firelight glinting off the jewels at his ears and throat. He seemed a stranger to me suddenly, and I was embarrassed to be caught sleeping, naked and half-drunk in a tub of cooling water. ‘Let me get out of this,’ I muttered.

‘Do,’ he encouraged me. He built up the fire while I clambered from the tub, dried myself and pulled on the blue robe. My hands and feet were wrinkled from the long immersion. He filled a smaller kettle and set it on the hob, and then took a teapot and cups down from the shelf. I watched him mix tea herbs from a row of cork-stoppered pots.

‘How late is it?’ I asked him groggily.

‘So late Burrich would say it was early morning,’ he replied. He put a small table between the hearth chairs and arranged his teapot and cups there. He sat down in his worn chair beside the table and indicated the other chair for me. I took it and I studied Chade. He had obviously been up all night, yet he seemed not weary but enervated by it. His eyes were bright and his hands steady. He folded his hands on his lap before him and for a moment he was silent, looking down on them. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. He looked up and met my gaze. ‘I won’t pretend to completely understand your loss. He was a fine creature, your wolf. But for him, Queen Kettricken would never have escaped Buckkeep Castle all those years ago. And she has often spoken to me of how he provided meat for all of you on your journey through the Mountain Kingdom.’ He lifted his eyes to mine. ‘Have you ever thought that, if not for the wolf, neither of us would be sitting here like this?’

I didn’t want to speak of Nighteyes just then, not even to hear the kindly memories others had of him. ‘So,’ I said when a moment of awkward silence had passed. ‘Did all go well this evening? The betrothal ceremony and all?’

‘Oh, that was just the welcoming ceremony. The formal betrothal will not take place until the new moon. Night after tomorrow. All the dukes must arrive before we can hold that. Buckkeep Castle will be packed to the rafters with folk, and all of Buckkeep Town as well.’

‘I saw her. The narcheska. She’s only a child.’

A strange smile lit Chade’s face. ‘If you say she is “only” a child, then I doubt you actually saw her. She is … a queen in the bud, Fitz. I wish you could meet her and speak to her. By the greatest good fortune, the Outislanders have offered us an extraordinary match for our prince.’

‘And does Dutiful concur with that?’ I asked proddingly.

‘He –’ Chade drew himself up abruptly. ‘And what is this? Asking questions of your master? Report, you young upstart!’ His smile took any sting from his words.

And so I did. When the water boiled, Chade brewed a tea for us, and later he poured it from the pot, stinging and strong. I don’t know what was in it, but the haze of weariness and wine lifted from my mind. I told him all the events up to the time when we reached the inn at the ferry landing. As ever, his face was still as he listened. If he heard anything that shocked or dismayed him, he covered it well. He only winced once, when I spoke of slamming Dutiful flat onto his back on the beach. When I was finished, he drew in a long breath through his nose. He stood up and walked a slow turn around the room. Then he came back and sat down heavily.

‘So our prince is Witted,’ he said slowly.

Of all the things he could have said, this most surprised me. ‘Did you doubt it?’

He gave a small shake of the head. ‘I had hoped we were wrong. That these Old Blood folk know he carries that blood is a knife in our ribs. At any time, the Piebalds could choose to drive it home, simply by speaking what they know.’ His eyes turned inward. ‘The Bresingas will bear watching. I think, ah, yes, that Queen Kettricken will ask Lady Bresinga to take a certain young woman into her household, a girl of good blood but poor prospects. And I shall look into Laurel’s family connections as well. Yes, I know what you think of that, but we cannot be too careful where the Prince is concerned. A damn shame you let the Piebalds ride away, but I see there was nothing you could have done about it at the time. If it were but one man, or two, or even three, we could end the danger. But not only a dozen Old Bloods, but those Piebalds know as well.’ He considered a moment. ‘Can their silence be bought?’

It disheartened me to hear him plot, yet I knew it was his nature. As well fault a squirrel for hiding nuts. ‘Not with gold,’ I decided. ‘Actions might keep them content. Do as they asked. Show good will. Have the Queen move more strongly to protect the Witted ones from persecution.’

‘She already has!’ Chade replied defensively. ‘For your sake, she has spoken out, and more than once. Six Duchies law forbids that any Witted one be killed simply for being Witted. Other crimes must be proved.’

I took a breath. ‘And has that law been enforced?’

‘It is up to each duke to enforce the laws within his own duchy.’

‘And in Buck?’ I asked softly.

Chade was silent for a time. I watched him gnaw briefly on his lip, his eyes staring deep into nothing. Weighing. At last he asked, ‘Do you think that would content them? Stricter enforcement of the law within Buck Duchy?’

‘It would be a start.’

He took a deep breath and sighed it out. ‘I will discuss it with the Queen. It will not take much urging on my part. In truth, I have played the opposite role up until now, urging her to respect the traditions of the folk she has come to rule, for she –’

‘Traditions!’ I burst out. ‘Murder and torture as “traditions”?’

‘She bestraddles an uneasy alliance!’ he finished more strongly than he had begun. ‘Since the end of the Red Ship War, it has been a juggler’s trick to keep the Six Duchies in balance. It takes a light hand, Fitz, and the sense to know when to take a stand and when to let things go.’

I thought of the smell that had hung near the river, and the cut rope left hanging from the tree. ‘I think she had best decide to take a stand on this.’

‘In Buck.’

‘In Buck, at the least.’

Chade covered his mouth and then pulled at his chin. ‘Very well,’ he conceded, and for the first time I perceived that I had been negotiating with him. I had not, I reflected, done very well at it, but then I had supposed I had merely been reporting. And whom had I expected to speak out for the Old Blood? Lord Golden? Huntswoman Laurel, who would just as soon not be associated with them? I wished I had been more forceful. Then I reflected that I still could be, when I spoke with Queen Kettricken.

‘So. What did our queen think of Prince Dutiful’s bride?’

Chade looked at me for a long moment. ‘Are you asking for a report?’

Something in his voice made me falter. A trap? Was this one of his trap questions? ‘I merely asked. I have no right –’

‘Ah. Then Dutiful was mistaken, and you have not consented to teach him?’

I worked the two ideas against one another, trying to see how they fitted. Then I gave it up. ‘And if I have?’ I asked him cautiously.

‘If you have, then you not only have a right to the information, but a need. If you are going to educate the Prince, you must know everything that affects him. But if you are not, if you intend to go back to your hermit’s hut, if you are asking but for the sake of hearing family gossip …’ He let his words trail off.

I knew that old trick of his. Leave a sentence dangling, and someone will leap to fill in the end, and possibly betray their own thoughts in doing so. Instead, I sat regarding my cup of tea and chewing on the side of my thumbnail until he leaned across the table and in exasperation slapped my hand away from my mouth. ‘Well?’ he demanded.

‘What did the Prince tell you?’

It was his turn to hold his silence for a time. I waited him out, wolf-wary.

‘Nothing,’ he grudgingly admitted at last. ‘I was but hoping.’

I leaned back in my chair, wincing as my aching back touched it. ‘Oh, old man,’ I warned him, shaking my head. Then I found myself smiling, despite myself. ‘I thought the years had rounded your corners, but they haven’t. Why are you making it like this between us?’

‘Because I am the Queen’s Counsellor now, not your mentor, my boy. And because, I fear, there are days when, as you put it, my corners are rounded, and I forget things and all my carefully-gathered threads turn suddenly to a snarl in my hand. So. I try to be careful, and more than careful, in every aspect of all I do.’

‘What was in the tea?’ I asked suddenly.

‘Some new herbs I’ve been trying. They were mentioned in the Skill-scrolls. No elfbark, I assure you. I’d give you nothing that might damage your abilities.’

‘But they “sharpen” you?’

‘Yes. But at a cost, as you’ve already surmised. All things have a cost, Fitz. We both know that. We’ll both spend this afternoon abed, don’t doubt it. But for now, we have our wits about us. So. Tell me.’

I took a breath, wondering how to phrase it. I glanced up at his fireplace mantel, at a knife that still stood embedded in the centre of it. I weighed trust and youthful confidences and all I had once promised King Shrewd. Chade’s gaze followed mine. ‘A long time ago,’ I began softly, ‘you tested my loyalty to the king, by asking me to steal something from him, just as a prank. You knew I loved you. So you tried that love against my loyalty to my king. Do you recall that?’

‘I do,’ he responded gravely. ‘And I still regret it.’ He took a breath, and sighed it out. ‘And you passed his test. Not even for love of me would you betray your king. I know I put you through the fire, FitzChivalry. But it was my king who asked that you be tested.’

I nodded slowly. ‘I understand that. Now. I, too, made my oath to the Farseer line, Chade. Just as you did. You vowed no loyalty to me, nor I to you. There is love between us, but no oaths of fealty.’ He was watching my face very carefully. A frown divided his white brows. I took a breath. ‘My loyalty is to my prince, Chade. I think it must be up to him what he shares with you.’ I took a deep breath, and with great regret, severed a portion of my life. ‘As you have said, old friend. You are the Queen’s Counsellor now, no longer my mentor. And I am not your apprentice.’ I looked down at the table and steeled myself. The words were hard to say. ‘The Prince will decide what I am to him. But I will never again report to you about my private words with my prince, Chade.’

He stood, quite abruptly. To my horror, I saw tears welling in his sharp green eyes. For a moment, his mouth trembled. Then he walked around the table, seized my head in his hands, and bent down to kiss my brow. ‘Thanks be to Eda and El both,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘You are his. And he will still be safe when I am gone.’

I was too astonished to speak. He walked slowly around the table and resumed his seat. He poured more tea for both of us. He turned aside to wipe his eyes, and then looked back at me. He pushed my cup across the table towards me and said, ‘Very well. Shall I report now?’

TWENTY-NINE

Buckkeep Town

A good bed of fennel is an excellent addition to any cottage garden, though one must be wary of it spreading. Cut it back each fall, and gather the seed-heads before the birds can scatter them all through your garden, or your spring will be spent pulling up the lacy fronds. All know the sweet flavour of this plant, but it has medicinal uses as well. Both seed and root of this herb aid the digestion. A colicky babe will take a tisane of fennel, and much good with it. Chewed, the seed will refresh the mouth. A poultice of the same will soothe sore eyes. Given as a gift, the message of fennel is said by some to be ‘Strength’ and by others, ‘Flattery’.

Meribuck’s Herbal

As Chade had warned me, I slept away not only the afternoon, but part of the early evening as well. I awoke in the utter blackness of my little chamber, in the total solitude of myself and suddenly feared I was dead. I rolled off my bed, found the door by touch, and lunged out of it. Light and moving air stunned me. Lord Golden, impeccably attired, sat at his writing desk. He glanced up casually at my abrupt entrance. ‘Oh. Awake at last,’ he observed congenially. ‘Wine? Biscuits?’ He gestured at a table and chairs by the fireside.

I came to the table rubbing my eyes. Food was artfully arranged on it. I dropped into the closest chair. My tongue felt thick, my eyes sticky. ‘I have no idea what was in Chade’s tea, but I don’t think I want to try it again.’

‘And I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I suspect that that is just as well.’ He rose and came to the table, poured wine for us, and then glanced over me disparagingly. He shook his head. ‘You are hopeless, Tom Badgerlock. Look at yourself. Sleeping in all the day, and then appearing with your hair half on end in a worried old robe. A worse servant a man never had.’ He took the other chair.

I could think of no reply to that. I sipped my wine gratefully. I considered the food but found I had no appetite. ‘How was your evening? Did you enjoy a dance with Huntswoman Laurel?’

He raised one eyebrow at me, as if my question puzzled and surprised him. Abruptly, he was my Fool again as a smile twisted his mouth. ‘Ah, Fitz, you should know by now that every moment of my life is spent dancing. And with every partner, I tread a different measure.’ Then, adroit as ever, he changed the subject, asking, ‘And are you well this evening?’

I knew what he meant. ‘As well as could be expected,’ I assured him.

‘Ah. Excellent. Then you will be going down to Buckkeep Town?’

He knew my mind before I had even thought it. ‘I’d like to check on Hap and see how his apprenticeship goes. Unless you need me here.’

He studied my face for a moment, as if waiting for me to say more. Then he said, ‘Go to town. I think it an excellent idea. There are, of course, more festivities tonight, but I shall endeavour to manage my preparation without you. Do, please, try to make yourself a bit more presentable before leaving my apartments, however. Lord Golden’s reputation has been tarnished quite enough of late without it being said that he keeps moth-eaten servants.’

I snorted. ‘I’ll try.’ I rose from the table slowly. My body had rediscovered its aches. The Fool ensconced himself in one of the two chairs that faced the hearth. He leaned back in it with a sigh and stretched out his long legs towards the warmth. His voice reached me as I moved towards my chamber.

‘Fitz. You know I love you, don’t you?’

I halted where I stood.

‘I’d hate to have to kill you,’ he continued. I recognized his adept imitation of my own voice and inflection. I stared at him, baffled. He sat up taller and glanced over the back of his chair at me with a pained smile. ‘Never again attempt to put my clothing away,’ he warned me. ‘Verulean silk should be draped for storage. Not wadded.’

‘I’ll try to remember that,’ I promised him humbly.

He settled back in his chair and picked up his glass of wine. ‘Good night, Fitz,’ he told me quietly.

In my chamber, I found one of my old tunics and some leggings. I put them on, and then frowned at the fit. The leggings sagged on me about the waist; the privations and steady exertions of our expedition had trimmed my body. I brushed at the shirt, and then frowned at the stains. It had not changed since I came to Buckkeep, but my eye for it had. It had been fine for my farmstead, but if I were going to stay at Buck and teach the Prince, I would need to dress as a townsman again. The conclusion was inevitable and yet it felt oddly vain. I washed my face with the stale water in the ewer. In my small looking-glass, I tried vainly to smooth my hair, then gave it up as a bad cause, and put on my cloak. I put out my candle.

Lord Golden’s chamber, as I ghosted through it, was now lit only by flickering firelight. As I passed the chair by the hearth, I offered, ‘Good night, Fool.’ He did not speak, but lifted his graceful hand in farewell, his flicking forefinger gesturing me towards the door. I slipped out, feeling oddly as if I had forgotten something.

The keep had a festive atmosphere as all prepared for another night of feasting, music and dancing. Garlands dressed the door arches, and far more folk than usual moved through the halls. A minstrel’s voice drifted from the lesser hall, and three young men in Farrow colours chatted near the door. My worn clothing and badly-cropped hair drew a few bemused glances, but I was generally unnoticed among the newcomers and their servants, and unchallenged as I left Buckkeep and headed down towards the town. The steep road down to town was still busy with folk coming and going from the keep, and despite the steady rain, Buckkeep Town was livelier than usual. Any occasion up at the keep stimulated trade in the town, and Dutiful’s betrothal was a major occasion. I wended my way through merchants and tradesmen and servants on errands. Nobles on horseback and ladies on litters passed me, on their way up to the Keep for the evening’s festivities. When I reached Buckkeep Town itself, the press of folk in the street only became thicker. Taverns were full to overflowing, music swelled out to lure in passers-by, and children raced past, enjoying the excitement of so many strangers in town. The holiday aura was infectious, and I caught myself smiling and wishing many a stranger good evening as I made my way down to Jinna’s shop.

But as I passed one doorway, I saw a young man chivvying a maid to stay and talk with him a moment longer. Her eyes were bright and her smile merry as she shook her dark curls at him in sweet rebuke. Raindrops jewelled their cloaks. He looked so earnest and so young in his entreaties that I averted my eyes and hurried past. In the next moment, my heart ached as I realized that Prince Dutiful would never know a moment like that, would never taste the sweetness of a stolen kiss, or the elation and suspense of wondering if the lady would grant him another moment of her company. No. His wife had been chosen for him, and the freshest years of his manhood would be spent in waiting for her to grow to womanhood. I dared not hope they would be happy. The best I could manage was that they would not make one another miserable.

These were my thoughts as I found my way down the winding little street that led to Jinna’s door. I halted outside it, and sudden awkwardness flooded me. The door was closed, the windows shuttered. A little glow of candlelight leaked out through one ill-fitting shutter, but it did not look welcoming. Rather it spoke of the intimacy of home within those walls. It was later than I had thought it was; I would be intruding. I smoothed my hacked hair nervously and promised myself that I would not go within, only stand at the door and ask for Hap. I could take him out to a tavern for a beer and some talk. That would be good, I told myself, a good way to show him I considered him a man grown now. I took a breath and tapped lightly at the door.

Within, I heard the scrape of a chair, and the thud of a cat landing on the floor. Then Jinna’s voice came through the shuttered window. ‘Who’s there?’

‘Fit—Tom Badgerlock.’ I cursed my awkward tongue. ‘Look, I’m sorry to call so late, I’ve been away, and thought I should check on –’

‘Tom!’ The door was flung wide to my hasty excuses, nearly hitting me as it opened. ‘Tom Badgerlock, come in, come in!’ Jinna had a candle in one hand, but with the other she caught the sleeve of my shirt and drew me inside. The room was dim, lit mostly by the hearth fire. There were two chairs pulled up there with a low table between them. A steaming teapot sat brewing beside an empty cup. A heap of knitting, the needles thrust through it, occupied one chair. She pulled the door firmly shut behind me, and then gestured me towards the hearth. ‘I’ve just put on elderberry tea. Would you like a cup?’

‘That would be – I didn’t mean to intrude, I only meant to check on Hap and see how –’

‘Here, let me take your wet cloak. Ah, it’s drenched! I’ll hang it here. Well, sit down, you’ll have to wait, for the young scamp isn’t here. Truth to tell, I’ve been thinking to myself that the sooner you came back and had a word with the lad, the better for him. Not that I wish to be telling tales on him, but he wants someone taking a hand with him.’

‘Hap?’ I asked incredulously. I took a step towards the fire, but her cat chose that moment to rub himself suddenly against my ankle. I lurched to a halt, barely avoiding stepping on him.

Make a lap. Near the fire.

The assertive little voice rang in my mind. I looked down at him and he looked up at me. For an instant, our gazes brushed, then we both looked aside in instinctive courtesy. But he had already seen the ruins of my soul.

He rubbed his cheek against my leg. Hold the cat. You’ll feel better.

I don’t think so.

He rubbed against my leg insistently. Hold the cat.

I don’t want to hold the cat.

He reared up suddenly on his hind legs, and hooked his vicious little front claws into both flesh and leggings. Don’t talk back! Pick up the cat.

‘Fennel, stop that! Where are your manners?’ Jinna exclaimed in dismay. She bent towards the ginger pest, but I stooped swiftly, to unhook his claws from my flesh. I freed myself but before I could straighten up, he leapt to my shoulder. For all his size, Fennel had amazing agility. He landed, not heavily, but as if someone had put a large, friendly hand on my shoulder. Hold the cat. You’ll feel better.

Steadying him as I stood up was easier than plucking him loose. Jinna clucked and exclaimed, but I assured her it was all right. She drew out one of the chairs that faced the small hearth and smoothed the pillow on it. I sat down, and it tipped back under me. It was a rocker. The moment I was settled, Fennel moved down to my lap and settled himself in a warm mound. I folded my hands atop him in a show of ignoring him. He gave me a slit-eyed cat grin. Be nice to me. She loves me best.

It took me a moment to find my thoughts. ‘Hap?’ I said again.

‘Hap,’ she confirmed. ‘Who should be abed right now, for his master expects him earlier than the dawn tomorrow. And where is he? Out dangling after Mistress Hartshorn’s daughter, who is far too knowing for her tender years. She’s a distraction to him, that Svanja, and even her own mother says that she would be better at home, tending to work and learning her own trade.’

She nattered on in a voice of mixed annoyance and amusement. The level of her concern astonished me. I felt a twinge of jealousy: was not Hap my boy, for me to worry about? As she spoke, she set a cup at my elbow, poured tea for both of us, and resumed her chair and knitting. When she was settled, she glanced over at me and our eyes met for the first time since I had knocked. She startled, and then leaned closer, peering at me.

‘Oh, Tom!’ she exclaimed in a voice of deep sympathy. She leaned towards me, studying my face. ‘Poor man, what’s happened to you?’

Empty as a hollow log when the mice are eaten.

‘My wolf died.’

It shocked me that I spoke the truth so bluntly. Jinna was silent, staring at me. I knew she could not understand. I did not expect her to understand. But then, as her helpless silence lengthened, I felt very much as if she might understand, for she offered no useless words. Abruptly, she dropped her knitting in her lap and leaned across to put her hand on my forearm.

‘Will you be all right?’ she asked me. It was not an empty question; she genuinely listened for my reply.

‘In time,’ I told her, and for the first time, I admitted that was true. As disloyal as the thought felt, I knew that as time passed, I would be myself again. And in that moment, I felt for the first time the sensation that Black Rolf had tried to describe to me. The wolfish part of my soul stirred, and yes, you will be yourself again, and that is as it should be, I heard near as clearly as if Nighteyes had truly shared the thought with me. Like remembering, but more so, Rolf had told me. I sat very still, savouring the sensation. Then it passed, and a shiver ran over me.

‘Drink your tea, you’re taking a chill,’ Jinna advised me, and leaned down to toss another piece of wood on the fire.

I did as she suggested. As I set the cup down, I glanced up at the charm over the mantel. The changeable light from the flames gilded and then hid the beads. Hospitality. The tea was warm and sweet and soothing, the cat purred on my lap, and a woman looked at me fondly. Was it just the wall-charm’s effect on me? If it was, I didn’t care. Something in me eased another notch. Petting the cat makes you feel better, Fennel asserted smugly.

‘The boy’s heart will be broken when he hears. He knew the wolf would go after you, you know. When the wolf disappeared I was worried, but when he didn’t come back, Hap told me, never fear, he’s gone off to follow Tom. Oh, I dread your telling him.’ Abruptly, she reined her flow of words. Then she stoutly declared, ‘But in time, like you, he will recover. Oh, he should be home by now,’ she worried, and then, ‘What will you do about him?’

I thought of myself, so many years ago, and of Verity, and even of young Dutiful. I thought of all the ways that duty had shaped us and bound us and held back our hearts. Truly, the boy should be home by now, getting sleep the better to serve his master on the morrow. He was not an apprentice yet, and his prospects were not yet settled. He had no business showing an interest in a girl. I could take a firm hand with him and remind him of his duty. He would listen to me. But Hap was not the son of a king, nor even a royal bastard. Hap could be free. I leaned back in my chair. It rocked and I absently stroked the cat. ‘Nothing,’ I said after a moment. ‘I think I’ll do nothing. I think I’ll let him be a boy. I think I’ll let him fall in love with a girl, and stay out later than he should, and have a pounding headache tomorrow when his master chides him for being late.’ I turned to look at her. The firelight danced over her kindly face. ‘I think I’ll let the boy be a boy for a time.’

‘Do you think that’s wise?’ she asked, but she smiled as she said it.

‘No.’ I shook my head slowly. ‘I think it’s foolish and wonderful.’

‘Ah. Well. Will you stay and have another cup of tea, then? Or must you hurry back to the keep and your own duties?’

‘I have no duties tonight. I won’t be missed.’

‘Well, then.’ She poured another cup of tea for me with an alacrity that was flattering. ‘You’ll stay a while here. Where you have been missed.’ She sipped from her cup, smiling at me over the rim of it.

Fennel drew breath and began a deep, rumbling purr.

EPILOGUE

There was a time when I thought that my life’s significant work would be to write a history of the Six Duchies. I made a start on it any number of times, but always seemed to slide sideways from that grand tale into a recounting of the days and details of my own small life. The more I studied the accounts of others, both written and told, the more it seemed to me that we attempt such histories not to preserve knowledge, but to fix the past in a settled way. Like a flower pressed flat and dried, we try to hold it still and say, this is exactly how it was the day I first saw it. But like the flower, the past cannot be trapped that way. It loses its fragrance and its vitality, its fragility becomes brittleness and its colours fade. And when next you look on the flower, you know that it is not at all what you sought to capture, that that moment has fled forever.

I wrote my histories and observations. I captured my thoughts and ideas and memories in words on vellum and paper. So much I stored, and thought it was mine. I believed that by fixing it down in words, I could force sense from all that had happened, that effect would follow cause, and the reason for each event come clear to me. Perhaps I sought to justify myself, not just all I had done, but who I had become. For years, I wrote faithfully nearly every evening, carefully explaining my world and my life to myself. I put my scrolls on a shelf, trusting that I had captured the meaning of my days.

But then I returned one day, to find all my careful scribing gone to fragments of vellum lying in a trampled yard with wet snow blowing over them. I sat my horse, looking down on them, and knew that, as it always would, the past had broken free of my effort to define and understand it. History is no more fixed and dead than the future. The past is no further away than the last breath you took.

COPYRIGHT

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First published in Great Britain by Voyager 2001

Copyright © Robin Hobb 2001

Robin Hobb asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work

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The Golden Fool

Book Two of The Tawny Man

Robin Hobb

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Prologue: Losses Sustained

ONE : Piebalds

TWO : Chade’s Servant

THREE : Echoes

FOUR : The Betrothal

FIVE : Shared Sorrows

SIX : Obliteration

SEVEN : Lessons

EIGHT : Ambitions

NINE : Stone Wager

TEN : Resolutions

ELEVEN : Tidings from Bingtown

TWELVE : Jek

THIRTEEN : Challenges

FOURTEEN : Scrolls

FIFTEEN : Quarrel

SIXTEEN : Fathers

SEVENTEEN : Explosions

EIGHTEEN : Pink Sugar Cake

NINETEEN : Laudwine

TWENTY : Coterie

TWENTY-ONE : Convalescence

TWENTY-TWO : Connections

TWENTY-THREE : Revelations

TWENTY-FOUR : Connections

TWENTY-FIVE : Convocation

TWENTY-SIX : Negotiations

TWENTY-SEVEN : Spring Sailing

Epilogue

Copyright

PROLOGUE

Losses Sustained

The loss of a bond beast is a difficult event to explain to the non-Witted. Those who can speak of the death of an animal as ‘It was only a dog’ will never grasp it. Others, more sympathetic, perceive it as the death of a beloved pet. Even those who say, ‘It must be like losing a child, or a wife’ are still seeing only one facet of the toll. To lose the living creature that one has been linked with is more than the loss of a companion or loved one. It was the sudden amputation of half my physical body. My vision was dimmed, my appetite diminished by the insipid flavour of food. My hearing was dulled and

The manuscript, begun so many years ago, ends in a flurry of blots and angry stabbings from my pen. I can recall the moment at which I realized I had slipped from writing in generalities into my own intimate rendering of pain. There are creases on the scroll where I flung it to the floor and stamped on it. The wonder is that I only kicked it aside rather than committing it to the flames. I do not know who took pity on the wretched thing and shelved it on my scroll rack. Perhaps it was Thick, doing his tasks in his methodical, unthinking way. Certainly I find nothing there that I would have saved.

So it has often been with my writing efforts. My various attempts at a history of the Six Duchies too often meandered into a history of myself. From a treatise on herbs my pen would wander to the various treatments for Skill-ailments. My studies of the White Prophets delve too deeply into their relationships with their Catalysts. I do not know if it is conceit that always turns my thoughts to my own life, or if my writing is my pathetic effort to explain my life to myself. The years have come and gone in their scores of turnings, and night after night I still take pen in hand and write. Still I strive to understand who I am. Still I promise myself, ‘Next time I will do better’ in the all-too-human conceit that I will always be offered a ‘next time’.

Yet I did not do that when I lost Nighteyes. I never promised myself that I would bond again, and do better by my next partner. Such a thought would have been traitorous. The death of Nighteyes gutted me. I walked wounded through my life in the days that followed, unaware of just how mutilated I was. I was like the man who complains of the itching of his severed leg. The itching distracts from the immense knowledge that one will ever after hobble through life. So the immediate grief at his death concealed the full damage done to me. I was confused, thinking that my pain and my loss were one and the same thing, whereas one was but a symptom of the other.

In a curious way, it was a second coming-of-age. This one was not an arrival at manhood, but rather a slow realization of myself as an individual. Circumstances had plunged me back into the intrigues of the court at Buckkeep Castle. I had the friendship of the Fool and Chade. I stood at the edge of a true relationship with Jinna, the hedge-witch. My boy Hap had flung himself headlong into both apprenticeship and romance, and seemed to be floundering desperately through both. Young Prince Dutiful, poised on the lip of his betrothal to the Outislander Narcheska, had turned to me as a mentor; not just as a teacher for both Skill and Wit, but as someone to guide him through the rapids of adolescence to manhood. I did not lack for people who cared about me, nor for folk I deeply cherished. But for all that, I stood more alone than ever I had before.

The strangest part was my slow realization that I chose that isolation.

Nighteyes was irreplaceable; he had worked a change on me in the years that we had shared. He was not half of me; together, we made a whole. Even when Hap came into our life, we regarded him as a juvenile and a responsibility. The wolf and I were the unit that made the decisions. Ours was the partnership. With Nighteyes gone, I felt I would never again share that arrangement with any other, animal or human.

When I was a lad, spending time in the company of Lady Patience and her companion, Lacey, I often overheard their blunt appraisals of the men at court. One assumption Patience and Lacey had shared was that a man or woman who had passed their thirtieth year unwed was likely to remain so. ‘Set in his ways,’ Patience would declare at the gossip that some greying lord had suddenly begun to court a young girl. ‘Spring has turned his head, but she’ll find soon enough there is no room in his life for a partner. He’s had it all his own way too long.’

And so I began, very slowly, to see myself. I was often lonely. I knew that my Wit quested out for companionship. Yet that feeling and that questing were like a reflex, the twitching of a severed limb. No one, human or animal, could ever fill the gap that Nighteyes had left in my life.

I had said as much to the Fool during a rare moment of conversation on our way back to Buckkeep. It had been one of the nights when we had camped beside our homeward road. I had left him with Prince Dutiful and Laurel, the Queen’s Huntswoman. They had huddled around the fire, making the best of the cold night and sparse food. The Prince had been withdrawn and morose, still raw with the pain of losing his bond-cat. For me to be near him was like holding a previously burned hand near a flame; it woke all my own pain more sharply. So I had made the excuse of getting more wood for the fire and gone apart from them all.

Winter was announcing its approach with a dark and chill evening. There were no colours left in the dim world, and away from the firelight I groped like a mole as I searched for wood. At last I gave it up and sat down on a stone by the creekside to wait for my eyes to adjust. But sitting there alone, feeling the cold press in around me, I had lost all ambition to find wood, or indeed to do anything at all. I sat and stared, listening to the sound of the running water and letting the night fill me with its gloom.

The Fool came to me, moving quietly through the darkness. He sat down on the earth beside me and for a time we said nothing. Then he reached over, set a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘I wish there were some way I could ease your grieving.’

It was a useless thing to say, and he seemed to feel that, for after those words he was silent. Perhaps it was the ghost of Nighteyes who reproached me for my surly silence to our friend, for after a time I groped for some words to bridge the dark between us. ‘It is like the cut on your head, Fool. Time will heal it, but until it does all the best wishes in the world cannot make it heal faster. Even if there were some way to disperse this pain, some herb or drunkenness that would numb it, I could not choose it. Nothing will ever make his death better. All I can look forward to is becoming accustomed to being alone.’

Despite my effort, my words still sounded like a rebuke, and worse, a self-pitying one. It is a tribute to my friend that he did not take offence at them, but rose gracefully. ‘I’ll let you be, then. I think you are choosing to mourn alone, and if that is your choice, I’ll respect it. I do not think it is your wisest choice, but I’ll respect it.’ He paused and gave a small sigh. ‘I perceive something about myself now; I came because I wanted you to know that I knew you were in pain. Not because I could heal you of it, but because I wanted you to be aware that I shared that pain through our connection. I suspect there is an aspect of selfishness to that; that I wished you also to be aware of it, I mean. A burden shared not only can lighten it; it can form a bond between those who share it. So that no one is left to bear it alone.’

I sensed there was some germ of wisdom in his words, something I should consider, but I was too weary and racked to reach for it. ‘I’ll come back to the fire in a little while,’ was what I said, and the Fool knew it was a dismissal. He took his hand from my shoulder and walked away.

It was only when I later considered his words that I understood them. I was choosing to be alone then; it was not the inescapable consequence of the wolf’s death, nor even a carefully considered decision. I was embracing my solitude, courting my pain. It was not the first time I had chosen such a course.

I handled that thought carefully, for it was sharp enough to kill me. I had chosen my isolated years with Hap in my cabin. No one had forced me into that exile. The irony was that it had been the granting of my often-voiced wish. Throughout my youth, I had always asserted that what I truly wanted was to live a life in which I could make my own choices, independent of the ‘duties’ of my birth and position. It was only when fate granted that to me that I realized the cost of it. I could set aside my responsibilities to others and live my life as I pleased only when I also severed my ties to them. I could not have it both ways. To be part of a family, or any community, is to have duties and responsibilities, to be bound by the rules of that group. I had lived apart from all that for a time, but now I knew it had been my choice. I had chosen to renounce my responsibilities to my family, and accepted the ensuing isolation as the cost. At the time, I had insisted to myself that fortune had forced me into that role. Just as I was making a choice now, even though I tried to persuade myself I was but following the inescapable path fate had set out for me.

To recognize you are the source of your own loneliness is not a cure for it. But it is a step towards seeing that it is not inevitable, and that such a choice is not irrevocable.

ONE

Piebalds

The Piebalds always claimed only to want freedom from the persecution that has been the lot of the Witted folk of the Six Duchies for generations. This claim can be dismissed as both a lie and a clever deceit. The Piebalds wanted power. Their intent was to mould all of the Witted folk of the Six Duchies into a united force that would rise up to seize control of the monarchy and put their own people into power. One facet of their ploy was to claim that all Kings since the Abdication of Chivalry were pretenders, that the bastardy of FitzChivalry Farseer was wrongly construed as an obstacle to his inheriting the throne. Legends of the ‘True-Hearted Bastard’ rising from the grave to serve King Verity in his quest proliferated beyond all common sense, ascribing powers to FitzChivalry that raise the Bastard to the status of a near-deity. For this reason, the Piebalds have also been known as the Cult of the Bastard.

These ridiculous claims were intended to give some sort of legitimacy to the Piebald quest to overthrow the Farseer monarchy and put one of their own on the throne. To this end, the Piebalds began a clever campaign of forcing the Witted either to unite with them or risk exposure. Perhaps this tactic was inspired by Kebal Rawbread, leader of the Outislanders during the Red Ship War, for it is said that he drew men to follow him, not by his charisma, but by fear of what he would do to their homes and families if they refused to fall in with his plans.

The Piebalds’ technique was simple. Either families tainted with the Wit-magic joined their alliance or they were exposed by public accusations that led to their execution. It is said that the Piebalds often began an insidious attack on the fringes of a powerful family, exposing first a servant or a less affluent cousin, all the while making it clear that if the head of the stalwart house did not comply with their wishes he, too, would eventually meet such an end.

This is not the action of folk who wish to bring an end to persecution of their kin. This is the act of a ruthless faction determined to gain power for themselves, first by subjugating their own kind.

Rowell’s The Piebald Conspiracy

The watch had changed. The town watchman’s bell and cry came thin through the storm, but I heard it. Night had officially ended and we were venturing towards morning and still I sat in Jinna’s cottage waiting for Hap to return. Jinna and I shared the comfort of her cosy hearth. Jinna’s niece had come in some time ago and chatted with us briefly before she sought her bed. Jinna and I passed the time, feeding log after log to the fire and chatting about inconsequential things. The hedge-witch’s little house was warm and pleasant, her company congenial, and waiting for my boy became an excuse that allowed me to do what I wished, which was simply to sit quietly where I was.

Conversation had been sporadic. Jinna had asked how my errand had gone. I had replied that it had been my master’s business and that I had but accompanied him. To keep that from sounding too brusque, I added that Lord Golden had acquired some feathers for his collection and then chatted to her about Myblack. I knew Jinna had no real interest in hearing about my horse, but she listened amiably. The words filled the small space between us comfortably.

In truth, our real errand had had nothing to do with feathers, and had been more mine than Lord Golden’s. Together, we had recovered Prince Dutiful from the Piebalds who had first befriended and then captured him. We had returned him to Buckkeep with none of his nobles the wiser. Tonight the aristocracy of the Six Duchies feasted and danced, and tomorrow they would formalize Prince Dutiful’s betrothal to the Outisland Narcheska Elliania. Outwardly, all was as it had been.

Few would ever know how much the seamless continuation of their normality had cost the Prince and me. The Prince’s Wit-cat had sacrificed her life for him. I had lost my wolf. For close to a score of years, Nighteyes had been my other self, the repository of half my soul. Now he was gone. It was as profound a change in my life as the snuffing of a lamp makes in an evening room. His absence seemed a solid thing, a burden I must carry in addition to my grief. Nights were darker. No one guarded my back for me. Yet I knew I would continue to live. Sometimes that knowledge seemed the worst part of my loss.

I reined back before I plunged completely into self-pity. I was not the only one who was bereaved. Despite the Prince’s briefer bond with his cat, I knew he suffered deeply. The magic link that the Wit forms between a human and an animal is a complex one. Severing it is never trivial. Yet the boy had mastered his grief and was stalwartly going through the motions of fulfilling his duties. At least I did not have to face my betrothal tomorrow night. The Prince had been plunged immediately back into his routine since we returned to Buckkeep yesterday afternoon. Last night he had attended the ceremonies that welcomed his bride-to-be. Tonight, he must smile and eat, make conversation, accept good wishes, dance and appear well pleased with what fate and his mother had decreed for him. I thought of bright lights and skirling music and laughter and loud conversations. I shook my head in sympathy for him.

‘And what makes you shake your head like that, Tom Badgerlock?’

Jinna’s voice broke in on my introspection, and I realized that the silence had grown long. I drew a long breath and found an easy lie. ‘The storm shows no sign of dying, does it? I was pitying those who must be out in it this night. I am grateful that I am not one of them.’

‘Well. To that, I’ll add that I am thankful for the company,’ she said, and smiled.

‘And I the same,’ I added awkwardly.

To pass the night in the placid companionship of a pleasant woman was a novel experience for me. Jinna’s cat sat purring on my lap, while Jinna’s hands were occupied with knitting. The cosy warmth of the firelight reflected in the auburn shades of Jinna’s curly hair and the scattering of freckles on her face and forearms. She had a good face, not beautiful, but calm and kind. Our conversation had wandered wide this evening, from the herbs she had used to make the tea to how driftwood fires sometimes burned with coloured flames and beyond, to discussing ourselves. I had discovered she was about six years younger than I truly was, and she had expressed surprise when I claimed to be forty-two. That was seven years past my true age; the extra years were part of my role as Tom Badgerlock. It pleased me when she said that she had thought I was closer to her age. Yet neither of us really gave mind to our words. There was an interesting little tension between us as we sat before the fire and conversed quietly. The curiosity suspended between us was like a string, plucked and humming.

Before I had left on my errand with Lord Golden, I had spent an afternoon with Jinna. She had kissed me. No words had accompanied that gesture, no avowals of love or romantic compliments. There had been just the one kiss, interrupted when her niece had returned from the market. Right now, neither of us quite knew how to return to the place where that moment of intimacy had been possible. For my part, I was not sure that I wished to venture there. I was not ready even for a second kiss, let alone what it might bring. My heart was too raw. Yet I wanted to be here, sitting before her fireside. It sounds a contradiction, and perhaps it was. I did not want the inevitable complications that caresses would lead to, yet in my Wit-bereavement, I took comfort in this woman’s company.

Yet Jinna was not why I had come here tonight. I needed to see Hap, my foster son. He had just arrived at Buckkeep Town and had been staying here with Jinna. I wished to be sure his apprenticeship with Gindast the woodworker was going well. I must also, much as I dreaded it, give him the news of Nighteyes’ death. The wolf had raised the lad as much as I had. Yet even as I winced at the thought of telling him I hoped it would, as the Fool had said, somehow ease the burden of my sorrow. With Hap, I could share my grief, however selfish a thing that might be. Hap had been mine for the last seven years. We had shared a life, and the wolf’s companionship. If I still belonged to anyone or anything, I belonged to my boy. I needed to feel the reality of that.

‘More tea?’ Jinna offered me.

I did not want more tea. We had already drunk three pots of it, and I had visited her back-house twice. Yet she offered the tea to let me know I was welcome to stay, no matter how late, or early, the hour had become. So, ‘Please,’ I said, and she set her knitting aside, to repeat the ritual of filling the kettle with fresh water from the cask and hanging it from the hook and swinging it over the fire again. Outside, the storm rattled the shutters in a fresh surge of fury. Then it became not the storm, but Hap’s rapping at the door. ‘Jinna?’ he called unevenly. ‘Are you awake still?’

‘I’m awake,’ she replied. She turned from putting the kettle on. ‘And lucky for you that I am, or you’d be sleeping in the shed with your pony. I’m coming.’

As she lifted the latch, I stood up, gently dumping the cat off my lap.

Imbecile. The cat was comfortable. Fennel complained as he slid to the floor, but the big orange tom was too stupefied with warmth to make much of a protest. Instead he leapt onto Jinna’s chair and curled up in it without deigning to give me a backward glance.

The storm pushed in with Hap as he shoved the door open. A gust of wind carried rain into the room. ‘Whew. Put the wood in the hole, lad,’ Jinna rebuked Hap as he lurched in. Obediently he shut the door behind him and latched it, and then stood dripping before it.

‘It’s wild and wet out there,’ he told her. His smile was beatifically drunken, but his eyes were lit with more than wine. Infatuation shone there, as unmistakable as the rain slipping from his lank hair and running down his face. It took him a moment or two to realize that I was there, watching him. Then, ‘Tom! Tom, you’ve finally come back!’ He flung his arms wide in a drunkard’s ebullience for the ordinary, and I laughed and stepped forward to accept his wet hug.

‘Don’t get water all over Jinna’s floor!’ I rebuked him.

‘No, I shouldn’t. Well. I won’t then,’ he declared, and dragged off his sodden coat. He hung it on a peg by the door and peeled off his wool cap to drip there as well. He tried to take his boots off standing, but lost his balance. He sat down on the floor and tugged them off. He leaned far to set them by the door under his wet coat and then sat up with a blissful smile. ‘Tom. I’ve met a girl.’

‘Have you? I thought you’d met a bottle from the smell of you.’

‘Oh, yes,’ he admitted unabashedly. ‘That, too. But we had to drink the Prince’s health, you know. And that of his intended. And to a happy marriage. And for many children. And for as much happiness for ourselves.’ He gave me a wide and fatuous smile. ‘She says she loves me. She likes my eyes.’

‘Well. That’s good.’ How many times in his life had folk looked at his mismatched eyes, one brown and one blue, and made the sign against evil? It had to be balm to meet a girl who found them attractive.

And I suddenly knew that now was not the time to burden him with any grief of mine. I spoke gently but firmly. ‘I think perhaps you should go to bed, son. Won’t your master be expecting you in the morning?’

He looked as if I had slapped him with a fish. The smile faded from his face. ‘Oh. Yes, yes that’s true. He’ll expect me. Old Gindast expects his apprentices to be there before his journeymen, and his journeymen to be well at work when he arrives.’ He gathered himself and slowly stood up. ‘Tom, this apprenticeship hasn’t been what I expected at all. I sweep and carry boards and turn wood that is drying. I sharpen tools and clean tools and oil tools. Then I sweep again. I rub oil finishes into the completed pieces. But not a tool have I had in my hand to use, in all these days. It’s all, “watch how this is done, boy,” or “repeat back what I just told you” and “this isn’t what I asked for. Take this back to the wood stock and bring me the fine-grained cherry. And be quick about it.” And, Tom, they call me names. “Country boy” and “dullard”.’

‘Gindast calls all his apprentices names, Hap.’ Jinna’s placid voice was both calming and comforting, but it was still strange to have a third person include herself in our conversation. ‘It’s common knowledge. One even took the taunt with him when he went into business for himself. Now you pay a fine price for a Simpleton table.’ Jinna had moved back to her chair. She had taken up her knitting but not resumed her seat. The cat still had it.

I tried not to show how much Hap’s words distressed me. I had expected to hear that he loved his position and how grateful he was that I had been able to get it for him. I had believed that his apprenticeship would be the one thing that had gone right. ‘Well, I warned you that you would have to work hard,’ I attempted.

‘And I was ready for that, Tom, truly I was. I’m ready to cut wood and fit it and shape it all day. But I didn’t expect to be bored to death. Sweeping and rubbing and fetching … I might as well have stayed at home for all I’m learning here.’

Few things have such sharp edges as the careless words of a boy. His disdain for our old life, spoken so plainly, left me speechless.

He lifted his eyes to mine accusingly. ‘And where have you been and why have you been gone so long? Didn’t you know that I’d need you?’ Then he squinted at me. ‘What have you done to your hair?’

‘I cut it,’ I said. I ran a self-conscious hand over my mourning-shortened locks. I suddenly did not trust myself to say more than that. He was just a lad, I knew, and prone to see all things first in how they affected himself. But the very brevity of my reply alerted him that there was much I had not said.

His eyes wandered over my face. ‘What’s happened?’ he demanded.

I took a breath. No help for it now. ‘Nighteyes is dead,’ I said quietly.

‘But … is it my fault? He ran away from me, Tom, but I did look for him, I swear I did, Jinna will tell you –’

‘It wasn’t your fault. He followed and found me. I was with him when he died. It was nothing you did, Hap. He was just old. It was his time and he went from me.’ Despite my efforts, my throat clenched down on the words.

The relief on the boy’s face that he was not at fault was another arrow in my heart. Was being blameless more important to him than the wolf’s death? But when he said, ‘I can’t believe he’s gone,’ I suddenly understood. He spoke the exact truth. It would take a day, perhaps several, before he realized the old wolf was never coming back. Nighteyes would never again sprawl beside him on the hearthstones, never nudge his hand to have his ears scratched, never walk at his side to hunt rabbits again. Tears rose in my eyes.

‘You’ll be all right. It will just take time,’ I assured him thickly.

‘Let’s hope so,’ he responded heavily.

‘Go to bed. You can still get an hour or so of sleep before you must rise.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I suppose I’d better.’ Then he took a step towards me. ‘Tom. I’m so sorry,’ he said, and his awkward hug took away much of the earlier hurt he had dealt me. Then he lifted his eyes to mine to ask earnestly, ‘You’ll come by tomorrow night, won’t you? I need to talk to you. It’s very important.’

‘I’ll come by tonight. If Jinna does not mind.’ I looked past Hap’s shoulder at her as I released him from my embrace.

‘Jinna won’t mind at all,’ she assured me, and I hoped only I could hear the extra note of warmth in her voice.

‘So. I’ll see you tonight. When you’re sober. Now to bed with you, boy.’ I rumpled his wet hair, and he muttered a good night. He left the room to seek his bedchamber and I was suddenly alone with Jinna. A log collapsed in the fire and then the small crackling of its settling was the only sound in the room. ‘Well. I must go. I thank you for letting me wait for Hap here.’

Jinna set down her knitting again. ‘You are welcome, Tom Badgerlock.’

My cloak was on a peg by her door. I took it down and swirled it around my shoulders. She reached up suddenly to fasten it for me. She pulled the hood of it up over my shorn head, and then smiled as she tugged at the sides of the hood to pull my face down to hers. ‘Good night,’ she said breathlessly. She lifted her chin. I put my hands on her shoulders and kissed her. I wanted to, and yet I wondered that I allowed myself to do it. Where could it lead, this exchange of kisses, but to complications and trouble?

Did she sense my reservations? As I lifted my mouth from hers, she gave her head a small shake. She caught my hand in hers. ‘You worry too much, Tom Badgerlock.’ She lifted my hand to her mouth and put a warm kiss on the palm of it. ‘Some things are far less complex than you think they are.’

I felt awkward, but I managed to say, ‘If that were true, it would be a sweet thing.’

‘Such a courtier’s tongue.’ Her words warmed me until she added, ‘But gentle words won’t keep Hap from running aground. You need to take a firm hand with that young man soon. Hap needs some lines drawn or you may lose him to Buckkeep Town. He wouldn’t be the first good country lad to go bad in a town.’

‘I think I know my own son,’ I said a bit testily.

‘Perhaps you know the boy. It’s the young man I fear for.’ Then she dared to laugh at my scowl and add, ‘Save that look for Hap. Good night, Tom. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Good night, Jinna.’

She let me out, then stood in her doorway watching me walk away. I glanced back at her, a woman watching me from a rectangle of warm yellow light. The wind stirred her curly hair, blowing it about her round face. She waved to me, and I waved back before she shut the door. Then I sighed and pulled my cloak more tightly around me. The worst of the rain had fallen, the storm decayed to swirling gusts that seemed to lurk in wait at the street corners. It had made merry with the festival trim of the town. The blustering gusts sent fallen garlands snaking down the street, and whipped banners to tatters. Usually the taverns had torches set in sconces to guide customers to their doors, but at this hour they were either burned out or taken down. Most of the taverns and inns had closed their doors for the night. All the decent folk were long abed, and most of the indecent ones, too. I hurried through the cold dark streets, guided more by my sense of direction than my eyes. It would be even darker once I left the cliff-side town behind and began the winding climb through the forest towards Buckkeep Castle, but that was a road I had known since my childhood. My feet would lead me home.

I became aware of the men following me as I left the last scattered houses of Buckkeep Town behind. I knew that they were stalking me, not merely men on the same path as myself, for when I slowed my steps, they slowed theirs. Obviously they had no wish to catch up with me until I had left the houses of the town behind me. That did not bode well for their intentions. I had left the keep unarmed, my country habits telling against me. I had the belt knife that any man carries for the small tasks of the day, but nothing larger. My ugly, workaday sword in its battered sheath was hanging on the wall in my little chamber. I told myself it was likely that they were no more than common footpads, looking for easy prey. Doubtless they believed me drunk and unaware of them, and as soon as I fought back, they would flee.

It was thin solace. I had no wish to fight at all. I was sick of strife, and weary of being wary. I doubted they would care. So I halted where I was and turned in the dark road to face those who came after me. I drew my belt knife and balanced my weight and waited for them.

Behind me, all was silence save for the wind soughing through the whispering trees that arched over the road. Presently, I became aware of the waves crashing against the cliffs in the distance. I listened for the sounds of men moving through the brush, or the scuff of footsteps on the road, but heard nothing. I grew impatient. ‘Come on, then!’ I roared to the night. ‘I’ve little enough for you to take, save my knife, and you won’t get that hilt first. Let’s get this done with!’

Silence flowed in after my words, and my shouting to the night suddenly seemed foolish. Just as I almost decided that I had imagined my pursuers, something ran across my foot. It was a small animal, lithe and swift, a rat or a weasel or perhaps even a squirrel. But it was no wild creature, for it snapped a bite at my leg as it passed. It unnerved me and I jumped back from it. Off to my right, I heard a smothered laugh. Even as I turned towards it, trying to peer through the gloom of the forest, a voice spoke from my left, closer than the laugh had been.

‘Where’s your wolf, Tom Badgerlock?’

Both mockery and challenge were in the words. Behind me, I heard claws on gravel, a larger animal, a dog perhaps, but when I spun about, the creature had melted back into the darkness. I turned again to the sound of muffled laughter. At least three men, I told myself, and two Wit-beasts. I tried to think only of the logistics of this immediate fight, and nothing beyond it. I would consider the full implications of this encounter later. I drew deep slow breaths, waiting for them. I opened my senses fully to the night, pushing away a sudden longing not just for Nighteyes’ keener perception but for the comforting sensation of my wolf watching my back. This time I heard the scuttle as the smaller beast approached. I kicked at it, more wildly than I had intended, but caught it only a glancing blow. It was gone again.

‘I’ll kill it!’ I warned the crouching night, but only mocking laughter met my threat. Then, I shamed myself, shouting furiously, ‘What do you want of me? Leave me alone!’

They let the echoes of that childish question and plea be carried off by the wind. The terrible silence that followed was the shadow of my aloneness.

‘Where is your wolf, Tom Badgerlock?’ a voice called, and this time it was a woman’s, melodic with suppressed laughter. ‘Do you miss him, renegade?’

The fear that had been flowing with my blood turned suddenly to the ice of fury. I would stand here and I would kill them all and leave their entrails smoking on the road. My fist that had been clenched on my knife haft suddenly loosened, and a relaxed readiness spread through me. Poised, I waited for them. It would come as a sudden rush from all directions, the animals coming in low, and the people attacking high, with weapons. I had only the knife. I’d have to wait until they were close. If I ran, I knew they’d take me from behind. Better to wait and force them to come to me. Then I would kill them, kill them all.

I truly don’t know how long I stood there. That sort of readiness can make time stand still or run swift as wind. I heard a dawn bird call, and then another answered it, and still I waited. When light began to stain the night sky, I drew a deeper breath. I took a long look around myself, peering into the trees, but saw nothing. The only movement was the high flight of small birds as they flitted through the branches and the silver fall of the raindrops they shook loose. My stalkers were gone. The little creature that had snapped at me had left no trace of his passage on the wet stone of the road. The larger animal that had crossed behind me had left a single print in the mud at the road’s edge. A small dog. And that was all.

I turned and resumed my walk up to Buckkeep Castle. As I strode along, I began to tremble, not with fear, but with the tension that was now leaving me, and the fury that replaced it.

What had they wanted? To scare me. To make me aware of them, to let me know that they knew what I was and where I denned. Well, they had done that, and more. I forced my thoughts into order and tried to coldly assess the full threat they presented. I extended it beyond myself. Did they know about Jinna? Had they followed me from her door, and if so, did they know about Hap as well?

I cursed my own stupidity and carelessness. How could I have ever imagined the Piebalds would leave me alone? The Piebalds knew that Lord Golden came from Buckkeep, and that his servant Tom Badgerlock was Witted. They knew Tom Badgerlock had lopped off Laudwine’s arm and stolen their prince-hostage from them. The Piebalds would want revenge. They could have it as easily as posting one of their cowardly scrolls, denouncing me as practising the Wit, the despised beast-magic. I would be hanged, quartered and burned for it. Had I supposed that Buckkeep Town or Castle would keep me safe from them?

I should have known that this would happen. Once I plunged back into Buckkeep’s court and politics and intrigue, I had become vulnerable to all the plotting and schemes that power attracted. I had known this would happen, I admitted bitterly. And for some fifteen years that knowledge had kept me away from Buckkeep. Only Chade and his plea for help in recovering Prince Dutiful had lured me back. Cold reality seeped through me now. There were only two courses open to me. I either had to sever all ties and flee, as I had once before, or I had to plunge fully into the swirling intrigue that had always been the Farseer court at Buckkeep. If I stayed, I would have to start thinking like an assassin again, always aware of the risks and threats to myself, and how they affected those around me.

Then I wrenched my thoughts into a more truthful path. I’d have to be an assassin again, not just think like one. I’d have to be ready to kill when I encountered people that threatened my prince or me. For there was no avoiding the connection: those who came to taunt Tom Badgerlock about his Wit and the death of his wolf were folk who also knew that Prince Dutiful shared their despised beast-magic. It was their handle on the Prince, the lever they would use not just to end the persecution of those with the Wit, but to gain power for themselves. It was no help to me that my sympathies were, in part, with them. In my own life, I had suffered from the taint of being Witted. I had no desire to see anyone else labour under that burden. If they had not presented such a threat to my prince, I might have sided with them.

My furious striding carried me up to the sentries at the gate to Buckkeep. There was a guardhouse there, and from within came the sound of men’s voices and the clatter of soldiers at food. One, a lad of about twenty, lounged by the door, bread and cheese in one hand and a mug of morning beer in the other. He glanced up at me, and then, mouth full, nodded me through the gates. I halted, anger coursing through me like a poison.

‘Do you know who I am?’ I demanded of him.

He startled, then peered at me more closely. Obviously he was afraid he had offended some minor noble, but a glance at my clothing reassured him.

‘You’re a servant in the keep. Aren’t you?’

‘Whose servant?’ I demanded. Foolishness, to call attention to myself this way, and yet I could not stop the words. Had others come this way before me last night, were they inside the keep even now? Had a careless sentry admitted folk bent on killing the Prince? It all seemed too possible.

‘Well … I don’t know!’ the boy sputtered. He drew himself up straight, but still had to look up to glare at me. ‘How am I supposed to know that? Why should I care?’

‘Because, you damned fool, you are guarding the main entrance to Buckkeep Castle. Your queen and your prince depend on you to be alert, and to keep their enemies from walking in. That is why you are here. Isn’t it?’

‘Well. I –’ The boy shook his head in angry frustration, then turned suddenly to the door of the guardhouse. ‘Kespin! Can you come out here?’

Kespin was a taller man, and older. He moved like a swordsman, and his eyes were keen above his grizzled beard. They appraised me as a threat and dismissed me. ‘What’s the problem here?’ he asked us both. His voice was not a warning, but an assurance that he could deal with either of us as we deserved.

The sentry waved his beer mug at me. ‘He’s angry because I don’t know whose servant he is.’

‘What?’

‘I’m Lord Golden’s servant,’ I clarified. ‘And I’m concerned that the sentries on this gate seem to do no more than watch folk go in and out of the keep. I’ve been walking in and out of Buckkeep Castle for over a fortnight now, and I’ve never been challenged once. It doesn’t seem right to me. A score of years ago, when I visited, the sentries on duty here took their task seriously. There was a time when …’

‘There was a time when that was needed,’ Kespin interrupted me. ‘During the Red Ship War. But we’re at peace, man. And the keep and the town are full of Outislander folk and nobility from the other duchies for the Prince’s betrothal. You can’t expect us to know them all.’

I swallowed, wishing I hadn’t started this, yet determined to follow it to the end. ‘It only takes one mistake for our prince’s life to be threatened.’

‘Or one mistake to insult some Outislander noble. My orders come down from Queen Kettricken, and she said we were to be welcoming and hospitable. Not suspicious and nasty. Though I’d be willing to make an exception for you.’ The grin he gave me somewhat modified his words, yet it was still clear he did not enjoy my questioning of his judgement.

I inclined my head to him. I was going about this all wrong. I should bother Chade about it, and see if he could not put the guards more on edge. ‘I see,’ I said conciliatingly. ‘Well. I but wondered.’

‘Well, next time you ride that tall black mare out of here, remember that a man doesn’t have to say much to know a lot. And as long as you’ve made me wonder, what is your name?’

‘Tom Badgerlock. Servant to Lord Golden.’

‘Ah. His servant.’ He smiled knowingly. ‘And his bodyguard, right? Yeah, I’d heard some tale of that. And that isn’t all that I heard about him. You’re not what I expected he’d choose to keep by him.’ He gave me an odd look as if I should make some reply to that, but I held my tongue, not knowing what he was implying. After a moment, he shrugged. ‘Trust some foreigner to think he needs his own guard even while he lives in Buckkeep Castle. Well, go on with you, Tom Badgerlock. We know you now, and I hope that helps you sleep better at night.’

So they passed me into Buckkeep Castle. I walked away from them, feeling both foolish and dissatisfied. I must speak with Kettricken, I decided, and convince her that the Piebalds were still a very real danger to Dutiful. Yet I doubted my queen would have even a moment to spare for me in the days to come. The betrothal ceremony was tonight. Her thoughts would be full of her Outisland negotiations.

The kitchens were well astir. Maids and pages were preparing ranks of teapots and rows of porridge tureens. The smells awoke my hunger. I paused to load a breakfast tray for Lord Golden. I stacked a platter with smoked ham and fresh morning rolls and a pot of butter and strawberry preserves. There was a basket of pears from the keep orchard, and I chose firm ones. As I left the kitchen, a garden maid with a tray of flowers on her arm greeted me. ‘You’re Lord Golden’s man?’ she asked, and at my nod, she motioned me to a halt so that she could add a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers and a tiny nosegay of sweet white buds to the tray I carried. ‘For his lordship,’ she told me needlessly, and then hastened on her way.

I climbed the stairs to Lord Golden’s chambers, knocked and then entered. The door to his bedchamber was closed, but before I had finished setting out his breakfast things, he emerged fully dressed. His gleaming hair had been smoothed back from his brow and was secured at the nape of his neck with a blue silk ribbon. A blue jacket was slung over his arm. He wore a shirt of white silk, the chest puffed with lace, and blue leggings a shade darker than the jacket. With the gold of his hair and his amber eyes, the effect was like a summer sky. He smiled warmly at me. ‘Good to see that you’ve realized your duties require you to arise early, Tom Badgerlock. Now if only your taste in clothing would likewise awaken.’

I bowed gravely to him and drew out his chair. I spoke softly, casually, as his friend rather than in my role as servant. ‘The truth is that I have not been to bed. Hap did not come home until the dim hours of the morning. And on my walk home, I encountered some Piebalds who delayed me a bit longer.’

The smile melted from his face. He did not take his chair, but seized my wrist in a cool grip. ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked earnestly.

‘No,’ I assured him, and gestured him to the table. He sat down reluctantly. I moved to the side of the table and uncovered the dishes before him. ‘That was not their intent. They just wanted to let me know that they knew my name, where I lived, and that I am Witted. And that my wolf is dead.’

I had to force out the last words. It was as if I could live with that truth so long as I did not utter it aloud. I coughed and hastily took up the cut flowers. I handed the nosegay to him and muttered, ‘I’ll put these ones by your bedside.’

‘Thank you,’ he returned in a voice as muted as mine.

I found a vase in his room. Evidently even the garden maid was more familiar with Lord Golden’s niceties than I was. I filled it with water from his wash-pitcher and set the flowers on a small table adjacent to his bed. When I returned, he had donned his blue jacket and the white nosegay was pinned to the front of it.

‘I need to speak to Chade as soon as I can,’ I said as I poured his tea. ‘But I can’t very well go and hammer on his door.’

He lifted the cup and sipped. ‘Don’t the secret passages offer you access to his rooms?’

I gave Lord Golden a look. ‘You know that old fox. His secrets belong to him alone, and he will not risk anyone spying on him in an unguarded moment. He must have access to the corridors, but I don’t know how. Was he up very late last night?’

Lord Golden winced. ‘He was still dancing when I decided to seek my bed. For an old man, he finds an amazing wealth of energy when he wishes to enjoy himself. But I’ll send a page round with a message to him. I’ll invite him to ride with me this afternoon. Is that soon enough?’ He had caught the anxiety in my voice but was not asking questions. I was grateful for that.

‘It will do,’ I assured him. ‘It will probably be the soonest that his mind is clear.’ I rattled my own head as if it would settle my thoughts. ‘There is suddenly so much to think of, so many things I must worry about. If these Piebalds know about me, then they know about the Prince.’

‘Did you recognize any of them? Were they from Laudwine’s band?’

‘It was dark. And they stayed well back from me. I heard a woman’s voice and a man’s, but I’m sure there were at least three of them. One was bonded with a dog, and another with a small, swift mammal – a rat or a weasel or a squirrel, perhaps.’ I took a breath. ‘I want the guards at Buckkeep’s gates to be put on alert. And the Prince should have someone accompanying him at all times. “A tutor of the well-muscled sort”, as Chade himself once suggested. And I need to make arrangements with Chade, for ways to contact him if I need his help or advice immediately. And the keep should be patrolled daily for rats, especially the Prince’s chambers.’

He took a breath to speak, then bit down on his questions. Instead, he said, ‘I fear I must give you one more thing to think about. Prince Dutiful passed a note to me last night, demanding to know when you will begin his Skill-lessons.’

‘He wrote down those words?’

At Lord Golden’s reluctant nod, I was horrified. I had been aware that the Prince missed me. Linked by the Skill as we were, I must be aware of such things. I had put up my own Skill-walls to keep my thoughts private from the young man, but he was not so adept. Several times I had felt his feeble efforts to reach towards me, but I had ignored them, promising myself that a better time would soon present itself. Evidently my prince was not so patient. ‘Oh, the boy must be taught caution. Some things should never be committed to paper, and those –’

My tongue suddenly faltered. I must have gone pale, for Lord Golden stood up abruptly and became my friend the Fool as he offered me his chair. ‘Are you all right, Fitz? Is it a seizure coming on?’

I dropped into the chair. My head was spinning as I pondered the depth of my folly. I could scarcely get the breath to admit my idiocy. ‘Fool. All my scrolls, all my writings. I came so swiftly to Chade’s summons, I left them there in my cottage. I told Hap to close up the house before he came to Buckkeep, but he would not have hidden them, only shut the door to my study. If the Piebalds are clever enough to connect me with Hap …’

I let the thought trail away. I needed to say no more to him. His eyes were huge. The Fool had read all that I had so recklessly committed to paper. Not only my own identity was bared there, but also many Farseer matters better left forgotten. And personal vulnerabilities also were exposed in those cursed scrolls. Molly, my lost love. Nettle, my bastard daughter. How could I have been so stupid as to set such thoughts to paper? How could I have let the false comfort of writing about such things lull me into exposing them? No secret was safe unless it was locked solely in a man’s own mind. It should all have been burned, long ago.

‘Please, Fool. See Chade for me. I have to go there. Now. Today.’

The Fool set a cautious hand to my shoulder. ‘Fitz. If they are gone, it is already too late. If Tom Badgerlock goes racing off today, you will only stir curiosity and invite pursuit. You may lead the Piebalds straight to them. They will be expecting you to bolt after they threatened you. They’ll be watching the gates out of Buckkeep. So, think coolly. It could be that your fears are groundless. How would they connect Tom Badgerlock to Hap, let alone know where the boy came from? Take no reckless action. See Chade first and tell him what you fear. And speak to Prince Dutiful. His betrothal is tonight. The lad holds himself well, but his is a thin and brittle façade. See him, reassure him.’ Then he paused and ventured, ‘Perhaps someone else could be dispatched to –’

‘No.’ I cut him off firmly. ‘I must go myself. Some of what is there I will take, and the rest I will destroy.’ My mind danced past the charging buck that the Fool had carved into my tabletop. FitzChivalry Farseer’s emblem graced Tom Badgerlock’s board. Even that seemed a threat to me now. Burn it, I decided. Burn the whole cottage to the ground. Leave no trace that I had ever lived there. Even the herbs growing in the garden told too much about me. I should never have left that shell of myself for anyone to nose through; I should never have allowed myself to leave my marks so plainly on anything.

The Fool patted me on the shoulder. ‘Eat something,’ he suggested. ‘Then wash your face and change your clothes. Make no abrupt decisions. If we hold our course, we’ll survive this, Fitz.’

‘Badgerlock,’ I reminded him, and hauled myself to my feet. The roles, I decided, must be adhered to sharply. ‘I beg pardon, my lord. I felt a moment’s faintness, but I am recovered now. I apologize for interrupting your breakfast.’

For an instant the Fool’s sympathy for me shone naked in his eyes. Then, without a word, he resumed his seat at the table. I refilled his teacup, and he ate in pondering silence. I moved about the room, seeking tasks to busy myself, but his innate tidiness had left me little to do in my role as servant. I suddenly perceived that his neatness was a part of his privacy. He had schooled himself to leave no sign of himself save those that he wished to be seen. It was a discipline I would do well to adopt. ‘Would my lord excuse me for a few moments?’ I asked.

He set down his cup and thought for a moment. Then, ‘Certainly. I expect to go out shortly, Badgerlock. See that you clear away the breakfast things, bring fresh water for the pitchers, tidy the hearth and bring wood for the fire. Then, I suggest you continue to sharpen your fighting skills with the guardsmen. I shall expect you to accompany me when I ride this afternoon. Please see that you are dressed appropriately.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ I agreed quietly. I left him eating and went into my own dim chamber. I considered it quickly. Nothing would I keep here, I decided, save the items appropriate to Tom Badgerlock. I washed my face and flattened my butchered hair. I donned my blue servant’s garb. Then I gathered all my old clothing and saddlepack, the roll of lock-picks and tools that Chade had given me, and the few other items that I had brought from my cottage. In the course of my hasty sorting, I came across a salt-water-shrivelled purse with a lump in it. The leather strings had dried shut and stiff so that I had to cut them to get it open. When I shook out the contents, the lump was the odd figurine the Prince had picked up on the beach during our ill-fated Skill-adventure. I slid it back into the ruined purse to return to him later and put it on top of my bundle. Then I shut the door to my bedchamber and walked across the pitch-dark room to press on a different section of wall. It gave way noiselessly to my push. Tentative fingers of daylight overhead betrayed the slits that admitted light to the secret passages of the keep. I closed the door firmly behind myself and began the steep climb to Chade’s tower.

TWO

Chade’s Servant

Hoquin the White had a rabbit of which he was extremely fond. It lived in his garden, came at his beck, and would rest motionless on his lap for hours. Hoquin’s Catalyst was a very young woman, little more than a child. Her name was Redda but Hoquin called her Wild-eye, for she had one eye that always peered off to one side. She did not like the rabbit, for whenever she seated herself near Hoquin the creature would try to drive her away by nipping her sharply. One day the rabbit died, and upon finding it dead in the garden, Redda gutted and skinned the creature and cut it up for the pot. It was only after Hoquin the White had eaten of it that he missed his pet. Redda delightedly told him he had dined upon it. Rebuked, the unchastened Catalyst replied, ‘But master, you yourself foresaw this. Did not you write in your seventh scroll, “The Prophet hungered for the warmth of his flesh even as he knew it would mean his end”?’

Scribe Cateren, of the White Prophet Hoquin

I was about halfway to Chade’s tower when I suddenly realized what I was really doing. I was fleeing, heading for a bolt hole, and secretly hoping that my old mentor would be there, to tell me exactly what I should do as he had in the days when I was his apprentice assassin.

My steps slowed. What is appropriate in a lad of seventeen ill becomes a man of thirty-five. It was time I began to find my own way in the world of court intrigues. Or time that I left it completely.

I was passing one of the small niches in the corridor that indicated a peephole. There was a small bench in it. I set my bundle of possessions on it and sat down to gather my thoughts. What, rationally, was my best course of action?

Kill them all.

It would have been a fine plan if I had known who they were. The second course of action was more complicated. I had to protect not just myself but also the Prince from the Piebalds. I set aside my concerns for my own safety to ponder the danger to the Prince. Their bludgeon was that at any time they could betray either of us as Witted. The dukes of the Six Duchies would not tolerate such taint in their monarch. It would destroy not just Kettricken’s hope of a peaceful alliance with the Outislands, but very likely lead to a toppling of the Farseer throne. But such an extreme action would have no value that I could see to the Piebalds. Once Dutiful was flung down, their knowledge was no longer useful. Worse, they would have brought down a queen who was urging her people to have tolerance for the Witted. No. The threat to expose Dutiful was useful only so long as he remained in line for the throne. They would not seek to kill him, only to bend him to their will.

And what could that entail? What would they ask? Would they demand that the Queen strictly enforce the laws that prohibited Witted ones from being put to death simply for carrying the bloodlines for that magic? Would they want more? They’d be fools if they did not try to secure some power for themselves. If there were dukes or nobles who also were Old Blood, perhaps the Piebalds would endeavour to bring them into royal favour. I wondered if the Bresingas had come to court for the betrothal ceremony. That would be worth investigating. The mother and son were definitely Old Blood, and had co-operated with the Piebalds in luring the Prince away. Would they take a more active role now? And how would the Piebalds persuade Kettricken that their threats were in earnest? Who or what could they destroy in order to demonstrate their power?

Simple answer. Tom Badgerlock. I was but a playing piece on the board as far as they were concerned, a minor servant, but an unpleasant fellow who had already upset their plans and maimed one of their leaders. They’d showed themselves to me last night, confident that I would pass the ‘message’ to those actually in power in Buckkeep. And then, to prove to the Farseers that they were vulnerable, the Piebalds would pull me down as hounds pull down a stag. I would be the object lesson to Kettricken and Dutiful.

I lowered my face into my hands. My best course of action was to flee. Yet having returned to Buckkeep, even so briefly, I hated to leave again. This cold castle of stone had been my home once, and despite the illegitimacy of my birth, the Farseers were my family.

A whisper of sound caught my ear. I sat up straight, and then realized that it was a young girl’s voice, penetrating the thick stone wall to reach me in my hidden spy-place. With a weary curiosity, I leaned forward to the peephole and peered through it. A bedchamber, lavishly furnished, greeted my gaze. A dark-haired girl stood with her back to me. Next to the hearth, a grizzled old warrior lounged in a chair. Some of the scarring on his face was deliberate – fine lacerations rubbed with ash, considered decorative by the Outislanders – but some of it was the track of an earnest blade. Grey streaked his hair and peppered his short beard. He was cleaning and cutting his nails with his belt knife while the girl practised a dance step before him.

‘– And two to the side, one back, and turn,’ she chanted breathlessly as her small feet followed her own instructions. As she spun lightly about in a whirl of embroidered skirts, I glimpsed her face for an instant. It was the Narcheska Elliania, Dutiful’s intended. No doubt she was practising for their first dance together tonight.

‘And again, two steps to the side, and two steps back and –’

‘One step back, Elli,’ the man corrected her. ‘And then the turn. Try it again.’

She halted where she stood and said something quickly in her own language.

‘Elliania, practise the farmers’ tongue. It goes with their dance,’ he replied implacably.

‘I don’t care to,’ the girl announced petulantly. ‘Their flat language is as insipid as this dance.’ She dropped her hold on her skirts, clasped her elbows and folded her arms on her chest. ‘It’s stupid. All this stepping and twirling. It’s like pigeons bobbing their heads up and down and pecking each other before they mate.’

‘Yes. It is,’ he agreed affably. ‘And for exactly the same reason. Now do it. And do it perfectly. If you can remember the steps of a sword exercise, you can master this. Or would you have these haughty farmers think that the God Runes have sent them a clumsy little boat-slave to wed their pretty prince?’

She showed her very white teeth to him in a grimace. Then she snatched up her skirts, held them scandalously high to reveal that she was barefoot and barelegged, and went through the steps in a frenzy. ‘Two-steps-to-the-side-and-one-step-back-and-spin-and-two-steps-to-the-side-and-one-step-back-and-spin-and-two-steps-to-the-side –’ Her furious chant changed the graceful dance to a frantic cavorting. The man grinned at her prancing, but did not intervene. The God Runes, I thought to myself, and unearthed the familiar ring of the words. It was what the Outislanders called the scattered isles that made up their domain. And the single Outislander chart that I had ever seen did impart a runic rendering to each of the small pieces of land that broke their icy waters.

‘Enough!’ the warrior snorted suddenly.

The girl’s face was flushed with her efforts, her breath coming swift. But she did not stop until the man came suddenly to his feet and caught her up in an embrace. ‘Enough, Elliania. Enough. You have shown me that you can do it, and do it perfectly. Let it go for now. But tonight you must be all grace and beauty and charm. Show yourself as the little spitfire that you are, and your pretty prince may decide to take a tamer bride. And you wouldn’t want that.’ He set her down on her feet and resumed his chair.

‘Yes, I would.’ Her response was instantaneous.

His reply was more measured. ‘No. You wouldn’t. Unless you’d like my belt across your backside as well?’

‘No.’ Her reply was so stiff that I immediately perceived his threat was not an idle one.

‘No.’ He made the word an agreement. ‘And I would not relish doing it. But you are my sister’s daughter, and I will not see the line of our mothers disgraced. Would you?’

‘I don’t want to disgrace my mothers’ line.’ The child held herself warrior-straight as she declared this. But then her shoulders began to shake as she went on, ‘But I don’t want to marry that prince. His mother looks like a snow harpy. He’ll make me fat with babies, and they’ll all be pale and cold as ice wraiths. Please, Peottre, take me home. I don’t want to have to live in this great cold cave. I don’t want that boy to do the thing to me that makes babies. I just want our mothers’ low house, and to ride my pony out in the wind. And I want my own boat to scull across Sendalfjord, and my own skates of gear to set for fish. And when I am grown, my own bench in the mothers’ house, and a man who knows that it is right to dwell in the house of his wife’s mothers. All I want is what any other girl my age wants. That prince will tear me away from my mothers’ line as a branch is torn from a vine, and I will grow brittle and dry here until I snap into tiny pieces!’

‘Elliania, Elliania, dear heart, don’t!’ The man came to his feet with the fluid grace of a warrior, yet his body was stocky and thick, a typical Outislander. He caught the child up and she buried her face in his shoulder. Sobs shook her, and tears stood in the warrior’s eyes as he held her. ‘Hush, now. Hush. If we are clever, if you are strong and swift and dance like the swallows above the water, it will never come to that. Never. Tonight is but a betrothal, little shining one, not a wedding. Do you think Peottre would abandon you here? Foolish little fish! No one is going to make a baby with you tonight, or any other night, not for years yet! And even then, it will happen only if you want it to. That I promise you. Do you think I would shame our mothers’ line by letting it be otherwise? This is but a dance we do. Nevertheless, we must tread it perfectly.’ He set her back on her little bare feet. He tilted her chin up so she must look at him, and wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of one scarred hand. ‘There, now. There. Smile for me. And remember. The first dance you must give to the pretty prince. But the second one is for Peottre. So, show me now how we will dance together, this silly farmers’ prancing.’

He began a tuneless humming that set a beat, and she gave her small hands into his. Together they stepped out a measure, she moving like thistledown and he like a swordsman. I watched them dance, the girl’s eyes focused up at the man’s, and the man staring off over her head into a distance only he could see.

A knock at the door halted their dance. ‘Enter,’ Peottre called, and a serving-woman came in with a dress draped over her arm. Abruptly, Peottre and Elliania stepped apart and became still. They could not have been more wary if a serpent had slithered into the room. Yet the woman was garbed as an Outislander, one of their own.

Her manner was odd. She made no curtsey. She held the dress up for their inspection, giving it a shake to loosen the folds of the fabric. ‘The Narcheska will wear this tonight.’

Peottre ran his eyes over it. I had never seen anything like it. It was a woman’s dress, cut for a child. The fabric was a pale blue, swooping low at the neckline. A gush of lace on the front along with some clever gathers drew up the fabric. It would help the Narcheska pretend a bosom she did not yet possess. Elliania reddened as she stared at it. Peottre was more direct. He stepped between Elliania and the dress as if he would protect her from it. ‘No. She will not.’

‘Yes. She will. The Lady prefers it. The young prince will find it most attractive.’ She offered not an opinion, but a directive.

‘No. She will not. It is a mockery of who she is. That is not the garb of a God’s Rune narcheska. For her to wear that is an insult to our mothers’ house.’ With a sudden step and a slash of his hand, Peottre knocked the dress from her hands to the floor.

I expected the woman to cower back from him or beg his pardon. Instead she just gave him a flat-eyed stare and after a brief pause said, ‘The Lady says, “It has nothing to do with the God Runes. This is a dress that Six Duchies men will understand. She will wear it.”’ She paused again as if thinking, then added, ‘For her not to wear it would present a danger to your mothers’ house.’ As if Peottre’s action had been no more than a child’s wilful display, she stooped and lifted the dress again.

Behind Peottre, Elliania gave a low cry. It sounded like pain. As he turned to her, I caught a quick glimpse of her face. It was set into a determined stillness, but sweat suddenly misted her brow and she had gone as pale as she had been flushed before.

‘Stop it!’ he said in a low voice, and I first thought that he spoke to the girl. Then he glanced over his shoulder. Yet when he spoke again, he did not appear to be addressing the servant at all. ‘Stop it!’ he repeated. ‘Dressing her like a whore was not a part of our arrangement. We will not be driven into it. Stop it, or I will kill her, and you will lose your eyes and your ears here.’ And he drew his belt knife and advancing upon the serving woman, he laid the edge of it along her throat. The woman did not blanch or shrink away. She stood still, her eyes glittering, almost smirking at his threat. She made no response to his words. Then suddenly Elliania drew a deeper, ragged breath and her shoulders sagged. A moment later, she squared them and stood upright. No tears escaped her.

In a fluid motion, Peottre snatched the dress from the woman’s arm. His knife must have been honed to a razor’s edge, for it slashed effortlessly down the front of the gown. He threw the fluttering ruins to the floor and trod upon them. ‘Get out!’ he told the woman.

‘As you will, my lord, I am sure,’ she muttered. But the words were a mockery as she turned and retired. She did not hurry, and he watched her leave until the door closed behind her. Then he turned back to Elliania. ‘Are you much hurt, little fish?’

She shook her head, a quick gesture, chin up. A brave lie, for she looked as if she would faint.

I stood up silently. My forehead was gritty with dust from leaning against the wall as I spied on them. I wondered if Chade knew the Narcheska did not wish to wed our prince. I wondered if he knew that Peottre did not consider the betrothal to be a binding gesture. I wondered what illness ailed the Narcheska, and wondered, too, who ‘the Lady’ was and why the servant was so disrespectful. I tucked my bits of information away alongside my questions, gathered up my clothing and resumed my trek up to Chade’s tower. At least my spying had made me forget my own concerns for a short time.

I climbed the last steep stair to the tiny room at the top, and pushed on the small door there. From some distant part of the castle, I caught a strain of music. Probably minstrels limbering their fingers and instruments for tonight’s festivities. I stepped out from behind a rack of wine bottles into Chade’s tower room. I caught my breath, then shouldered the rack silently back into place and set my bundle down beside it. The man bent over Chade’s worktable was muttering to himself, a guttural singsong of complaints. The music came louder and clearer with his words. Five noiseless steps carried me in towards the corner of the hearth and Verity’s sword. My hand just touched the hilt as he turned to me. He was the half-wit I had glimpsed in the stableyard a fortnight ago. He held a tray stacked with bowls, a pestle, and a teacup, and in his surprise he tipped it and all the crockery slid to one end. Hastily he set it down on the table. The music had stopped.

For a time, we stared at one another in mutual consternation. The set of his eyelids made him appear permanently sleepy. The end of his tongue was pushed out of his mouth against his upper lip. He had small ears that were snug to his head below his raggedly cropped hair. His clothing hung on him, the sleeves of his shirt and the legs of his pants sawed off, marking them as the cast-offs of a larger man. He was short and pudgy, and somehow all his differences alarmed me. A shiver of premonition ran over me. I knew he was not a threat, but I did not wish him near me. From the way he scowled, the feeling was mutual.

‘Go away!’ He spoke in a guttural, soft-mouthed way.

I took a breath and spoke evenly. ‘I am permitted to be here. Are you?’ I had already deduced that this must be Chade’s servant, the boy who hauled his wood and water and tidied up behind the old man. But I did not know how deeply he was in Chade’s confidence, and so I did not say Chade’s name. Surely the old assassin could not be so careless as to entrust his secret ways to a half-wit.

YOU. GO AWAY. DON’T SEE ME!

The solid thrust of Skill-magic that he launched at me sent me staggering. If I had not already had my walls up, I am certain that I would have done as he told me, gone away and not seen him. As I slammed my Skill-walls tighter and thicker around me, I wondered fleetingly if he had done this to me before. Would I even recall it if he had?

LEAVE ME ALONE! DON’T HURT ME! GO AWAY, STINK DOG!

I was aware of his second blast, but less cowed by it. Even so, I did not lower my walls to Skill back at him. I spoke my words in a voice that shook despite my best effort to hold it steady. ‘I won’t hurt you. I never had any intention of hurting you. I’ll leave you alone, if that is what you wish. But I won’t go away. And I won’t allow you to push me like that.’ I tried for the firm tones of someone reprimanding a child for bad manners. He probably had no idea what he was doing; doubtless he was only using a weapon that had previously worked for him.

But instead of chagrin, his face flared with anger. And fear? His eyes, already small, nearly disappeared in his fat cheeks when he narrowed them. For a moment, his mouth hung ajar and his tongue stuck out even farther. Then he picked up his tray and slammed it back to the table so that the dishes on it jumped. ‘Go away!’ His Skill echoed the angry commands of his mouth. ‘You don’t see me!’

I groped my way into Chade’s chair and sat down in it firmly. ‘I do see you,’ I replied evenly. ‘And I’m not going away.’ I crossed my arms on my chest. I hoped he could not see how rattled I was. ‘You should just do your work and pretend that you don’t see me. And when you are done, you should go away.’

I was not going to retreat from him; I could not. For me to leave would reveal to him how I had come, and if he did not already know that, I wasn’t going to show him. I leaned back in my chair and tried to look as if I were relaxing there.

He glared at me, and the beat of his Skill-fury against my walls was daunting. He was strong. If he were this strong, untrained, what would his talent be if he could learn to master it? It was a frightening thought. I stared at the cold hearth, but watched him from the corner of my eye. Either he had finished his work, or decided not to do it. In any case, he picked up his tray, stalked across the room, and tugged at a scroll rack. This was the entry I had seen Chade once use. He vanished inside it, but as the rack swung into place behind him, both his voice and his Skill reached me again. ‘You stink like dog poop. Chop you up and burn you.’

His anger was like an ebbing tide that slowly left me stranded. After a time, I lifted my hands and pressed them to my temples. The stress of holding my walls so tight and solid was beginning to tell on me, but I dared not let them down just yet. If he could sense my lowering them, if he chose then to blast me with a Skill-command, I would be prey to it, just as Dutiful had been prey to my impulsive Skill-command not to fight me. I feared that his mind still bore the stamp of that decree.

That was yet another worry that I must tend to. Did that order still restrain him? I made the resolution then that I must discover how to reverse my Skill-command. If I did not, I knew it would soon become a barrier to any true friendship between us. Then I wondered if the Prince were cognizant at all of what I had done to him. It had been an accident, I told myself, and then despised my lie. A burst of my temper had imprinted that command on my prince’s mind. It shamed me that I had done so, and the sooner it was removed, the better for both of us.

Dimly I became aware of music again. I made a tentative connection. As I gradually lowered my walls, it became louder in my mind. Putting my hands over my ears did not affect it at all. Skilling music. I had never even imagined such a thing, yet the half-wit was doing it. When I drew my attention away from it, it faded into the shushing curtain of thoughts that stood always at the edges of my Skill. Most of it was formless whispering, the overheard thoughts of the folk who possessed just enough talent to let their most urgent thoughts float out onto the Skill. If I focused my abilities on them, I could sometimes pluck whole thoughts and images from their minds, but they lacked enough Skill to be aware of me, let alone reply. This half-wit was different. He was a roaring Skill-fire, his music the heat and smoke of his wild talent. He made no effort to hide it; possibly he had no idea how to hide it, or had any reason to do so.

I relaxed, keeping only the wall that ensured my private thoughts would remain hidden from Dutiful’s budding Skill-talent. Then with a groan, I lowered my head into my hands as a Skill-headache thundered through my skull.

‘Fitz?’

I was aware of Chade’s presence an instant before he touched my shoulder. Even so, I startled as I awoke and raised my hands as if to ward off a blow.

‘What ails you, boy?’ he demanded of me, and then leaned closer to peer at me. ‘Your eyes are full of blood! When did you last sleep?’

‘Just now, I think.’ I managed a feeble smile. I ran my hands through my chopped hair. It was sweated flat to my skull. I could recall only tatters of my fleeting nightmare. ‘I met your servant,’ I told him shakily.

‘Thick? Ah. Well, not the brightest man in the keep, but he serves my purpose admirably. Hard for him to betray secrets when he hasn’t the sense to recognize a secret if he fell over it. But enough of him. As soon as Lord Golden’s message reached me, I came up here, hoping to catch you. What is this about Piebalds in Buckkeep Town?’

‘He wrote that down in a message?’ I was incensed.

‘Not in so many words. Only I would have picked out the sense of it. Now tell me.’

‘They followed me last night … this morning. To scare me and to let me know they knew me. That they could find me any time. Chade. Set that aside for a moment. Did you know your servant – what is his name? Thick? Did you know Thick is Skilled?’

‘At what? Breaking teacups?’ The old man snorted as if I had made a bad jest. He heaved a sigh and gestured at the cold fireplace in disgust. ‘He’s supposed to set a small fire in the hearth each day. Half the time he forgets to do that. What are you talking about?’

‘Thick is Skilled. Strongly Skilled. He nearly dropped me in my tracks when I accidentally startled him here. If I had not been keeping up my walls to ward my mind from Dutiful, I think he would have blasted away every thought in my head. “Go away” he told me, and “Don’t see me”. And “Don’t hurt me”. And Chade, you know, I think he’s done that before. To me, even. Once, in the stableyard, I saw some of the boys teasing him. And I heard, almost as if someone said it aloud, “Don’t see me”. And then the stableboys were all going about their business and after that, I don’t recall that I did see him there. Any more, I mean.’

Chade slowly sank down into my chair. He reached out to take one of my hands in his as if that would make my words more comprehensible. Or perhaps he sought to feel if fever had taken me. ‘Thick has the Skill-magic,’ he said carefully. ‘That’s what you’re telling me.’

‘Yes. It’s raw and untrained, but it burns in him like a bonfire. I’ve never encountered anything like it before.’ I shut my eyes, put my palms flat to my temples and tried to push my skull back together. ‘I feel like I’ve taken a beating.’

A moment later, Chade said gruffly, ‘Here. Try this.’

I took the cold wet cloth he offered me and placed it across my eyes. I knew better than to ask him for anything stronger. The stubborn old man had made up his mind that my pain drugs would interfere with my ability to teach Dutiful to Skill. No good to long for the relief that elfbark could bring. If there were any left in Buckkeep Castle, he’d hidden it well.

‘What am I going to do about this?’ he muttered, and I lifted a corner of the cloth to peer at him.

‘About what?’

‘Thick and his Skill.’

‘Do? What can you do? The half-wit has it.’

He resumed his seat. ‘From what I’ve translated of the old Skill-scrolls, that makes him something of a threat to us. He’s a wild talent, untaught and undisciplined. His Skilling can inadvertently disrupt Dutiful just as he is trying to learn. Angered, he can use his Skill against people; apparently, he has already done so. Worse, you say he is strong. Stronger than you?’

I lifted one hand in a futile gesture. ‘I have no way of knowing. My talent has always been erratic, Chade. And I know no way of measuring it. But I have not felt so besieged since all of Galen’s coterie turned their collective strength on me.’

‘Mmh.’ He leaned back in his chair and considered the ceiling. ‘The most prudent course might simply be to put him down. Kindly, of course. It is not his fault he is a threat to us. Less radical would be to begin dosing him with elfbark to dampen or destroy his talent. But as your reckless abuse of that herb over the last decade has not completely scoured the Skill-ability from you, I have less faith in its efficacy than the writers of the Skill-scrolls did. Yet I tend towards a third path. More dangerous, perhaps. I wonder if that is not why it appeals to me, because the possibilities are as great as the hazard.’

‘Teach him?’ At Chade’s tentative smile, I groaned. ‘Chade, no. We don’t know enough between the two of us to be certain that we can teach Dutiful safely, and he is a tractable boy with a bright mind. Thick is already hostile to me. His insults make me fear that somehow he has detected that I am Witted. And what he has learned on his own is potent enough to be dangerous to me if I try to teach him more.’

‘Then you think we should kill him? Or cripple his talent?’

I didn’t want that decision to be mine. I didn’t even want to know that such a decision was being made, yet here I was again, neck deep in Farseer plotting. ‘I don’t think either of those things,’ I muttered. ‘Cannot we just send him very far away?’

‘The weapon we throw away today is the one at our throats tomorrow,’ Chade returned implacably. ‘That is why King Shrewd chose, long ago, to have his bastard grandson close to hand. We must make the same sort of decision with Thick. Use him, or render him useless. There is no middle path.’ He held one hand out towards me, palm up, and added, ‘As we have seen with the Piebalds.’

I do not know if he intended it as a rebuke to me, but his words stung nonetheless. I leaned back in my chair and let the wet cloth fall over my eyes.

‘What would you have had me do? Kill them all, not just the Piebalds who lured the Prince away but also the Old Blood elders who came to our aid? And then the Queen’s own huntswoman? And then the Bresinga family? And Sydel, young Civil Bresinga’s intended, and –’

‘I know, I know,’ he cut me off as I pointed out the widening circle of assassinations that still would not have completely protected our secret. ‘And yet, there we are. They have shown us they are swift and competent. You have scarcely been back at Buckkeep for two days, and yet they were watching and ready for you. Am I correct in saying that last night was the first time you had ventured into town?’ At my nod he continued, ‘And they immediately located you. And made very sure that you knew they were aware of you. A deliberate gambit.’ He took a deep breath and I saw him turning it over in his mind, trying to see what message they had intended to convey. ‘They know the Prince is Witted. They know you are Witted. They can destroy either of you whenever they please.’

‘We already knew that. I think this was intended in a different way.’ I took a breath, put my thoughts in order, and gave him a skeletal account of my encounter. ‘I see this in a new light now. They wanted me to be frightened, and to think what I could do to be safe from them. I can either be a threat to them, one they would eliminate, or I can be useful to them.’ That wasn’t exactly how I had seen it earlier, but the implications now seemed obvious. They had frightened me, and then let me go, to give me time to realize I could not possibly kill them all. Impossible to know how many now shared my secret. The only way I could survive was to become useful to them. What would they ask of me? ‘Perhaps as a spy within Buckkeep Castle. Or as a weapon within the keep, someone they could turn against the Farseers from within.’

Chade had followed my thoughts effortlessly. ‘Is that not what we could choose? Hmm. Yes. For a time at least, I counsel you to be wary. Yet open, too. Be ready for them to contact you again. See what they demand, and what they offer. If necessary, let them think you will betray the Prince.’

‘Dangle myself like bait.’ I sat up and lifted the cloth off my eyes.

A smile twitched at his mouth. ‘Exactly.’ He held out a hand and I gave him the wet cloth. He tilted his head and regarded me critically. ‘You look terrible. Worse than a man coming off a weeklong drunk. Are you in much pain?’

‘I can deal with it,’ I replied gruffly.

He nodded to himself, pleased. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to. But it grows less each time, doesn’t it? Your body is learning to handle it. I think perhaps it is like a swordsman training his muscles to tolerate the hours of drill.’

I leaned forward with a sigh to rub my stinging eyes. ‘I think it is more like a bastard learning to tolerate pain.’

‘Well. Whatever it is, I am pleased.’ His reply was brisk. I would get no sympathy from the old man. He stood. ‘Go and get cleaned up, Fitz. Eat something. Be seen. Go armed, but casually so.’ He paused. ‘You recall where my poisons and tools are kept, I am sure. Take whatever you need, but leave me a list so I can have my apprentice replace the inventory.’

I didn’t retort that I would take nothing, that I was no longer an assassin. I had already thought of one or two powders that might be useful if I found myself outnumbered as I had this morning. ‘When will I meet this new apprentice of yours?’ I asked casually.

‘You have.’ Chade smiled. ‘When will you know my new apprentice? I am not sure that would be wise, or comfortable, for either of you. Or for me. Fitz, I am going to ask you to be honourable about this. Leave me this secret, and do not attempt to pry into it. Trust me that it is better left alone.’

‘Speaking of prying, there is something else I should tell you about. I paused on my way up the stairs, and heard voices. I looked in on the Narcheska’s room. There is some information I think I should share with you.’

He cocked his head at me. ‘Tempting. Very tempting. But you failed to distract me completely. Your promise, Fitz, before you try to lure me into thinking of other things.’

I did not wish to give it, in truth. It was not just curiosity that burned in me, nor even jealousy of an odd sort. It went against all the training I had ever received from the old man. Discover as much as you can about all that is going on around you, he had taught me. You never know what might prove to be useful. His green eyes stared at me balefully until I lowered my gaze before his. I shook my head but I said the words. ‘I promise I will not deliberately attempt to discover the identity of your new apprentice. But may I ask one thing? Is he aware of me, of what and who I was?’

‘My boy, I do not give out secrets that are not mine to share.’

I gave a small sigh of relief. It would have been uncomfortable to imagine someone in the keep watching me, knowing who I was but shielded from my gaze. At least I was on an equal footing with this new apprentice.

‘Now. The Narcheska?’

And so I reported to him, as I had never expected to do again. As I had when I was a boy, I spoke to him the exact words I had overheard, and afterwards he quizzed me as to what I had thought those words had meant. I spoke bluntly. ‘I do not know the man’s status in the Narcheska’s offering to Queen Kettricken. But I do not think he feels bound by the betrothal, and his advice to the girl affirms to her that she need not feel bound.’

‘I find that most interesting. It is a valuable titbit, Fitz, and no mistake. Their strange servant intrigues me as well. When your time permits, you could look in on them again, and let me know what you discover.’

‘Cannot your new apprentice do that just as well?’

‘You are prying again, and you know it. But this time, I will answer. No. My apprentice is no more privy to the network of spy passages in the castle than you were. That is not a matter for apprentices. They have enough to do with minding themselves and their own secrets without being entrusted with mine. But I think I shall have my apprentice pay special attention to the serving-woman. That is the piece I fear most in this new puzzle you have handed me. But the spy tunnels and secret ways of Buckkeep remain ours alone. So,’ and here a strange smile crooked his mouth, ‘I suppose you could see yourself as having reached journeyman status. Not, of course, that you are an assassin any more. We both know that is not so.’

That jest prodded me in a tender place. I did not want to think about how deeply I had slipped back into my old roles as spy and assassin. I’d already killed again for Prince Dutiful, several times. That had been in the heat of anger, while defending myself and rescuing him. Would I kill again, in secret, by poison, in the cold knowledge of necessity, for the Farseers? The most disturbing part of that question was that I could not answer it. I reined my mind to more productive paths.

‘Who is the man in the Narcheska’s chamber? Besides being her Uncle Peottre, I mean.’

‘Ah. Well, your question unwittingly gives you the answer. He is her uncle, her mother’s brother. In the old ways of the Outislands, that was more significant than being her father. To them, the mother’s lineage was the significant one. A woman’s brothers were the important men in the lives of her children. Husbands joined the clans of their wives, and the children took on the clan symbol of their mothers.’

I nodded silently to his words. During the Red Ship War, I had read what scrolls about the Outislanders that the Buckkeep library held, trying to make sense of their war against us. I had also served alongside dissident Outisland warriors on the warship Rurisk, and from them learned something of their lands and customs. What he said now matched my recollections on the topic.

Chade tugged at his chin thoughtfully. ‘When Arkon Bloodblade approached us with this offer of an alliance, he had the support of his hetgurd behind him. I accepted that, and accepted that as her father, he could arrange Elliania’s marriage. I thought perhaps the Outislands had left their matriarchal ways behind them but now I wonder if perhaps Elliania’s family clings to them still. But why, then, is there no female relative here, to speak on Elliania’s behalf and negotiate the betrothal? Arkon Bloodblade seems to be the one doing the bargaining. Peottre Blackwater has been acting as the Narcheska’s chaperon and bodyguard. But now I perceive that he is her advisor as well. Hmm. Perhaps our attentions to her father have been misplaced; I will see that Peottre is accorded more respect.’ He furrowed his brow, hastily restructuring his concept of the marriage offer. ‘I knew of the woman-servant. I thought she would be the Narcheska’s confidante, perhaps her old nursemaid or a poor relative. Yet your spying seems to put her at odds with both Elliania and Peottre. Something is not right here, Fitz.’ He sighed heavily, and reluctantly admitted his error. ‘I thought we were negotiating this marriage with Bloodblade, Elliania’s father. Perhaps it is Elliania’s mother’s family that I should know more about. But if they are truly the ones offering Elliania, then is Bloodblade a dupe or a puppet? Does he speak with any true authority at all?’

His forehead was graven deep with thoughtfulness as he pondered these things and I realized that the Piebald threat against me had been reduced to a minor concern, something that Chade expected I could largely manage on my own. I could not decide if his confidence in me flattered me, or diminished me to a lesser game-piece. An instant later he recalled me to myself.

‘Well. I think we’ve resolved this as much as we can just now. Extend my regrets to your master, Tom Badgerlock. Let him know that a headache prevents me from enjoying the pleasures of his company this afternoon, but that my prince has been most happy to accept his invitation. That will give Dutiful the time with you that he has been pestering me for. I don’t need to remind you to be discreet in your contact with the boy. We don’t want to rouse any speculation. And I suggest that you keep your ride either to areas where your privacy is assured, or to very public areas where the Piebalds would have to be bold to seek a contact. In truth, I do not know which to offer as the wiser selection.’ He took a breath and his tone changed. ‘Fitz. Do not underestimate your influence on the Prince. In our private conversations, he speaks freely of you, with admiration. I am not sure you were wise to reveal your connection to me, but there, it is done. It is not just Skill-instruction he seeks from you, but a man’s advice on all aspects of his life. Be careful. An incautious word from you could set our wilful prince’s feet on a path where none of us could safely follow him. Please speak positively of his betrothal and encourage him to undertake his royal duties with a willing heart. And in the matter of the Piebalds threatening you … well, today might not be the best day to burden him with concerns for you. As it is, some may look askance that our prince chooses to go riding with a foreign noble and his bodyguard on such an important day in his life.’ He paused suddenly. ‘Not that I’m trying to dictate how you behave with our prince. I know that you have formed a relationship of your own.’

‘That’s correct,’ I said, and tried to keep from sounding brusque. In truth, I had known a moment of anger as he started his long list of directives. Now I took a deep breath. ‘Chade. As you have said, the boy is looking to me for a man’s advice. I am not a courtier, nor an advisor. If I endeavoured to steer Dutiful merely to suit the goals of the Six Duchies …’ I let my words drain away before I told him that such a course would be false to all of us. I cleared my throat. ‘I wish always to be honest with Dutiful. If he asks for advice, I will tell him what I truly think. But I don’t think you need to fear that much. Kettricken has shaped her son. I think he will be true to that training. As for me, well, I suspect the boy does not want to have someone talk to him so much as he wants someone to listen to him. Today I will listen. And regarding my encounter with the Piebalds this morning, I see little need for Dutiful to know about that right now. I may warn him that they are not to be entirely dismissed from his thoughts. They are definitely a force to be reckoned with. Which brings me to a question of my own. Will the Bresingas be present for the Prince’s betrothal ceremony?’

‘I assume so. They have been invited, and are expected to arrive sometime today.’

I scratched the back of my neck. My headache was not fading, but it seemed to be changing to an ordinary one rather than one of the Skill variety. ‘If you would share such information with me, I would like to know who accompanies them, as well as what horses they rode, the coursing beasts that journeyed with them, hawks, even pets. All in as much detail as can be discovered. Oh, and one other thing. I think we should acquire a ferret or rat-dog for these chambers; something small and light-footed to patrol for rats and other vermin. One of the Wit-beasts I encountered this morning was a rat, or perhaps a weasel or squirrel. Such a creature could be a versatile spy in the castle.’

Chade looked dismayed. ‘I’ll request a ferret, I think. They are more quiet than a rat-dog, and could accompany you through the corridors.’ He cocked his head. ‘Are you thinking of taking it as a bond-beast?’

I winced at the question. ‘Chade. It doesn’t work that way.’ I tried to remind myself that he had asked the question out of ignorance, not callously. ‘I feel like a newly-widowed man, Chade. I’ve no wish to bond with any creature just now.’

‘I’m sorry, Fitz. It’s a difficult thing for me to understand. The words may sound odd, but I meant no disrespect to his memory.’

I changed the subject. ‘Well. I’d best tidy myself if I’m to ride with the Prince this afternoon. And we should both ponder what to do about this servant of yours.’

‘I think I shall arrange a meeting for all three of us. But not today, nor tonight. Nor even tomorrow, perhaps. The betrothal is what must be managed right now. Nothing must go wrong with that. Do you think that the situation with Thick can wait?’

I shrugged. ‘It will have to, I suppose. Good luck with the rest of it.’ I rose to go, picking up the basin and wet cloth to tidy up in passage.

‘Fitz.’ His voice made me pause. ‘You know, I have not said so directly, but you should treat these chambers as your own now. I know that a man in your position needs a private spot sometimes. If you wish things changed … the bed’s position, the hangings, or if you wish food left out for you here, or a supply of brandy. Whatever … let me know.’

The offer put a chill down my back. I never wanted this assassin’s workroom to belong to me. ‘No. Thank you, but no. Let’s just leave all as it is for now. Though I may keep some of my things up here. Verity’s sword, private things.’

There was some secret regret in his eyes as he nodded. ‘If that’s all you wish, that’s fine. For now,’ he conceded. He looked at me critically, but his voice was very gentle as he added, ‘I know you still grieve. But you should let me even your hair out for you, or let someone else do it. It draws attention to you, as it is now.’

‘I’ll see to it myself. Today. Oh. And there is something else.’ Strange, how that first urgent concern had almost been driven from my mind by other fears. I took a breath. It seemed even more difficult to confess my carelessness to him now. ‘I’ve been foolish, Chade. When I left my cottage, I did so expecting to return to it soon. I left things there … dangerous things, perhaps. Scrolls where I have written down my own thoughts, as well as a history of our waking of the dragons that is, perhaps, too accurate to bear sharing. I need to go back there, soon, to either put those scrolls into a safer place or to destroy them.’

His face had grown graver as I spoke. Now he blew out a long breath. ‘Some things are better left unwritten,’ he observed quietly. Mild as the rebuke was, it still stung. He stared at the wall but seemed to see into a distance. ‘But I confess, I think it is valuable to have the truth recorded somewhere. Think what it would have saved Verity in his quest for the Elderlings if even one accurate scroll had been preserved. So gather your writings, boy, and bring them to safety here. I advise you to wait a day or so before you depart. The Piebalds may be expecting you to bolt. If you went now, likely you’d have some following you. Let me arrange a time and a way for you to go. Do you want me to send some trustworthy men with you? They’d not know who you were or what you went to retrieve, only that they were to aid you.’

I considered it, then shook my head. ‘No. I’ve left too many edges of my secrets showing as it is. I’ll take care of this myself, Chade. But there is one other concern I have. I think the guards on the gates of Buckkeep are entirely too relaxed. With Piebalds about and the Prince’s betrothal and Outislanders visiting, I think they ought to be more vigilant.’

‘I suppose I should see to that as well. Odd. I had thought that persuading you to come here would have eased some of my work onto you and left me more time to be an old man. Instead, you seem intent on giving me ever more to think about and to do. No, do not look at me like that … I suppose it is for the best. Work, the old people say, keeps a man young. But perhaps that is something old folk say just because they know they must go on working. Be off with you, Fitz. And try not to discover any more crises for me before the day is out.’

And so I left him sitting in his chair by his cold fireside, looking both thoughtful yet somehow pleased with himself.

THREE

Echoes

On the night that the dastardly Witted bastard murdered King Shrewd in his room, King-in-Waiting Verity’s Mountain-born queen chose to flee the safety of Buckkeep Castle. Alone and gravid with child, she fled into the cold and inhospitable night. Some say that King Shrewd’s jester, fearing for his own life, begged her protection and accompanied her, but this may be but castle legend to account for his disappearance that night. With the clandestine aid of those sympathetic to her cause, Queen Kettricken crossed the Six Duchies and returned to her childhood home in the Mountain Kingdom. There, she made efforts of her own to discover what had become of her husband, King-in-Waiting Verity. For if he lived, she reasoned, he was now the rightful King of the Six Duchies and their last hope against the depredations of the Red Ships.

She reached the Mountain Kingdom, but her king was not there. She was told that he had left Jhaampe and pressed on in his quest. Nothing had been heard from him since then. Only some few of his men had returned, their wits scattered and some injured as from battle. Her heart knew despair. For a time, she sheltered amongst her native people. One of the tragedies of her arduous journey was the stillbirth of the heir to the Six Duchies throne. It is said that this blow hardened her heart to the necessity of finding her king, for if she did not, his line would die with him and the throne pass to Regal the Pretender. Possessed of a copy of the same map that King Verity had hoped would take him to the land of the Elderlings, Queen Kettricken set out to follow him. Accompanied by the faithful minstrel Starling Birdsong and several servants, the Queen led her band ever deeper into the Mountain fastness. Trolls, pecksies and the mysterious magic of those forbidding lands were but a few of the obstacles she faced. Nevertheless, eventually she won through to the land of the Elderlings.

It was an arduous search, but eventually she came to the hidden castle of the Elderlings, a vast hall built all of black and silver stone. There she found that her king had persuaded the Dragon-King of the Elderlings to come to the aid of the Six Duchies. This same Dragon-King, recalling the ancient Elderling oath of alliance with the Six Duchies, bent his knee to Queen Kettricken and King Verity. On his back he carried home not only King Verity and Queen Kettricken but the loyal minstrel Starling Birdsong. King Verity saw his queen and her minstrel safely delivered to Buckkeep. Before his loyal subjects could greet him, before his people even knew he had returned, he left them again. Sword blazing in the sun, he bestrode the Elderling Dragon-King as together they rose into the sky to do battle against the Red Ships.

For the rest of that long and triumphantly bloody season, King Verity led his Elderling allies against the Red Ships. Whenever his folk saw the jewel-bright wings of the dragons in the sky, they knew their king was with them. As the King’s forces struck the Red Ship strongholds and fleet, his loyal dukes rallied to his example. The few Red Ships that were not destroyed fled our shores to carry word of the Farseer wrath back to the Outislands. When our shores were cleared of marauding invaders and peace restored to the Six Duchies, King Verity kept his pledge to the Elderlings. The price of their aid was that he would reside with them in their distant land, never to return to the Six Duchies. Some say that our king took a deadly injury in the last days of the Red Ship War, and that it was but his body the Elderlings bore away. It is said by those ones that the body of King Verity lies in a vault of ebony and gleaming gold in a vast cave in their mountain keep. There the Elderlings honour forever the valiant man who sacrificed all to seek aid for his people. But others say that King Verity lives still, well-feasted and highly acclaimed in the Elderling kingdom, and that if ever again the Six Duchies is in need, he will return with his heroic allies to aid his people.

‘The Brief Reign of Verity Farseer’, Nolus the Scribe

I returned to the stuffy darkness of my little cell. Once I had closed the access to the secret passage, I opened the door to the Fool’s chambers in the hopes of gaining at least some natural light. It didn’t help much, but there was little I needed to do. I tidied my bedding and looked around my austere room. Safely anonymous. Anyone might live here. Or no one, I thought sarcastically. I buckled on my ugly sword, and made sure of the knife at my belt before I left the room.

The Fool had left a generous share of the food for me. Cold, it was not especially appetizing, but my hunger made up for it. I finished his breakfast and then, recalling his instructions to Tom Badgerlock, took the dishes down to the kitchen. On my return trip, I hauled wood for the hearth and water for the pitchers. I dumped and wiped the washing basins and did the other small and necessary chores of the room. I opened the window shutters wide to air the chamber. The view from his window showed me that we would have a fine if chill day. I closed them again before I left.

I had the hours until our afternoon ride to myself, I decided. I thought of going down to Buckkeep Town but swiftly decided against it. I needed to put my thoughts about Jinna in order before I saw her again and I wished to ponder her worries about young Hap. Nor would I risk that Piebalds might be spying on me. The less interest I took in Jinna or my son, the safer they were.

So I took myself down to the practice courts. Weaponsmaster Cresswell greeted me by name and asked if Delleree had been sufficient challenge to my skills. Even as I groaned appreciatively, I was somewhat surprised to be so well recalled. It was both welcoming and disconcerting. I had to remind myself that perhaps the best way to ensure I was never recognized as the FitzChivalry that had lived in Buckkeep Castle sixteen years ago was to make solid my recognition as Badgerlock. So I deliberately paused to talk with the man, and humbly admitted that Delleree had indeed been more than a match for me. I asked him to recommend a partner for this day’s challenge, and he yelled across the courts to a man who moved with the centred ease of a veteran fighter.

Wim’s beard was shot with streaks of grey and his waist thickened with his years. I guessed his age at forty-five, a good ten years older than my true age, yet he proved a good match for me. Both his wind and endurance were better than mine, but I knew a few tricks with a blade that made up for some of that. Even so, he was kind enough, after he had beaten me three times, to assure me that my proficiency and stamina would return with repeated practice. It was small solace. A man likes to think that he has kept his body in good trim, and in truth mine was hardened to the tasks of a small farm as well as to the skills of a frequent hunter. But the muscles and wind of a fighter are a different matter, and I would have to rebuild mine. I hoped I would not need those abilities, but sourly resigned myself to daily practice. Despite the chill day, my shirt was stuck to my back with sweat when I left the courts.

I knew they were the territory of the guards and stablehands, yet I made my way to the steams behind the barracks anyway. I reasoned that at this time of day, they would be little occupied, and that using them would be more in keeping with Tom Badgerlock’s character than hauling water for a midday bath. The castle steams were in an old building of rough stone, built low and long. I shed my sweaty clothes in the outer chamber that fronted the steam and washing rooms, folding them onto a bench. I lifted Jinna’s goodwill charm necklace from around my neck and tucked it under my shirt. Naked, I went through the heavy wooden door that led to the steams. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. The room was lined with tiered benches surrounding the squat stone firebox. The only light came from the deep red glow of the fire leaking from its stone dungeon. It had been well stoked. As I had suspected, the steams were mostly deserted, but there were three Outislanders there, guards from the Narcheska’s contingent. They kept to themselves at one end of the clouded room, conversing low in their own hard-edged language. They gave me a single glance, then dismissed me. I was more than willing to yield them their privacy.

I took water from the cask in the corner and splashed it liberally onto the hot stones. A fresh curtain of mist went up, and I breathed it deeply. I stood as close to the steaming stones as I could stand until I felt my sweat break and run freely over my skin. It stung in the healing scratches on my neck and back. There was a box of coarse salt and some sea sponges, just as there had been when I was a boy. I scrubbed my body with the salt, wincing at the necessary pain, and then dashed it clean with the sponges. I had nearly finished when the door opened and a dozen guardsmen crowded in. The veterans in the group looked weary, while the younger men-at-arms were shouting and elbowing one another in good-natured horseplay, energized by returning home from the long patrol they had just finished. Two young men proceeded to stuff more wood into the firebox while another slopped more water on the stones. Steam rose in a wall, and the roar of competing conversations suddenly filled the room.

Two old men followed them into the room, moving more slowly, obviously not a part of the first group. Their scarred and gnarled bodies were testimony to their long years of service. They were deep in talk, some complaint about the beer in the guardroom. They greeted me and I grunted a reply before turning aside. I kept my head down and my face turned away from them. One of the older men had known me when I was just a lad. Blade was his name, and the old guardsman had been a true friend to me. I listened to his familiar oaths as he roundly cursed his stiff back. I would have given much to greet him honestly and share talk with him. Instead I smiled to myself to hear his abuse of the beer and wished him well with all my heart.

I watched surreptitiously to see how our Buckkeep guards would mingle with the Outislanders. Oddly, it was the young men who avoided them and gave them suspicious glances. The guards old enough to have fought in the Red Ship War seemed more at ease. Perhaps when one is a man-at-arms for long enough, war becomes a job and it is easier to recognize another man as a fellow warrior rather than a former enemy. Whatever the reason, it seemed to me that the Outislanders were more reluctant to socialize than the Buck guards. But perhaps that was only the natural caution of soldiers disarmed and surrounded by a group of strangers. Staying to watch for longer would have been interesting, but also dangerous. Blade had always had a sharp eye. I would not invite his recognition by lingering in his company.

But as I rose to go, a young guardsman shouldered into me. It was not an accident, or even a well-feigned one. It was but his excuse to loudly exclaim, ‘Watch yourself, man! Who are you, anyway? Which guard company?’ He was a sandy-haired fellow, perhaps of Farrow stock, well-muscled and belligerent with youth. He looked about sixteen to me, a boy aching to prove himself before his more experienced fellows.

I gave him a glare of tolerant disgust, veteran to green soldier. To be too passive would only invite attack. I simply wanted to leave as swiftly as possible, attracting no more attention than necessary. ‘Watch your own step, lad,’ I warned him genially. I moved past him, only to have him shove me from behind. I turned to confront him, loose but not yet aggressive. He had his fists up ready to defend himself. I shook my head tolerantly at that, and several of his companions snickered. ‘Let it be, lad,’ I warned him.

‘I asked you a question,’ he snarled.

‘So you did,’ I agreed benignly. ‘If you’d cared to favour me with your name before you demanded mine, I might have answered. That used to be the custom at Buckkeep.’

He narrowed his eyes at me. ‘Charl of Bright’s Guard. I’ve no need to be ashamed of my name or company.’

‘Nor I,’ I assured him. ‘Tom Badgerlock, man to Lord Golden. Who expects me shortly. Good day.’

‘Lord Golden’s serving-man. I might have known.’ He gave a snort of disgust and turned to his fellows to confirm his superiority. ‘You don’t belong in here. This place is for the guardsmen. Not pages and lackeys and “special servants”.’

‘Is it?’ I let a smile crook the corner of my mouth as I ran my gaze over him insultingly. ‘No pages or lackeys. That surprises me.’ All eyes on us now. Hopeless to avoid notice. I’d have to establish myself as Tom Badgerlock. He reddened to my insult, and then swung.

I leaned aside to let his blow go past, then took a step forward. He was ready for my fists, but instead I kicked his feet out from under him. It was a move more befitting a brawler than a noble’s guardsman, and it obviously shocked him. I kicked him again as he went down, driving the air out of him. He fell gasping, to sprawl perilously near the firebox, and I stepped forward to place my foot on his bare chest, pinning him close by the firebox. I snarled down at him. ‘Let it go, lad. Before it gets ugly.’

Two of his companions stepped forward, but ‘Hold!’ shouted Blade, and they halted. The old guardsman stepped forward, one hand pressed to the small of his back. ‘Enough! I won’t have it in here.’ He glared at the man that was likely the guards’ commander. ‘Rufous, get that pup of yours under control. I came here to ease my back, not to be annoyed by an ill-trained braggart. Get that boy out of here. You, Badgerlock, take your foot off him.’

Despite his years, or perhaps because of them, old Blade still commanded universal respect from the guardsmen. As I stepped back, the boy came to his feet. He had both murder and chagrin in his eyes, but his commander barked, ‘Out, Charl. We’ve all had enough of you today. And Fletch and Lowk, you can both go with him, for being fools enough to step forward for a fool.’

So the three of them went hulking past me, sauntering as if they didn’t care. There was a surge of muttering among the guardsmen, but most of it seemed to be agreement that the young man was more churl than Charl. I sat back down, deciding that I’d give them the time to get dressed and be clear of the steams before I left. To my dismay, Blade walked stiffly over and sat down beside me. He offered me his hand, and when I gripped it, it was still the callused hand of a swordsman. ‘Blade Havershawk,’ he introduced himself gravely. ‘And I know the scars of a man-at-arms when I see one, even if that pup didn’t. You’re welcome to use the steams; ignore the boy’s wrangling. He’s new to his company and still trying to overcome the fact that Rufous took him on as a favour to his mother.’

‘Tom Badgerlock,’ I replied. ‘And many thanks to you. I could see he was trying to curry favour with his fellows by it, but I’ve no idea why he chose me. I’d no wish to fight the boy.’

‘That much was plain, as plain as that it was lucky for him you did not. As for why, well, he’s young and listens too much to gossip. It’s no basis for judging a man. Do you hail from about here, Badgerlock?’

I gave a short laugh. ‘Buck in general is where I hail from, I suppose.’

He gestured at the scratches on my throat and asked, ‘And how did you come by those marks?’

‘A she-cat,’ I heard myself say, and he took it for a bawdy jest and laughed. And so for a time, we chatted, the old guardsman and myself. I looked into his seamed face, nodded and smiled at his old man’s gossip, and saw no spark of recognition at all. I should have felt reassured, I suppose, that even an old friend like Blade did not recognize FitzChivalry Farseer. Instead, it unleashed a welling of gloom in me. Had I been that forgettable, that unremarkable to him? I found it hard to keep my mind on his words, and when I finally excused myself from his company, it was almost a relief to leave him, before I could give in to the irrational impulse to betray myself, to drop a word or a phrase that would hint to him that he had once known me before. It was a boy’s impulse, a hunger to be recognized as significant, close kin to the impulse that had made young Charl attempt to spark a fight with me.

I left the steam room and walked through to the washing chamber, where I sluiced the last of the salt from my skin and towelled myself dry. Then I went back into the first room, dressed, and headed out, feeling clean but not renewed. A glance at the sun told me it was nearly time for Lord Golden’s afternoon ride. I headed for the stables, but as I started to go in, I met a stablehand leading Myblack, Malta and an unfamiliar grey gelding. All the mounts were groomed to gleaming and already saddled. I explained to him I was Lord Golden’s man, but he regarded me with suspicion until a woman’s voice greeted me, with, ‘Ho, Badgerlock? Do you ride with Lord Golden and our prince today?’

‘Such is my good fortune, Mistress Laurel,’ I greeted the Queen’s Huntswoman. She was dressed in forest green, in the tunic and leggings of a hunter, but her figure gave them an entirely different air. Her hair was bundled out of the way in a most unfeminine way that somehow only made her more womanly. The stableman abruptly offered me a short bow and let me take the horses from him. When he was out of earshot, Laurel smiled at me and asked quietly, ‘And how is our prince?’

‘In good health, I am sure, Mistress Laurel.’ I apologized with my eyes, and she did not seem to take my careful words amiss. Her glance flickered over the goodwill charm at my throat. Jinna had used her hedge-witch magic to make it for me. It was supposed to make folk regard me kindly. Laurel’s smile grew warmer. I casually turned up my collar to conceal more of the charm.

She glanced aside from me and then spoke with more formality, huntswoman to serving-man. ‘Well. I hope you enjoy your ride today. Please pass on my greetings to Lord Golden.’

‘That I shall, mistress. A good day to you as well.’ As she walked away, I grumbled to myself over the role that I must wear as a shirt to my back. I would have liked more talk with her, but in the middle of the stableyard was not the place for private conversation.

I led the horses around to the great front door of the hall and waited there.

And waited there.

The Prince’s gelding seemed accustomed to such delays, but Malta was plainly put out, and Myblack tested my patience with tactics from a quick tug on her reins to a steady even pull. I’d need to put in more hours with her if I expected to make a good mount of her. I wondered where I would find those hours, cursed the time that was being wasted now, and then dismissed the thought. A servant’s time belonged to his master; I had to behave as if I believed that. I was beginning to feel chilled as well as annoyed before a commotion alerted me to stand straight and put an obliging expression on my face.

A moment later, both the Prince and Lord Golden emerged, surrounded by well-wishers and hangers-on. I did not see Dutiful’s intended or any Outislanders among this party. I wondered if that was odd. There were several young women, including one pouting with disappointment. Doubtless she had hoped the Prince would invite her along for the ride. Several of his male companions also looked a bit disgruntled. Dutiful wore a pleasant expression, but the pinch at the corners of his mouth and eyes let me know that he held it in place with an effort. Civil Bresinga was there, on the outskirts of the circle of admirers. Chade had said he was expected to arrive today. He gave me one dark glance, and I perceived that he manoeuvred to stand closer to the Prince, but on the side away from Lord Golden. His presence sent a prickle of both irritation and fear up my spine. Would he leave this farewell and hasten to let others know that I had ridden out with the Prince? Did he spy for the Piebalds, or was he as innocent as had been claimed?

It was obvious to me that the Prince wished to make a swift departure, but even so we lingered some time longer, as he made individual farewells and promised his later time and attention to many of them. All of this he managed graciously and well. It came to me that it was the thread of Skill between us that made me aware of his impatience and irritation with all the finely-dressed nobility that surrounded him. As if he were a restive horse, I found myself sending thoughts of calm and patience to him. He glanced at me, but I could not be sure he was aware of my reaching towards him.

One of his companions took his horse’s head from me, and held the animal while the Prince mounted. I held Malta for Lord Golden, and then at a nod from him mounted my own horse. There was yet another round of farewells and good wishes, as if we were setting off on a long journey rather than merely an afternoon ride. Finally, the Prince firmly reined his gelding to one side and touched heels to him. Lord Golden followed him and then I let Myblack go. A chorus of goodbyes rained down behind us.

Despite Chade’s advice, I had little chance to suggest any route for our afternoon ride. The Prince led and we followed to the gates of Buckkeep, where again we had to pause to allow the guards formally to salute and then pass their young prince through the gate. The moment we cleared the gate, Dutiful put his heels to his horse. The pace he set precluded any conversation. He soon turned off the road onto a lesser-travelled trail, and then kicked his grey to a canter. We followed, and I felt Myblack’s satisfaction in the chance to stretch her muscles. She was not so pleased that I held her back, for she knew that she could easily outdistance both Malta and the grey if given her head.

The Prince’s route led us out onto the sunny hillsides. Once there had been forest here, and Verity had hunted deer and pheasant. Now sheep grudgingly ambled out of our way as we crossed open pasturage, and then ventured into the wilder hills beyond. And all this time, we rode in silence. When we left the flocks behind, Dutiful gave his grey a free head and we galloped through the hills as if fleeing an enemy. Myblack had lost a little of her edginess by the time the Prince finally pulled in his mount. Lord Golden moved up to ride behind him as the walking horses snorted and blew. I kept my place behind them until the Prince turned in his saddle and irritably waved me up beside him. I let Myblack advance and the Prince greeted me coldly with, ‘Where have you been? You promised me that you would teach me, and I haven’t even seen you since we returned to Buckkeep Castle.’

I bit back my first response, reminding myself that he spoke as a prince speaks to a servant, not as a boy would address his father. Yet that brief moment of silence seemed to rebuke him as much as words would have done. Not that he looked chastened, but I recognized the stubborn flex of his lips. I took a breath. ‘My prince, it has been scarcely two days since we returned. I had assumed that you would be very busy with the tasks of your reign. In the meantime, I resumed the chores of my own life. If it please my prince, I thought that you would summon me when you required me.’

‘Why do you speak to me like this?’ the Prince demanded angrily. ‘My prince this and my prince that! You didn’t address me in this fashion on our way home. What happened to our friendship?’

I saw the Fool’s warning in Lord Golden’s quick glance, but I ignored it. I kept my voice low and even as I answered. ‘If you rebuke me as you would a servant, my prince, then I assume that I am to respond in a style appropriate to my station.’

‘Stop that!’ Dutiful hissed at me, as if I had mocked him. I suppose in truth that I had. The result was awful. For a moment, his face tightened as if he were on the verge of tears. He spurred ahead of us, and we let him go. Lord Golden gave me a minuscule shake of his head, and then nodded that I should catch up with the lad. I debated making the Prince pull in and wait for us, then decided that perhaps he could not bend so far. A boy’s pride can be very stiff.

I let Myblack move alongside the trotting grey as she wished, but before I could speak to Dutiful, he addressed me. ‘I’ve started this all wrong. I’m beleaguered and frustrated. These last two days have been horrible … just horrible. I’ve had to behave with perfect courtesy even when I wanted to shout, and smilingly accept flowery compliments on a situation I wish to flee. Everyone expects me to be happy and excited. I’ve heard enough ribald tales about wedding nights to gag a goat. No one knows or cares about my loss. No one even noticed my cat was gone. I have no one that I can speak to about it.’ He suddenly choked. He pulled his horse abruptly to a halt and turned in his saddle to face me. He took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry. I apologize, Tom Badgerlock.’

The bluntness of his words and the honest offering of his hand were so like Verity that I knew it was truly his spirit that had fathered this boy. I felt humbled. I gripped the offered hand gravely, then pulled him close enough that I could set a hand upon his shoulder. ‘It’s too late to apologize,’ I told him seriously. ‘I’ve already forgiven you.’ I took a breath as I released him. ‘And I have felt as badgered, my lord, and it has shortened my own temper. So many tasks have fallen to me lately that I’ve scarcely had time to see my own boy. I’m sorry I did not seek you out sooner. I am not sure how we can arrange our meetings without making others aware that I teach you, but you are right. It must be done, and putting it off will not make it easier.’

The Prince’s face had gone very still at my words. I sensed a sudden distancing in him but could not perceive the cause until he asked quietly, ‘Your “own boy”?’

His inflection puzzled me. ‘My foster son. Hap. He is apprenticed to a woodworker in Buckkeep Town.’

‘Oh.’ The single word seemed to fade into silence. Then, ‘I did not know you had a son.’

The jealousy was courteously masked but it rang green against my sense of him. I did not know how to react to it. I gave him the truth. ‘I’ve had him since he was eight or so. His mother abandoned him and he had no other folk willing to take him in. He’s a good lad.’

‘But he is not truly your son,’ the Prince pointed out.

I took a breath and replied firmly, ‘In every way that matters, he is a son to me.’

Lord Golden sat his horse at the outskirts of our circle but I dared not glance to him for advice. After a time of silence, the Prince tightened his knees and his horse moved forward at a walk. I let Myblack pace him, the Fool dawdling along behind us. Just when I thought I must break the silence before it became a wall between us, Dutiful blurted out, ‘Then what need have you of me, if you already have a son of your own?’

The hunger in his voice shocked me. I think he startled himself, for he suddenly kicked his horse into a trot and rode ahead of me again. I made no effort to catch up with him until the Fool at my side whispered, ‘Go after him. Don’t let him close himself off from you. You should know by now how easy it is to lose a person just by letting someone walk away from you.’ Even so, I think it was more the prompting of my own heart that made me set my heels to Myblack and catch up with the boy. For boy he very much looked now, chin held firm, eyes straight ahead as he trotted along. He did not look at me as I came alongside him, but I knew he listened when I spoke.

‘What need do I have of you? What need do you have of me? Friendship is not always based on need, Dutiful. But I will tell you plainly that I need you in my life. Because of who your father was to me, and because you are your mother’s son. But mostly because you are you, and we have too much in common for me to walk away from you. I would not see you grow up as ignorant of your magics as I did. If I can save you that torment, then perhaps in some way I will have saved myself as well.’

I suddenly ran dry of words. Perhaps, like Prince Dutiful, I was surprised by my own thoughts. Truth can well out of a man like blood from a wound, and it can be just as disconcerting to look at.

‘Tell me about my father.’

Perhaps for him the request logically followed what I had said, but it jolted me. I walked a line here. I felt I owed him whatever I could give him of Verity. Yet how could I tell him stories of his father without revealing my own identity? I had firmly resolved that he would know nothing of my true bloodlines. Now was not the time to reveal to him that I was FitzChivalry Farseer, the Witted Bastard, nor that my body had fathered his. To explain that Verity’s spirit, by strength of his Skill-magic, had occupied my flesh for those hours was far too complicated an explanation for the boy. In truth, I could barely accept it myself.

So, much as Chade once had with me, I hedged, asking him, ‘What would you know of him?’

‘Anything. Everything.’ He cleared his throat. ‘No one has spoken to me much of him. Chade sometimes tells me stories of what he was like as a boy. I’ve read the official accounts of his reign, which become amazingly vague after he leaves on his quest. I’ve heard minstrels sing of him, but in those songs he is a legend, and none of them seem to agree on exactly how he saved the Six Duchies. When I ask about that, or what it was like to know him, everyone falls silent. As if they do not know. Or as if there were a shameful secret that everyone knows but me.’

‘There is no shameful secret of any kind attached to your father. He was a good and honourable man. I cannot believe that you know so little of him. Not even your mother has told you of him?’ I asked incredulously.

He took a breath and slowed his horse to a walk. Myblack tugged at her bit but I held her pace to match the Prince’s mount. ‘My mother speaks of her king. Occasionally, of her husband. When she does talk of him, I know that she still grieves for him. It makes me reluctant to pester her with questions. But I want to know about my father. Who he was as a person. As a man among men.’

‘Ah.’ Again, it rang in me, the similarities we shared. I had hungered for the same truths about my own father. All I had ever heard of was Chivalry the Abdicator, the King-in-Waiting who had been tumbled from his throne before he ever truly occupied it. He had been a brilliant tactician, a skilled negotiator. He had given it up to quiet the scandal of my existence. Not only had the noble prince sired a bastard, he had got me on a nameless Mountain woman. It only made his childless marriage the more stinging to an heirless kingdom. That was what I knew of my father. Not what foods he liked, or whether he laughed easily. I knew none of the things a son would know if he had grown up seeing his father daily.

‘Tom?’ Dutiful prodded me.

‘I was thinking,’ I replied honestly. I tried to think what I would like to know about my own father. Even as I pondered this, I scanned the hillside around us. We were following a game-path through a brushy meadow. I examined the trees that marked the beginning of the foothills, but saw and felt no sign of humans there. ‘Verity. Well. He was a big man, near as tall as I am, but bull-chested with wide shoulders. In battle harness, he looked as much soldier as prince, and sometimes I think he would have preferred that more active life. Not that he loved battle, but because he was a man who liked to be outdoors, moving and doing things. He loved to hunt. He had a wolfhound named Leon that shadowed him from room to room, and …’

‘Was he Witted, then?’ the Prince asked eagerly.

‘No!’ The question shocked me. ‘He simply had a great fondness for his dog. And …’

‘Then why am I Witted? They say it runs in families.’

I gave a half-hearted shrug. To me, it seemed the lad’s mind leapt from topic to topic as a flea hops from dog to dog. I tried to follow it. ‘I suppose the Wit is like the Skill. That is supposed to be the Farseer magic, yet a child born in a fisherman’s cot may suddenly show the potential for it. No one knows why a child is born with or without magic.’

‘Civil Bresinga says the Wit winds through the Farseer line. He says that perhaps the Piebald Prince got his Wit as much from his royal mother as his baseborn father. He says that sometimes it runs weak in two family lines, but when they cross, the magic shows itself. Like one kitten with a crooked tail when the rest of the litter is sound.’

‘When did Civil say these things to you?’ I demanded sharply.

The Prince gave me an odd look but answered. ‘Early this morning, when he arrived from Galekeep.’

‘In public?’ I was horrified. I noticed that Lord Golden had edged his horse closer to us.

‘No, of course not! It was very early this morning, before I had breakfasted. He came to the door of my bedchamber himself, urgently begging audience with me.’

‘And you just let him in?’

Dutiful stared at me in silence for a moment. Then he said stiffly, ‘He has been a friend to me. He gave me my cat, Tom. You know what she meant to me.’

‘I know how that gift was intended, as do you! Civil Bresinga may be a dangerous traitor, my prince, one who has already conspired with the Piebalds to snatch you away from your throne and eventually from your own flesh. You must learn more caution!’

The Prince had gone pink about the ears at my rebuke. Yet he still managed to keep his voice level. ‘He says he is not. And that they didn’t. Conspire, that is. Do you think he would have come to me to explain if he had? He and his mother did not know about … the cat. They were not even aware I was Witted when they gave her to me. Oh, my little cat.’ His voice suddenly faltered on his last words, and I knew how all his thoughts had diverted to the loss of his Wit-partner.

The chill grief of his loss blew through his words. It stirred my own loss of Nighteyes to a sharper ache. I felt as if I were probing a wound as I asked relentlessly, ‘Then why did they do it? It must have seemed a strange request. Someone comes to them and gives them a hunting cat and says, “Here, give this to the Prince”. And they’ve never said who gave it.’

The Prince took a breath, then stopped. ‘Civil spoke to me in confidence. I don’t know if I should break that trust.’

‘Did you promise not to tell?’ I demanded, dreading the answer. I needed to know what Civil had told him, but I would not ask him to break his promise.

An incredulous look came over Dutiful’s face. ‘Tom Badgerlock. A noble does not ask his prince to “promise not to tell”. It would not be appropriate to our station.’

‘And this conversation is,’ the Fool observed wryly. His comment made the Prince laugh, easily dispersing a building tension between us that I had not been aware of until the Fool disarmed it. Strange, suddenly to recognize his gift for doing that, after all the years I had known him.

‘I see your point,’ the Prince conceded easily, and now the conversation included all of us as we rode three abreast. For a short time, the steady clopping of the horses’ hooves and the whispering of the cool wind were the only sounds. Dutiful took a breath. ‘He did not ask me to promise. But … Civil humbled himself to me. He knelt at my feet to offer his apology. And I think any man who does that has a right to expect it will be kept from the public gossip.’

‘It would not become public gossip through me, my prince. Nor through the Fool. I promise. Please tell me what passed between you.’

‘The fool?’ Dutiful turned a delighted grin on Lord Golden.

Lord Golden snorted contemptuously. ‘An old joke between old friends. One that is becoming far too worn to be humorous any more, Tom Badgerlock,’ he added warningly to me. I ducked my head to his rebuke, but smirked also, hoping the Prince would accept the hasty explanation. Inside my chest, my heart sank down to the pit of my belly as I castigated myself for my carelessness. Did some part of me long to reveal myself to the Prince? I felt an old familiar twist in my gut. Guilt. Secrets withheld from ones who trusted me. Had not I once promised myself never to do that again? But what choice did I have? I guarded my own secret even as Lord Golden worked at prying the Prince’s secret loose from him.

‘But if you would tell us, I promise that my tongue will wag it no further. Like Tom, I am dubious of Civil Bresinga’s loyalty to you, as friend or subject. I fear you may be in danger, my prince.’

‘Civil is my friend,’ the Prince announced in a voice that brooked no argument. His boyish confidence in his own judgement cut me. ‘I know that in my heart. However,’ and here a strange look flickered over Dutiful’s face, ‘he warned me to be wary of you, Lord Golden. He seems to regard you with … extreme distaste.’

‘A small misunderstanding between us when I guested at his home,’ Lord Golden demurred casually. ‘I am sure we will soon resolve it.’

I rather doubted that myself but the Prince seemed to accept it. He pondered for a time, turning his horse to the west and skirting the edges of the forest. I manoeuvred Myblack to put myself between Dutiful and possible ambushers hiding amongst the trees. I tried to keep one eye on the woods and one on the Prince. When I spotted a crow in a nearby treetop, I wondered sourly if it were a Piebald spy. Little I could do if it were, I told myself. Neither of the others seemed to take notice of the bird. The Prince’s words broke from him just as the bird rose cawing from the trees and flew away.

Dutiful’s words came reluctantly. ‘The Bresingas were threatened. By the Piebalds. Civil would not say how, only that it was very oblique. The cat was delivered to his mother with a note, directing her to give the cat to me as a gift. If she did not, well, reprisal was threatened, but Civil didn’t tell me exactly what.’

‘I can guess,’ I said bluntly. The crow had disappeared from sight. It did not make me feel any more secure. ‘If they didn’t give the cat to you, one of them would be betrayed as Witted. Probably Civil.’

‘I think that is likely,’ Dutiful conceded.

‘That doesn’t excuse it. She had a duty to her prince.’ Privately I resolved to find a way to spy on Bresinga’s room. A quiet visit to it and a search through his possessions might also be a good idea. I wondered if he had brought his cat with him.

Dutiful gave me a very direct look and he seemed to speak with Verity’s bluntness as he asked me, ‘Could you put your duty to your monarch ahead of protecting a member of your own family? That is what I asked myself. If my mother were threatened, what could I be forced to do? Would I betray the Six Duchies for the sake of her life?’

Lord Golden shot me a Fool’s glance, one that was well pleased with this boy. I nodded to it, but felt distracted. Dutiful’s words itched at me. I suddenly felt as if there were something important I needed to remember but could not trace the thought any further. I could not think of an answer to Dutiful’s question either, so the silence lengthened. At last I said, ‘Be careful, my prince. I caution you against taking Civil Bresinga into your confidence, or making his friends your own.’

‘There is little to fear there, Badgerlock. I’ve no time for friends right now; all is duty. It was hard for me to wrench this hour out of my schedule and say that I would go riding with only the two of you. I have been warned that it will look odd to the Dukes, whose support I must court. Far better had I ridden out with some of their sons accompanying me. But I needed this time with you. I’ve something important to ask you, Badgerlock.’ He paused, then asked bluntly, ‘Will you come to my betrothal ceremony tonight? If I must endure this, I’d like to have a true friend nearby.’

I immediately knew the answer, but I tried to look as if I were pondering it. ‘I cannot, my prince. It would not be fitting to one of my station. It would look even odder than this riding out together.’

‘Could not you be there as Lord Golden’s bodyguard?’

Here Lord Golden himself intervened for me. ‘That would appear as if I did not trust my prince’s hospitality to protect me.’

The Prince pulled in his horse, a stubborn look coming over his face. ‘I want you to be there. Find a way.’

This direct command set my teeth on edge. ‘I’ll consider it,’ I replied stiffly. I was still not completely confident of my anonymity at Buckkeep. I wanted to settle more firmly into my role as Tom Badgerlock before I had any more chance confrontations with folk who might recall me from the past. There would be many of them at the betrothal ceremony tonight. ‘But I wish to point out to my prince that even if I am present, conversing with you will be out of the question. Nor should you take any sort of an interest in me that might call undue attention to our connection.’

‘I’m not a fool!’ he retorted, very close to anger at my indirect refusal. ‘I simply would like to have you there. To know I had one friend in the crowd of those watching me being sacrificed.’

‘I think you are being overly dramatic,’ I said quietly. I tried not to let it sound like an insult. ‘Recall that your mother will be there. And Chade. And Lord Golden. All people with your best interests at heart.’

He reddened a bit as he glanced at Lord Golden. ‘I do not discount your value as a friend, Lord Golden. Forgive me if my words were ill considered. As for my mother and Lord Chade, they are, like me, obliged to duty before love. They want what is best for me, that is true, but the largest facet of that is always what is best for my reign. They see the well-being of the Six Duchies as intrinsic to my own well-being.’ He looked suddenly weary. ‘And when I disagree, they say that when I have been King for a time, I will understand that what they obliged me to do was actually in my own best interests as well. That ruling a country that is prosperous and at peace will bring me far more satisfaction over the years than the choosing of my own bride.’

We rode for a time in silence. When Lord Golden broke the quiet, his voice was reluctant. ‘My prince, I fear the sun does not wait for us. It is time to turn back towards Buckkeep Castle.’

‘I know,’ Dutiful replied dully. ‘I know.’

I knew they were the wrong words to offer as comfort even as I said them, but the customs of society dictate strongly to all of us. I tried to make him content with what he must face. ‘Elliania does not seem such a terrible choice for a bride. Young as she is, she is still lovely, with the potential for true beauty as she matures. Chade speaks of her as a queen in the bud and seems well pleased with the match the Outislanders have offered us.’

‘Oh, she is that,’ Dutiful agreed as he turned his grey. Myblack snorted as the other horse cut her path and seemed reluctant to turn and follow him. The hills and a longer gallop enticed her. ‘She is a queen before she is a child or a woman. She has not said one incorrect word to me. Nor one word that might betray what goes on behind those bright black eyes. She offered me her gift quite correctly, a chain of silver fitted with the yellow diamonds of her land. I must wear it tonight. To her I gave the gift my mother and Chade had selected, a coronet of silver set with one hundred sapphires. The stones are small, but my mother favoured their intricate patterning over larger gems. The Narcheska curtseyed as she took it and told me in measured words how lovely she found it. Yet I could not help but notice how general her thanks were. She spoke of “my generous gift”, never once saying a word of the designs or that she liked sapphires. It was as if she had memorized a speech that would suffice for any gift we gave her, and then recited it faultlessly.’

I was almost certain that was exactly what she had done. Yet I did not feel it was right to fault her for that. She was, after all, only eleven years old, with as little say in these proceedings as our prince had. I said as much to the Prince.

‘I know, I know,’ he conceded tiredly. ‘Yet I tried to meet her eyes, and to let her see something of who I am. When first she stood beside me, Badgerlock, my heart truly went out to her. She seemed so young and small, and such a foreigner in our court. I felt for her as I would for any child snatched away from her home and forced to serve a purpose not her own. I had chosen a gift to give her that was from me, not the Six Duchies. It was in her room, awaiting her, when she first arrived. She has made no mention of it, not even a word.’

‘What was it?’ I asked.

‘Something I would have liked, when I was eleven,’ the young man replied. ‘A set of puppets carved by Bluntner. They were dressed as if to tell the tale of the Girl and the Snow Steed. I was told it is a well-known tale in the Outislands as well as the Six Duchies.’

Lord Golden’s voice was neutral as he observed, ‘Bluntner is a skilful carver. Is that the tale where the girl is borne far away from a cruel stepfather by her magic steed, and carried off to a rich land where she weds a handsome prince?’

‘Perhaps not the best tale in these circumstances,’ I muttered.

The Prince looked startled. ‘I never considered it in that light. Do you think I insulted her? Should I apologize?’

‘The less said, the better,’ Lord Golden suggested. ‘Perhaps when you know her better you can discuss it with her.’

‘Perhaps when ten years have passed,’ the Prince conceded lightly, but I felt the thrumming of his anxiety across our Skill-bond. For the first time, I understood that one aspect of his dissatisfaction was that he did not feel he was doing well with the Narcheska. His next words echoed that knowledge.

‘She makes me feel like a clumsy barbarian. She is the one from a log village near an ice shelf, but she makes me feel uncultured and awkward. She looks at me and her eyes are like mirrors. I see nothing of her in them, only how stupid and doltish I appear to her. I have been raised well, I am of good blood, but she makes me feel as if I am a grubby peasant that might soil her with my touch. I do not understand it!’

‘There will be many differences you must resolve as you come to know one another. Understanding that each of you comes from a different, but no less valuable culture may be the first one,’ Lord Golden suggested smoothly. ‘Several years ago, I pursued my own interest in the Outislanders and studied them. They are matriarchal, you know, with their mother-clans indicated by the tattoos they wear. As I understand it, she has already done you great honour by coming to you rather than demanding that her suitor present himself at her motherhouse. It must feel awkward for her to face this courtship without the guidance of her mothers, sisters and aunts to sustain her.’

Dutiful nodded thoughtfully to Lord Golden’s words, but my glimpse of the Narcheska made me suspect the Prince had measured her feelings for him accurately. I did not utter that thought. ‘She has obviously studied our Six Duchies’ ways. Have you given any consideration to learning about her land, and who her family is there?’

Dutiful cast me a sidelong glance, a student who had skimmed his lesson but knew he had not studied it well. ‘Chade gave me what scrolls we have, but he warned me that they are old and possibly outdated. The Outislands do not commit their history to writing, but entrust it to the memories of their bards. All we have is written from the view of the Six Duchies folk who have visited there. It betrays a certain intolerance for their differences. Most of the scrolls are traveller’s accounts, expressing distaste for the food, for honey and grease seem to be the prized ingredients for any guest dish, and dismay at the housing, which is cold and draughty. The folk there do not offer hospitality to weary strangers, but seem to despise anyone foolish enough to get themselves into circumstances where they must ask for shelter or food rather than barter for it. The weak and the foolish deserve to die; that seems to be the main credo of the Outislands. Even the god they have chosen is a harsh and unforgiving one. El of the sea they prefer, over the bountiful Eda of the fields.’ The Prince heaved a sigh as he finished.

‘Have you listened to any of their bards?’ Lord Golden asked quietly.

‘I’ve listened, but not understood. Chade urged me to learn the basics of their language, and I have tried. It shares many roots with our own. I can speak it well enough to make myself understood, though the Narcheska has already told me that she would rather speak to me in my own tongue than hear hers so twisted.’ For an instant, he clenched his teeth to that insulting reproof. Then he went on, ‘The bards are more difficult to understand. Evidently the rules of their language change for their poetry, and syllables can be stretched or shortened to make them fit a measure. Bard’s Tongue, they call it, but add their windy music blasting past the words and it is difficult for me to get more than the basics of every tale. All seem to be about chopping down enemies and taking bits of their bodies as trophies. Like Echet Hairbed, who slept under a coverlet woven from the scalps of his enemies. Or Sixfinger, who fed his dogs from skull bowls of those he had defeated.’

‘Nice folks,’ I observed wryly. Lord Golden scowled at me.

‘Our songs must sound as strange to her, especially the romantic tragedies of maidens who die for love of a man they cannot possess and such,’ Lord Golden gently pointed out. ‘These are barriers you must overcome together, my prince. Such misunderstandings yield most easily to casual conversation.’

‘Ah, yes,’ the Prince conceded sourly. ‘Ten years from now, perhaps we’ll have a casual conversation. For now, we are so ringed by her hangers-on and my well-wishers, that we speak to one another through a throng, in raised voices to reach one another. Every word we exchange is overheard and discussed. Not to mention dear Uncle Peottre, standing over her like a dog over a bone. Yesterday afternoon, when I attempted to stroll through the gardens with her, I felt more as if we were leading a horde to war. There were over a dozen people chattering and trampling along behind us. And when I did pluck a late flower to offer to her, her uncle stepped between us to take it from my hand and examine it before he passed it on to her. As if perhaps I were offering him something poisonous.’

I grinned in spite of myself, recalling the noxious herbs that Kettricken herself had once offered to me when she considered me a threat to her brother. ‘Such treachery is not unknown, my prince, even in the best of families. Her uncle is doing no more than his duty. It has not been long since our lands warred against one another. Give time for old wounds to close and heal. It will happen.’

‘But for now, my prince, I fear we must put our heels to our horses. Did not I hear you say that you had an afternoon appointment with your mother? I think we had best put a little haste into our pace.’

‘I suppose,’ the Prince replied listlessly to Lord Golden’s words. Then he turned a commanding stare on me. ‘So then, Tom Badgerlock. When will we next meet? I am most anxious to begin my lessons with you.’

I nodded, wishing I shared his enthusiasm. I felt obliged to add, ‘The Skill is not always a kindly magic to deal with, my prince. You may find these lessons less than pleasant after we begin them.’

‘I expect that to be so. My experiences of it to date have been both unsettling and confusing.’ His gaze became clouded and distant as he said, ‘When you took me … I know it had something to do with a pillar. We went to … somewhere. A beach. But now when I try to recall that passage, or the events that occurred there or immediately afterwards, it is like trying to recall a dream from childhood. The ends of it don’t meet somehow, if you know what I mean. I thought I understood all that had happened to me. Then, when I tried to discuss it with Chade and my mother, it all fell to tatters. I felt like an idiot.’ He lifted one hand to rub his wrinkled brow. ‘I cannot make the pieces go in order to make a complete memory.’ Then he fixed me with a direct stare and said, ‘I cannot live with that, Tom Badgerlock. I have to resolve it. If this magic must be a part of me, then I must control it.’

His words were far more sensible than my reluctance to deal with it. I sighed. ‘Tomorrow, dawn. In Verity’s tower room,’ I offered, expecting him to refuse me.

‘Very well,’ he replied easily. An odd smile curved his mouth. ‘I thought only Chade called the Seawatch tower “Verity’s tower”. Interesting. You might have at least referred to my father as King Verity.’

‘Your pardon, my prince,’ was the best reply I could think of, and he merely snorted at it. Then he fixed me with a truly royal look and added, ‘And you will make every attempt to be at my ceremony tonight, Tom Badgerlock.’

Before I could reply, he set his heels to his grey and rode back to Buckkeep like a man pursued by demons. We had little choice but to follow. He did not slow until we reached the gate, where we paused to be formally recognized and admitted. From there we walked our horses, but Dutiful was silent and I could think of nothing to say. When we arrived at the tall doors of the main hall, courtiers were already gathered to meet him. A groom hurried up to take his horse’s head, and a stableboy took Malta’s reins. I was left to fend for myself, for which I was grateful. Lord Golden thanked the Prince formally for the extreme pleasure of his exclusive company and the Prince courteously replied. We sat our mounts, watching Dutiful as he was engulfed by his nobles and carried off. I swung off Myblack and stood awaiting my master.

‘Well. A pleasant ride,’ Lord Golden observed, and dismounted. As his boot lightly touched the ground, his foot seemed to fly out from under him and he fell badly. I had never seen the Fool so ungraceful. He sat up, lips pinched tight, then with a groan leaned forward to clutch at his booted ankle.

‘Such a wrench!’ he cried, and then, imperiously, ‘No, no, stay back, see to my horse,’ as he waved the stableboy away. Then, quite sharply to me, ‘Well, don’t stand there, you dolt! Give the stableboy your horse and help me up. Or do you propose that I shall hop up to my chambers?’

The Prince had already been borne away on a wave of chattering ladies and lords. I doubted that he was aware of Lord Golden’s mishap. Some of the Prince’s attendants looked our way, but most were intent on Dutiful. So I crouched and as Lord Golden put his arm across my shoulders, I asked quietly, ‘How bad is it?’

‘Bad enough!’ he snapped sharply. ‘I shall not be dancing tonight, and my new dancing slippers were just delivered yesterday. Oh, this is intolerable! Help me to my rooms, man.’ At his irritated scolding, several lesser nobles hastened towards us. His manner changed instantly as he replied to their anxious queries with assurances that he was sure he would be fine, and that nothing could keep him from the betrothal festivities tonight. He leaned most of his weight on me, but one sympathetic young man took his arm, and a lady sent her maid scuttling off to order hot water and soaking herbs immediately taken to Lord Golden’s chambers, and to fetch a healer as well. No less than two young men and three very lovely young ladies trailed us as we made our way into Buckkeep.

By the time we had lurched and hobbled our way up the stairs and corridors to Golden’s chambers, he had sharply rebuked me for clumsiness a dozen times. We found the healer and the hot water awaiting us outside the door. The healer took Lord Golden out of my hands, and I was almost immediately sent off to fetch brandy to steady his shaken nerves and something from the kitchens to settle his stomach. As I left, I cringed in sympathy for his sharp cries of pain as the healer carefully freed his foot from his boot. By the time I returned with a tray of pastries and fruit from the kitchen, the healer had departed and Lord Golden was ensconced in his chair with his well-propped foot stretched out before him while his sympathizers filled the other chairs. I set out the food upon the table and carried brandy to him. Lady Calendula was sympathizing with him over the heartless and incompetent healer. What kind of a bumbler was he, to cause Lord Golden such pain and then declare that he could find very little indication of an injury? Young Lord Oaks told a long, detailed and plaintive story of how the healer at his father’s house had nearly let him die of a stomach ailment under similar circumstances. When he was finally finished with his tale, Lord Golden begged their understanding that he needed to rest after his disaster. I concealed my relief as I bowed them all out the door.

I waited until the door was well closed behind them and the sound of their chattering voices and tapping feet had died away before I approached the Fool. He leaned back in his chair, a rose-scented kerchief draped over his eyes.

‘How bad is it?’ I asked in a low voice.

‘As bad as you wish it to be,’ he replied, not taking the fabric from his face.

‘What?’

He lifted the cloth and smiled up at me beatifically. ‘Such a display, and all for your benefit. You might at least show your gratitude.’

‘What are you talking about?’

He lowered his bound foot to the floor, stood up and strolled casually to the table where he picked through the leftover food there. He didn’t even limp. ‘Now Lord Golden has an excuse to have his man Tom Badgerlock at his side tonight. I shall lean on your arm when I walk, and you shall carry my little footstool and cushion about for me. And fetch for me and run my greetings and messages about the room for me. You’ll be there for Dutiful to see, and I don’t doubt that you’ll find it a better vantage point for your spying than sneaking about through the walls.’ He looked at me critically as I gaped. ‘Luckily for us both, the new clothing I ordered for you was delivered this morning. Come. Sit down and I’ll trim your hair now. You can’t go to the ball looking like that.’

FOUR

The Betrothal

The use of intoxicants can be of benefit in testing an aspirant’s aptitude for the Skill, but the master must use caution. Whereas a small amount of a suitable herb, such as Hebben’s leaf, synxove, teriban bark or covaria may relax a candidate for Skill-testing and enable rudimentary Skilling, too much may render the student incapable of sufficient focus to display the talent. Although some few Skillmasters have reported success using a herb during the actual training of Skill-students, it is the consensus of the Four Masters that more often such drugs become crutches. Students never properly learn how to place their minds into a receptive Skill-state without these herbs. There is also some indication that students trained with herbs never develop the capability for the deep Skill-states and the more complicated magic that can be worked there.

Four Masters Scroll – Translation, Chade Fallstar

‘I never imagined I would wear stripes,’ I muttered again.

‘Stop complaining,’ the Fool managed around the pins in his mouth. He removed them a pin at a time as he fastened the tiny pocket in place, and then swiftly began to make it permanent with his needle and thread. ‘I’ve told you. It looks astounding on you and complements my garb perfectly.’

‘I don’t want to look astounding. I want to be nondescript.’ I thrust a needle through the waistband of the trousers and into the meat of my thumb. That the Fool refrained from laughing as I cursed only made me more irritable.

He was already impeccably and extravagantly attired. He sat cross-legged in his chair, helping me hastily add assassin’s pockets to my new garb. He didn’t even look up at me as he assured me, ‘You will be nondescript. Folk will remember your clothing, not your face, if they remark you at all. You will be in close attendance upon me for most of the evening, and your clothing will obviously mark you as my serving-man. It will conceal you, just as a servant’s livery can make a lovely miss simply another lady’s maid. Here. Try this now.’

I set down the trousers and put on the shirt. Three tiny vials from Chade’s supply, fashioned from bird’s bones, fitted neatly into the new pocket. Fastened, the cuff betrayed nothing. The other cuff already held several pellets of a powerful soporific. If afforded the chance, I would see that young Lord Bresinga slept well tonight while I had an opportunity to look through his chamber. I had already ascertained that he had not brought his hunting cat with him; or rather, I told myself, I had ascertained that it was not in his rooms or stabled with the other coursing beasts. It could very well be prowling the wooded lands that bordered Buckkeep. Lady Bresinga, Lord Golden had learned through court gossip, was not in attendance at Buckkeep Castle for the betrothal ceremony. She pleaded a painful spine following a bad fall from her horse during a hunting accident. If it was a sham, I wondered why she had chosen to stay home at Galekeep while she sent her son to represent her name. Did she think she had sent him out of danger? Or into it, to save herself?

I sighed. Speculation was useless without facts. While I had been tucking the vials of poison into my cuff pocket, the Fool had finished the stitching in the waistband of my trousers. That was a sturdier pocket, to hold a slender blade. No one would openly wear arms to the betrothal ceremony tonight. It would be a discourtesy to the hospitality of the Farseers. Such niceties did not bind assassins, however.

As if following my thoughts, the Fool asked as he handed me my striped trousers, ‘Does Chade still bother with all this? Little pockets and hidden weapons and such?’

‘I don’t know,’ I replied truthfully. Yet somehow I could not imagine him going without it. Intrigue came as naturally to him as breathing. I pulled up the trousers and sucked in a breath to fasten them. They fitted more snugly than I liked. I reached behind my back, and with the end of a fingernail managed to snag the concealed blade’s brief hilt. I slipped it out and inspected it. It had come from Chade’s tower stores. The entire weapon was no longer than my finger, with only enough of a hilt to grasp between my finger and thumb. But it could cut a man’s throat, or slip between the knobs of his spine in a trice. I slid it back into its hiding place.

‘Does anything show?’ I asked him, turning for his inspection.

He surveyed me with a smile and then assured me salaciously, ‘Everything shows. But nothing that you’re worried about showing. Here. Put on the doublet and let me see the entire effect.’

I took the garment from him reluctantly. ‘Time was when a jerkin and leggings was good enough to wear anywhere in Buckkeep,’ I observed resentfully.

‘You deceive yourself,’ the Fool replied implacably. ‘You got away with such dress because you were little more than a boy, and Shrewd did not wish attention called to you. I seem to recall that once or twice Mistress Hasty had her way with your garments and dressed you stylishly.’

‘Once or twice,’ I conceded, cringing at the memory. ‘But you know what I mean, Fool. When I was growing up, folk at Buckkeep dressed, well, like folk from Buck. There was none of this “Jamaillian style” or Farrow cloaks with tailed hoods that reach to the floor.’

He nodded. ‘Buckkeep was a more provincial place when you were growing up. We had a war, and when a war demands your resources, there is less to spend on dress. Shrewd was a good king, but it suited him to keep the Six Duchies a backwater. Queen Kettricken has done all she can to open the duchies to trade, not just with her own Mountain Kingdom, but with the Jamaillians and Bingtowners and folk even farther away. It’s bound to change Buckkeep. Change isn’t a bad thing.’

‘Buckkeep as it was wasn’t a bad thing either,’ I replied grumpily.

‘But change proves that you are still alive. Change often measures our tolerance for folk different from ourselves. Can we accept their languages, their customs, their garments, and their foods into our own lives? If we can, then we form bonds, bonds that make wars less likely. If we cannot, if we believe that we must do things as we have always done them, then we must either fight to remain as we are, or die.’

‘That’s cheery.’

‘It’s true,’ the Fool insisted. ‘Bingtown just went through such an upheaval. Now they war with Chalced, mostly because Chalced refuses to recognize the need for change. And that war may spread to include the Six Duchies.’

‘I doubt it. I don’t really see where it has anything to do with us. Oh, our southern duchies will jump into the fray, but only because they have always relished the conflict with Chalced. It’s a chance to carve away a bit more of their territory and make it ours. But as far as the whole Six Duchies engaging … I doubt it.’

I shrugged into the Jamaillian doublet and buttoned it. It had far more buttons than it needed. It fitted tightly to my waist, with skirt-like panels that reached nearly to my knees. ‘I hate dressing in Jamaillian clothing. And how am I to reach my knife if I need it?’

‘I know you. If you need it, you’ll find a way to reach it. And I assure you, in Jamaillia you’d be at least three years out of date. In Jamaillia, they’d assume you were a provincial from Bingtown, attempting to dress like a Jamaillian. But it’s enough. It reinforces the myth that I am a Jamaillian nobleman. If my clothing looks exotic enough, folk accept the rest of me as normal.’ He stood up. His right foot wore an embroidered dancing slipper. The left was bound as if his ankle needed support. He took up a carved walking stick. I recognized it as the work of his own hands; to anyone else, it would seem extravagantly expensive.

Tonight, we were purple and white. Rather like turnips, I thought to myself savagely. Lord Golden’s garments were far more elaborate and showy than mine were. The cuffs of my striped shirt were loose at the wrist, but his were dagged and extended past his hands. His shirt was white, but the purple Jamaillian doublet that snugged his chest had embroidered skirts that glittered with thousands of tiny jet beads. Rather than the trousers of a servant, he wore silk leggings. He had chosen to let his hair fall loose to his shoulders in long ringlets of gleaming gold. I had no idea what he had put on his hair to persuade it to such excess. And as I had heard some Jamaillian nobles did, he had painted his face, a scale-like pattern of blue above his brows and across the tops of his cheeks. He caught me staring at him. ‘Well?’ he demanded, almost uneasily.

‘You’re right. You’re a very convincing Jamaillian lord.’

‘Then let us descend. Bring my footstool and cushion. We’ll use my injury as an excuse for arriving early in the Great Hall and watching the others come in.’

I picked up his stool in my right hand and tucked the cushion for it under my right arm. My left I offered to him as he affected a very convincing hobble. As always, he was a consummate actor. Perhaps because of the Skill-bond between us, I was aware of the keen pleasure he took in such dissembling. Certainly, it did not show in his demeanour as he grumbled and rebuked me for clumsiness all the way down the stairs.

A short distance from the immense doors that led to the Great Hall, we paused briefly. Lord Golden appeared to be catching his breath as he leaned heavily on my arm, but the Fool spoke closely by my ear. ‘Don’t forget you’re a servant here now. Humility, Tom Badgerlock. Regardless of what you see, don’t look at anyone in a challenging way. It wouldn’t be proper. Ready?’

I nodded, thinking I scarcely needed his reminder, and tucked his cushion more firmly under my arm. We entered the Great Hall. And here, too, I encountered change. In my boyhood, the Great Hall had been the gathering place for all of Buckkeep. Near that hearth I had sat to recite my lessons to Fedwren the scribe. As often as not, there would have been other gatherings at the other hearths throughout the hall: men fletching arrows, women embroidering and chatting, minstrels rehearsing songs or composing new ones. Despite the roaring hearths and the serving boys who fetched wood for them, the Great Hall was always, in my memories, slightly chill and dank. The light never seemed to reach to the corners. In winter, the tapestries and banners that draped the walls retreated into dimness, a twilight interior night. For the most part, I recalled the cold flagged floor as being strewn with rushes, prone to mildew and damp. When the boards were set for meals, dogs sprawled beneath them or cruised amongst the benches like hungry sharks awaiting a tossed bone or dropped crust. It had been a lively place, noisy with the tales of warriors and guardsmen. King Shrewd’s Buckkeep, I thought to myself, had been a rough and martial place, a castle and keep before it was a king’s palace.

Was it time or Queen Kettricken that had changed it so?

It even smelled different, less of sweat and dogs, more of burning applewood and food. The dark that the hearth fires and candles had never been able to disperse had yielded, albeit grudgingly, to the overhead candelabra suspended by gilded chains over the long blue-clothed tables. The only dogs I saw were small ones, temporarily escaped from a lady’s lap to challenge another feist or sniff about someone’s boots. The reeds underfoot were clean and backed by a layer of sand. In the centre of the room a large section of the floor was bared sand, swept into elaborate designs that would soon fall prey to the dancers’ tread. No one was seated at the tables, yet there were already bowls of ripe fruit and baskets of fresh bread upon them. Early guests stood in small groups or sat in chairs and on cushioned benches near the hearths, the hum of their conversations mingling with the soft music of a single harper on a dais near the main fire.

The entire room conveyed a carefully constructed sense of waiting. Rows of standing torches lit the tiered high dais. Their brightness drew the eye, the light as much as the height proclaiming the importance of those who would be seated there. On the highest level, there were throne-like chairs for Kettricken and Dutiful and Elliania and two others. The slightly humbler but still grand chairs of the second dais would be for the dukes and duchesses of the Six Duchies who had gathered to witness their prince’s betrothal. A second dais of equal height had been provided for Elliania’s nobles. The third dais would be for those who were high in the Queen’s regard.

Almost as soon as we entered the Great Hall, several lovely women broke away from the young noblemen they had been talking to and converged on Lord Golden. It was rather like being mobbed by butterflies. Gauzy wraps seemed to be the fashion, an imported foolishness from Jamaillia that offered no sort of warmth in the permanent chill of the Great Hall. I studied the goosebumps on the arms of Lady Heliotrope as she sympathized with Lord Golden. I wondered when Buckkeep had become so avid for these foreign styles of dress and grudgingly admitted that I resented the changes I saw around me, not only because they eclipsed more and more of the Buckkeep I remembered from my childhood, but also because they made me feel stodgy and old. Cooing and clucking over his injured foot, the women escorted Lord Golden to a comfortable chair. I assisted him obediently there, set his footstool in place, the cushion upon it. Young Lord Oaks reappeared and with a firm, ‘Let me do that, man,’ insisted on helping Lord Golden position his foot upon it.

I stepped aside, lifted my eyes and seemed to glance past a group of Outislanders who had just entered. They moved almost as a phalanx of warriors might, entering the hall as a compact group. Once within the hall, they did not disperse but kept to their own. They reminded me of the Outisland warriors I had fought on Antler Island, so long ago. The men wore not only their furs and leather harness but some of the older men flaunted battle trophies: necklaces of fingerbones, or a braid dangling at the hip that was made from locks of hair taken from vanquished foes. The women among them moved as dauntlessly as their men. Their robes were woven of wool, richly dyed, and trimmed with white fur only: fox, ermine and tufts of ice bear.

Outislander women were not likely to be warriors; they were the landowners among their folk. In a culture in which the men often wandered off to spend years as raiders, the women were more than the caretakers of the land. Houses and farmlands were passed from mothers to daughters, as was the family’s wealth in the forms of jewellery and ornaments and tools. Men might come and go in the women’s lives, but a daughter kept always her ties to her mother’s house, and a man’s connection to his mother’s home was stronger and more permanent than his marriage bonds. The woman determined how binding the marriage yoke was. If a man was overly long away at his raiding, she might take another husband or a lover in his absence. As children belonged to the mother and the mother’s family, it little mattered who had fathered them. I studied them, knowing they were not nobles and lords in the sense that we used those titles. More likely the women owned substantial land and the men had distinguished themselves in battle and raiding.

As I watched the Outislander delegation, I wondered if change had come to their lands as well. Their women had never been chattels of their men. The men might traffic in the women and youngsters dragged home as the trove of their raiding, but their own women were immune to such bargains. How strange was it, then, for a father to have the right to offer his daughter as a token to secure peace and trade? Did Elliania’s father truly offer her? Or was her presence here a ploy of an older, more powerful family: her mother’s kin? Yet if that were so, why hide it? Why let it appear that her father was offering her? Why was Peottre the sole representative of their motherhouse?

And all the while I was watching the Outislanders, I listened with half an ear to the chattering of the women who surrounded Lord Golden. Two, Lady Heliotrope and Lady Calendula, had been in his rooms earlier. I now deduced they were sisters as well as rivals for his attention. The way that Lord Oaks constantly managed to stand between Lady Calendula and Lord Golden made me wonder if he did not desire her attention for himself. Lady Thrift was older than the other women, and perhaps older than I. I suspected she had a husband somewhere about Buckkeep. She sported the matronly aggression of a woman who was securely married yet still relished the thrill of the pursuit, rather like some foxhunters I have known. It was not that she had any need for her prey, but rather that she liked to prove she could unerringly bring it down even when pitted against the sharpest competition. Her gown bared more of her breasts than was seemly, but it did not seem as brazen as it might have in a younger woman. She had a way of setting her hand to Lord Golden’s arm or shoulder that was almost possessive. Twice I saw him capture the hand touching him, pat it or give it a squeeze and then carefully release it. She probably felt flattered, but to my eye it looked more as if he plucked lint from his sleeve.

Lord Lalwick, a pleasant-faced man of middle years, drifted over to join those clustered about Lord Golden. He was a tidily-dressed man of gentle manner who made a point of introducing himself to me, a rare courtesy to show to a servant. I smiled as I bowed to his greeting. He bumped against me several times as he jockeyed to get closer to Lord Golden and the conversation, but it was easy to excuse his clumsiness. Each time I begged his pardon and stepped back only to have him smile and warmly assure me that it was entirely his own fault. The conversation centred upon poor Lord Golden’s injured ankle and how rough the unsympathetic healer had been and how devastated they all were that he could not join them upon the dance floor. Here Lady Thrift stole a march upon her competitors, declaring as she took up Lord Golden’s hand that she would keep him company while ‘you girls dance with your suitors’. Lord Lalwick immediately declared that he would be happy to keep Lord Golden company, for he himself was a poor dancer. When Lord Golden assured him that he knew such a statement was false modesty and that he would never dream of depriving the Buckkeep ladies of such a graceful partner, the man looked torn between disappointment at his dismissal and gratitude for the compliment.

Before the rivalry amongst the ladies could escalate any further, the minstrel suddenly stopped his harping. A page-boy beside him had evidently cued him, for the minstrel arose and, in a trained voice that filled the Great Hall and overrode all conversation, announced the entrance of Queen Kettricken Farseer and Prince Dutiful, heir to the Farseer throne. At a gesture from Lord Golden, I offered him my arm to help him stand. A hush fell and all eyes turned towards the doors. The folk near the entry pressed back into the crowd to allow a walking space between the doors and the high dais.

Queen Kettricken entered with Prince Dutiful at her right hand. She had learned much in the years since I had last seen her make such an entrance. I was unprepared for the sudden tears that stung my eyes, and I struggled valiantly to control the triumphant smile that threatened to take over my face.

She was magnificent.

An elaborate gown would only have distracted from her. She wore Buck blue with a contrasting trim of sable. The simple lines of her dress emphasized both her slenderness and her height. Straight as a soldier was she, yet also as supple as a wind-blown reed. The gleaming gold of her hair had been gathered in a braid that wreathed her head, with the excess spilling down her back. Her queen’s crown looked dull in comparison to those shining locks. No rings graced her fingers; no necklaces bound the pale column of her throat. She was queenly by virtue of who she was rather than what she wore.

Beside her, Dutiful was clad in a simple blue robe. It reminded me of how both Kettricken and Rurisk had been dressed the first time I had seen them. Then, I had mistaken the heirs of the Mountain Kingdom for serving people. I wondered if the Outislanders would see the plainness of Dutiful’s garb as humility or lack of wealth. He wore a simple silver band on his unruly black curls, for he was not yet old enough to wear the coronet of the King-in-Waiting. Until he was seventeen, he was simply a prince even though he was the sole heir. His only other ornamentation was a chain of silver trimmed with yellow diamonds. His eyes were as dark as his mother’s were pale. His looks were Farseer but the calm acceptance on his face was his mother’s Mountain schooling.

Queen Kettricken’s silent passage through her folk was both dignified and intimate, for the smile that lit her face as her eyes lingered on her assembled people was genuinely warm. Dutiful’s expression was grave. Perhaps he knew he could not smile without looking stricken. He offered his mother his arm as she ascended the stairs to the dais and they took their places at the table but were not seated. In a gracious yet carrying voice, Kettricken spoke. ‘Please, my people and friends, welcome to our Great Hall the Narcheska Elliania, a daughter of the Blackwater line of the God Runes Islands.’

I noted with approval that she gave Elliania not only the name of her mother’s line, but called her home by their name for the Outislands. Also, I noted that our queen had chosen to announce her rather than giving this task to the minstrel. As she gestured towards the open door, all eyes turned that way. The minstrel repeated the names of not only Elliania but also of Arkon Bloodblade, her father and Peottre Blackwater, her ‘mother’s brother’. The way he spoke the last phrase made me suspect it was one word in the Outislands and that he strove to give it that flavour. Then the Outislanders entered.

Arkon Bloodblade led the way. He was an imposing figure, his size enhanced by a bearskin cloak flung back over one shoulder. It was the yellow-white fur of an ice bear. His clothing was of woven cloth, a jerkin and trousers, but a leather vest and broad leather belt gave him an armoured, martial air despite his lack of weapons. He glittered with gold and silver and gems. He wore them at his throat and wrists, across his brow, in his ears. He wore bands of silver on his left upper arm, and bands of gold on his right. Some were studded with gems. His brash posture transformed his display of wealth into bragging gaudiness. His gait combined a sailor’s rolling stride with a warrior’s arrogant strut. I suspected I would dislike him. He scanned the room with a wide grin, as if he could not believe his good fortune. His eyes travelled across the waiting tables and gathered nobles and then lifted to where Kettricken awaited his company on the dais. His smile widened as if he glimpsed unclaimed plunder. I then knew that I already disliked him.

Behind him walked the Narcheska. Peottre escorted her, a pace behind her and to her right. He was dressed as simply as a soldier, in fur and leather. He wore earrings and a heavy torc of gold, but he seemed unaware of his jewellery. I marked that he took not just a guard’s place but also a guard’s attitude. His eyes roved the crowd watchfully. If there had been any in the crowd who wished the Narcheska ill and dared to act on it, he would have been ready to kill the attacker. Yet he gave off an aura not of suspiciousness but of quiet competence. And the girl walked before him, serene in the safety of the hulking man behind her.

I wondered who had selected her garments. Her short tunic was of snowy white wool. An enamelled pin, a leaping narwhal, secured her cloak at one shoulder. A panelled skirt of blue fell nearly to the floor. Glimpses of her feet as she walked revealed little white fur slippers. Her sleek black hair was caught in a silver clasp at the back of her head. From there it flowed down her back, an inky river. At intervals, tiny silver bells glittered in its current. Upon her brow she wore the coronet of silver set with one hundred sapphires.

Elliania set her own pace, a step, then a pause, and another step. Her father, unmindful of this, or perhaps ignorant of it, strode up to the dais, mounted it, and then was forced to stand at Queen Kettricken’s left, awaiting his daughter. Peottre matched the Narcheska’s gait calmly. The girl did not look straight ahead as she approached the high table, but turned her head to left or to right with each step. She looked intently at the people who met her gaze, as if to memorize each one. The small smile that graced her lips seemed genuine. It was an unnerving poise to witness in a child so young. The little girl who had been on the verge of a petulant tantrum when I had last seen her had been replaced by a presence who was, indeed, a queen in the bud. When she was two steps away from the dais, Dutiful descended it to offer her his arm. Here was the only moment when I saw her uncertain. She glanced at her uncle out of the corner of her eye, as if imploring that he offer her support instead. I do not know how he conveyed that she must accept the Prince’s gesture; I saw only her resignation as she carefully hovered her hand above his proffered arm. I doubted that she put a pressure equal to an alighting butterfly as she ascended the steps beside him. Peottre followed them, his tread heavy. He did not take a place before a chair, but rather stood behind the Narcheska’s. After the others were seated, it took a gesture and a quiet verbal invitation from the Queen before he took his seat.

Then the dukes and duchesses of the Six Duchies entered, each slowly crossing the hall and taking a place on the dais reserved for them. The Duchess of Bearns appeared first, her consort at her side. Faith of Bearns had grown into her title. I still recalled her as a slender maiden with a bloody sword in her hand, battling vainly to save her father’s life from Red Ship raiders. She wore her dark hair as short and sleek as ever. The man at her side was taller than she was and grey-eyed, pacing her with a warrior’s graceful stride. The bond between the two was a thing that could be felt, and I rejoiced that she had found happiness for herself.

Behind her came Duke Kelvar of Rippon, aged and crooked, one hand on a staff and one on his wife’s shoulder. Lady Grace had matured into a well-rounded woman of middle years. Her hand on top of her husband’s supported him in more ways than one. Both her gown and her jewels were simple, as if she finally felt confident of her stature as Duchess of Rippon. She matched her stride to his now-halting steps, her loyalty still strong to the man who had raised her from the peasantry to be his consort.

Duke Shemshy of Shoaks walked alone, widowed now. The last time I had seen him had been when he stood with Duke Brawndy of Bearns outside my cell in Regal’s dungeons. He had not condemned me, but neither had he thrown me a cloak for warmth as Bearns had. He still had hawk’s eyes and a slight stoop in his shoulders was his only concession to his years. He had entrusted his current war-making with Chalced to his daughter and heir while he took time to attend his prince’s betrothal.

Behind him walked Duke Bright of Farrow. He had matured since the days when Regal had foisted the defence of Buckkeep Castle onto his callow shoulders. He looked a man now. I had never seen his duchess. She looked half of his forty years, a fair and slender young woman who smiled warmly as she met the gazes of the lesser nobles who watched her ascend the dais. Finally came the Duke and Duchess of Tilth. Both were unfamiliar to me; the blood-cough had passed through Tilth three years before, and carried off not only the old duke, but also both his elder sons. I rummaged my memory for the name of the daughter who had inherited. Duchess Flourish of Tilth, the minstrel announced a moment later, and her consort, Duke Jower. Her nervousness made her appear younger than she was, and Jower’s hand over hers on his arm seemed to lead her as much as reassure her.

The dais reserved for the Outislander nobles and warriors who had accompanied the Narcheska awaited them. Grand entrances seemed a foreign custom to them, for they simply trooped up in a group and seated themselves as they pleased, with many exchanged grins and comments to one another. Arkon Bloodblade smiled down broadly upon them. The Narcheska seemed caught between loyalty to her folk and chagrin that they had not bothered to observe our customs. Peottre gazed out over their heads as if it did not concern him in the least. It was only as they were seated that I realized that these folk were Arkon’s, not Peottre’s. Each one bore, in some form or another, the image of a tusked boar. Arkon’s was wrought in gold upon his breast. One of the women had a tattoo on the back of her hand, and one man wore his boar as a bone carving on his belt. The motif did not appear anywhere upon the Narcheska nor on Peottre. I recalled the leaping narwhal I had seen embroidered on the Narcheska’s clothing the first time I had glimpsed her. This emblem secured her cloak again. A close study of Peottre’s garments revealed that a narwhal fastened his belt. I decided that the stylistic tattoo on his face could be considered suggestive of a narwhal’s horn. So, did we have two clans here, both offering the Narcheska? I decided that would bear looking into.

Those who filled the table at the foot of the high dais entered with less pageantry. Chade was among them, as was Laurel, the Queen’s Huntswoman. She was gowned in scarlet, and I was pleased to see her so well seated. I did not recognize the others, save for a final two. Starling, I suspected, had deliberately chosen to be the last to enter the Great Hall. She was resplendent in a green gown that reminded me of a hummingbird’s throat. She wore fine lacy gloves on her hands, as if to emphasize that tonight she was her queen’s guest rather than her minstrel. And one of those gloved hands rested on the muscular forearm of the man who escorted her. He was a fine-looking young fellow, fit of body and open of countenance. His pride in his wife was evident in his beaming smile and the way he escorted her. It seemed to me that he displayed her on his arm as a falconer might hold aloft a fine bird. I looked at the youngster I had unwittingly cuckolded, and felt shame enough for both Starling and myself. She was smiling, and as they passed before us, she deliberately met my gaze. I shifted my eyes and stared past her as if I knew her not at all. He knew nothing of me, and I wished to keep it that way. I did not even wish to know his name, but my traitor ears marked it anyway. Lord Fisher.

As these last two took their places and were seated, the folk in the hall flowed towards the tables to assume their places there. I scooped up Lord Golden’s footstool and cushion and helped him hobble to his place at table and made him comfortable there. He was well seated, considering that he was a foreign noble and a recent arrival to court. I suspected he had contrived to be placed as he was, between two older married couples. The women left his side with many promises to return and keep him company during the dancing. As he turned to depart, Lord Lalwick contrived to jostle his buttocks against my hip a final time. He saw my shock as I finally realized that the contact was deliberate, for in addition to his small smile, one eyebrow lifted at me. Behind me, Lord Golden gave a small, amused cough. I scowled at the man, and he left more hastily.

As folk settled to their seats and the servants paraded into the hall, the buzz of conversation rose. Lord Golden made skilful and charming conversation with his table partners. I stood behind him within his beck and let my eyes drift over the gathered folk. When I glanced up at the high dais, Prince Dutiful’s eyes met mine. Gratitude shone in his face. I looked away from his glance, and he followed my example, letting his eyes lift to look past me. The magic link between us trembled with his thankfulness and nervousness. It both humbled and frightened me to realize how important it was to him that I be present.

I tried not to let it distract me from my duties. I located Civil Bresinga. He was seated at a table of lesser nobility from the smallholdings of Buck and Farrow. I did not see Sydel, his intended, among the women at the table, and I wondered if their engagement had been broken. Lord Golden had flirted outrageously with her when we had guested at Galekeep, the Bresingas’ manor. That discourtesy and his apparently equal interest in Civil Bresinga had led to the young man’s intense dislike of him. It had all been a sham, but Civil would never discover that. I marked that at least two young men at his table seemed to know Civil well, and resolved to discover who they might be. In a gathering of this size, my Wit-sense was near overwhelmed by the life-presence of so many beings. Impossible for me to tell in that throng who might or might not be Witted. Doubtless if any here possessed the Wit, it was well masked tonight anyway.

No one had warned me that Lady Patience would be in attendance. When my eye fell on her at one of the higher tables, my heart leapt and then began to hammer. My father’s widow was in lively conversation with a young man next to her. At least, she was speaking. He stared at her, his mouth slightly ajar, blinking his eyes. I did not blame him; I myself had never been able to keep up with her leaping fountain of observations, questions and opinions. I jerked my eyes away from them, as if my gaze might somehow make her aware of me. Over the next few minutes, I stole glimpses of her. She wore the rubies my father had given her, the ones she had once sold to gain coin to ease the suffering of the people of Buck. Her greying hair was garlanded with late flowers, a custom as outdated as the gown she wore, but to me her eccentricity was endearing and precious. I wished I could go to her, kneel by her chair and thank her for all she had done for me, not only during my life, but when she had supposed me dead. It was a selfish wish, in some ways.

In pulling my eyes away from her, I got my second great shock of the evening.

The Queen’s ladies and maids were seated honourably at a side table almost adjacent to the high dais. This was a true mark of the Queen’s favour that ignored rank. Some of the ladies I knew from of old. Lady Hopeful and Lady Modesty had been Kettricken’s companions when last I lived in Buckkeep Castle. I was glad to see they still remained at her side. Of Lady Whiteheart I recalled only her name. The others were younger; doubtless they had been but children when I last attended my queen. But one looked more familiar than the others. I wondered, had I known her mother? And then, as she turned her round face and dipped her head to acknowledge some jest, I recognized her. Rosemary.

The plump little girl had grown into a buxom lady. She had been the Queen’s little maid when last I had seen her, always tripping along at her heels, always present, an unusually placid and good-natured child. She had had a habit of drowsing off at Kettricken’s feet when the Queen and I were conferring. Or so it had seemed. She had been Regal’s spy upon Kettricken, not only reporting back to him, but later aiding him in his attempts on the Queen’s life. I had not seen her commit any of her betrayals, but in retrospect both Chade and I had deduced that she must have been Regal’s wee bird. Chade knew; Kettricken knew. How could it be that she lived still, how could it be that she laughed and dined so near the Queen, that now she lifted a glass in a toast to her? I tore my eyes away from her. I tried to still the tremor of fury that raced through me.

I looked at my feet for a time, drawing long, steadying breaths, willing away the colour in my face that my anger had brought.

Wrong?

The tiny thought rang in my mind like a dropped coin. I lifted my eyes and found Prince Dutiful’s worried gaze fixed on me. I shrugged my shoulders to him, then tugged at my collar as if the tight fit of my jacket bothered me. I did not reach back to him with the Skill. It disturbed me that he had been able to reach me past my habitual walls. It disturbed me more that, as before, he used his Wit-sense of me to push the thought that he formed with the Skill. I did not wish him to use the Wit. I especially didn’t want to encourage him to use those magics together. He might form habits he could never break. I waited a short time, then again met his anxious gaze and smiled briefly. I looked away from him again. I could sense his reluctance but he followed my example. It would not suit me at all for anyone to notice us and wonder why Prince Dutiful was exchanging significant glances with a serving-man.

The meal was magnificent and lengthy, yet I noted that neither Dutiful nor Elliania ate much. But Arkon Bloodblade ate and drank enough to make up for the both of them. Watching him, I decided he was a hearty man, sharp of wit, but not the diplomat or tactician who had arranged this marriage. His personal interest in Kettricken was obvious, and perhaps by Outislander standards it was complimentary. My stolen glimpses of the high table showed me that Kettricken responded courteously to his conversation, yet seemed to attempt to address more of her words to the Narcheska. The girl’s replies to her were brief, but pleasantly delivered. She was reserved rather than sulky. And midway through the meal, I noticed that Uncle Peottre seemed to be thawing towards Kettricken, perhaps despite himself. Doubtless Chade had advised the Queen that we would be wise to bestow more attention about the Narcheska’s ‘mother’s brother’. Certainly Peottre seemed to respond to it. He began by adding some comments of his own to whatever Elliania replied, but soon he and Kettricken were conversing over her head. Admiration lit Kettricken’s eyes, and she followed his words with genuine interest. Elliania seemed almost grateful to be able to pick at her food and nod to the words that flowed past her.

Dutiful, well-bred lad that he was, engaged Arkon Bloodblade in talk. The boy seemed to have mastered the knack of asking the naturally garrulous Bloodblade the best questions to keep him talking. From the waving of his implements, I deduced that Bloodblade was telling tales of his hunting and battle prowess. Dutiful looked suitably impressed, nodding and laughing at all the right moments.

The one time that Chade’s eyes met mine, I glanced pointedly at Rosemary and scowled. But when I looked back for his reaction, he was once more chatting with the lady at his left. I growled to myself, but knew that clarification would come later.

As the end of the meal grew closer, I could feel Dutiful’s tension mounting. The Prince’s smile showed too much of teeth. When the Queen motioned to the minstrel and he called for silence, I saw Dutiful shut his eyes for an instant as if to steel himself to the challenge. Then I took my eyes from him and focused my attention on Elliania. I saw her moisten her lips, and then perhaps she clenched her jaws to still a trembling. The cant of Peottre’s posture made me suspect that he clasped her hand under the table. In any case, she drew a deep breath and then sat up straighter.

It was a simple ceremony. I paid more attention to the faces of those witnessing it. All the participants moved to the front of the high dais. Kettricken stood next to Dutiful, and Arkon Bloodblade by his daughter. Unbidden, Peottre came to stand behind her. When Arkon set his daughter’s hand in the Queen’s, I noticed that Duchess Faith of Bearns narrowed her eyes and clamped her lips. Perhaps Bearns remembered too well how they had suffered in the Red Ship War. There was quite a different reaction from the Duke and Duchess of Tilth. They looked warmly into one another’s eyes as if recalling the moment of their own pledge. Patience sat, still and solemn, her gaze distant. Young Civil Bresinga looked envious, and then turned his eyes away from the sight as if he could not bear to witness it. I saw no one who looked at the couple with malice, though some, like Faith, plainly had their own opinions about this alliance.

The couple’s hands were not joined at this time; rather Elliania’s hand was put in Kettricken’s, and Dutiful and Arkon grasped wrists in the ancient greeting of warriors well met. All seemed a bit surprised when Arkon tugged a gold band from his wrist and clasped it onto Dutiful’s. He guffawed in delight at how it hung on the boy’s lesser-muscled arm, and Dutiful managed a good-natured laugh, and even held it aloft for others to admire. The Outislander delegation seemed to take this as a sign of good spirit in the Prince, for they hammered their table in approval. A slight smile tugged at the corner of Peottre’s mouth. Was it because the bracelet that Arkon had bestowed on Dutiful had a boar scratched on it rather than a narwhal? Was the Prince binding himself to a clan that had no authority over the Narcheska?

Then came the only incident that seemed to mar the smoothness of the ceremony. Arkon gripped the Prince’s wrist and turned it so that the Prince’s hand was palm up. Dutiful tolerated this but I knew his uneasiness. Arkon seemed unaware of it as he asked the assemblage loudly, ‘Shall we mingle their blood now, for sign of the children to come that share it?’

I saw the Narcheska’s intake of breath. She did not step back into Peottre’s shelter. Rather, the man stepped forward and in an unconscious show of possession, set a hand to the girl’s shoulder. His words were unaccented and calm as he said, in apparent good-natured rebuke, ‘It is not the time or the place for that, Bloodblade. The man’s blood must fall on the hearthstones of her mother’s house for that mingling to be auspicious. But you might offer some of your blood to the hearthstones of the Prince’s mother, if you are so minded.’

I suspect there was a hidden challenge in those words, some custom we of the Six Duchies did not comprehend. For when Kettricken began to hold out her hand to say such an act was not necessary, Arkon thrust out his arm. He pushed his sleeve up out of the way, and then casually drew his belt knife and ran the blade down the inside of his arm. At first the thick blood merely welled in the gash. He clawed at the wound and then gave his arm a shake to encourage the flow. Kettricken wisely stood still, allowing the barbarian whatever gesture he thought he must make for the honour of his house. He displayed his arm to the assembly, and in the murmurous awe of all, we watched his cupped hand catch his own trickling blood. He suddenly flung it wide, a red benediction upon us all.

Many cried out as those crimson droplets spattered the faces and garments of the gathered nobility. Then silence fell as Arkon Bloodblade descended from the dais. He strode to the largest hearth in the Great Hall. There he again let his blood pool in his hand, then flung the cupped gore into the flames. Stooping, he smeared his palm across the hearth, and then stood, allowing his sleeve to fall over his injury. He opened his arms to the assembly, inviting a response. At the Outislander table, his people pounded the board and whooped in admiration. After a moment, applause and cheers also rose from the Six Duchies folk. Even Peottre Blackwater grinned, and when Arkon rejoined him on the dais, they grasped wrists before the assemblage.

As I watched them there, I suspected that their relationship was far more complicated than I had first imagined. Arkon was Elliania’s father, yet I doubted that Peottre ceded him any respect on that account. But when they stood as they did now, as fellow warriors, I sensed between them the camaraderie of men who had fought alongside one another. So there was esteem, even if Peottre did not think Arkon had the right to offer Elliania as a treaty-affirming token.

It brought me back full circle to the central mystery. Why did Peottre allow it? Why did Elliania go along with it? If they stood to gain from this alliance, why did not her mothers’ house stand proudly behind it and offer the girl?

I studied the Narcheska as Chade had taught me. Her father’s gesture had caught her imagination. She smiled at him, proud of his valour and the show he had made for the Six Duchies nobles. Part of her enjoyed all this, the pageantry and ceremony, the clothing and the music and the gathered folk all looking up at her. She wanted all the excitement and glory but at the end of it she also wanted to return to what was safe and familiar, to live out the life she expected to live, in her mothers’ house on her mothers’ land. I asked myself, how could Dutiful use that to gain her favour? Were there any plans for him to present himself, with gifts and honours at her mothers’ holding? Perhaps she would think better of him if his attention to her could be flaunted before her maternal relatives back home. Girls usually enjoyed that sort of elevation, didn’t they? I stored up my insights to offer them to Dutiful tomorrow. I wondered if they were accurate, or would be of any use to him.

As I pondered, Queen Kettricken nodded towards her minstrel. He signalled the musicians to ready themselves. Queen Kettricken then smiled and said something to the other folk on the grand dais. Places were resumed and as the music began, Dutiful offered his hand to Elliania.

I pitied them both, so young and so publicly displayed, the wealth of two folks offered to one another as chattel for an alliance. The Narcheska’s hand hovered above Dutiful’s wrist as he escorted her down the steps of the dais to the swept sand of the dance floor. In a brief swell of Skill, I knew that his collar chafed against his sweaty neck, but none of that showed in his smile or in the gracious bow he offered his partner. He held out his arms for her, and she stepped just close enough for his fingertips to graze her waist. She did not put her hands to his shoulders in the traditional stance; rather she held out her skirts as if to better display both them and her lively feet. Then the music swirled around them and they both danced as perfectly as puppets directed by a master. They made a lovely spectacle, full of youth and grace and promise as they stepped and turned together.

I watched those who gazed upon them, and was surprised by the spectrum of emotions I saw in those mirroring faces. Chade beamed with satisfaction but Kettricken’s face was more tentative, and I guessed her secret hope that Dutiful would find true affection as well as solid political advantage in his partner. Arkon Bloodblade crossed his arms on his chest and looked down on the two as if they were a personal testimonial to his power. Peottre, like me, was scanning the crowd, ever the bodyguard and watchman for his ward. He did not scowl, but neither did he smile. For a chance instant, his eyes met mine as I studied him. I dared not look aside, but stared through him with a dull expression as if I did not truly see him at all. His eyes left me to travel back to Elliania and the faintest shadow of a smile crossed his lips.

Drawn by his scrutiny, my gaze followed his. For that moment, I allowed myself to be caught in the spectacle. As they stepped and turned to the music, slippers and skirts swirled the brushed sand on the floor into a fresh pattern. Dutiful was taller than his partner; doubtless it was easier for him to look down into her upturned face than it was for her to gaze up at him and smile and keep the step. He looked as if his outstretched hands and arms framed the flight of a butterfly, so lightly did she move opposite him. A spark of approval kindled in me as well, and I thought I understood why Peottre had given that grudging smile of approval. My lad did not seek to grasp the girl; his touch sketched the window of her freedom as she danced. He did not claim nor attempt to restrain; rather he exhibited her grace and her liberty to those who watched. I wondered where Dutiful had learned such wisdom. Had Chade coached him in this, or was this the diplomatic instinct some Farseers seemed to possess? Then I decided it did not matter. He had pleased Peottre and I suspected that that would eventually be to his advantage.

The Prince and the Narcheska performed alone for the first dance. After that, others moved to join them on the dance floor, the dukes and duchesses of the Six Duchies and our Outislander guests. I noticed that Peottre was true to his word, claiming the Narcheska away from Dutiful for the second dance. That left the Prince standing alone, but he managed to appear graceful and at ease. Chade drifted over to speak with him until the Queen’s advisor was claimed by a maiden of no more than twenty.

Arkon Bloodblade had the effrontery to offer his hand to Queen Kettricken. I saw the look that flickered over her face. She would have refused him, but decided it was not in the best interest of the Six Duchies to do so. So she descended with him to the dance floor. Bloodblade had none of Dutiful’s nicety in the matter of a partner’s preference. He seized the Queen boldly at her waist so that she had to set her hands on his shoulders to balance the man’s lively stepping, or else find herself spinning out of control. Kettricken trod the measure gracefully and smiled upon her partner, but I do not think she truly enjoyed it.

The third measure was a slower dance. I was pleased to see Chade forsake his young partner, who sulked prettily. Instead he invited my Lady Patience out to the floor. She shook her fan at him and would have refused, but the old man insisted, and I knew that she was secretly pleased. She was as graceful as she had ever been – though never quite in step with the music, but Chade smiled down on her as he steered her safely around the floor and I found her dance both lovely and charming.

Peottre rescued Queen Kettricken from Bloodblade’s attention, and he went off to dance with his daughter. Kettricken seemed more at ease with the old man-at-arms than she had with his brother-in-law. They spoke as they danced, and the lively interest in her eyes was genuine. Dutiful’s eyes met mine for an instant. I knew how awkward he felt standing there, a lone stag, while his intended was whirled around the dance floor by her father. But at the end of the dance, I almost suspected that Bloodblade had known of it, and felt a sympathy for the young prince, for he firmly delivered his daughter’s hand to Dutiful’s for the fourth dance.

And so it went. For the most part, the Outislander nobles chose partners from among themselves, though one young woman dared to approach Lord Shemshy. To my surprise, the old man seemed flattered by the invitation, and danced not once with her, but thrice. When the partner dances were over, the patterns began, and the high nobles resumed their seats, ceding the floor to the lesser nobility. I stood silently and watched, for the most part. Several times my master sent me on errands to different parts of the room, usually to deliver his greetings to women and his heartfelt regrets that he could not ask them to dance due to the severity of his injury. Several came to cluster near him and commiserate with him. In all that long evening, I never once saw Civil Bresinga take to the dance floor. Lady Rosemary did, even dancing once with Chade. I watched them speak to one another, she looking up at him and smiling mischievously while his features remained neutral yet courteous. Lady Patience retired early from the festivities, as I had suspected she might. She had never truly felt at home in the pomp and society of court. I thought that Dutiful should feel honoured that she had troubled to come at all.

The music, the dancing, the eating and the drinking, all of it went on and on, past the depths of night and into the shallows of morning. I tried to contrive some way to get close to either Civil Bresinga’s wine glass or his plate, but to no avail. The evening began to drag. My legs ached from standing and I thought regretfully of my dawn appointment with Prince Dutiful. I doubted that he would keep it, and yet I must still be there, in case he appeared. What had I been thinking? I would have been far wiser to put the boy off for a few more days, and use that time to visit my home.

Lord Golden, however, seemed indefatigable. As the evening progressed and the tables were pushed to one side to enlarge the dancing space, he found a comfortable place near a fireside and held his court there. Many and varied were the folk who came to greet him and lingered to talk. Yet again it was driven home to me that Lord Golden and the Fool were two very distinct people. Golden was witty and charming, but he never displayed the Fool’s edged humour. He was also very Jamaillian, urbane and occasionally intolerant of what he bluntly referred to as ‘the Six Duchies attitude’ towards his morality and habits. He discussed dress and jewellery with his cohorts in a way that mercilessly shredded any outside the circle of his favour. He flirted outrageously with women, married or not, drank extravagantly and when offered Smoke, grandly declined on the grounds that ‘any but the finest quality leaves me nauseous in the morning. I was spoiled at the Satrap’s court, I suppose.’ He chattered of doings in far-off Jamaillia in an intimate way that convinced even me that he had not only resided there, but been privy to the doings of their high court.

And as the evening deepened, censers of Smoke, made popular in Regal’s time, began to appear. Smaller styles were in vogue now, little metal cages suspended from chains that held tiny pots of the burning drug. Younger lords and a few of the ladies carried their own little censers, fastened to their wrists. In a few places, diligent servants stood beside their masters, swinging the censers to wreathe their betters with the fumes.

I had never had any head for this intoxicant, and somehow my mental association of Smoke with Regal made it all the more distasteful to me. Yet even the Queen was indulging, moderately, for Smoke was known in the Mountains as well as the Six Duchies, though the herb they burned there was a different one. Different herb, same name, same effects, I thought woozily. The Queen had returned to the high dais, her eyes bright through the haze. She sat talking to Peottre. He smiled and spoke to her, but his eyes never left Elliania as Dutiful led her through a pattern dance. Arkon Bloodblade had also joined them on the floor and was working his way through a succession of dance partners. He had shed his cloak and opened his shirt. He was a lively dancer, not always in step with the music as the Smoke curled and the wine flowed.

I think it was out of mercy for me that Lord Golden announced that the pain in his ankle had wearied him and he must, he feared, retire. He was urged to stay on, and he appeared to consider it, but then decided he was in too much discomfort. Even so, it took an interminable amount of time for him to make his farewells. And when I did take up his footstool and cushion to escort him from the merry-making, we were halted at least four times by yet more folk wishing to bid him good night. By the time we had clambered slowly up the stairs and entered our apartments, I had a much clearer view of his popularity at court.

When the door was safely closed and latched behind us, I built up our dying fire. Then I poured myself a glass of his wine and dropped into a chair by the hearth while he sat down on the floor to unwind the wrappings from his foot.

‘I did this too tight! Look at my poor foot, gone almost blue and cold.’

‘Serves you right,’ I observed without sympathy. My clothing reeked of Smoke. I blew a breath out through my nostrils, trying to clear the scent away. I looked down on him where he sat rubbing his bared toes and realized what a relief it was to have the Fool back. ‘How did you ever come up with “Lord Golden”? I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a more backbiting, conniving noble. If I had met you for the first time tonight, I would have despised you. You put me in mind of Regal.’

‘Did I? Well, perhaps that reflects my belief that there is something to be learned from everyone that we meet.’ He yawned immensely and then rolled his body forward until his brow touched his knees, and then back until his loosened hair swept the floor. With no apparent effort, he came back to a sitting position. He held out his hand to me where I sat and I offered him mine to pull him to his feet. He plopped down in the chair next to mine. ‘There is a lot to be said for being nasty, if you want others to feel encouraged to parade their smallest and most vicious opinions for you.’

‘I suppose. But why would anyone want that?’

He leaned over to pluck the wine glass from my fingers. ‘Insolent churl. Stealing your master’s wine. Get your own glass.’ And as I did so, he replied, ‘By mining such nastiness, I discover the ugliest rumours of the keep. Who is with child by someone else’s lord? Who has run themselves into debt? Who has been indiscreet and with whom? And who is rumoured to be Witted, or to have ties to someone who is?’

I nearly spilled my wine. ‘And what did you hear?’

‘Only what we expected,’ he said comfortingly. ‘Of the Prince and his mother, not a word. Nor any gossip about you. An interesting rumour that Civil Bresinga broke off his engagement to Sydel Grayling because there is supposed to be Wit in her family. A Witted silversmith and his six children and wife were driven out of Buckkeep Town last week; Lady Esomal is quite annoyed, for she had just ordered two rings from him. Oh. And Lady Patience has on her estate three Witted goosegirls and she doesn’t care who knows it. Someone accused one of them of putting a spell on his hawks, and Lady Patience told him that not only did the Wit not work that way, but that if he didn’t stop setting his hawks on the turtledoves in her garden she’d have him horsewhipped, and she didn’t care whose cousin he was.’

‘Ah. Patience is as discreet and rational as ever,’ I said, smiling, and the Fool nodded. I shook my head more soberly as I added, ‘If the tide of feeling rises much higher against the Witted ones, Patience may find she has put herself in danger by taking their part. Sometimes I wish her caution was as great as her courage.’

‘You miss her, don’t you?’ he asked softly.

I took a breath. ‘Yes. I do.’ Even admitting it squeezed my heart. It was more than missing her. I’d abandoned her. Tonight I’d seen her, a fading old woman alone save for her loyal, ageing servants.

‘But you’ve never considered letting her know that you survived? That you live still?’

I shook my head. ‘For the reasons I just mentioned. She has no caution. Not only would she proclaim it from the rooftops, but also she would probably threaten to horsewhip anyone who refused to rejoice with her. That would be after she got over being furious with me, of course.’

‘Of course.’

We were both smiling, in that bittersweet way one does when imagining something that the heart longs for and the head would dread. The fire burned before us, tongues of flame lapping up the side of the fresh log. Outside the shuttered windows, a wind was blowing. Winter’s herald. A twitch of old reflexes made me think of all the things I had not done to prepare for it. I’d left crops in my garden, and harvested no marsh grass for the pony’s winter comfort. They were the cares of another man in another life. Here at Buckkeep, I need worry about none of that. I should have felt smug, but instead I felt divested.

‘Do you think the Prince will meet me at dawn in Verity’s tower?’

The Fool’s eyes were closed but he rolled his head towards me. ‘I don’t know. He was still dancing when we left.’

‘I suppose I should be there in case he does. I wish I hadn’t said I would. I need to get back to my cabin and tidy myself out of there.’

He made a small sound between assent and a sigh. He drew his feet up and curled up in the chair like a child. His knees were practically under his chin.

‘I’m going to bed,’ I announced. ‘You should, too.’

He made another sound. I groaned. I went to his bed, dragged off a coverlet, and brought it back to the fireside. I draped it over him. ‘Good night, Fool.’

He sighed heavily in reply and pulled the blanket closer.

I blew out all the candles save one that I carried to my chamber with me. I set it down on my small clothing chest and sat down on the hard bed with a groan. My back ached all round my scar. Standing still had always irritated it far more than riding or working. The little room was both chill and close, the air too still and full of the same smells it had gathered for the last hundred years. I didn’t want to sleep there. I thought of climbing all the steps to Chade’s workroom and stretching out on the larger, softer bed there. That would have been good, if there had not been so many stairs between it and me.

I dragged off my fine clothes and made an effort at putting them away properly. As I burrowed beneath my single blanket, I resolved to get some money out of Chade and purchase at least one more blanket for myself, one that was not so aggressively itchy. And to check on Hap. And apologize to Jinna for not coming to see her this evening as I had said I would. And get rid of the scrolls in my cabin. And teach my horse some manners. And instruct the Prince in the Skill and the Wit.

I drew a very deep breath, sighed it and all my cares away, and sank into sleep.

Shadow Wolf.

It was not a strong call. It was drifting smoke on the wind. It was not my name. It was someone’s name for me, but that did not mean I had to answer to it. I turned away from the summoning.

Shadow Wolf.

Shadow Wolf.

Shadow Wolf.

It reminded me of Hap tugging at my shirt-tail when he was small. Incessant and insistent. Nagging as a mosquito buzzing near your ear in the night.

Shadow Wolf.

Shadow Wolf.

It wasn’t going to go away.

I’m sleeping. I suddenly knew that was so, in that odd way that dreamers do. I was asleep and this was a dream. Dreams didn’t matter. Did they?

So am I. That’s the only time I can reach you. Don’t you know that?

My replying seemed to have strengthened her sending. It was almost as if she clung to me now. No. I didn’t know that.

I looked idly around myself. I nearly recognized the shape of the land. It was spring and close by apple trees were in bloom. I could hear bees busy amongst the blossoms. There was soft green grass under my bare feet and a gentle air moved through my hair.

I’ve come so often to your dreams, and watched what you did. I thought I would invite you to one of mine. Do you like it?

There was a woman beside me. No, a girl. Someone. It was hard to tell. I could see her dress and her little leather shoes, and her weather-browned hands but the rest of her was fogged. I could not resolve her features. As for myself … it was strange. I could behold myself, as if I stood outside myself, and yet it was not the me that I saw when I looked in a mirror. I was a shaggy-haired man, much taller than I truly am, and far more strong. My rough grey hair spilled down my back and hung over my brow. The nails of my hands were black, and my teeth were pointed in my mouth. Uneasiness nibbled at me. Danger here, but not to me. Why couldn’t I remember what the danger was?

This isn’t me. This isn’t right.

She laughed fondly. Well, if you won’t let me see you as you are, then you’ll just have to be how I’ve always imagined you. Shadow Wolf, why have you stayed away? I’ve missed you. And I’ve feared for you. I felt your great pain, but I do not know what it was. Are you hurt? There seems less of you than there was. And you seem tired and older. I’ve missed you and your dreams. I was so scared you were dead, and then you didn’t come any more. It’s taken me forever to discover that I could reach out to you instead of waiting for you to come to me.

She chattered like a child. A very real and wakeful dismay crept through me. It was like a cold mist in my heart, and then I saw it, a mist rising around me in the dream. Somehow, without knowing how, I had summoned it. I willed it thicker and stronger around me. I tried to warn her. This isn’t right. Or good. Stay back, stay away from me.

That isn’t fair! She wailed as the mist became a wall between us. Her thoughts reached me more faintly. Look what you’ve done to my dream. It was so hard to make and now you’ve spoiled it. Where are you going? You are so rude!

I twitched free of her failing grip on me, and found I could wake up. In fact, I was already awake, and an instant later I was sitting on the edge of my cot. My combing fingers stood up what was left of my hair. I was almost ready for the Skill-pain when it lurched through my belly and slammed against the cap of my skull. I took deep, steadying breaths, resolved not to vomit. When some little time had passed, a minute or half a year, I could scarcely tell which, I painstakingly began to reinforce my Skill-walls. Had I been careless? Had weariness or my exposure to Smoke dropped them?

Or was my daughter simply strong enough to break through them?

FIVE

Shared Sorrows

A storm of gems they were.

Scaled wings jewel-like glittered.

Eyes flaming, wings fanning

The dragons came.

Too flashing bright for memory to hold.

The promise of a thousand songs fulfilled.

Claws shredding, jaws devouring

The King returned.

Verity’s Reckoning – Starling Birdsong

Air stirred against my cheek. I opened my eyes wearily. I had dozed off, despite the open window and chill morning. Before and below me stretched a vista of water. Waves tipped with white wrinkled under a grey sky. I got up from Verity’s chair with a groan; two steps carried me to the tower window. From here, the view was wider, showing me the steep cliffs and the clinging forest below this aspect of Buckkeep Castle. There was the taste of a storm in the air, and the wind was cutting its winter teeth. The sun was a hand’s-breadth above the far horizon, dawn long fled. The Prince had not come.

I was not surprised. Dutiful was probably still deeply asleep after last night’s festivities. No, it was no surprise that he should forget our meeting, or perhaps rouse just enough to decide it wasn’t that important and roll back into sleep. Yet I felt some disappointment, and it was not just that my prince had found sleep more important than meeting me. He had said he would meet me here, and then hadn’t. And had not even sent word to cancel the meeting and save me the time and trouble of being here. It was a trifling thing in a boy of his years, a bit of thoughtlessness. Yet what was minor in a boy was not so in a prince. I wanted to rebuke him for it, as Chade would have chastened me. Or Burrich. I grinned ruefully. In fairness, had I been any different at Dutiful’s age? Burrich had never trusted me to keep dawn appointments. I could well recall how he would thunder at my door to be sure I did not miss a lesson with the axe. Well, perhaps if our roles had been different, I would have gone and pounded on the Prince’s chamber door.

As it was, I contented myself with a message, drawn in the dust on the top of a small table beside the chair. ‘I was here; you were not.’ Brief and succinct, a rebuke if he chose to take it that way. And anonymous. It could just as easily have been a sulky page’s note to a tardy chambermaid.

I closed the window shutters and let myself out by the way I had come, through a side panel in the decorative mantel around the hearth. It was a narrow squeeze and it was tricky to properly seal it closed behind me. My candle had gone out. I descended a long and gloomy stair, sparsely lit by tiny chinks in the outer wall that let in thin fingers of light and wind. There was a level section that I negotiated through pitch dark; it seemed far longer than I recalled, and I was glad when my groping foot found the next stair. I made a wrong turn at the bottom of it. The third time I walked into a faceful of cobwebs, I knew I was lost. I turned around and groped my way back. When, some time later, I emerged into Chade’s chamber from behind the wine rack, I was dusty and irritable and sweaty. I was ill prepared for what met me there.

Chade started up from his seat before the hearth, setting down a teacup as he did so. ‘There you are, FitzChivalry,’ he exclaimed, even as a wave of Skill slammed into me.

Don’t see me, stink-dog man.

I staggered and then caught at the table to remain standing. I ignored Chade, who was scowling at me, to focus on Thick. The idiot serving-man, his face smudged with soot, stood by the work-hearth. His figure wavered before my eyes and I felt giddy. If I had not reset my walls the night before to guard against Nettle’s Skill-tinkering, I think he would have been able to wipe all image of himself from my mind. As it was, I spoke through gritted teeth.

‘I do see you. I will always see you. But that does not mean I will hurt you. Unless you try to hurt me. Or unless you are rude to me again.’ I was sorely tempted to try the Wit on him, to repel at him with a burst of sheer animal energy, but I did not. I would not use the Skill. I would have had to open my walls to do so, and it would have revealed to him what my strength was. I was not yet ready for that. Remain calm, I told myself. You have to master yourself before you can master him.

‘No, no, Thick! Stop that. He’s good. He can be here. I say so.’

Chade spoke to him as if he were three years old. And while I recognized that the small eyes in the round face that glowered at me were not the eyes of a man my intellectual equal, I also saw a flash of resentment there at being thus addressed. I seized on it, keeping my gaze on Thick’s face but speaking to Chade.

‘You don’t need to talk to him like that. He isn’t stupid. He’s …’ I groped for a word to express what I suddenly was certain of. Thick’s intelligence might be limited in some ways, but it was there. ‘… different,’ I ended lamely. Different, I reflected, as a horse was different from a cat and they both were different from a man. But not lesser. Almost I could sense how his mind reached in another direction from mine, attaching significance to items I dismissed even as he dismissed whole areas that anchored my reality.

Thick scowled from me to Chade and back again. Then he took up his broom and a bucket of ash and cinders from the fireplace and scuttled from the room. After the scroll rack had swung back into place behind him, I caught the flung thought-fragment. Dog-stinker.

‘He doesn’t like me. He knows I’m Witted, too,’ I complained to Chade as I dropped into the other chair. Almost sulkily, I added, ‘Prince Dutiful didn’t meet me in Verity’s tower this morning. He had said he would.’

My remarks seemed to drift past the old man. ‘The Queen wants to see you. Right away.’ He was neatly if not elegantly attired in a simple robe of blue this morning with soft fur slippers on his feet. Did they ache from dancing?

‘What about?’ I asked as I rose and followed him. We went back to the wine rack, and as we triggered the concealed door, I remarked, ‘Thick didn’t seem surprised to see me enter from here.’

Chade shrugged one shoulder. ‘I do not think he is bright enough to be surprised by something like that. I doubt that he even noticed it.’

I considered and decided that it might be true. To him, it might have no significance. ‘And the Queen wanted to see me because?’

‘Because she told me so,’ he replied a bit testily.

After that I kept silent and followed him. I suspected his head throbbed, as mine did. I knew he had an antidote to a night’s hard drinking, and knew also how difficult it was to compound. Sometimes it was easier to put up with the throbbing headache than to grind one’s way through creating a cure.

We entered the Queen’s private chambers as we had before. Chade paused to peer and listen to be sure there were no witnesses, then admitted us to a privy chamber, and from there to the Queen’s sitting room, where Kettricken awaited us. She looked up with a weary smile as we entered. She was alone.

We both bowed formally. ‘Good morning, my queen,’ Chade greeted her for us, and she held out her hands in welcome, gesturing us in. The last time I had been here, an anxious Kettricken had awaited us in an austere chamber, her thoughts centred solely on her missing son. This time, the room displayed her handiwork. In the middle of a small table, six golden leaves had been arranged on a tray of gleaming river pebbles. Three tall candles burning there gave off the scent of violets. Several rugs of wool eased the floor against winter’s oncoming chill, and the chairs were softened with sheepskins. A day-fire burned in the hearth, and a kettle puffed steam above it. It reminded me of her home in the Mountains. She had also arranged a small table of food. Hot tea exhaled from a fat pot. I noticed there were only two cups as Kettricken said, ‘Thank you for bringing FitzChivalry here, Lord Chade.’

It was a dismissal, smoothly done. Chade bowed again, perhaps a bit more stiffly than he had the first time, and retreated by way of the privy chamber. I was left standing alone before the Queen, wondering what all this was about. When the door closed behind Chade, she gave a sudden great sigh, sat down at the table and gestured at the other chair. ‘Please, Fitz,’ and her words were an invitation to drop all formality as well as to be seated.

As I took my place opposite her, I studied her. We were nearly of an age, but her years rode her far more graciously than mine did me. Where the passage of time had scarred me, it had brushed her, leaving a tracery of lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. She wore a green gown today, and it set off the gold of her hair as well as carrying her eyes to the jade end of their spectrum. Her dress was simple, as was the plaiting of her hair; she wore no jewellery or cosmetics.

And she did not indulge in any kind of ceremony as she poured tea for me and set my cup before me. ‘There are cakes, too, if you wish,’ she said, and I did, for I had not yet broken my fast that day. Yet something in her voice, an edge of hoarseness, made me set down the cup I’d started to lift. She was looking aside from me, avoiding my eyes. I saw the frantic fluttering of her eyelashes, and then a tear brimmed over and splashed down her cheek.

‘Kettricken?’ I asked in alarm. What had gone awry that I did not know about? Had she discovered the Narcheska’s reluctance to wed her son? Had there been another Wit-threat?

She caught her breath raggedly and suddenly looked me full in the face. ‘Oh, Fitz, I did not call you here for this. I meant to keep this to myself. But … I am so sorry. For all of us. When first I heard, I already knew. I woke that dawn, feeling as if something had broken, something important.’ She tried to clear her throat and could not. She croaked out her words, tears coursing down her face. ‘I could not put my finger on the loss, but when Chade brought your tidings to me, I knew instantly. I felt him go, Fitz. I felt Nighteyes leave us.’ And then a sob racked her, and she dropped her face into her hands and wept like a devastated child.

I wanted to flee. I had almost succeeded in mastering my grief, and now she tore the wound afresh. For a time I sat woodenly, numbed by pain. Why couldn’t she just leave it alone?

But she seemed not to notice my coldness. ‘The years pass, but you never forget a friend like him.’ She was speaking to herself, her head bowed into her hands. Her words came muffled and thick with tears. She rocked a little in her chair. ‘I’d never felt so close to an animal, before we travelled together. But in the long hours of walking, he was always there, ranging ahead and coming back and then checking behind us. He was like a shield for me, for when he came trotting back, I always knew that he was satisfied no danger awaited us. Without his assurance, I am sure my own poor courage would have failed a hundred times. When we began our journey, he seemed just a part of you. But then I got to know him for himself. His bravery and tenacity, even his humour. There were times, especially at the quarry, when we went off to hunt and he alone seemed to understand my feelings. It was not just that I could hold tight to him and cry into his fur and know he would never betray my weakness. It was that he rejoiced in my strengths, too. When we hunted together and I made a kill, I could feel his approval like … like a fierceness that said I deserved to survive, that I had earned my place in this world.’ She drew breath raggedly. ‘I think I will always miss him. And I didn’t even get to see him again before …’

My mind reeled. Truly, I had not known how close they had been. Nighteyes also had kept his secrets well. I had known that Queen Kettricken had a predilection for the Wit. I had sensed faint questing from her when she meditated. I had often suspected that her Mountain ‘connection’ with the natural world would have a less kindly name in the Six Duchies. But she and my wolf?

‘He spoke to you? You heard Nighteyes in your mind?’

She shook her head, not lifting her face from her hands. Her fingers muffled her reply. ‘No. But I felt him in my heart, when I was numb to all else.’

Slowly I rose. I walked around the small table. I had intended only to pat her bent shoulders, but when I touched her, she abruptly stood and stumbled into my embrace. I held her and let her weep against my shoulder. Whether I would or not, my own tears welled. Then her grief, not sympathy for me but true grief at Nighteyes’ death gave permission to mine, and my mourning ripped free. All the anguish I had been trying to conceal from those who could not understand the depth of loss I felt suddenly demanded vent. I think I only realized that our roles had changed when she pushed me gently down into her chair. She offered me her tiny, useless handkerchief and then gently kissed my brow and both my cheeks. I could not stop crying. She stood by me, my head cradled against her breast, and stroked my hair and let me weep. She spoke brokenly of my wolf and all he had been to her, words I scarcely heard.

She did not try to stop my tears or tell me that everything would be all right. She knew it would not. But when my weeping finally had run its course, she stooped and kissed me on my mouth, a healing kiss. Her lips were salt with her own tears. Then she stood straight again.

She gave a sudden deep sigh as if setting aside a burden. ‘Your poor hair,’ she murmured, and smoothed it to my head. ‘Oh, my dear Fitz. How hard we used you! Both of you. And I can never …’ She seemed to feel the uselessness of words. ‘But … well … drink your tea while it is still hot.’ She moved apart from me, and after a moment I felt I again had control of myself. As she took my chair, I lifted her cup and drank from it. The tea was still steaming hot. Only a short time had elapsed, yet I felt as if I had passed some important turning point. When I took a breath, it seemed to fill my lungs more deeply than it had in days. She took up my cup. When I looked up at my queen, she gave me a small smile. Her tears had left her pale eyes outlined in red, and her nose was pink. She had never looked lovelier to me.

So we shared some time. The tea was a spice tea, friendly and enlivening. There were flaky rolls stuffed with sausage, and little cakes with tart fruit filling, and plain oatcakes, simple and hearty. I don’t think either of us trusted our voices to speak, and we didn’t have to. We ate in silence. I got up once to replenish the hot water in the teapot. When the herbs had steeped, I poured more tea for both of us. After a time of silence, she leaned back in her chair and said quietly, ‘So, you see, this supposed “taint” in my son comes from me.’

She spoke it as if we were continuing a conversation. I had wondered if she would make the connection. Now that she did, I grieved for the guilt and chagrin I heard in her voice. ‘There have been Witted Farseers before Dutiful,’ I pointed out. ‘Myself among them.’

‘And you had a Mountain mother. It’s possible that she was the source of your Wit. Perhaps Mountain blood carries it.’

I walked perilously close to the edge of the truth as I said, ‘I consider it just as likely that Dutiful could have gotten the Wit from his father as his mother.’

‘But –’

‘But it matters little where it came from,’ I interrupted the Queen ruthlessly. I wanted to divert this conversation. ‘The boy has it, and that is what we must deal with. When he first asked me to teach him about it, I was horrified. Now I think his instincts were true. Better he know as much as I can teach him about both his magics.’

Her face lit up. ‘Then you have agreed to teach him!’

Truly, I was out of practice at intrigue. Or perhaps, I reflected wryly, over the years my lady had learned that subtlety and gentleness could win her secrets that even Chade’s deviousness had not pried from me. The accuracy with which she read my face seemed to support the second theory.

‘I will say nothing of it to the Prince. If he wishes it to remain private between you, then so it shall be. When will you start?’

‘At the Prince’s earliest convenience,’ I replied evasively. I would not tattle that he had already missed his first lesson.

She nodded at that, and seemed content to leave it to me. She cleared her throat. ‘FitzChivalry. The reason I summoned you here was my intent to … make things right for you. As much as we can. In so many ways, I cannot treat you as you deserve. But whatever we can do for your comfort or pleasure, I desire that we do. You masquerade as Lord Golden’s servant, and I understand all the reasons for this. Still, it chagrins me that a prince of your bloodlines should go unacknowledged amongst his own folk. So. What can we do? Would you like other chambers prepared for you, ones that you could reach privately and where you could have things arranged for your comfort?’

‘No,’ I replied quickly, and hearing the brusqueness of my reply, I added, ‘I think things are best as they are now. I am as comfortable as I need to be.’ I would live here but I could not make it a home. It was useless to try. That private thought jolted me. Home, I reflected, was a place shared. The loft over the stable with Burrich, or the cottage with Nighteyes and Hap. And the chambers that I now shared with the Fool? No. For there was too much caution in both of us, too much privacy preserved, too many constraints of roles.

‘… arranged for a monthly allowance. After this, Chade will see you receive it, but I wanted you to have this today.’

And my queen was setting a purse before me, a little bag of cloth embroidered with stylized flowers. It clinked sturdily as she placed it on the table. I flushed in spite of myself, and could not hide it. I looked up to find her cheeks equally pink.

‘It does feel awkward, doesn’t it? Make no mistake in this, FitzChivalry. This is not pay for what you have done for me and mine. No coin could ever pay for that. But a man has expenses, and it is not fitting that you should have to ask for what you need.’

I understood her, but I could not forbear from saying, ‘You and yours are also mine, my queen. And you are right. No amount of coin could buy what I do for them.’

Another woman might have taken it as a rebuke. But my words brought a gleam of fierce pride to Kettricken’s eyes and she smiled at me. ‘I rejoice in the kinship we share, FitzChivalry. Rurisk was my only brother. No one can ever replace him. But you have come as close to that as it is possible for anyone to do.’

And at that, I thought we understood each other very well indeed. It warmed me that she claimed me through our kinship, through the bloodlines I shared with her husband and her son. Long ago, King Shrewd had first made me his with a bargain and a silver pin to seal it. Both pin and king were long gone now. Did our bargain still remain? King Shrewd had chosen to invoke his claim on me as the right of my king rather than as my grandfather. Now Kettricken, my queen, claimed me first as kin and second as brother. She struck no bargains. She would have scowled at the thought that any setting of terms to my loyalty was necessary.

‘I wish to tell my son who you truly are.’

That jolted me from my brief complacency. ‘Please, no, my queen. That knowledge is a danger and a burden. Why put it upon him?’

‘Why deny that knowledge to the Farseer heir?’

A long moment of silence held between us. Then I said, ‘Perhaps in time.’

I was relieved when she nodded. Then she took that from me when she said, ‘I will know when the time is right.’

She reached across the table to take my hand. When I let her have it, she turned it palm up and set something in it. ‘Long ago, you wore a small ruby-and-silver pin that King Shrewd gave you. One that marked you as his, and said that his door was always open to you. I would have you wear this now, in the same spirit.’

It was a tiny thing. A little silver fox with a winking green eye. It sat alertly, its brush curled around its feet. The image was fastened to a long pin. I studied it carefully. It was perfect.

‘This is the work of your own hands.’

‘I am flattered that you recall that I like working silver. Yes. It is. And the fox is that which you made my symbol here at Buckkeep.’

I unlaced my blue servant’s shirt and opened it. While she watched, I thrust the pin into the facing of the shirt. From the outside, nothing showed, but when I fastened my shirt again, I could feel the tiny fox against my breast.

I cleared my throat. ‘You honour me. And as you have said you hold me as close as your brother, then I shall ask a question that I am sure Rurisk would have asked you. I shall be so bold as to demand why you keep amongst your ladies one who once attempted to take your life. And that of your unborn child.’

Her glance was genuinely quizzical. Then, as if someone had poked her with a pin, she gave a small start, and ‘Oh, you mean Lady Rosemary.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘It has been so long … All of that was so very long ago, Fitz. You know, when I look at her, I do not even think of that. When Regal and his household returned here at the end of the Red Ship War, Rosemary was among the train. Her mother had died, and she had been … neglected. At first, I could not abide to have either her or Regal in my presence. But there were appearances to preserve, and his abject apologies and vows of loyalty to the unborn heir and me were … useful. It served to unite the Six Duchies, for with him he brought the nobility of Tilth and Farrow. And we needed that support, desperately. It would have been so easy for the Six Duchies to follow the Red Ship War with a civil strife. There are so many differences among the duchies. But Regal’s influence was enough to sway his nobles back to allegiance to me. Then Regal died, so strangely and so violently. It was unavoidable that there were mutterings that I had had him murdered in vengeance for old wrongs. Chade advised me strongly that I must make gestures among his nobles to bind them to me. So I did. I put Lady Patience in his place at Tradeford, for I felt I must have strong support there. But his other holdings I distributed judiciously amongst those that most needed quelling.’

‘And Lord Bright’s reaction to that?’ I asked. This was all news to me. Bright had been Regal’s heir, and was Duke of Farrow now. Much of what they had ‘distributed’ was doubtless his hereditary wealth.

‘I recompensed him in other ways. After his dismal performance at defending Buck and Buckkeep, he was on shaky ground. He could not protest strongly, for he had not inherited Regal’s influence with the nobles. Yet I strove to make him not only content with his lot, but a better ruler than he otherwise would have been. I saw to his schooling, in things other than fine wine and dress. Most of his years as Duke of Farrow have been spent right here in Buckkeep. Patience manages his Tradeford holdings for him, probably far better than he would have himself, for she has the common sense to appoint people who know what they are doing. And she sends reports to him monthly, far more detailed than he relishes, but I insist he go over them with one of my treasury men, not only to be sure he understands them, but also that he must profess he is satisfied with how they fare. And I think that now, he genuinely is.’

‘I suspect his duchess has something to do with that,’ I hazarded.

Kettricken had the grace to flush slightly. ‘Chade thought he might be better content wedded. And it is time he got himself an heir. Left single, he was an invitation to discord at the court.’

‘Who selected her?’ I tried not to sound cold.

‘Lord Chade suggested several young women of good family who had the … requisite qualities. After that, I saw that they were introduced. And that the families knew I would be pleased at the prospect of the Duke selecting one of their daughters. The competition spread rapidly amongst the chosen women. But Lord Bright selected his own bride from amongst them. I but saw that he had the opportunity to choose …’

‘Someone who was tractable and not too ambitious. A daughter of someone loyal to the Queen.’ I filled in the rest.

She met my eyes squarely. ‘Yes.’ She caught a small breath. ‘Do you fault me, FitzChivalry? You, who were my first instructor in managing the intrigues of the court to my advantage?’

I smiled at her. ‘No. In truth, I am proud of you. And from the look on Lord Bright’s face at last night’s festivities, you chose well for him, in heart as well as in allegiance.’

She gave a sigh, almost of relief. ‘Thank you. For I value your regard, FitzChivalry, as I ever have. I would not want to think I had shamed myself before you.’

‘I doubt that you could,’ I replied, truthfully as well as gallantly. Then, dragging the conversation back to my interest, ‘And Rosemary?’

‘After Regal died, most of his hangers-on dispersed to their family holdings, and some to inspect new holdings I had given them. No one claimed Rosemary. Her father had died before she was born. Her mother had his title, Lady Celeffa of Firwood, but the title was little more than words. Firwood is a tiny holding, a beggar’s fiefdom. There is a manor house there, but I am told it has not been inhabited in some years. But for being in Prince Regal’s favour, Lady Celeffa would never have come to court at all.’ She sighed. ‘So there was Rosemary, an orphan at eight, and not in favour with the Queen. I suspect you need little help to imagine how she was treated by the court.’

I had to wince. I could recall how I had been treated.

‘I tried to ignore her. But Chade would not let it rest. Nor in truth could I.’

‘She was a danger to you. A half-trained assassin, taught by Regal to hate you. She could not simply be left to wander about as she pleased.’

She was silent for a moment. Then, ‘Now you sound like Chade. No. She was worse than that. She was a neglected child in my home, a little girl blamed by me for becoming what she was taught to be. A daily rebuke to me for my own neglect of her and my hardness of heart. If I had been all to her that a lady should be to her page, Regal could not have taken her heart from me.’

‘Unless he had it before she ever came to you.’

‘And even then, I should have known it. If I had not been so focused on my own life and problems.’

‘She was your page, not your daughter!’

She was silent for a time. ‘You forget, I was raised in the Mountains, to be Sacrifice to my people, Fitz. Not a queen, such as you expect. I demand more of myself.’

I stepped to the side of that argument. ‘So it was your decision to keep her.’

‘Chade said I must either keep her or be rid of her entirely. I was filled with horror at his words. Kill a child for doing what she had been taught? And then his words made me see all of it clearly. It would have been kinder to kill her outright than to torture and neglect her as I had been doing. So. That night I went to her chamber. Alone. She was terrified of me, and her room was cold and near bare, the bedding gone unwashed I don’t know how long. She had outgrown her nightgown; it was torn at the shoulders and far too short for her. She curled up on the bed as far from me as she could get and just stared at me. Then I asked her which she would prefer, to be fostered out to Lady Patience or to be my page again.’

‘And she chose to be your page.’

‘And she burst into tears and threw herself to the floor and clung to my skirts and said she had thought I didn’t like her any more. She sobbed so hard that before I could calm her, her hair was plastered flat to her skull with sweat and she was shaking all over. Fitz, I was ashamed to have been so cruel to a child, not by what I had done, but simply by ignoring her. Only Chade and I ever knew that we suspected her of trying to harm me. But my simple shunning of her had given the lesser folk of the keep permission to be cruel and callous to her. Her little slippers were all gone to tatters …’ Her voice trailed off, and despite myself, I felt a stab of pity for Rosemary. Kettricken took a deep breath and resumed her tale. ‘She begged to be allowed to serve me again. Fitz, she was not even seven years old when she did Regal’s bidding. She never hated me, or understood what she did. To her, I am sure it was a game, to listen in secret and repeat all that she heard.’

I tried to be pragmatic and hard. ‘And greasing the steps so you would fall?’

‘Would she be told the why of it, or simply told to put the grease on the steps after I had gone up to the roof garden? To a child, it might have been framed as a prank.’

‘Did you ask her?’

A pause. ‘Some things are best left alone. Even if she knew the intent was to make me fall, I do not think she realized the full import of it. I think perhaps that I was two people to her, the woman that Regal wanted to bring down, and Kettricken whom she served every day. The one who should be blamed for her conduct is dead. And ever since I took her back to my side, she has been nothing but a loyal and diligent subject to me.’ She sighed and stared past me as she went on, ‘The past must be left in the past, Fitz. This is especially true for those who rule. I must wed my son to a daughter of an Outislander. I must promote trade and alliance with the folk who doomed my king to death. Shall I quibble about taking a little spy under my wing and turning her into a lady of my court?’

I took a deep breath. If in fifteen years she had not regretted her decision, no words of mine would change it now. Nor should they, perhaps. ‘Well. I suppose I should have expected it. You did not quibble to take an assassin as your advisor when you came to court.’

‘As my first friend here,’ she corrected me gravely. She furrowed her forehead. When I had met her, she had not had those lines on her brow and between her eyes, but now use had set them there. ‘I am not happy with this charade we must keep. I would have you at my side to advise me, and to teach my son. I would have you honoured as my friend as well as a Farseer.’

‘It cannot be,’ I told her firmly. ‘And this is better. I am more use to you in this role, and less risk to you and the Prince.’

‘And more risk to yourself. Chade has told me that Piebalds threatened you, right upon our doorstep in Buckkeep Town.’

I discovered that I hadn’t wanted her to know that. ‘It is a thing best handled by me. Perhaps I can tease them out into the open.’

‘Well. Perhaps. But I am ashamed that you face such things seemingly alone. In truth, I hate that such bigotry still exists in the Six Duchies, and that our nobles turn a blind eye to it. I have done what I could for my Witted folk, but progress has been slow. When the Piebald postings first began to appear, they angered me. Chade urged me not to act in the heat of that anger. Now, I wonder if it would not have been wise to let my wrath be known. My second reaction was that I wished to let my Witted folk know that my justice was available to them. I wanted to send out a summons, inviting the leaders of the Witted to come to me, that together we might hammer out a shield for them against the cruelty of these Piebalds.’ She shook her head.

‘Again Chade intervened, telling me that the Witted had no recognized leaders, and that they would not trust the Farseers enough to come to such a meeting. We had no go-between that they would trust, and no sureties we could offer them that this was not a plan to lure them in and destroy them. He persuaded me to abandon the idea.’ Her words seemed to come more reluctantly as she added, ‘Chade is a good councillor, wise in politics and the ways of power. Yet I sometimes feel that he would steer us solely on the basis of what makes the Six Duchies most stable, with less thought for justice for all my people.’ Her fair brow wrinkled as she added, ‘He says that the greater the stability of the country, the more chance there is for justice to prosper. Perhaps he is right. But often and often I have longed for the way you and I used to discuss these things. There, too, I have missed you, FitzChivalry. I dislike that I cannot have you at my side when I wish it, but must send for you in secret. I wish that I could invite you to join Peottre and I for our game today, for I would value your opinion of him. He is a most intriguing man.’

‘Your game with Peottre today?’

‘I shared some talk with him last evening. In the course of discussing the chance that Dutiful and Elliania would be truly happy, other talk of “chance” came up. And from there, we moved to games of chance. Do you recall a Mountain game played with cards and rune chips?’

I dredged through my memory. ‘I think you spoke of it to me once. And yes, I recall reading a scroll about it, when I was recovering from Regal’s first attempt on me.’

‘There are cards or tablets, either painted on heavy paper or carved on thin slabs of wood. They have emblems from our old tales, such as Old Weaver Man and Hunter in Hiding. The rune chips have runes on them, for Stone, Water and Pasture.’

‘Yes. I’m sure I’ve heard of it.’

‘Well, Peottre wants me to teach him to play it. He was very interested when I spoke of it. He says that in the Outislands they have a game played with rune cubes, where they are shaken and tumbled out. Then the players set out their markers onto a cloth or board that is painted with minor godlings, such as Wind and Smoke and Tree. It sounds as if it might be a similar game, does it not?’

‘Perhaps,’ I conceded. But her face had brightened at the prospect of teaching Peottre this new game in a way that was out of proportion to the pleasure I expected her to take in it. Did my queen find this bluff Outislander warrior attractive? ‘You must tell me more of this game later. I would like to hear if the runes on the dice are similar to the runes on your rune chips.’

‘That would be intriguing, wouldn’t it? If the runes resembled one another? Especially as some of the runes from my game were similar to the runes on the Skill-pillars.’

‘Ah.’ Kettricken was still capable of putting me off-balance. She had always seemed able to think along several lines at once, bringing oddly disparate facts together to make a pattern others missed. This had been how she had rediscovered the lost map to the kingdom of the Elderlings. I felt suddenly as if she had given me too much to think over.

I stood to excuse myself, bowed, and then wished I had words to thank her. An instant later it seemed a strange impulse, to thank someone for mourning someone you had loved. I made a fumbling effort, but she stopped me, coming to take both my hands in hers. ‘And perhaps only you understood what I felt at Verity’s loss. To see him transformed, to know he would triumph, and yet still to mourn selfishly that I would never again see him as the man he had been. This is not the first tragedy we have shared, FitzChivalry. We both have walked alone through much of our lives.’

It was unmannerly, but I did it anyway. I enfolded her in my arms and held her tightly for a moment. ‘He loved you so,’ I said, and my voice choked on the words I spoke for my lost king.

She rested her forehead on my shoulder. ‘I know that,’ she said quietly. ‘That love sustains me even now. Sometimes I think I can almost feel him still, at my shoulder, offering counsel when times are difficult. May Nighteyes be with you as Verity is with me.’

I held Verity’s woman for a long moment. Things could have been so different. Yet her wish was a good wish, and healing. I released her with a sigh, and the Queen and the serving-man parted to their daily tasks.

SIX

Obliteration

… and it is almost certain that the Chalcedeans could have defeated the Bingtown Traders and claimed their territory for their own if only they could have maintained a solid blockade of Bingtown Bay.

Two magics hampered them in this regard, and magic it most certainly was, despite any who would dispute it, for the Bingtown Traders are merchants and not fighters, as all know. The first magic was that the Bingtown Traders possess Liveships, trading vessels that, by some arcane practice involving the sacrifice of three children or elderly family members, are brought to sentient life. Not only can the figureheads of these vessels move and speak, but they are also possessed of prodigious strength, enabling them to crush lesser vessels if once they grip them. Some of them are able to spit fire for a distance equal to three of their vessels’ lengths.

The second magic is as likely to be disputed by the ignorant as the first, but as this traveller witnessed it, I defy those who call this a lie. A dragon, cunningly crafted of blue and silver gemstones and activated by a marvellous combination of magic and … (passage obscured by damage to parchment) … was hastily created by the Bingtown artisans for the defence of their harbour. This creature, named Tinnitgliat by her creators, rose from the smoking wreckage that the Chalcedeans had made of the Bingtown warehouse district and drove the enemy vessels from the harbour.

Winfroda’s My Adventures as a World Traveller

I threaded my way back through the maze of corridors and emerged once more into my cell. I paused to peer into the darkness before entering it. Once within, I secured the secret door behind me. Then I paused, standing perfectly still in the darkness. Through the closed door that led to the Fool’s apartment, voices reached me.

‘Well, as I’ve no idea when he rose and left, nor why, I’ve no idea when he will return. It seemed such a charming concept at first, to have a strong and able man-at-arms, capable not only of defending me from street ruffians but also serving as my valet and seeing to my other needs as well. But he has proven most unreliable at daily tasks. Look at this! I’ve had to snatch a passing page from the corridor and have him tell a kitchen-boy to bring up my breakfast. And it isn’t what I would have chosen at all! I’m tempted to let Badgerlock go entirely, except that with my ankle as it is, it is no time for me to be without a sturdy servant. Well. Perhaps I shall have to accept his limitations and acquire a page or two to see to my daily tasks. Look at the layer of dust on that mantel! Shameful. I can scarcely invite visitors to my chambers with them looking like this. It is almost fortunate that the pain in my ankle makes me tend towards solitary occupations just now.’

I froze where I was. I longed to know to whom he was speaking and why that person sought me, but I could scarcely make an entrance if Lord Golden had already insisted I was not here.

‘Very well. May I leave a message for your man then, Lord Golden?’

The voice was Laurel’s and the irritation level in it was unmasked. She had seen too much of us when she had accompanied us on our journey to be deceived by our charade. She would never again believe us to be merely master and man: we had bungled our roles too often. Yet I also understood why Lord Golden insisted on resuming the masquerade. To do otherwise would eventually have unravelled our deception of the court.

‘Certainly. Or you would be welcome to return this evening, if you wish to take the chance that he may have recalled his duties and wandered home.’

If he had intended that to mollify her, it failed. ‘A message will suffice, I am sure. In passing through the stable, I noticed something about his horse that made me concerned for her. If he will meet me there at noon today, I will point it out to him.’

‘And if he does not return by noon … by Sa, how I detest this! That I should have to act as a secretary to my own serving-man!’

‘Lord Golden.’ Her quiet voice cut through his dramatics. ‘My concern is a grave one. See that he meets me then, or arranges to speak to me about my concern. Good day.’

She shut the door very firmly behind her. I heard the thump, but even so I waited some minutes, to be completely certain that the Fool was alone. I eased the door open silently, but the Fool’s preternatural awareness served him well. ‘There you are,’ he exclaimed with a sigh of relief. ‘I was beginning to worry about you.’ Then he looked more closely at me and a smile lit up his face. ‘The Prince’s first lesson must have gone very well.’

‘The Prince chose not to attend his first lesson. And I am sorry to have put you out. I didn’t think to arrange for Lord Golden’s breakfast.’

He made a disparaging noise. ‘I assure you, the last thing I would expect is that you would be a competent servant. I’m perfectly capable of arranging my own breakfast. It is required, however, that I raise a suitable fuss when I am forced to waylay a page for it. I’ve muttered and complained enough now that I can add a boy to my staff without exciting any comment.’ He poured himself another cup of tea, sipped it and made a face. ‘Cold.’ He gestured at the remains of the repast. ‘Hungry?’

‘No. I ate with Kettricken.’

He nodded, unsurprised. ‘The Prince sent me a message this morning. It now makes sense to me. He wrote, “I was saddened to see that your injury prevented you from joining in the dancing at my betrothal festivities. Well do I know how frustrating it is when an unexpected inconvenience denies you a pleasure long anticipated. I heartily hope that you are soon able to resume your favourite activities.”

I nodded, somewhat pleased. ‘Subtle, yet it conveys it. Our prince is becoming more sophisticated.’

‘He has his father’s wit,’ he agreed, but when I glanced at him sharply, his expression was mild and benign. He continued, ‘You have another message as well. From Laurel.’

‘Yes. I overheard it.’

‘I thought you might have.’

I shook my head. ‘That one both puzzles and alarms me. From the way she spoke, I don’t think this meeting has anything to do with my horse. Still, I’ll meet her at noon and see what it is about. Then I’d like to go down to Buckkeep Town, to see Hap, and to apologize to Jinna.’

He lifted a pale eyebrow.

‘I had said I would come by last night, to talk to Hap. As you know, I went to the betrothal festivities with you instead.’

He picked up a tiny nosegay of white flowers from his breakfast tray and sniffed it thoughtfully. ‘So many people, all wanting a bit of your time.’

I sighed. ‘It is hard for me. I don’t quite know how to manage it. I’d grown used to my solitary life, with only Nighteyes and Hap making claims on me. I don’t think I’m handling this very well. I can’t imagine how Chade juggled all his tasks for so many years.’

He smiled. ‘He’s a spider. A web-weaver, with lines stringing out in all directions. He sits at the centre and interprets each tug.’

I smiled with him. ‘Accurate. Not flattering, but accurate.’

He cocked his head at me suddenly. ‘It was Kettricken, then, wasn’t it? Not Chade.’

‘I don’t understand.’

He looked down at his hands, twiddling the little bouquet. ‘There’s a change in you. Your shoulders are squared again. Your eyes focus on me when I talk to you. I don’t feel as if I should glance over my shoulder to see if a ghost is there.’ He set the flowers down carefully on the table. ‘Someone has lifted a part of your burden.’

‘Kettricken,’ I agreed with him after a moment. I cleared my throat. ‘She was closer to Nighteyes than I realized. She mourns him, too.’

‘As do I.’

I thought about my next words before I said them. I wondered if they were necessary, feared that they might hurt him. But I spoke them. ‘In a different way. Kettricken mourns Nighteyes as I do, for himself, and for what he was to her. You …’ I faltered, unsure how to put it.

‘I loved him through you. Our link was how he became real to me. So, in a sense, I do not mourn Nighteyes as you do. I grieve for your grief.’

‘You have always been better with words than I am.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed. Then he sighed and crossed his arms on his chest. ‘Well. I am glad that someone could help you. Even as I envy Kettricken.’

That made no sense. ‘You envy her, that she mourns?’

‘I envy her, that she could comfort you.’ Then, before I could even think of any reply, he added briskly, ‘I’ll leave it to you to clear the dishes away to the kitchen. Take care to be a bit surly when you return them, as if your master had just harshly rebuked you. Then you may be off to Laurel and Buckkeep Town. I plan to spend a quiet day today, in my own pursuits. I’ve let it out that my ankle pains me and that I wish to rest, without visitors. Later this afternoon, I am invited to gaming with the Queen’s favoured. So if you do not find me here, look for me there. Will you be back in time to help me limp down to dinner?’

‘I expect so.’

His spirits seemed suddenly dampened, as if he were truly in pain. He nodded gravely. ‘Perhaps I will see you then.’ He rose from the table and went to his private room. Without another word he opened the door, then shut it quietly but firmly behind him.

I gathered the dishes onto the tray. Despite his words about my incompetence as a servant, I took care to straighten the room. I returned the tray to the kitchens, and then fetched wood and water for our chambers. The door to the Fool’s personal room remained shut. I wondered if he were ill. I might have ventured to tap at the door if noon had not been upon me. I went to my room and buckled on my ugly sword. I took some of the coins from the purse Kettricken had given me and put the rest under the corner of my mattress. I checked my hidden pockets, took my cloak from its hook and headed down to the stables.

With the influx of people for Prince Dutiful’s betrothal, the regular stable was filled to capacity with our guests’ horses. In these circumstances, the beasts of lesser folk like me had been moved to the ‘Old Stables’, the stables of my childhood. I was just as content with the arrangement. Far less chance that I might encounter Hands there or any who might recall a boy who had once dwelt with Stablemaster Burrich.

I found Laurel leaning against the gate of Myblack’s stall, talking softly to her. Perhaps I had misinterpreted her message. My concern for the animal mounted and I hastened to her side. ‘What’s wrong with her?’ I asked, and then, belatedly recalling my manners, ‘Good day to you, Huntswoman Laurel. I am here as you requested.’ Myblack benignly ignored both of us.

‘Badgerlock, good day. Thank you for meeting me here.’ She glanced about casually, and finding our corner of the stable deserted, she leaned still closer and whispered to me, ‘I need a word with you. In private. Follow me.’

‘As you wish, mistress.’ She strode off and I followed at her heels. We walked past the rows of stalls to the back of the stables and then to my shock we began the climb up the now-rickety steps that had once led to Burrich’s loft. When he was Stablemaster, he had claimed to prefer to live close to his charges rather than accept better quarters in the castle itself. When I had lived with him, I had believed that to be true. In the intervening years, I had decided that he had kept his humble residence there as much for the sake of keeping me out of the public eye as he did for his own privacy. Now, as I followed Laurel up the steep steps, I wondered how much she knew. Did she bring me here as a prelude to telling me that she knew who I really was?

The door at the top of the steps was not latched. She shouldered it open and it scraped across the floor. She stepped inside the dim chamber and motioned for me to follow. I ducked a dusty cobweb in the doorframe. The only light came from the cracked shutter over the little window at the end of the room. How small the space suddenly seemed. The sparse furnishings that had sufficed for Burrich and I were long gone, replaced by the clutter of a stable. Twisted bits of old harness, broken tools, moth-eaten blankets: all the horsey litter that folk set aside, thinking that perhaps one day they will mend it or that it might come in useful in a pinch, filled the chamber where I had spent my childhood.

How Burrich would have hated this! I thought to myself. I wondered that Hands allowed such clutter to gather, and then decided that he probably had more pressing matters to attend to. The stables were a larger and grander concern than they had been during the years of the Red Ship War. I doubted that Hands sat up at night greasing and mending old harness.

Laurel misinterpreted the look on my face. ‘I know. It smells up here, but it’s private. I would have seen you in your own room, but Lord Golden was too busy playing the grand noble.’

‘He is a grand noble,’ I pointed out, but the flashing look she gave me stilled my tongue. Belatedly it came to me that Lord Golden had bestowed much attention on Laurel during our journey, yet not a word had they exchanged last night. Oh.

‘Be that as it may, or be you whom you may.’ She dismissed her annoyance with us, obviously intent on graver matters. ‘I received a message from my cousin. Deerkin didn’t intend the warning for you; he intended it for me. I doubt that he would approve my passing it on to you, for he has ample reasons not to be fond of you. The Queen, however, seems to hold you in some regard. And it is the Queen I am sworn to.’

‘As we both are,’ I assured her. ‘Have you shared these tidings with her as well?’

She looked at me. ‘Not yet,’ she admitted. ‘It may be that there is no need to, that this is a matter you can handle yourself. And it is not as easy for me to manage a quiet moment with the Queen as it is for me to summon you.’

‘And the warning?’

‘He bade me flee. The Piebalds know who I am and where I live. I am twice a traitor, to their way of thinking. For by my family connection, they consider me Old Blood. And I serve the hated Farseer regime. They will kill me if they can.’ Her voice betrayed no emotion as she recounted the threat to herself. But she lowered her tone and looked aside from me as she added, ‘And the same is true of you.’

Silence floated between us. I watched dust particles dancing in the thin sunlight through the shutters and pondered. After a time, she spoke again.

‘This is the gist of it. Laudwine still languishes, recovering from your chopping off his forearm. In the wake of our little adventure, many of his followers have abandoned him, to return to the true Old Blood ways. Old Blood families have put pressure on their sons and daughters to forsake the Piebalds’ extreme politics. There is a feeling amongst many that the Queen genuinely intends to better the lot of the Old Blood folk. As it has become known that her own son is Witted, they have a kindlier feeling towards her. They are content to wait, for a short time at least, to see how she will treat us now.’

‘And those who remain amongst the Piebalds?’ I asked unwillingly.

Laurel shook her head. ‘Those who remain with Laudwine are the ones most dangerous and least reasonable. He attracts those who desire to shed blood and wreak havoc. They desire revenge more than justice, and power more than peace. Some, like Laudwine, have seen family and friends put to death for the crime of being Witted. Others have hearts that pump more madness than blood. They are not many but as they place no limits on what they will do to attain their goals, they are as dangerous as a vast army.’

‘Their goals?’

‘Simple. Power for themselves. Punishment for those who have oppressed the Witted. They hate the Farseers. But even more, they hate you. Laudwine feeds their hatred. He wallows in hate and offers it to his followers as if it were gold. You have stirred their wrath against all Old Blood who “grovel before the Farseer oppressors”. Laudwine’s Piebalds bring reprisals against the Old Blood who came to your aid against the Piebalds. Some homes have been burned. Flocks have been scattered or stolen. Those sort of attacks are already happening, but worse is threatened. The Piebalds say they will expose any that will not side with them against the Farseers. It thrills them that we should be killed by the folk we will not rise against. The Piebalds say that all Old Blood must either stand with them or be purged from the community.’ Her face had gone both grave and pale. I knew there was a real threat to her family, and it curdled my stomach to think that I was partially responsible for provoking it.

I took a breath. ‘Only some of what you tell me is news to me. Only a few nights ago I was stalked on the road from Buckkeep Town by Piebalds. I am only surprised that they let me live.’

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug that did not dismiss my danger, only the possibility of understanding the Piebalds. ‘You are a special target for them. You struck Laudwine’s hand from his arm. You are Old Blood, serving the Farseers and directly opposing the Piebalds.’ She shook her head. ‘Take no comfort that they have left you alive when they could have so easily killed you. It only means that they have some use for you that requires you to be alive. My cousin hinted as much, when he warned me, for he said that perhaps I had mixed myself with worse company than I thought. The Piebald rumour is that Lord Golden and Tom Badgerlock were not what they seemed to be – small surprise to me that was, but Deerkin seemed to think it portentous.’

She paused, as if to give me time to reply. I said nothing but thought much. Had someone firmly connected Tom Badgerlock to the Witted Bastard of song and legend? And if so, what use would they have for me that required me alive? If they had wanted to take me hostage and use me against the Farseers, they could have done so that night. But my thoughts were cut off as Laurel scowled at my silence and then resumed her talk.

‘The raids and attacks against their own stir Old Blood against them, even amongst some who once called themselves Piebalds. Some raids, it seems, are carried out to settle old scores or for personal profit rather than for any “lofty” Piebald motives. No one restrains them. Laudwine is still too weak to resume full leadership. He is feverish and febrile from the loss of his arm. Those closest to him hate you doubly for that; they will be swift as wildfire to set their vengeance against you. Witness that you have been back in Buckkeep only a few days, and they have already located you.’

We stood silent in the dusty room for a time, both of us following thoughts too dark to share. At last, Laurel spoke reluctantly.

‘You understand that Deerkin still has ties to those in the Piebalds. They try to lure him back. He must … pretend to side with them. To protect our family. He walks a thin and dangerous line. He hears things that are very dangerous for him to repeat, and yet he has sent word.’ Her words trickled away. She stared at the obscured window as if she could truly see what was beyond it. I knew what she was trying to express.

‘You should speak to the Queen. Tell her that Deerkin must appear a traitor to the crown for the sake of keeping your family safe. Will you flee, as he bids you?’

She shook her head slowly. ‘Flee where? To my family? Then I plunge them into more danger. Here, at least, the Piebalds must reach into danger’s mouth to extract me. I will stay here and serve my queen.’

I wondered if Chade would be able to protect her, let alone her cousin.

Her voice was flat when she spoke again. ‘Deerkin hears hints that the Piebalds are forming an alliance with outsiders. “Powerful folk who would be happy to destroy the Farseers and leave Laudwine’s folk in power”.’ She gave me a worried glance. ‘That sounds like a silly boast, doesn’t it? It couldn’t be real, could it?’

‘Best tell the Queen,’ I said, and hoped she could not hear that I did think it possible. I knew I would take the tale to Chade.

‘And you?’ she asked me. ‘Will you flee? I think you should. For you would make a fine example of the Piebalds’ power. Exposed, you would illustrate that there are Witted even within the walls of Buckkeep. Quartered and burned, you would be a fine example to other traitors to the Old Blood, that those who deny and betray their own kind are in turn betrayed by them.’

She was not herself Witted. Her cousin was. Even though the magic ran in her family blood, she had no love for the Wit or those who used their magic. Like most Six Duchies folk, she regarded my ability to sense animals and bond with a beast as a despicable magic. Perhaps her use of the word ‘traitor’ should have carried less sting because of that, yet the contempt of the message burned me.

‘I am not a traitor to my Old Blood. I but keep my oath where it was sworn, to the Farseers. If Old Blood had not tried to harm the Prince, it would not have been necessary for me to wrest him back from them.’

Laurel spoke flatly. ‘Those are the words of my cousin’s message to me. Not mine. He sent me those words so that I might warn the Queen, partly because he feels a debt to me. But also because she is the most tolerant of Old Blood of any recent Farseer reign we have known. He would not see her shamed and her influence lessened. I suspect he thinks she would rid herself of you if she knew you could be used against her. I know her better. She will not heed my warning and send you away from Buckkeep before you can be used against her.’

So. That was her real message for me. ‘Then you think that would be best for all? If I simply removed myself, without her having to ask me to leave.’

She gazed past me, spoke past me. ‘You suddenly appeared from nowhere. Perhaps it were best if you returned there.’

For an instant, I actually toyed with the notion. I could go downstairs, saddle Myblack and ride off. Hap was safely apprenticed, and Chade would see that he remained so. I had been reluctant to teach Dutiful the Skill, let alone what I knew of the Wit. Perhaps this was the simplest solution for all of us. I could disappear. But.

‘I did not come to Buckkeep at my own desire. I came at my queen’s behest. And so do I stay. Nor would my departure remove the danger to her. Laudwine and his followers know the Prince is Witted.’

‘I thought you would say as much,’ Laurel conceded. ‘And for all I know, perhaps you are right. Yet I will still pass on my warning to the Queen.’

‘You would be remiss if you did not. Yet I thank you for taking the time to seek me out and pass on this warning to me, as well. I know I gave Deerkin little reason to think well of me. I am willing to let all that occurred between us fade into the past. If you have the chance, I ask you to pass that message on to him. That I bear no ill will to him, or to any that follow the true Old Blood ways. But I must always put my service to the Farseers first.’

‘As do I,’ she responded grimly.

‘You say nothing of Laudwine’s intentions towards Prince Dutiful.’

‘Because Deerkin’s message said nothing of that. So my only answer is, I don’t know.’

‘I see.’

And there seemed nothing else to say to one another. I let her leave first so we would not be seen together. I lingered in the old rooms longer than I needed to. Beneath the dust on the windowsill, I could just glimpse the track of my boyhood’s idle knife. I looked up at the slanting ceiling over the spot where my pallet had been. I could still see the owl shape in the twisted grain of the wood there. There was little left here of Burrich or of me. Time and other occupants had obliterated us from the room. I left it, dragging the door closed behind me.

I could have saddled Myblack and ridden down to Buckkeep Town, but I chose to walk despite the edged chill of the day. I have always believed it is harder to shadow a man on foot. I passed out of the gates without incident or comment. I strode off briskly, but once I was out of sight of the guards and any other travellers, I stepped aside from the road, to stand in the scrub-brush that banked it and look back to see if anyone were following me. I stood still and silent until the scar on my back began to ache. There was damp in the wind, rain or snow to come tonight. My ears and nose were cold. I decided that no one was shadowing me today. Nonetheless, I performed the same manoeuvre twice more on my walk into town.

I took a roundabout path through Buckkeep Town to Jinna’s house. Part of this was caution, but part of it was dithering. I wanted to take her a gift, both as an apology for not visiting last night as I had said I would and as thanks for helping me with Hap, yet I could not think what it should be. Earrings seemed somehow too personal and too permanent. So did the brightly woven scarf that caught my eye in the weaver’s stall. Fresh smoked redfish teased my appetite, yet seemed inappropriate. I was a man grown, yet I felt caught in a boy’s dilemma. How did I express thanks, apology and interest in her without appearing too grateful, apologetic or interested? I wanted, I decided, a friendly gift, and resolved that I would choose something that I could as easily present to the Fool or Hap without feeling any awkwardness. I settled on a sack of sweet hevnuts, this year’s plump and shining harvest, and a loaf of fresh spice bread. With these in hand, I felt almost confident as I tapped at the door with the palm-reader’s sign on it.

‘A moment!’ came Jinna’s voice, and then she opened the top half of the door, squinting in the sunlight. Behind her the room was dim, shutters closed, candles burning fragrantly on the table. ‘Ah. Tom. I’m in the midst of a reading for a customer. Can you wait?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good.’ And then she shut the door firmly and left me standing outside. It wasn’t what I had expected, and yet I reflected it was no more than I deserved. So I waited humbly, watching the street and the folk passing by, and trying to look at ease in the biting wind. The hedge-witch’s house was on a quiet street in Buckkeep Town, and yet there was a steady trickle of folk along it. Next door to her lived a potter. His door was closed to the wind, his wares stacked beside it, and I heard the thump of his wheel as he worked. Across the street lived a woman who seemed to have an impossible number of small children, several of whom seemed intent on wandering out into the muddy street despite the chill day. A little girl not much older than the toddlers patiently hauled them back onto the porch. From where I stood, I could just glimpse the doors of a tavern down the street. The hanging sign that welcomed guests showed a pig wedged in a fence. The trade seemed to be mostly the sort who took their beer home in small buckets.

I was just beginning to think of either leaving or tapping on the door again when it opened. A lavishly garbed matron and her two daughters emerged. The younger girl had tears in her eyes, but her sister looked bored. The mother thanked Jinna profusely for a very long time before she tartly ordered her girls to stop tarrying and come along. The glance she gave me as she led them off did not approve of me.

If I had thought Jinna’s leaving me standing outside was a sort of retribution, the warm and weary look she gave me dispelled the notion. She wore a green robe. A wide yellow waist cinched her middle and lifted her breasts. It was very becoming. ‘Come in, come in. Oh, such a morning. It’s strange. Folk want to know what you see in their hands, but so often they don’t want to believe it.’

She shut the door behind me, plunging us back into dimness.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t come to visit last night. My master had duties for me. I’ve brought you some fresh spice bread.’

‘Oh. How lovely! I see you bought hevnuts at the market. I wish I had known that you liked them, for my niece’s trees have borne so heavily this year that we can scarcely decide what to do with them all. A neighbour out near her farm may take some for pig fodder, but they have fallen so thick this year one fair wades through them.’

So much for that. But she took the spiced bread from me and set it on the table, exclaiming over how delicious it smelled, and telling me that Hap was, of course, at his master’s. Her niece had borrowed the pony and cart to haul firewood in, did I mind? Hap had said she might, and said, too, that it was better for the pony to do the light work the old beast could handle than to stand idly stabled. I assured her that was fine. ‘No Fennel?’ I asked, wondering at the cat’s absence.

‘Fennel?’ She seemed surprised I would ask. ‘Oh, he’s probably out and about his own business. You know how cats are.’

I set the sack of hevnuts on the floor by the door and hung my cloak above it. The little room was warm and my cold ears stung as they returned to life. As I turned to the table, she was setting down two steaming cups of tea. The rising warmth beckoned me. A dish of butter and some honey waited beside the bread. ‘Are you hungry?’ she asked me, smiling up at me.

‘A bit,’ I admitted. Her smile was contagious.

Her eyes moved over my face. ‘I am, too,’ she said. Then she stepped forward, and I found my arms around her, and her mouth rising up to mine. I had to stoop to kiss her. Her lips opened to mine, inviting, and she tasted of tea and spices. I felt suddenly dizzy.

She broke the kiss, and pressed her cheek to my chest. ‘You’re cold,’ she said. ‘I should not have made you wait outside so long.’

‘I’m much warmer now,’ I assured her.

She looked up at me and smiled. ‘I know.’ And as her lips found mine again, her hand dropped down to trace the proof of that. I jumped at the touch, but her hand on the back of my neck kept my mouth on hers.

She was the one who walked us sideways to her bedchamber, never breaking the kiss. She released me to shut the door firmly behind us, plunging us into near darkness save for the bits of light that fingered their way in through the shakes of the roof and past the open rafters of a small loft. The bed was plump with featherbeds. The chamber smelled of woman. I tried to take a breath and find my mind. ‘This isn’t wise,’ I said. I could scarcely get the words out.

‘No. It isn’t.’ Her fingers loosened the laces of my shirt and tightened my desire. She gave me a small push and I sat down on the edge of her bed.

As she pulled my shirt off over my head, my eyes fell on a small charm on a bedside table. A string of red and black beads were looped and wound around a framework of dead sticks. It was a dash of cold water, stilling my desire and infusing me with a sense of futility. As she unbuckled her waist, her eyes followed my glance. She studied my face, and smiling, shook her head. ‘Well. Aren’t you the sensitive one? Don’t look at that. It’s for me, not you.’ And she casually covered it with the shirt she took from my hands.

I knew then a moment of sanity when I could have stopped what was happening. But she gave me no chance to surrender to my common sense, for her hands were at my belt, her fingers warm against my belly, and I stopped thinking entirely. I stood and lifted her robe over her head, and its passage left her curly hair standing out in a cloud around her face. For a time we stood, nuzzling one another. She made some approving comment about the charm that she had made for me. It was all I currently wore. When she asked me what had given me the fresh scratches on my neck and belly, I silenced her mouth with mine. I recall picking her easily off her feet and turning to set her on her bed. I knelt on the bed over her and beheld the wealth of her, her nipples standing out pink and eager, and the delicious scent of woman rising from her.

Without a word, I mounted her and then possessed her. Blind lust drove me, and she gasped, ‘Tom!’ shocked at my fierce ardour. My hands were cupped on her shoulders, my mouth covered hers, and she rose to meet me. A sudden terrible need for her overtook me. To touch, skin to skin, in closeness and passion, to share myself completely with another being, to leave behind the sense of being isolated in my own flesh. I held nothing back, and I thought I carried her with me.

Then, as I lay dizzied with completion, she said in a small voice, ‘Well. You’re a hasty man, Tom Badgerlock.’

My hoarse breathing as I lay on top of her made a hideous silence of its own. Shame drenched me. After a terrible stillness, she stirred under me. I heard her draw a breath. ‘You were hungry!’ Perhaps she regretted her words of disappointment, but that did not call them back. Her gentle attempt at making light of it brought the blood to my face and completed my humiliation. I dropped my forehead to the pillow beside hers. I listened to the wind outside in the streets. Some people tramped by in the street, just on the other side of the plank wall. A man’s sudden shout of laughter made me wince. Up in the attic loft, I heard a thump and a squeak. Then Jinna kissed the side of my neck and her hands moved gently down my back. Her voice was a soothing whisper. ‘Tom. The first time is seldom the best. You’ve shown me your boy’s passion. Shall we find your man’s skills, now?’

So she gave me another chance to prove myself, and I was shamefacedly grateful. I proceeded in a workmanlike way that soon rekindled both of us. There were several things Starling had taught me and Jinna seemed pleased with my second performance. It was only at the very end, as we lay panting together, that her words stirred a misgiving in me. ‘So, Badgerlock,’ she said, and then drew breath beneath me. ‘So that is what it is like for a she-wolf.’

Incredulous, I lifted myself a little from her so that I could look down into her eyes. She blinked up at me, an odd smile on her face. ‘I’ve never been with a Witted one, before this,’ she confided to me. She drew another deeper breath. ‘I’ve heard other women speak of it. That such men are more …’ She paused, seeking for a word.

‘Animal?’ I suggested. The word as I spoke it was an insult.

Her eyes widened, and then she laughed uncomfortably. ‘That isn’t what I was going to say, Tom. You shouldn’t take insults to yourself where a compliment is intended. Untamed, was what I was going to say. Natural, as an animal is natural, with no thought of what any other may think of his ways.’

‘Oh.’ I could say no more than that. I wondered abruptly what I was to her. A novelty? A forbidden indulgence with something not quite fully human? It was unnerving to wonder if she saw me as bestial and strange. Did our magics set us so far apart in her mind?

Then she pulled me down upon her breasts again, and kissed the side of my neck. ‘Stop thinking,’ she warned me, and I did.

Afterwards, she dozed briefly beside me, my arm around her and her head pillowed on my shoulder. I judged that I had acquitted myself well. But as I watched the sunlight’s passage on the wall, I realized it had been a performance. Neither of us had spoken of love. It had simply been a thing we had done together, something that felt good, something I was reasonably competent at. Yet if our first coupling had left her unsatisfied, the later ones left me feeling incomplete in a deeper way. With a sharpness I had not felt in years, I suddenly longed for Molly, and how simple, good, and true it had been between us. This was not that, any more than my partnering with Starling had been. It wasn’t even sharing a bed. At the heart of my discontent, I wanted to be in love with someone the way I had been that first time. I wanted someone I could touch and be held by, someone who made everything else in the world more significant simply by her existence.

This morning, Kettricken had touched me as a friend, and that had held more meaning and even more true passion than this had. I suddenly wanted to be gone from here, for none of this ever to have happened. Jinna and I had been on the path to becoming friends. I was just beginning to know her. What had I done to that? And Hap was stirred up in this stew as well. If Jinna wanted to carry on with this, how would I manage it? Openly flaunting yet again all the rules I had taught him, for how a man should conduct his life. Or in secret, hiding it from Hap, furtively coming and going from Jinna’s bed?

I was deathly tired of secrets. They seemed to spawn all around me, to fasten to me and suck the life from me like cold leeches. I hungered for something real and true and open. Could I change my relationship with Jinna to that? I doubted it. Not only was there no foundation of deep and honest love between us, but once again I was enmeshed in the secret business of the Farseer intrigues. There would be secrets I must keep from her, secrets that would eventually endanger her.

I had not realized she was awake. Or perhaps my deep sigh stirred her past the edge of drowsing. She set her hand to my chest and patted me lightly. ‘Don’t be troubled, Tom. It wasn’t all your failure. I had guessed there might be a problem when the charm by the bed near unmanned you. And now your spirits grow bleak and grim, do they not?’

I shrugged one shoulder. She sat up beside me in the bed. She reached across me, her flesh warm against mine, and lifted my shirt off the bedside charm. The sad little thing hunched there, forlorn and alone.

‘It’s a woman’s charm. It’s difficult to make, as it must be very finely tuned to the individual woman. To construct this sort of charm, you have to know the woman from the skin in. So a hedge-witch can make one for herself, but not for anyone else … at least, not one that is certain. This one is mine, tuned to me. It’s a charm against conception. I should have guessed that it might affect you. Any man who wants children so desperately that he takes in a foundling to raise on his own has that longing down to his bones. You may deny it, but that little hope burns in you each time you lie with a woman. I suspect it is what must drive your passion, Tom. And this little charm took that idle dream away from you before you could even wish it. It told you our joining would be futile and barren. That’s what you feel now, isn’t it?’

Having something explained to you does not always solve it. I looked aside from her. ‘Isn’t it?’ I asked, and then winced at the bitterness in my voice.

‘Poor boy,’ she said sympathetically. She kissed me on the forehead, where Kettricken had kissed me earlier. ‘Of course not. It’s what we make it.’

‘I’m in no position to be a father to anyone. I didn’t even come to see Hap last night, when he told me it was important. I’ve no wish to start another little life that I cannot protect.’

She shook her head over me. ‘What the heart longs for, and what the mind knows are two different things. You forget I’ve seen your palms, sweet man. Perhaps I know more of your heart than you do yourself.’

‘You said my true love would come back to me.’ Again, despite myself, my words sounded accusing.

‘No, Tom. That I did not. Well do I know that what I say to a person is seldom what that person hears, but I’ll tell you again what I saw. It’s here.’ She took my hand. She held the open palm close to her near-sighted eyes. Her bare breasts brushed my wrist as her fingers traced a line in my palm. ‘There is a love that twines in and out of your days. Sometimes, it leaves, but when it does, it runs alongside you until it returns.’ She lifted my hand closer to her face, studying it. Then she kissed my palm, and moved it back to her breast. ‘That doesn’t mean that you must be alone and idle while you wait for it to come back,’ she suggested in a whisper.

Fennel saved us both the embarrassment of my declining. Want a rat? I glanced up. The orange cat crouched on the edge of the loft, his catch squirming in his jaws as he stared down at us. It’s still got a lot of play in it.

No. Just kill it. I felt the red spark of the rat’s agony. It had no hope of living, but the life in it would not surrender easily. Life never gives up willingly.

Fennel ignored my refusal. He launched from the edge of the loft, dropping down to land beside us on the bed, where he released his prey. The frantic rodent scuttled towards us, dragging a hind leg. Jinna exclaimed in disgust and leapt from the bed. I snatched up the rat. A pinch and a twist ended its torment.

You’re fast! Fennel approved.

Here. Take it away. I offered him the dead rat.

He sniffed the dead body. You broke it! Fennel crouched on the bed, staring at me in round-eyed disapproval.

Take it away.

I don’t want it. It’s no fun any more. He growled low at me, then leapt from the bed. You ended it too fast. You just don’t know how to play. He went immediately to the door and clawed the jamb, demanding to go out. Jinna, clutching her robe against her nakedness, opened the door and he sidled out. I was left sitting naked in her bed, a dead rat in my hands. Blood leaked from the battered rat’s nose and mouth over my hands.

My trousers and drawers were still tangled together when Jinna tossed them to me. ‘Don’t get blood on my bedding,’ she cautioned me, so I didn’t set the rat down, but struggled into my trousers one-handed.

I threw the rat out onto a midden behind the house. When I came back in, she was pouring hot water over tea in the pot. She gave me a smile. ‘The other tea seems to have gone cold, somehow.’

‘Did it?’ I tried to speak as lightly as she did. I went back to her bedroom for my shirt. After I put it on, I twitched the bedding straight. I avoided looking at the charm. When I came out, I ignored my own desire to leave and sat down at the table. We shared bread and butter and honey, and hot tea. Jinna chatted of the three women who had come to see her. She had read the younger daughter’s hands, to see if an offer of marriage boded well for her. Then she had advised her to wait. It was a long involved story, full of detail, and I let it stream gently past me. Fennel came to my chair, stood up and dug his front claws into my leg, then hauled himself up onto my lap. From there, he surveyed the table.

Butter for the cat.

I have no reason to be nice to you.

Yes, you do. I am the cat.

He was so supremely self-confident that that was enough reason for me to butter a corner of a slice of bread and offer it to him. I had expected him to carry it off. Instead, he allowed me to hold it while he licked it clean of butter. More.

No.

‘… or Hap may find himself in the same sort of difficulty.’

I tried to backtrack her words, but realized I had hopelessly lost the thread of her conversation. Fennel was perversely digging his claws into my thigh as I ignored him. ‘Well, I intended to speak with him today,’ I said, and hoped that the comment made some sort of sense.

‘You should. Of course, there’s no good your waiting for him here. Even if you had come last night, you’d have had to sit and wait for him. He comes in late each night, and leaves late for his work every morning.’

Concern prickled me. That didn’t sound like Hap.

‘So what do you suggest?’

She took a breath and sighed it out, a bit annoyed. I probably deserved it. ‘What I just said. Go to the shop, and speak with his master. Ask for some time with Hap. Corner him, and set down some rules for him. Say that if he doesn’t keep them, you’ll insist that he board with his master like the other apprentices do. That would give him a chance to govern himself, or be governed. For if he moves into the apprentices’ quarters there, he’ll find that one evening off twice a month is all he’ll get to himself.’

I was suddenly listening closely. ‘Then all the other apprentices live with Master Gindast?’

She gave me a look of amazement. ‘Of course they do! And he keeps them on a tight leash, which perhaps Hap would benefit from – but there, you are his father, I suppose you would know best about that.’

‘He has never needed one before,’ I observed mildly.

‘Well, that was when you lived in the country. And there were no taverns nor young women about within hailing.’

‘Well … yes. But I had not considered that he might be expected to live in his master’s house.’

‘The apprentices’ quarters are behind Master Gindast’s workshop. It makes it easy for them to rise, wash, eat, and be at work by dawn. Did you not board with your master?’

At that, I supposed that I had. I had just never perceived it that way. ‘I was never formally apprenticed,’ I lied casually. ‘So all of this is new. I had assumed I had to provide Hap’s room and board while he was taught. Which is why I brought this with me.’ I opened my pouch and spilled coins on her table.

And there they lay in a heap between us, and suddenly I felt awkward. Would she think this was intended as payment for something else?

She stared at me silently for a moment, and then said, ‘Tom, I’ve scarcely touched what you sent down before. How much do you think it costs to feed a boy?’

I managed an apologetic shrug. ‘Another town thing that I don’t know. At home, we raised what we needed, or hunted for it. I know Hap eats a great deal after a day’s work. I had assumed it would be expensive to feed him.’ Chade must have arranged for a purse to be sent to her. I had no idea how much it had contained.

‘Well. When I need more, I’ll tell you. The use of the pony and cart has meant a great deal to my niece. It’s something she has always wanted but you know how hard it is to set aside coin for something like that.’

‘You are more than welcome to that. As Hap told you, it is much better for Clover to move about than to be stabled constantly. Oh. Feed for the pony.’

‘That’s easy enough for us to come by, and it seems only fair that we provide for an animal we use.’ She paused, and glanced about us. ‘Then you’ll see Hap today?’

‘Of course. It’s why I came to town today.’ I began to stack the coins, preparatory to returning them to my pouch. It felt awkward.

‘I see. So that was why you came here,’ she observed, but she smiled teasingly as she said it. ‘Well then. I’ll let you be on your way.’

And it suddenly dawned on me that she was letting me know it was time for me to leave. I chinked the coins into my purse again and stood. ‘Well. Thank you for the tea,’ I said and then halted. She laughed aloud at me and my cheeks burned but I managed to smile. She made me feel young and foolish, at a disadvantage. I did not see why that should be so, but I knew I did not care for it. ‘Well. I had best go see Hap.’

‘You do that,’ she agreed, and handed me my cloak. Then I had to stop and get my boots on. I had just finished that when there was a rap at her door. ‘A moment!’ Jinna called, and then I was exiting, nodding to her customer in passing. It was a young man with an anxious expression on his face. He sketched a bow to me and then hastened inside. The door shut on the sound of Jinna greeting him, and I was alone once more in the windy street.

I trudged off to Gindast’s shop. The day grew colder as I walked, and I began to smell snow in the air. Summer had lingered late, but now winter would have her way. Looking up at the sky, I decided it would be a heavy fall. It woke mixed feelings in me. A few months ago, such a sight would have made me check my woodstack, and do a final, critical consideration of what I had gathered for the winter. Now the Farseer throne provided for me. I no longer had to consider my own well-being, only that of the reign. The harness still sat uncomfortably on my shoulders.

Gindast was well known in Buckkeep Town and I had no difficulty finding his shop. His signboard was elaborately carved and framed, as if to be sure his skill were properly displayed. The front of his building held a cosy sitting room, with comfortable chairs and a large table. A fire fuelled with scraps of well-dried wood burned hotly in the hearth. Several pieces of his finest work were displayed in the room for the perusal of potential customers. The fellow in charge of this room listened to my request, then waved me on through to the shop.

This was a barn of a structure, with a number of projects in various stages of completion. An immense bedstead squatted next to a series of fragrant cedar chests emblazoned with someone’s owl sigil. A journeyman knelt, putting stain on the owls. Gindast was not in his shop. He had ridden out with three of his journeymen to Lord Scyther’s manor, to take measurements and consult over the construction of an elaborate mantel, with chairs and tables to match. One of his senior journeymen, a man not much younger than myself, allowed that I could speak with Hap for a time. He also suggested gravely that I might wish to call again, to make an appointment with Master Gindast to discuss my boy’s progress. The journeyman made such a meeting sound ominous.

I found Hap behind the shop with four other apprentices. All appeared younger and smaller than he was. They were engaged in moving a stack of drying wood, turning and shifting each timber in the process. The trampled earth told me this was the third such stack to be turned. The other two were draped with roped-down canvas. There was a scowl on Hap’s face as if this mindless yet necessary task affronted him. I watched him for a time before he was aware of me, and what I saw troubled me. Hap had always been a willing worker when he toiled alongside me. Now I saw suppressed anger in the way he handled himself, and his impatience at working with lads younger and weaker than he was. I stood silently, watching him until he noticed me. He straightened from the plank he had just set down, said something to the other apprentices, and then stalked over to me. I watched him come, wondering how much of his manner was expression of what he truly felt and how much was show for the younger boys. I didn’t much care for the disdain he expressed towards his current task.

‘Hap,’ I greeted him gravely, and ‘Tom,’ he responded. He clasped wrists with me, and then said in a low voice, ‘You see now what I was talking about.’

‘I see you turning wood so it dries well,’ I responded. ‘That seems a necessary task for a woodworker’s shop.’

He sighed. ‘I would not mind it so much, if it were an occasional thing. But every task they put me to demands a lot of my back and little of my brain.’

‘And are the other apprentices treated differently?’

‘No,’ he replied begrudgingly. ‘But as you can see, they are just boys.’

‘Makes no difference, Hap,’ I told him. ‘It’s not a matter of age, but of knowledge. Be patient. There’s something to learn here, even if it’s only how to stack the wood properly, and what you learn from seeing it at this stage. Besides, it’s a thing that must be done. Who else should they put to doing it?’

He stared at the ground while I spoke, silent but unconvinced. I took a breath. ‘Do you think you might do better if you lived here with the other apprentices, instead of with Jinna?’

He met my eyes suddenly with a look full of outrage and dismay. ‘No! Why do you suggest such a thing?’

‘Well, because I have learned it is customary. Perhaps if you lived here, close by your work, it would be easier. Not so far to go to be on time in the morning, and –’

‘I’d go crazy if I had to live here as well as apprentice here! The other boys have told me what it is like. Every meal the same as the last one, and Gindast’s wife counts the candles, to be sure they are not burning them late at night. They must air their bedding and wash their own blankets and small-clothes weekly, not to mention that he keeps them at extra chores after the day’s work is done, shovelling sawdust to mulch his wife’s rose garden and picking up scraps for the kindling heap and –’

‘It does not sound so terrible to me,’ I interrupted, for I could see he was but building himself to more heat. ‘It sounds disciplined. Rather like what a man-at-arms goes through in his training. It wouldn’t hurt you, Hap.’

He flung his arms wide in an angry gesture. ‘It wouldn’t help me, either. If I had wanted to break heads for a living, then, yes, I’d expect to be trained like a dumb animal. But I didn’t expect my apprenticeship to be like this.’

‘Then you’ve decided that this isn’t what you want?’ I asked, and near held my breath awaiting the answer. For if he had changed his mind, I had no idea what I would do with him. I could not have him up at Buckkeep with me, nor send him back to the cabin alone.

His answer came grudgingly. ‘No. I haven’t changed my mind. This is what I want. But they had better start actually teaching me something soon, or …’

I waited for him to say, ‘or what’ but his words ran out. He, too, had no idea what he would do if he left Gindast. I decided to take that as a positive sign. ‘I’m glad this is still what you want. Try to be humble, to be patient, to work well, and listen and learn. I think that if you do so, and show yourself a sharp lad, you will soon progress to more challenging tasks. And I’ll try to meet you tonight, but I dare not make any promises. Lord Golden keeps me very busy, and it’s been hard for me to get this much time free. Do you know where Three Sails Tavern is?’

‘Yes, but don’t meet me there. Come to the Stuck Pig instead. It’s very near Jinna’s.’

‘And?’ I pressed, knowing there was another reason.

‘And you can meet Svanja, too. She lives nearby, and watches for me. If she can, she joins me there.’

‘If she can sneak away from her home?’

‘Well … somewhat. Her mother doesn’t much mind, but her father hates me.’

‘Not the best start for a courtship, Hap. What have you done to deserve his hatred?’

‘Kissed his daughter.’ Hap grinned a devil-may-care grin, and I smiled in spite of myself.

‘Well. That is a thing we will discuss this evening as well. I think you are young to begin a courtship. Better to wait until you have some solid prospects and a way to keep a wife. Perhaps then her father would not mind a stolen kiss or two. If I can get free tonight, I will meet you there.’

Hap seemed somewhat mollified as he waved me a farewell and went back to his stacking work. But I walked away from him with a heavier heart than I had come with. Jinna was right. Town life was changing my boy, and in ways I had not foreseen. I did not feel that he had truly listened to my counsel, let alone that he would act on it. Well. Perhaps tonight I could take a firmer line with him.

As I walked back through the town, the first flakes of snow began to fall. When I reached the steeper road that wound its way up to Buckkeep Castle, it began to fall thick and soft. Several times I paused and stepped aside from the road, to watch back the way I had come but I saw no sign that anyone followed me. For the Piebalds to threaten me, and then vanish completely made no sense They should have either killed me or taken me hostage. I tried to put myself in their position, to imagine a reason to leave your prey walking freely about. I could think of nothing. By the time I reached the gates of the keep, there was a thick carpet of snow on the road, and the wind had begun to whistle in the treetops. The weather brought an early darkness. It was going to be a foul night. I would be glad to spend it inside.

I stamped the clinging wet snow from my feet outside the entrance to the hall that went past the kitchens and the guardroom. I smelled hot beef soup and fresh bread and wet wool as I went past the guardroom. I was tired and wished I could enter and share their simple food and rough jokes and casual manners. Instead I straightened my shoulders and hastened past and up to Lord Golden’s chambers. He was not there, and I recalled he said he might be gaming with the Queen’s favoured. I supposed I should seek him there. I went into my chamber to be rid of my damp cloak and found a scrap of parchment on my bed. There was a single word on it. ‘Up.’

A few moments later, I emerged in Chade’s tower chamber. There was no one there. But on my chair waited a set of warm clothing, and a green cloak of heavy wool with an overlarge hood. The outside bore the otter badge, unfamiliar to me. An unusual feature of the cloak was that it reversed to plain homespun, in servant blue. Beside it was a leather travel-bag with food and a flask of brandy in it. Beneath it, folded flat, was a leather scroll case. This heap of gear was topped with a note in Chade’s hand. ‘Heffam’s troop rides out on highway patrol tonight from the north gate at sunset. Join them and then divert to your own goal. I hope you will not mind missing the harvest feast. Return as swiftly as possible, please.’

I snorted at myself. Harvest Fest. I had so looked forward to it as a boy. Now I had not even recalled that it was nigh. Doubtless the Prince’s betrothal ceremony had been intentionally scheduled to precede Buckkeep’s celebration of plenty. Well, I had missed it for the last fifteen years. Once more would not bother me.

On the end of the worktable was a hearty meal of cold meat, cheese, bread and ale. I decided to trust that Chade had arranged my disappearance from Lord Golden’s service. I had no time to seek him out and relay the information, nor did I feel comfortable leaving him a note of any kind. I thought regretfully of my delayed-again meeting with Hap, and decided that I’d already warned him I might not be there. And the sudden opportunity to take some action on my own appealed mightily to me. I wanted to banish the hanging suspicion that the Piebalds had located my den. Even to discover that they had would be better than wondering fearfully.

I ate, and changed clothes. By the time the sun was setting, I was mounted on Myblack and approaching the north gate. My hood was pulled well forward to exclude the biting wind and blinding snow. Other anonymous green-cloaked riders were gathering there, some complaining bitterly about drawing road patrol while the betrothal festivities and harvest celebration were at their height. I drew closer and then nodded silent commiseration to one talkative fellow who was regaling the night with his woes. He began a long tale of a woman, the warmest and most willing woman imaginable, who would wait in vain for him at a Buckkeep Town tavern tonight. I was content to sit my horse beside him and let him talk. Others congregated about us. In the gathering dark and swirling snow, indistinct riders huddled in their cloaks and hoods. Scarves and darkness swathed our faces.

The sun was down and the night dark before Heffam appeared. He seemed as disgruntled as his men, and announced brusquely that we’d ride swiftly to First Ford, relieve the guard there tonight, and begin our regular tour of patrol of the highways in the morning. His men seemed very familiar with this duty. We fell in behind him in two ragged lines. I took care to take a place well to the back. Then he led us out of the gate and into the night and storm. For a time, our road led us steeply downward. Then we turned and took the river road that would lead us east along the Buck River.

When we had left the lights of Buckkeep far behind us, I began to hold Myblack in. She was not pleased with the weather or the dark, and was just as glad to go more slowly. At one point I pulled her in completely and dismounted on the pretext of tightening a cinch. The patrol rode on without me into the cloaking storm. I mounted again and rejoined it, now the last man of the troop. As we travelled, I held my horse back, letting the distance between us and the rest of the troop gradually lengthen. When at last a bend in the road took them out of sight, I pulled Myblack to a halt. I dismounted and again began to fuss with saddle straps. I waited, hoping that my absence would go unnoticed in the foul weather. When no one returned to see why I tarried, I turned my cloak, remounted Myblack and headed her back the way we had come.

As Chade had bid me, I hastened, yet there were inevitable delays. I had to wait for the dawn ferry across the Buck River, and then the winds of the storm and the ice that coated the lines and the decks slowed our loading and passage. On the other side, I discovered that the road was wider and better tended, as well as more travelled, than I recalled. A prosperous little market town clustered alongside it, the taverns and houses built on pilings to be beyond the reach of both ordinary and storm tides. By midday I had left it far behind.

My journey back to my home was uneventful in the ordinary sense. I rested several times in smaller, nondescript inns along the way. At only one was my night’s rest disturbed. At first the dream was peaceful. A warm fireside, the sounds of a family at their evening tasks.

‘Umph. Off my lap, girl. You’re far too big to sit on me now.’

‘I’ll never be too big for my papa’s lap.’ There was laughter in her voice. ‘What are you making?’

‘I’m mending your mother’s shoe. Or trying to. Here. Thread this for me. The firelight makes the needle’s eye dance until I cannot find it. Younger eyes will do better.’

And that was what had awakened me. A sudden wash of dismay that Papa was admitting his sight was failing. I tried not to think of that as I fell back into a guarded sleep.

No one seemed to remark my passage. I had time with Myblack to improve her manners; we tested each other’s wills in any number of small ways. The weather continued foul. The nights were blowing snow and sleet. When the storm did let up briefly during the day, the watery sun only melted enough snow to turn the roads into mud and slush that became dirty treacherous ice by the next morning. It was not pleasant travelling weather.

Yet part of the cold that assailed me through this journey had nothing to do with the weather. No wolf ranged ahead of me to see if the road was clear nor circled back to see if we were followed. My own senses and my own sword were all I could rely on for protection. I felt naked and incomplete.

The sun broke through the clouds on the afternoon when I reached the lane to my cabin. The snow had paused, and the day’s brief warmth was turning the most recent fall into heavy wet mush. Irregular ‘thumps’ from the forest were the sounds of trees dropping their heaped burdens. The lane to my cottage was smooth and undisturbed save with rabbit tracks and pits from fallen loads of snow. I doubted that any had passed here since the snow had begun falling. That was reassuring.

Yet when I reached my cabin, all of my uneasiness returned. It was obvious that someone had been here, and recently. The door stood open. Uneven lumps beneath the snow were the rounded shapes of furniture and possessions thrown out into the yard in a heap. Fragments of vellum thrust up from the snow that here was trampled and uneven beneath the smoothness of the most recent fall. The pole fence around the kitchen garden had been torn down, as had Jinna’s charm on its post. I sat my horse a time in silence, trying to be impassive as my eyes and ears gathered information. Then I dismounted silently and approached the cabin.

No one was inside. It was cold and dark. It reminded me of something, and then a prickling of foreboding helped me seize the memory; it reminded me of when I had returned to a cabin that had been raided by Forged Ones. The failing daylight showed me the muddy tracks of a pig’s trotters on the floor. Several curious animals had investigated the cabin. There were muddy boot-tracks as well, a criss-crossing passage that indicated someone had made many trips in and out.

Everything portable and useful had been taken. The blankets from the beds, the smoked and preserved foods from the rafters, the pots from the cooking hearth; all were gone. Some scrolls had been used to kindle a fire in the hearth. Someone had eaten here, probably enjoying the supplies Hap and I had laid in for the winter. There was a scatter of fish bones still on the hearth. I felt I knew who had come here. The pig tracks were my best clue.

My desk still remained; my unlettered neighbour would have little use for a writing desk. In my little study, inkpots had been overset, scrolls opened and then tossed aside. This gave me concern. In the current disorder, it was impossible for me to tell if any scrolls had been carried off. I could not tell if Piebalds had scavenged here as well as my pig-keeper neighbour. Verity’s map still hung crookedly on the wall; I was shocked at how my heart leapt with relief to find it intact. I had not realized I valued it so. I took it down and rolled it up, carrying it about with me as I explored the plundering of my home. I forced myself to make a careful survey of each room, and the stable and chicken house as well, before I allowed myself to gather what I would take away with me.

The small store of grain and all the tools had been taken from the shed in the stable. My work-shed was a jumble of rejected plunder. It seemed unlikely that was the work of Piebalds. My suspicion of an unpleasant neighbour who lived in the next valley was all but certain now. He kept pigs, and had once accused me of stealing piglets from him. When I had so hastily left here, I had directed Hap to take our chickens to the man, not out of kindness to the neighbour but knowing that he would feed and keep them for the sake of the eggs. That had seemed a better course than letting predators slaughter them. But, of course, it would have let him know that we expected to be gone for an extended period. I stood with my fists clenched, looking about the small stable. I doubted that I would ever return here. Even if the tools had been here still, I would have left without them. What use had I now for a mattock or a hoe? But the theft was a violation that was hard to ignore. I ached for revenge even as I told myself that I had no time for it, that the thief had perhaps done me a favour in ransacking my home before Piebalds could.

I put Myblack in the stable and gave her what poor hay had been left. I hauled her a bucket of water as well. Then I began my salvage and destruction.

The heap of possessions under the snow proved to be a bedstead, my table and chairs and several shelves. Probably he intended to come back with a cart for them. I’d burn them. I knocked some of the snow from the heap, gazed regretfully on the charging buck that the Fool had carved into my table for me, and then went into the cabin for tinder to start the fire. The straw-stuffed mattress from my bed, discarded inside, worked admirably. In a very short time, I had a nice blaze going.

I tried to be methodical. While daylight served me, I painstakingly gathered every scattered scroll that had been flung into the yard. Some were hopelessly ruined with damp, others torn and trampled with muddy hooves, and some were no more than fragments. Mindful of Chade’s words, some I tried to smooth and roll up, even when they were but fragments, but most I ruthlessly consigned to the fire. I kicked through the snow until I was as certain as I could possibly be that no writing of mine remained in the yard.

Dusk was deep by then. Inside the cabin, I kindled a fire in the hearth, for light as well as heat. I began on the inside of the cabin. Most of my possessions went straight into the fire. Old work clothes, my writing tools, my bootjack, and other clutter and possessions burned in the hearth. I was kinder to Hap’s things, knowing that a spinning top, long outgrown as a plaything, could still have meaning to him. I made a sack of an old cloak and filled it with those sorts of items. Then I sat down by the flames and painstakingly went through the scrolls from my rack. There were far more of them than I had expected, and far more than I could have carried back with me.

I chose first to save those I had not written myself. Verity’s map went into the case, of course, and was soon joined by scrolls I had acquired in my travels and some brought to me by Starling. A few of these were quite old and rare. I was grateful to find them intact and resolved to make copies of them when I returned to Buckkeep. But apart from those, my culling was fierce. Nothing that was the work of my pen was immune to my scrutiny. Scrolls of herbal knowledge with my meticulous illustrations fed the fire. That information was still in my head; if it was that important, I could write it down again. Into the bag, against my better judgement, went those scrolls that dealt not only with my time in the Mountains, but with my personal musings on my own life. A swift perusal of some of those left my cheeks burning. Juvenile and mawkish, self-pitying and full of grand assumptions about my own significance and declarations of things that I would never do again were these treatises. I wondered who I had been when I wrote them.

My writing on the Skill and the Wit went into the bag, as did my lengthy account of our journey through the Mountain Kingdom and into the realm of the Elderlings and the rise of Verity-as-Dragon. My attempts at poetry about Molly went into the flames, to burn in a final burst of passion. Writing I had done to help Hap learn his letters and numbers went after them. I winnowed my writings, and still there were too many. They underwent a second, harsher culling, and finally the scroll case would close.

Then I stood, closed my eyes, and tried to think: were there any still unaccounted for? I told myself it was a hopeless task. Some scrolls I had had the sense to destroy within days of writing them. Others I had given Starling to carry back to Chade. I could not decide if any were missing. Let any man try to recall all he might have written down over fifteen years of his life, and there would doubtless be some gaps. Had I ever committed to paper an account of my time with Black Rolf and the Old Bloods? I was sure I had written of those months, but had they been in a separate scroll, or was I recalling bits that had interjected themselves into other writings? I wasn’t sure. And I could not know what scrolls the pig-keeper had used to kindle his cookfire. I sighed. Surrender it. I had done as much as I could. In the future, I would be far more careful of what I entrusted to letters.

I went back out into the yard, and flipped the ends of the burning furniture into the fire. The rising wind and falling snow would soon smother it, but the charging buck was scorched to obliteration. The rest of it little mattered. I walked again through the little cabin that had been my home for so many years. I had left intact no personal article of my own. My presence here was erased. I thought of burning the cabin itself, and decided against it. It had stood here before I had come; let it still stand after I was gone. Perhaps some other needy man might come to make use of it.

I saddled Myblack again and led her out of the paddock. I loaded onto her the scroll case and Hap’s bundled possessions. The last items I included were two tightly stoppered pots, one of ground elfbark and the other of carryme. Then I mounted and rode away from that piece of my life. The fire of my burning past sent odd shadows snaking ahead of us as we made our way into the storm’s resurgence.

SEVEN

Lessons

In this manner are the best coteries formed. Let the Skillmaster assemble together those he would train. Let them be at least six in number, though a greater number is preferable if sufficient students are available. Let the Skillmaster bring them together daily, not just for lessons, but for meals and amusements, and even to a shared sleeping chamber, if he judge that will not be a cause for distraction and rivalries amongst them. Give them time together, let them form their own bonds, and at the end of the year, the coterie will have formed itself. Those who have not formed bonds, let them serve the King as Solos.

It may be difficult for some Skillmasters to restrain themselves from directing the formation of a coterie. It is tempting to put the best with the best, and dismiss those who seem slow or difficult of temperament. The wisest Skillmaster will refrain from this, for only a coterie can know what strengths it will take from each member. He who seems dull may provide steadiness and temper impulse with caution. The difficult member can also be the one who displays flashes of inspiration. Let each coterie find its own membership, and choose its own leader.

Treeknee’s translation of Skillmaster Oklef’s Coteries

‘Where have you been?’ Dutiful demanded as he strode into the tower room. He shut the door firmly behind himself and then came to the middle of the room, his arms crossed on his chest. I stood up slowly from Verity’s chair. I had been watching the white tips of the waves. There was impatience and annoyance in my prince’s voice and a scowl on his face. It did not seem the most auspicious beginning to our relationship as tutor and student. I took a breath. A light hand, first. I spoke in a pleasant, neutral voice.

‘Good morning, Prince Dutiful.’

Just as a young colt might, he bridled. Then, I watched him gather himself. He took a breath and visibly began anew. ‘Good morning, Tom Badgerlock. It has been some time since I last saw you.’

‘Important business of my own took me away from Buckkeep for a time. It is settled now, and I fully expect that the rest of this winter, most of my time will be at your disposal.’

‘Thank you.’ Then, as if the last of his annoyance had to find vent somewhere, ‘I do not suppose I can ask more than that of you.’

I suppressed a smile and told him, ‘You could. But you would not get it.’

And then Verity’s smile broke on the boy’s face and he exclaimed, ‘Where did you come from? No one else in this keep would dare speak to me so.’

I purposely misunderstood his question. ‘I had to spend a bit of time at my old home, packing up or disposing of my possessions. I hate to leave loose ends. It’s settled now. I’m here at Buckkeep, and I’m to teach you. So. Where shall we begin?’

The question seemed to unnerve him. He glanced around the room. Chade had added furnishings and clutter to the Seawatch tower since Verity had manned it as his Skill-outpost against the Red Ship Raiders. This morning I had made my own contribution, in the form of Verity’s map of the Six Duchies newly hung on the wall. In the centre of the room there was a large table of dark, heavy wood. Four massive chairs crouched around it. I pitied whatever men had had to haul them up the narrow, winding steps. Against one of the curved tower walls there was a scroll rack stuffed with scrolls. I knew that Chade would claim they were in perfect order, but I had never been able to understand the logic behind how he grouped his scrolls. There were also several trunks, securely locked, that held a selection of Skillmistress Solicity’s scrolls on the Skill. Both Chade and I had judged them too dangerous to be left where the curious might paw through them. Even now, a man stood watch at the bottom of the tower steps. Access to this room was limited to Councillor Chade, the Prince and Queen. We would not chance losing control of this library again.

Long years ago, when Skillmistress Solicity had died, all these scrolls had passed into the control of Galen, her apprentice. He had claimed her post as Skillmaster, even though his training had been incomplete. He had supposedly ‘completed’ the training of both Prince Chivalry and Prince Verity, but Chade and I suspected that he had deliberately truncated their education in the Skill. Thereafter, he had trained no others, until the time when King Shrewd had demanded that he create a coterie. And during all Galen’s time as Skillmaster, access to those scrolls had been denied to all. Eventually, he disputed that such a library had ever even existed. When he died, no trace of them had been found.

Somehow, they had passed to Regal the Pretender. Eventually, with Regal’s death, they were recovered and had been returned to the Queen and thence into Chade’s safekeeping. Both Chade and I suspected that once the library had been substantially larger. Chade had advanced the theory that many of the choicest scrolls that had to do with Skill, dragons and Elderlings had been sold off to Outisland traders in the early days of the Red Ship raids. Certainly neither Regal nor Galen had felt any great loyalty to the Coastal Duchies that suffered from the raiders. Perhaps they would not have scrupled to traffic with our tormentors, or their go-betweens. The scrolls would undoubtedly have brought a good sum of coin into Regal’s hands. At a time when the Six Duchies treasury had come close to being depleted, Regal had never seemed to lack money with which to entertain himself and court the loyalty of the Inland dukes. And the Red Ship Raiders had gained their knowledge of the Skill and the possible uses of the black Skill-stone from somewhere. It was even possible that somewhere, in one of those straying scrolls, they had found the knowledge of how to Forge folk. But it was not likely that Chade or I would ever be able to prove it.

The Prince’s voice pulled my straying attention back to the present. ‘I thought you would have planned it all out. Where to begin and all.’ The uncertainty in the boy’s voice was wrenching. I longed to reassure him, but decided to be honest with him instead.

‘Pull up a chair and join me here,’ I suggested to him. I resumed Verity’s old seat.

For a moment he stared at me as if puzzled. Then he crossed the room, seized one of the heavy chairs and lugged it over to place it beside mine. I said nothing as he sat in it. I had not forgotten our relative ranks, but I had already decided that within this room, I would treat him as my student rather than my prince. For an instant I hesitated, wondering if my candid words might not undermine my authority over him. Then I took a breath and spoke them.

‘My prince, roughly a score of years ago I sat in this room on the floor by your father’s feet. He sat here, in this chair, and he looked out over the water and Skilled. He used his talents mercilessly, against both the enemy and the health of his own body. From here, he used the strength of his mind to reach out, to find Red Ships and their crews before they could touch our shores, and confound them. He made the sea and the weather our ally against them, confusing navigators to send the enemy ships onto rocks, or persuading captains to a false confidence that bid them steer straight into storms.

‘I am sure that you have heard of Skillmaster Galen. He was supposed to create and train a Skill-coterie, a unified group of Skill-users who would provide their strength and talent to aid King-in-Waiting Verity against the Red Ships. Well, he did create a coterie, but they were false, their loyalty bound to Regal, Verity’s ambitious younger brother. Instead of aiding your father’s efforts, they hindered him. They delayed messages, or failed to deliver them at all. They made your father look incompetent. For the sake of breaking the loyalty of his dukes to him, they delivered our people into the hands of the raiders, to be killed or Forged.’

The Prince’s eyes were locked onto my face. I could not meet his earnest gaze. I stared past him, out of the tall windows and over the grey and billowing sea. Then I steeled myself and trod the precipice path between deadly truth and cowardly falsehood. ‘I was one of Galen’s students. Because of my illegitimate birth, he despised me. I learned what I could from him, but he was a cruel and unjust master to me, driving me away from the knowledge he did not wish to share with me. Under his brutal tutelage, I learned the basics of Skilling, but no more than that. I could not predictably master my talent, and so I failed. He sent me away with the other students who did not meet his standards.

‘I continued to work as a servant here in the keep. When your father laboured most heavily here, he had his meals brought up to him. That was my task. And it was here that we discovered, most providentially, that even though I could not Skill on my own, he could draw Skill-strength from me. And later, in the brief times he was able to give me, he taught me what he could of Skilling.’

I turned to face Dutiful and waited. His dark eyes probed mine. ‘When he left on his quest, did you go with him?’

I shook my head and answered truthfully. ‘No. I was young and he forbade it.’

‘And you didn’t try to follow him later?’ He was incredulous, his imagination fired with what he was sure he would himself have done in my place.

It was hard to say the next words. ‘No one knew where he had gone, or by what paths.’ I held my breath, hoping that would still his questions. I didn’t want to lie to him.

He turned away from me and looked out over the sea. He was disappointed in me. ‘I wonder how different things might have been if you had gone with him.’

I had often told myself that if I had, Queen Kettricken would never have survived Regal’s reign at Buckkeep. But I said, ‘I’ve often pondered that question myself, my prince. But there is no knowing what might have happened. I might have helped him, but looking back on those days, I think it just as likely I would have been a hindrance to him. I was very young, quick-tempered and impetuous.’ I took a breath and steered the conversation as I wished it to go. ‘I tell you these things to be sure you understand well that I am no Skillmaster. I have not studied all those scrolls … I have read only a few of them. So. In a sense we are both students here. I will do my best to educate myself from the scrolls, even as I teach you the basics of what I know. It is a hazardous path that we will tread together. Do you understand this?’

‘I understand. And of the Wit?’

I had not wanted to discuss that today. ‘Well. I came to my Wit-magic much as you did yours, stumbling into it by chance when I bonded with a puppy. I was a man grown before I met anyone who tried to put my random knowledge of my magic into a coherent framework. Again, time was my enemy. I learned much from him, but not all there was to know … far short of that, to be truthful. So, again, I will teach you what I know. But you will be learning from a flawed instructor.’

‘Your confidence is so inspiring,’ Dutiful muttered darkly. Then, a moment later, he laughed. ‘A fine pair we shall make, stumbling along together. Where do we begin?’

‘I am afraid that we shall have to begin by first moving backwards. You must be untaught some of what you have learned by yourself. Are you aware that when you attempt to Skill, you are mingling the Wit with that magic?’

He stared at me blankly.

After a moment of discouragement, I said briskly, ‘Well. Our first step will be to untangle your magics from one another.’ As if I knew how. I was not even certain that my own magics operated independently of one another. I shoved the thought aside. ‘I’d like to proceed with teaching you the basics of Skilling. We’ll set aside the Wit for now, to avoid confusion.’

‘Have you ever known any others like us?’

He had lost me again. ‘Like us in what way?’

‘With both the Wit and the Skill.’

I took a deep breath and let it out. Truth or lie. Truth. ‘I think I once met one, but I did not recognize him as such at the time. I don’t think he even knew what he doing. At the time, I thought he was just very strong in the Wit. Since then, I’ve sometimes wondered at how well he seemed to know what passed between my wolf and me. I suspect that he had both magics, but thought them the same thing, and thus used them together.’

‘Who was he?’

I should never have begun to answer his questions. ‘I told you, it was a long time ago. He was a man who tried to help me learn the Wit. Now. Let’s focus on why we are here today.’

‘Civil.’

‘What?’ The lad’s mind hopped like a flea. He’d have to learn focus.

‘Civil has been well instructed in the Wit, since he was a small child. Perhaps he would be willing to teach me. As he already knows I am Witted, it is not spreading my secret about. And …’

I think the look on my face made him falter into silence. I waited until I trusted myself to speak. Then, I pretended to be a wiser man than I was. I tried to listen before I spoke to him. ‘Tell me about Civil,’ I suggested. Then, because I could not quite control my tongue, I added, ‘Tell me why you think it is safe to trust him.’

I liked that he did not answer immediately. His brow furrowed, and then he spoke as if he were recounting events from a lifetime ago. ‘I first met Civil when he presented me with my cat. As you know, she was a gift from the Bresingas. I think Lady Bresinga had come to Buckkeep Castle before, but I don’t recall ever seeing Civil. There was something about the way he gave me the cat … I think it was that he obviously cared for her welfare; he did not present her to me as if she were a thing, but as if she were a friend. Perhaps that is because he is Witted, also. He told me that he would teach me how to hunt with her, and the very next morning, we went out together. We went alone, Tom, so there would be no distractions for her. And he truly taught me how to hunt with her, paying more attention to that than to the fact that he had time alone with Prince Dutiful.’ Dutiful halted and a slight flush rose on his face.

‘That may sound conceited to you, but it is a thing I must always deal with. I accept an invitation to something that sounds interesting, only to find that the person who invited me is more fixed on gaining my attention than on sharing something with me. Lady Wess invited me to a puppet show performed by masters of the art from Tilth. Then she sat beside me and chattered at me about a land dispute with her neighbour all the way through the play.

‘Civil was not like that. He taught me how to hunt with a cat. Don’t you think that if he had intended ill to me, he could have done it then? Hunting accidents are not that rare. He could have arranged a tumble down a cliff. But we hunted, not just that morning, but every dawn for the week he was in Buckkeep, and each day it was the same. Only better, as I became more skilled at it. And it became best of all when he brought his own cat along with us. I really thought I had finally discovered a true friend.’

Chade’s old trick served me well. Silence asks the questions that are too awkward to phrase. It even asks the questions one does not know to ask.

‘So. When I … when I thought I was falling in love with someone, when I thought I had to flee this betrothal, well, I went to Civil. I sent him a message; when we had parted, he told me that if ever there was anything he could do for me, I had but to ask. So I sent the message, and a reply came, telling me where to go and who would help me. But here’s the odd thing, Tom. Civil says now that he never got any message from me, nor sent me a reply. Certainly I never saw him after I left Buckkeep. Even when I reached Galeton, even when I stayed there, I did not see Civil. Or Lady Bresinga. Only servants. They made a place for my cat in their cattery.’

He fell silent and this time I sensed he would not go on without a nudge.

‘But you did stay in the manor?’

‘Yes. The room had been made up fresh, but I do not think that wing of the house was used much. Everyone kept emphasizing the need for secrecy if I was to slip away. So my meals were brought to me, and when word reached us that … that you were coming, then it was decided I had to leave again. But the people who were supposed to take me hadn’t arrived yet. The cat and I went out that night and … your wolf found me.’ He halted again.

‘I know the rest,’ I said, out of pity for both of us. Yet I asked, to be certain, ‘And now Civil says he did not even know you were there?’

‘Neither he nor his mother knew. He swore it. He suspects a servant intercepted my message to him and passed it on to someone else, who replied to it and arranged all the rest.’

‘And this servant?’

‘Is long gone. He vanished the same night I left there. We counted back the days and so it seems.’

‘It seems to me you and Civil have discussed this in depth.’ I could not keep the disapproval out of my voice.

‘When Laudwine revealed himself and his true intentions, I thought that Civil must have been part of it. I felt betrayed by him. That was a part of my despair. I had not only lost my cat, but also discovered that my friend had betrayed me. I can’t tell you how wonderful it felt to learn that I was wrong.’ Relief and earnest trust shone in his face.

So he trusted Civil Bresinga, even to the point of believing that Civil could teach him the illegal magic of the Wit and never betray him. Or lead him into danger with it. How much of that trust, I wondered, was based on his aching need for a real friend? I compared it to his willingness to trust me and winced. Certainly I had given him small reason to bond with me, and yet he had. It was as if he were so isolated that any close contact at all became a friendship in his mind.

I held my tongue. I sat in silent wonder that I could do it, even as cold resolve flowed through me. I would get to the core of this Civil Bresinga, and see for myself what lurked there. If he were wormy with treachery, he would pay for it. And if he had betrayed Dutiful and then lied about it to him, if he trafficked upon the Prince’s trusting nature, he would pay doubly. But for now, I would not speak of my suspicions to the lad. So, ‘I see,’ I said gravely.

‘He offered to teach me about the Wit … Old Blood, he calls it. I didn’t ask him, he offered.’

That didn’t reassure me, but again I kept the thought to myself. I replied truthfully, ‘Prince Dutiful, I would prefer you did not begin any lessons about Old Blood just now. As I have told you, we need to separate these two magics from each other. I think it would be best if we let the Wit lie fallow for now and concentrated on developing your Skill.’

For a time he stared out over the sea. I knew that he had looked forward to Civil teaching him, that he had hungered for that sharing. But he took a breath and replied quietly, ‘If that is what you think best, that is what you and I shall do.’ Then he turned and met my eyes. There was no reluctance in his face. He accepted the discipline I offered him.

He was of good temperament, amiable and willing to be taught. I looked into his open glance and hoped I could be an instructor worthy of him.

We began that day. I sat down across the table from him and asked him to close his eyes and relax. I asked him to lower all barriers between himself and the outside world, to try to be open to all things. I spoke to him quietly, calmingly as if he were a colt waiting to feel the first weight of harness. Then I sat, watching the stillness in his unlined face. He was ready. He was like a pool of clear water that I could dive into.

If I could force myself to make the leap.

My Skill-walls were a defensive habit. They had, perhaps, been worn thin by carelessness, but I had never completely forsaken them. Reaching out to the Prince was different from simply plunging myself into the Skill. There was a risk of exposure. I was out of practice at Skilling, one person to another. Would I reveal more of myself than I intended? Even as I wondered such things, I felt the protective barriers around my thoughts grow thicker. To lower them completely was more difficult than one might think. They had been my protection for so long, the reflex was difficult to overcome. It was like looking into bright sunlight and trying to command my eyes not to squint. Slowly I pushed my walls down, until I felt I stood naked before him. There was just the distance of the tabletop to travel. I knew I could reach his thoughts but still I hesitated. I did not wish to overwhelm him, as Verity had me the first time we touched minds. Slowly, then. Gently.

I took a breath and eased towards him.

He smiled, his eyes still closed. ‘I hear music.’

It was a double revelation to me. To this boy, Skilling came as easily as being told that he could. And his sensitivity was great, far greater than mine. When I reached out wide all around us, I became aware of Thick’s music. It was there, trickling like running water in the back of my mind. It was like the wind outside the window, a thing I had unwittingly trained myself to ignore, like all the other susurrus of thoughts that float on the ether like fallen leaves on the surface of a woodland stream. Yet, as I brushed my mind against Dutiful’s, he heard Thick’s music clear and sweet, like a minstrel’s pure voice standing strong amidst a chorus. Thick was indeed strong.

And the Prince’s talent was as great, for at my grazing touch of Skill, he turned his regard towards me, and I was aware of him. It was a moment of shared cognizance as we saw one another through the bond. I looked into his heart and found within it not a shard of deception nor guile. The openness he had to the Skill was the same clarity that he offered to his life. I felt both small and dark in his presence, for I myself stood masked and let him behold only that which I could share with him, the single facet of myself that was his teacher.

Before I even bade him reach to me, his thoughts mingled with mine. Is the music how you test me? I hear it. It’s lovely. His thoughts came clear and strong to me, but I sensed a Wit-edge to them. It was how he chose me to receive his Skill. He used his Wit-awareness of me to single my thoughts out from all the tangled muttering of thoughts in Buckkeep and beyond. I wondered how I was going to break him of that. I think I’ve heard that tune before, but I can’t recall the name of it. His musing brought me back to the moment. Drawn towards the music, it was as if he took one step away from his self.

That settled it. Chade had been right. Thick would either have to be taught, or done away with. I shielded the Prince from that dark thought. Careful now, lad. Let’s go slowly. That you can hear the music is clear proof that you can Skill. What you sense now, the music and the random thoughts, is rather like the debris that floats upon a stream. You have to learn to ignore it and find instead the clear empty water where you can send your thoughts as you will. The thoughts you hear, the bits of whispers and notes of emotions, they all come from folk who have a tiny ability to Skill. You have to learn to ignore those sounds. As for the music, that comes from one stronger in the Skill, but for now he, too, must be ignored.

But the music is so lovely.

It is. But the music is not Skill. The music is but one man’s sending. It’s like a leaf floating on the river’s current. It’s lovely and graceful, but beneath it flows the cold force of the river. If you let the leaf distract you, you may forget the strength of the river and be swept away by it.

Fool that I was, I had called his attention to it. I should have known that his talent outran his control of it. He turned his regard to it, and before I could intervene, he focused on it. And as quickly as that, he was swept away from me.

It was like watching a child wading in the shallows suddenly caught and borne away on a current. I was at first transfixed with horror. Then I plunged into it after him, well aware of how difficult it would be to catch up with him.

Later, I tried to describe it to Chade. ‘Imagine one of those large gatherings where many conversations are being held at once. You start out listening to one, but then a comment from someone behind you catches your interest. Then, a phrase from someone else. Suddenly you are lost and tumbling in everyone else’s words. And you cannot recall who you first began listening to, nor can you find your own thought. Each phrase you hear captures your attention, and you cannot distinguish one as more important than another. They all exist at once, equally attractive, and each one tears a piece of you free and carries it off.’

The Skill is not a place where sight exists, or sounds, or touch. Only thought. One moment, the Prince had been beside me, strong and intact and only himself. The next, he had given too much of his attention to a strong thought not his own. As one may swiftly unravel a large piece of knitting simply by drawing one loose thread out of it, so the Prince began to come undone. Catching up the thread and rolling it up does not restore the garment. Yet as I plunged through the maelstrom of random thoughts, I reached for him, snatching at the threads of him, gathering and grasping them even as I sought frantically for their ever-diminishing heart and source.

I had been in far stronger Skill-currents than the ones I navigated now, and I held myself intact. But the Prince’s experience was far more limited. He was being torn apart, shredding rapidly in the clawing flow of sentience. To call him back, I would have to risk myself, but as the fault was mine, it seemed only fair.

Dutiful! I flung the thought out, and opened my mind wide, inviting any response. What I received back was a hailstorm of confusion as folk that were mildly Skilled sensed the intrusion of my thought into their minds, and in turn wondered what I was. The weight of their sudden regard fell upon me and then tugged at me, a thousand hooks tearing at me at once.

It was a strange sensation, at once alarming and exhilarating. Perhaps strangest of all was how much clearer my perception of it was. Perhaps Chade had been right to deprive me of elfbark. But that thought passed fleetly as I focused on what I must do. I shook them off wildly as a wolf would shake water from his coat. I felt their brief amazement and confusion as they fell away and then I was centred again. DUTIFUL! My thought bellowed not his name, but his concept of himself, the shape I had so clearly seen when I had first brushed my thoughts against his. What I felt in return from him was like a questioning echo, as if he could barely recall who he had been but moments before.

I netted him out of the tangled flux, sieving the threads of him and keeping them whilst letting the others flow through my perception of him. Dutiful. Dutiful. Dutiful. The tapping of my thought was a heartbeat for him, and a confirmation. Then for a time I held him, steadying him, and finally felt him come back to himself. Swiftly he gathered to his centre threads that I had not perceived as being part of him. I was a stillness around him, helping to hold the thoughts of the world at bay while he reformed himself.

Tom? He queried me at last. The template he offered me was a fractured portion of myself, the single facet I had presented to him.

Yes, I confirmed for him. Yes, Dutiful. And that is enough and more than enough for today. Come away from this now. Come back to yourself.

Together we separated ourselves from the tantalizing flow, and then peeled apart and went to our own bodies. Yet as we departed from the Skill-river, it seemed to me that someone else almost spoke to me, in a distant echo of thought.

That was well done. But next time, be more careful, with yourself as well as with him.

The message was arrowed at me, a thought with me as its target. I do not think Dutiful was aware of it at all. As I opened my eyes at the table and saw how pale he was, I pushed all consideration of that foreign Skilling aside. He slumped in his chair, head canted to one side, eyes nearly closed. Drops of sweat had tracked down his face from his hair and his lips puffed as the breath moved in and out of them. My first lesson had nearly been his last.

I rounded the table and crouched down beside him. ‘Dutiful. Can you hear me?’

He gasped in a small breath. Yes. A terrible smile flowed onto his slack face. It was so beautiful. I want to go back, Tom.

‘No. Don’t do that; don’t even think about it right now. Stay here and now. Focus on staying in your own body.’ I glanced around the room. There was nothing here to offer him, no water, and no wine. ‘You’ll recover in a few moments,’ I told him, not at all sure that was true. Why hadn’t I planned for this possibility? Why hadn’t I warned him first of the dangers of the Skill? Because I had never expected that he could Skill so well on his very first lesson? I had not thought he would be adept enough to get himself into trouble. Well, now I knew better. Teaching the Prince was going to be more dangerous than I had thought.

I set a hand to his shoulder, intending to help him sit up straighter. Instead, it was as if we leapt into one another’s minds. I had lowered my walls to teach him, and Dutiful had no walls. The elation of the Skill flooded me as our minds met and matched. With him, I could hear the muted roar of Skill-thoughts like the carousing of a flood river in the distance. Come away from that I counselled him, and somehow drew him back from that brink. It was unnerving to feel his fascination with it. Once, I too had felt that drawn to the great Skill-current. It still exerted a tremendous attraction on me, but I also knew its dangers, and that made a balance. The Prince was like a baby reaching towards a candle flame. I drew him back from it, put myself between it and him, and at last sensed him curtaining his mind against the Skill-murmur.

‘Dutiful.’ I spoke his name aloud at the same time I Skilled it. ‘It’s time to stop now. This is enough for one day, and far too much for the first lesson.’

‘But … I want …’ His spoken words were little more than a whisper, but I was pleased he said them aloud.

‘Enough,’ I said, and took my hand from his shoulder. He leaned back in his chair with a sigh, rolling his head back. I fought temptations of my own. Could I share strength with him, to help him recover? Could I set walls for him, to protect him until he was better able to navigate the Skill-currents? Could I remove the Skill-induced command I had given him not to fight me?

When I had first been offered the chance to learn to Skill, I had seen it as a double-edged blade. There was great opportunity to learn the magic, but matched against it was always the danger that Galen the Skillmaster might learn I was Witted and destroy me. I had never approached the Skill as openly and eagerly as Dutiful did. Very quickly danger and pain had blunted my curiosity about the royal magic. I had used it with reluctance, drawn to it by its addictive lure yet frightened at how it threatened to consume me. When I had discovered that drinking elfbark tea could deaden me to the Skill’s call, I had not hesitated to use it despite the drug’s evil reputation. Now, with that drug cleared from my body, the Prince’s excitement and the access to the Skill-scrolls an enthusiasm that I had thought long dead was rekindled in me. As much as Dutiful did, I longed to plunge back into that intoxicating current. I steeled my will. I must not let him feel that from me.

A glance at the climbing sun told me that our time together was nearing an end. Dutiful had recovered much of his colour but his hair was flat with sweat.

‘Come, lad, pull yourself together.’

‘I’m tired. I feel as if I could sleep the rest of the day.’

I did not mention my burgeoning pain. ‘That’s to be expected, but it’s probably not a good idea. I want you to stay awake. Go do something active. Ride, or practise with your blade. Above all, rein your thoughts away from this first lesson. Don’t let the Skill tempt you to come near it again today. Until I’ve taught you to balance focusing on it with resisting it, it’s a dangerous thing for you. The Skill is a useful magic, but it has the power to draw a man as honey draws a bee. Venture there alone, be distracted by it, and you’ll be gone to a place from which no one, not even I, can recall you. Yet here your body must remain, as a great drooling babe that takes no notice of anything.’

I cautioned him repeatedly that he must not try to use the Skill without me, that all his experiments with it must be made in my company. I suppose I lectured overlong on this point, for he finally told me, almost angrily, that he, too, had been there and knew he was lucky to have returned in one piece.

I told him I was glad he realized that, and on that note we parted. Yet at the door, he lingered, turning back to look at me.

‘What is it?’ I asked him when his silence had grown too long.

He suddenly looked very awkward. ‘I want to ask you something.’

I waited, but had to finally say, ‘And what did you want to ask me?’

He bit his lower lip and turned his gaze to the tower window. ‘About you and Lord Golden,’ he said at last. And halted again.

‘What about us?’ I asked impatiently. The morning was wearing on, and I had things to do. Such as somehow dampening the headache that now assailed me full force.

‘Do you … do you like working for him?’

I knew instantly it was not the question he wanted to ask. I wondered what was troubling him. Was he jealous of my friendship with the Fool? Did he feel excluded somehow? I made my voice gentle. ‘He has been my friend for a long time. I told you that before, in the inn on our way home. The roles we play now, master and man, are only for convenience. They afford me an excuse to attend occasions where a man such as myself would not be expected. That’s all.’

‘Then you don’t truly … serve him.’

I shrugged a shoulder. ‘Only when it fits my role, or when it pleases me to do a favour for him. We’ve been friends a long time, Dutiful. There is very little I wouldn’t do for him, or him for me.’

The look on his face told me I had not laid to rest whatever was troubling him but I was willing at that point to let it go. I could wait until he found words for whatever it was. He also seemed willing to let it rest, for he turned away from me to the door. But with his hand on the handle, he spoke again, his voice harsh, the words wrung from him against his will. ‘Civil says that Lord Golden likes boys.’ When I said nothing, he added painfully, ‘For bedding.’ He kept staring at the door. The back of his neck grew scarlet.

I suddenly felt very tired. ‘Dutiful. Look at me, please.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said as he turned, but he couldn’t quite meet my eyes. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’

I wished he hadn’t. I wished I hadn’t discovered that the gossip was widespread enough to have reached his ears. Time to lay it to rest. ‘Dutiful. Lord Golden and I do not bed together. In truth, I have never known the man to bed anyone. His actions towards Civil were a ploy, to provoke Lady Bresinga into asking us to leave her hospitality. That was all. But you cannot, of course, let Civil know that. It remains between you and me.’

He drew a deep breath and sighed it out. ‘I did not want to think it of you. But you seem so close. And Lord Golden is, of course, a Jamaillian, and all know that they care little about such things.’

I debated for an instant about telling him the truth of that. I decided there was such a thing as burdening him with too much knowledge. ‘It would probably be for the best if you didn’t discuss Lord Golden with Civil. If the topic comes up, turn the conversation. Can you do that?’

He gave me a crooked smile. ‘I, too, have been Chade’s student,’ he pointed out.

‘I had noticed that you had become cooler towards Lord Golden of late. If that was the reason behind it, well, you create a loss for yourself in not getting to know him better. Once he is your friend, no man can ask for a truer one.’

He nodded, but said nothing. I suspected I had not dispelled all his doubts, but I had done the best I could.

He left the tower by the door, and I heard him turn the key in the lock before he descended the long, spiralling stair. If asked, he would tell folk that he had chosen the tower as his new place for dawn meditation. It seemed unlikely any would ask. He, Chade and I were the only ones prone to come here.

I glanced about the room again, and resolved to stock it against dangers such as we had had this morning. A bottle of brandy, in case Dutiful needed restoration. And we’d need a supply of wood for the hearth as winter gained more bite. I did not hold with Galen’s austere teaching that students must be uncomfortable in order to learn well. I’d talk to Chade about it.

I yawned hugely, wishing I could go back to bed. I had arrived back at Buckkeep only the previous evening. A hot bath and a long report to Chade had filled hours when I would rather have been sleeping. He had taken custody of the scrolls and writings I’d brought back. I was not enthusiastic about that, but there was little in any of them that he would not already have known or guessed. After my bath to take the chill from my bones, I had sat before Chade’s hearth and talked long with him.

A young brown ferret had already taken up residence in the tower room. His name was Gilly and he was obsessed with his own youth, his new territory, and rumours of rodents. His interest in me was limited to sniffing my boots thoroughly and then rooting his way into my pack. His eagerly darting mind was a pleasant counterpoint to the gloom of the tower room. His opinion of me was that I was a creature too big to eat that shared his territory.

Chade’s gossip had covered everything from the Duke of Tilth arming runaway Chalcedean slaves and teaching them military tactics to Kettricken being called on to mediate between Lord Carolsin of Ashlake, who claimed that Lord Dignity of Timbery had seduced and stolen his daughter. Lord Dignity countered that the girl had come to him of her own will and that as they were now married, any issue of seduction no longer mattered. Then there was the matter of the new docks that one Buckkeep merchant wanted to build. Two others claimed that the docks would cut water access to their warehouses. Somehow this trivial matter that the town council should have resolved had become a citywide issue to be debated before the Queen. Chade spoke of a dozen or more other boring and wearisome issues, and it recalled to me that the concerns he and Kettricken dealt with every day went both wide and deep.

When I observed as much to him, he replied, ‘And that is why we are fortunate that you have returned to Buckkeep, with Prince Dutiful as your sole focus. Kettricken thinks the only way it could be better would be if you could accompany him openly, but I still feel that your ability to observe the court without being too directly connected to the Prince has advantages of its own.’

There had been no further stirring from the Piebalds that Chade had detected. No new postings exposing Witted ones, no clandestine notes, no threats to the Queen. ‘But what of Laurel’s warning to the Queen, of Deerkin’s rumours?’ I asked him.

For a moment he looked discomfited. ‘So you know of that, do you? Well, I was speaking only of direct tidings from the Piebalds to the Queen. We have taken Laurel’s information seriously and done what we could to protect her, in a subtle way. She is training a new huntsman now, her new assistant. He is quite brawny and very adept with a sword, and accompanies her almost everywhere. I have great faith in him. Other than that, I have instructed the guards on the gates to be more suspicious of strangers, especially if animals accompany them. Obviously, we are aware that the Piebalds and the Old Blood are at odds. My spies have brought me rumours of families massacred in their beds, and then the houses burned to destroy all sign. All the better, some might say. Let them chew on one another and leave us in peace for a time. Oh, don’t scowl at me like that. Some might say, I said, not that I wished they would all kill one another off. What would you have me do? Turn out the guard? No one has come seeking the Queen’s intervention. Shall we chase shadows that no one has accused of committing crimes? I need something solid, Fitz. A man or men, named by name, and accused of committing these murders. Until someone of Old Blood dares step forward and speak out, there is little I can do. If it is any comfort to you, the rumours alone put the Queen into a fury.’ And then he turned his talk to other things.

Civil Bresinga was still at court, still seeing Dutiful daily, and still showing no overt signs of being a traitor or plotter. I was pleased that in my absence Chade had set other spies onto the boy. Harvest Fest had gone well. The Outislanders had seemed to enjoy it. Dutiful and Elliania’s formal courtship continued under the watchful eyes of all. They walked together, rode together, dined together, danced together. Buckkeep minstrels sang of Elliania’s beauty and grace. On the surface, everything was absolutely correct, but Chade suspected the young couple was less than enamoured of one another. Chade hoped they could remain on civil terms until the Narcheska departed for her own land. The negotiations with the traders who had accompanied the Narcheska’s delegation were going very well indeed. Bearns uncertainty about the alliance had been somewhat mollified when the Queen had formally awarded Seal Bay permission to be the Six Duchies’ exclusive trading port for furs, ivory and oil. From Buckkeep Town would ship the products of the Inland Duchies, the wines and brandy and grain. Shoaks and Rippon would claim the bulk of the trade in wool, cotton, leather and such.

‘Do you think each duchy will respect the other’s licence?’ I had asked idly as I swirled brandy in my glass.

Chade snorted. ‘Of course not. Smuggling is an old and honoured profession in every port town I’ve ever visited. But each duke has been given a bone to growl over, and each is already calculating the value that the alliance with the Outislands will bring to his home province. That is all we were truly after. To convince all of them that the entire Six Duchies would profit from this.’ Then he had sighed and leaned back in his chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose. A moment later he shifted uncomfortably, and then said, ‘Oh.’

From a fold in his robe, he brought out the figurine from the beach. She dangled from her chain, small and perfect. Her sleek black hair was crowned with a blue ornament. ‘I found this on a pile of rags in the corner. Is it yours?’

‘No. But that “pile of rags” was probably my old work-clothes. The necklace belongs to the Prince.’ As Chade frowned at me in puzzlement, I added, ‘I told you about it. The time we spent on that strange beach. He picked it up there. I ended up putting it in his purse for him. I should give it back to him.’

Chade had scowled then. ‘When he told me his tale of his adventures, he had little to say about the journey through the Skill-pillars or his time on the beach. He certainly never mentioned this.’

‘He wasn’t trying to deceive you, Chade. Even for an experienced Skill-user, going through a pillar is an unsettling experience. I took him through to the beach without warning; he had no idea what had happened to him. And, to return, I took him through three pillars. I’m not surprised his memories of it are scrambled. I’m just glad he is sane; most of Regal’s young Skill-users did not fare so well.’

A frown furrowed his brow. ‘So. An inexperienced Skill-user cannot pass through a pillar on his own?’

‘I don’t know. The first time I went through one, it was purely accidental on my part. But I had spent that whole day in a sort of Skill-stupor, on an Elderling road … Chade. What are you thinking?’

His quizzical look was too innocent.

‘Chade, stay away from those pillars. They are dangerous. Perhaps more dangerous to you, who may have traces of Skill-magic in your blood, than to ordinary folk.’

‘What are you afraid of?’ he asked me quietly. ‘That I might discover that I possessed an aptitude for the Skill? That perhaps, if I had been taught as a boy, I too could wield it now?’

‘Perhaps you could. But what I fear is that you will read some cracked and dusty old scroll and risk yourself in some experiment just when the Six Duchies needs you most.’

Chade made a disapproving grunt as he got up to place the figurine on his mantel. ‘And that reminds me of another thing. The Queen sends you this.’ He picked up a small scroll from the mantel and handed it to me. Unfurled, I immediately recognized Kettricken’s squared hand. She had never become accustomed to the flowing script we used in the Six Duchies. Twelve careful runes were inked there, and by each one was a single word. ‘Harbour, Beach, Glacier, Cave, Mountain, Motherhouse, Hunter, Warrior, Fisher, Allmother, Smith, Weaver.’

‘It’s from some game she was playing with Peottre. I see why she sent you this. Do you?’

I nodded. ‘The runes look similar to the runes on the Skill-pillars. They are not the identical runes, but they look as if they might be from the same system of writing.’

‘Very good. But one, at least, is almost identical. Here. These are the runes that marked the pillar that you and the Prince used. The one near the old mounds.’

Chade took up a second scroll from the table between us. It was obviously the work of a true scribe. It showed four carefully replicated symbols, with the orientation of each facet of the pillar marked, as well as notations on the size and placement of the originals. Chade had obviously sent his little bees out to gather information for him. ‘Which one took you to the beach?’ Chade asked me.

‘This one.’ It was similar to the one for ‘Beach’ on Kettricken’s scroll, save for an extra tail or two.

‘And did an identical one bring you back?’

I frowned. ‘I had little time to note the appearance of the one that brought me back. I see you’ve been busy in my absence.’

He nodded. ‘There are other stone pillars within the Six Duchies. I’ll have information on them within the next few weeks. Obviously they were originally used by Skilled ones, and somehow the knowledge of how they worked was lost for a time. But we have a chance to regain it.’

‘Only at great danger. Chade, may I point out that our trip to the beach ended with Dutiful and me underwater? It could have been much worse. Imagine if one of the exit pillars was face down on the ground. Or shattered. What happens to the user then?’

Chade looked only mildly flustered as he said, ‘Well, then I assumed you would see the way was blocked and come right back.’

‘My assumption is that I would be expelled from the pillar into solid stone. It isn’t like a doorway where you can halt and look out. It dumps you out, as if you’d stepped through a trapdoor.’

‘Ah. I see. Well, then their use will have to be investigated much more carefully. But as we read the Skill-scrolls, we may be able to decipher what each rune means and at least establish where each “gate” originally opened. And thus, eventually, determine which ones are safe to use. And perhaps right or repair the others. What other Skill-users did in the past, we can reclaim.’

‘Chade. I am not at all certain that those pillars were the work of Skill-users. Perhaps some have used them, but each time I’ve passed through one, the disorientation and the …’ I groped for words. ‘Foreignness,’ I hazarded at last. ‘The foreignness makes me wonder if Skill-users are the ones who built them. If they were built by humans at all.’

‘Elderlings?’ he had suggested after a moment.

‘I don’t know,’ I had replied.

The conversation echoed through my mind as I gazed at the racked scrolls and the locked chests in the Skill-tower. The answers might be here, waiting for me.

I selected three scrolls from the rack from among the ones that looked most recent. I’d start with the ones in letters and languages that I knew well. I found none by Solicity, which struck me as odd. Certainly, our last Skillmistress must have committed something of her wisdom to paper; it was generally assumed that one who achieved Master status would have something unique to pass on to their followers. But if Solicity had ever written anything, it was not amongst these scrolls. The three I finally chose were by someone named Treeknee, and were labelled as a translation of an older manuscript by Skillmaster Oklef. The translations had been done at the behest of Skillmaster Barley. I had never heard of any of them. I tucked the three scrolls under my arm and departed by way of the false panel in the hearth mantel.

I intended to leave the scrolls in Chade’s tower room. They did not belong in Tom Badgerlock’s chamber. But before I went there, I made a brief detour through the hidden corridors until I reached an irregular crack in the wall. I approached it silently and peeped through it. Civil Bresinga’s chamber was empty. This confirmed what Chade had told me last night, that young Civil would ride out with a party accompanying the Prince and his intended. Good. Perhaps I’d have the opportunity for a quick tour of his rooms, not that I expected it would yield much. Other than his clothes and the small daily possessions of a man, he kept nothing there. In the evenings, his chamber was either empty or he was alone in it. When he was there, his most common diversion was playing a small pipe, badly, or indulging in Smoke and staring out of the window. In all the spying I’d ever done, Civil was the most boring subject I’d ever had.

I headed up to Chade’s tower room, but paused before triggering the hidden catch, to listen and then peep into the room. I heard a soft-mouthed muttering, the thud of firewood being unloaded. I nearly turned aside, thinking I could leave the scrolls in the corridor until later. Then I decided there were too many laters in my life, and that I was leaving too much up to Chade. Only I could do this, really. I took a slow and calming breath, focused myself, and then eased my walls down.

Please don’t be startled. I’m coming into the room.

It didn’t help. Almost as soon as I got through the door, the wave hit me. Don’t see me, stink dog! Don’t hurt me! Go away!

But my walls were up and I was braced.

‘Stop that, Thick. By now you should know that it doesn’t work on me, and that I have no intention of hurting you. Why are you so afraid of me?’ I set the scrolls down on the worktable.

Thick had stood to meet me. At his feet was a hod of firewood. Half had been loaded into the box by the hearth. He squinted his sleepy-looking eyes at me. ‘Not afraid. I just don’t like you.’

There was an oddness to his voice, not a lisp, but an unfinished edge to his words, as if a very young child spoke them. Afterwards, he stood glaring at me, the end of his tongue resting on his lower lip. I decided that despite his short stature and childish voice and ways, he was not a child. I would not speak to him as one.

‘Really? I try to know people before I decide I don’t like them. I don’t think I’ve given you any reason to dislike me.’

He scowled at me, his brow furrowing. Then he gestured around the room. ‘Lots of reasons. You make more work. Water for baths. Bring up the food, take away the dishes. A lot more work than the old man only.’

‘Well, I can’t deny that.’ I hesitated, then asked, ‘What would make it fair?’

‘Fair?’ He squinted at me suspiciously. Very cautiously, I lowered my guard and tried to sense what he was feeling. I needn’t have bothered. It was obvious. All his life, he had been mocked and teased. He was sure this was more of it.

‘I could give you money for the things you do for me.’

‘Money?’

‘Coins.’ I had a few loose in my pouch. I lifted it and jingled it at him.

‘NO. No coins. I don’t want coins. He hit Thick, take the coins. Hit Thick, take the coins.’ As he repeated himself, he mimed the motion, swinging a meaty fist on his short arm.

‘Who does?’

He narrowed his eyes at me, then shook his head stubbornly. ‘Someone. You don’t know. I didn’t tell no one. Hit Thick, take the coins.’ He swung again, obviously caught up in remembered anger. His breath was beginning to come more quickly.

I tried to cut through it. ‘Thick. Who hits you?’

‘Hit Thick, take the coins.’ He swung again, tongue and lower lip out now, eyes squinted nearly shut. I let the punch spend itself on the empty air, then stepped in. I set my hands on his shoulders, intending to calm him so I could speak to him. Instead he yelled loud, a wild wordless cry and sprang back from me. At the same moment, DON’T SEE ME! DON’T HURT ME!

I winced from the impact and recoiled. ‘Thick. Don’t hurt me!’ I retorted. Then, catching my breath, I added, ‘That doesn’t always work, does it? Some people don’t feel you push them away with that. But there are other ways, ways that I could stop them.’

So. Some of his fellow servants were either completely immune to his Skill-touch, or sensed it only enough to be angered by it. Interesting. As strongly Skilled as he was, I would have thought he could impose his will on almost anyone. I should tell Chade about this. I set the thought aside for later. His blow on top of the Skill-headache from earlier made me feel as if blood were running down the backs of my eyes. I forced my words past a slamming red pain in my skull. ‘I can make them stop, Thick. I will make them stop.’

‘What? Stop what?’ he demanded suspiciously. ‘Stop Thick?’

‘No. The others. I will make them stop hitting Thick and taking his coins.’

‘Humph.’ He blew out his breath in a disbelieving snort. ‘He said, “get a sweet”. But then he took the coins. Hit Thick, take the coin.’

‘Thick.’ It was hard to break in past his fixation. ‘Listen to me. If I make them stop hitting you, if I make them not take your sweets, will you stop hating me?’

He stood, saying nothing, but scowling. I decided that the two ideas were not connecting. I made it simpler. ‘Thick. I can make them stop bothering you.’

He made his ‘humph’ again. Then, ‘You don’t know. I didn’t tell you.’ He dumped the rest of the firewood from his hod willy-nilly into the box and stumped off. When he was gone, I sank down for a time, clutching my head. It was all I could do to stagger over to the abandoned scrolls and put them on the bedside table. I sat down on the edge of the bed, and then lay down just for a moment. My head sank into the cool pillow. I fell asleep.

EIGHT

Ambitions

Thus every magic has its space in the spectrum of magic, and together they make up the great circle of power. All magical lore is encompassed in the circle, from the skills of the humble hedge-wizard with his charms, the scryer with his bowl or crystal, the bestial magic of the Wit and the celestial magic of the Skill, and all the homely magics of hearth and heart. All can be placed as I have shown them, in a great spectrum, and it must be clear to any eye that a common thread runs through all of them.

But that is not to say that any user can or should attempt to master the full circle of magic. Such a wide sweep of the art is not given to any mortal, and with good reason. No one is meant to be master of all powers. A Skill-user may expand his expertise to scrying, and there have been tales of beast-magickers who had mastered some of the fire-magic and water-finding skills of the hedge-wizards. As illustrated by the chart, each of these lesser arcs of magic are adjacent to the greater magics, and thus a mage can expand his powers to include these minor skills as well. But to have larger ambitions than these is a great error. For one who augurs through a crystal to attempt to master the bringing of fire is a mistake. These magics are not neighbouring magics, and the strains of supporting their differences may bring discord to his mind. For a Skill-user to demean himself with the beast-magic of the Wit is to invite the decay and debasement of his higher magic. Such a vile ambition should be condemned.

Treeknee’s translation of The Circle of Magic
by Skillmaster Oklef

Looking back, I suspect that I learned more at Dutiful’s first Skill-lesson than he did. Fear and respect were what I learned. I had dared to set myself up as a teacher of something that I barely grasped myself. And so my days and nights became fuller than I had ever expected, for I must be both student and teacher, yet could not surrender my other roles as Lord Golden’s servant or Hap’s father or the Farseer’s spy.

As winter shortened the days, my lessons with Dutiful began in the black of the morning. Usually we left Verity’s tower before the true dawn lightened the sky. Both the boy and Chade were eager for us to press on, but I was determined to err on the side of caution after our near disaster.

In the same spirit, I had procrastinated against Chade’s demands that I at least evaluate Thick’s Skill-ability. I need not have bothered. Thick was as reluctant to have any contact with me as I was to teach him. Thrice, Chade had arranged for Thick to meet me in his chambers. Each time, the half-wit had not been there at the appointed hour. Nor had I lingered, hoping my wayward student was merely late. I arrived, noted his absence, and left. Each time, Thick had told Chade that he had ‘forgotten’ the appointment, but he could not hide his apprehension and distaste from Chade.

‘What did you do to him, to create such aversion?’ Chade had demanded of me. To which I had been able to honestly reply that I had done nothing. I knew of no reason that the half-wit would dread me. I was only glad that he did.

My lesson times with Dutiful were the exact opposite of that. The boy greeted me warmly and eagerly every time he arrived, and anticipated his lessons with eagerness. It amazed me. Sometimes I wondered wistfully what it would have been like if Prince Verity had been my first Skill-instructor. Would I have responded as readily as his son did to me? My own memories of Skillmaster Galen’s lessons were painful in the extreme. I had seen no wisdom in emulating his set routines and mental exercises designed to prepare a student to Skill. In truth, Dutiful seemed not to need any of them. For the Prince, Skilling was an effortless spilling of his soul. I soon wondered if I had not benefited from my own early struggles to master the Skill. I had had to force my way out past my own walls; Dutiful could not seem to find any boundaries. He was as prone to share his upset stomach with me as he was to convey his thoughts. When he opened himself, it was as if he opened the floodgate to all of the scattered and wafting thought in the world. Standing witness and guard in his mind, it near overwhelmed me. It frightened and fascinated him, and both emotions kept him from achieving full concentration on what he was attempting. Worse, when he Skilled out to me, it was as if he tried to thread a needle with a rope. Verity had once told me that being Skilled to by my father Chivalry was like being trampled by a horse: he barged in, dropped his information, and fled. So it was with Dutiful.

‘If he can master his talent, he will swiftly exceed his teacher,’ I complained to Chade one very late night when he chanced to visit his old chambers. I sat at our old compounding table, surrounded by a welter of Skill-scrolls. ‘I felt almost relief when I started teaching him Kettle’s Stone game. He found it difficult to grasp at first, though he seems to be catching on to it now. I hope it will slow him down, and help him learn to look for deeper patterns in his magic. All else seems to come to him so easily. He Skills as a hound pup instinctively puts his nose to a trail. As if he is remembering how to do it, rather than being taught.’

‘And that is bad?’ the old assassin asked genially. He began to rummage amongst the tea herbs on the high shelves. Those shelves had always been reserved for his most dangerous and potent concoctions. I smiled briefly as he clambered up on a stool, and wondered if he still supposed them safely out of my reach.

‘It could be dangerous. Once he surpasses me and begins to experiment with the Skill’s other powers, he will be venturing where I have no experience. I will not even be able to warn him of the dangers, let alone protect him.’ In disgust, I slid a Skill-scroll aside and pushed my awkward translation after it. There, too, Dutiful excelled me. The lad had Chade’s gift for alphabets and languages. My translations were a plodding word-by-word puzzling out, while Dutiful read sentence by sentence and jotted the sense of them down in concise prose. Years of absence from such work had blunted my language abilities. I wondered if I envied my pupil’s quickness. Would that make me a bad teacher?

‘Perhaps he got it from you,’ Chade observed thoughtfully.

‘Got what?’

‘The Skill. We know that you touched minds with him from the time he was very small. Yet you say the Wit is not a magic that allows that. Therefore, it must have been the Skill. Therefore, perhaps you taught him to Skill when he was a tiny boy, or at least prepared his mind to be ready for it.’

I didn’t like the trend of his thoughts. Nettle instantly sprang to my mind and a wave of guilt swept through me. Had I endangered her as well? ‘You’re just trying to make it my own fault.’ I tried to make my tone light, as if that would chase away my sudden dread. I sighed and reluctantly pulled my translation work back in front of me. If I was to have any hope of continuing as Dutiful’s teacher, I needed to learn more of the Skill myself. This was a scroll that suggested a series of exercises that a student should be given to improve his focus. I hoped it would be useful to me.

Chade came to look over my shoulder. ‘Hmm. What did you think of the other scroll, the one on pain and the Skill?’

I glanced up at him, puzzled. ‘What other scroll?’

He looked annoyed. ‘You know the one. I left it out for you.’

I gave our littered table a meaningful glance. There were at least a dozen other scrolls and papers cluttering it. ‘Which one?’

‘It was one of these. I showed it to you, boy. I’m sure of it.’

I was equally certain he had not, but I held my tongue. Chade’s memory was failing him. I knew it. So did he, but he would not admit it. I had also discovered that even a mention of that possibility would throw him into a fury that was more unsettling to me than the notion that my old mentor was not as sharp as he had been. So I silently watched him poke through the jumble of writings until he came to a scroll with a decorative blue edge. ‘See. Here it is, right where I left it for you. You haven’t studied it at all.’

‘No. I haven’t.’ I admitted it easily, hoping to avoid the whole topic of whether or not he’d shown me the scroll. ‘What did you say it’s about?’

He gave me a disgusted glance. ‘It’s about pain related to Skilling. The sorts of headaches you have. It suggests some remedies, exercises as well as herbs, but it also says that in time you may simply stop having the headaches. But it’s the note towards the end that interested me. Treeknee says that some Skillmasters used a pain barrier to keep their students from experimenting on their own. He doesn’t say that it might be made strong enough to prevent a man from Skilling at all. It interested me for two reasons. I wondered if Galen had done it to you. And I wondered if it might be a way to control Thick.’ I noticed he did not suggest it as a safety barrier for the Prince.

So we were back to Thick again. Well, the old man was right. Sooner or later, we’d have to deal with him. Still, ‘I’d be reluctant to use pain as a curb on any creature. Thick Skills out his music near constantly. Give him pain for doing that, block him from it … I don’t know what that would do to him.’

Chade made a dismissive noise. He had known I would not do it before he asked me. But I knew Galen would not have scrupled to hobble me in such a way. I wondered. Chade spread the scroll out before me, his gnarled fingers bracketing the passage in question. I read it over, but discovered little he had not already said. Then I leaned back in my chair. ‘I’m trying to remember when Skilling first started to hurt. It always left me wearied. The first time Verity drew strength from me, I fainted dead away. Any real effort with it left me almost sick with fatigue. But I don’t recall the Skill having an aftermath of pain until …’ I pondered for a time, then shook my head. ‘I can’t draw a line. The first time I Skill-walked, by accident, I woke trembling with weakness. I used the elfbark for it, then and in the times that followed. And after a time, the weakness after I’d Skilled began to be pain as well.’ I sighed. ‘No. I don’t think the pain is a barrier anyone put in me.’

Chade had wandered back to his shelves. He turned with two corked bottles in his hands. ‘Could it be because you have the Wit? Much is said in the scrolls about the dangers of using both magics.’

Was the old man trying to remind me of everything I didn’t know? I hated his questions. They were stark warnings that I was guiding my prince through unknown territory. I shook my head wearily. ‘Again, Chade, I don’t know. Perhaps if the Prince begins to have pain after Skilling, we can assume that.’

‘I thought you were going to separate his Wit from his Skill.’

‘I would if I knew how. All I can do is try to make him use the Skill in ways that force him to use it independently of the Wit. I don’t know how to make him separate the two magics any more than I know how to remove the Skill-command I set on him back when we were on the beach.’

He lifted one white eyebrow as he measured herbs into a teapot. ‘The command not to fight you?’

I nodded.

‘Well, it seems that should be a simple thing to me. Simply reverse it.’

I clenched my teeth. I did not say, ‘it only seems simple to you because you have neither magic and don’t know what you are talking about’. I was weary, I told myself, and frustrated. I should not take it out on the old man. ‘I don’t quite know how I burned the command into him, and so I don’t quite know how to lift it. “Simply reverse it” is not simple at all. What would I command him? “Fight me?” Remember that Chivalry did the same thing to Skillmaster Galen. In anger, he burned a command into him. And he and Verity never puzzled out how to remove it.’

‘But Dutiful is your prince and your student. Surely that puts you on a different footing.’

‘I don’t see what that has to do with it,’ I told him, and tried not to sound short-tempered.

‘Well. Only that I think he might help you remove it.’ He shook a few drops of something into the teapot. He paused, then asked delicately, ‘Is the Prince aware of what you did to him? Does he know you commanded him not to fight you?’

‘No!’ I did let my temper show on that word. Then I took a breath. ‘No, and I’m ashamed I did it, and ashamed to admit to you that I’m afraid to tell him. In so many ways, I’m still getting to know him, Chade. I don’t want to give him reason to distrust me.’ I rubbed my brow. ‘We did not meet one another under the best circumstances, you know.’

‘I know, I know.’ He came to pat me on the shoulder. ‘So. What have you been doing with him?’

‘Mostly getting to know him. We’ve been translating scrolls together. And I “borrowed” some practice blades from the weapons sheds, and we’ve tried one another that way. He’s a good swordsman. If the number of bruises he has given me are a fair indication, then I think I lightened my Skill-command if not erased it.’

‘But you aren’t sure?’

‘Not really. When we spar, we aren’t truly trying to hurt one another. It’s a game, just as it is when we wrestle. Still, I’ve never noticed that he holds back at all, or allows me to win more easily.’

‘Well. You know, I think it’s very good that he has you for those sorts of things. As well as the Skill-lessons. I think he was missing that sort of rough companionship in his life.’ Chade took the kettle from the hearth and poured hot water over his newest mixture of leaves. ‘I suppose only time will tell. So. Do you Skill at all with him?’

I lifted a hand to my nose. The odour from the pot made my eyes water but Chade didn’t seem to notice. ‘Yes. We’ve been doing some exercises to help him focus his magic.’

‘Focus?’ Chade swirled the pot, then put the lid on it.

‘Right now when he Skills he shouts from the top of the tower and anyone listening could hear him. We strive to narrow that shout, to make it a whisper only to me. And we work to have him convey only what he wishes to tell me, not all the information in his mind at that time. So we do set exercises. I have him try to reach my mind while he is at table and carrying on a conversation. Then we refine it; can he reach my mind, convey what he is eating, while keeping to himself who his companions are? After that, we set other goals. Can he wall me out of his mind? Can he set walls that I could not breach, even in the dead of night while he sleeps?’

Chade frowned to himself as he found a cup, and wiped it clean with one end of his trailing sleeve. I tried not to smile. Sometimes, when we were alone like this, he reverted from the grand noble to the intent old man who had taught me my first trade. ‘Do you think that’s wise? Teaching him how to close you out of his mind?’

‘Well, he has to learn to do it, in case he ever encounters someone who doesn’t have his best interests at heart. At the moment I’m the only other Skill-user he can practise with.’

‘There’s Thick,’ Chade pointed out as he poured for himself. The hot liquid splashed, greenish-black, into his cup. He regarded it with distaste.

‘I think one student is all I can deal with right now,’ I demurred. ‘Did you take any action on Thick’s problem?’

‘What problem?’ Chade took his cup over in front of the fire.

I felt a moment’s alarm and tried to conceal it by speaking casually. ‘I thought I told you about it. He was having problems with the other servants hitting him and taking his money.’

‘Oh. That.’ He leaned back in his chair as if it were of no consequence. I breathed a silent sigh of relief. He hadn’t forgotten our conversation. ‘I found a reason for the cook to give him separate quarters. Ostensibly, that’s where he works, you know. The kitchens. So now he has his own room near the pantries. It’s small, but I gather it’s the first time he’s ever had any place all to himself. I think he likes it.’

‘Well. That’s good, then.’ I paused for a moment. ‘Did you ever consider sending him away from Buckkeep? Just until the Prince has a better grasp on the Skill? There are times when his wild Skilling is a bit distracting. It’s like trying to work a complicated sum while near you someone else is counting out loud.’

Chade sipped from his revolting cup. He made a face, then swallowed determinedly. I winced sympathetically, and said nothing as he reached a long arm to seize my wine glass and wash away the taste. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. ‘As long as Thick remains the only other Skill-candidate we have, I will not send him away. I want him where we can watch over him. And where you can try to win his regard. Have you made any efforts with him?’

‘I haven’t had the opportunity.’ I got up and brought another glass back to the table and poured more wine for both of us. Chade came back to the table. He set the teacup and the wine glass side by side and eyed them dolorously. ‘I don’t know if he’s avoiding me, or if his other duties for you simply have kept him out of my way.’

‘He has had other tasks, of late.’

‘Well, that explains his lack of care with his work here,’ I observed sourly. ‘Some days he remembers to replace the candle stubs with fresh tapers, some days he doesn’t. Some days the hearth is cleared of ashes and wood laid for the fire, and sometimes the old ashes and coals remain. I think it’s because he dislikes me so. He does as little as he possibly can.’

‘He can’t read, so I can’t give him a list of tasks. Sometimes he remembers to do all I tell him, sometimes he doesn’t. That only makes him a poor servant, not a lazy or spiteful one.’ Chade took another mouthful of his brew. This time, despite his efforts, he coughed, spraying the table. I snatched the scrolls out of harm’s way. He wiped his mouth with his kerchief and then blotted the table. ‘Beg pardon,’ he said gravely, his eyes watering. He took a gulp of wine.

‘What’s in the tea?’

‘Sylvleaf. Witch’s butter. Seacrepe. And a few other herbs.’ He took another mouthful of it and chased it down with more wine.

‘What’s it for?’ A memory tickled at the back of my mind.

‘Some problems I’ve been having,’ he demurred, but I rose and began to shuffle through the scrolls on the table. I came up with the one I wanted almost immediately. The illustrations were still bright despite the years. I unrolled it and pointed to the sylvleaf drawing.

‘Those herbs are named here as being helpful to open a candidate to the Skill.’

He gave me a flat look. ‘So?’

‘Chade. What are you doing, what are you trying?’

For a moment, he just looked at me. Then he asked coldly, ‘Are you jealous? Do you also think my birthright should be forbidden me?’

‘What?’

An odd sort of anger broke from him in a tumble of words. ‘I was never even given the chance to be tested for the Skill. Bastards are not taught it. Not until you, when Shrewd made an exception. Yet I am as much Farseer as you are. And I’ve some of the lesser magics, as well you should know by now.’

He was upset, and I didn’t know why. I nodded and said calmingly, ‘Such as your scrying in water. It was how you knew of the Red Ship attack on Neatbay all those years ago.’

‘Yes,’ he said with satisfaction. He sat back in his chair, but his hands scuttled along the table’s edge like spiders. I wondered if the drugs in the tea were affecting him. ‘Yes, I have magics of my own. And perhaps, given the chance, I’d have the magic of my blood, the magic I’ve a right to. Don’t try to deny it to me, Fitz. For all those years, my own brother forbade me even being tested. I was good enough to watch his back, good enough to teach his sons and his grandson. But I was never good enough to be given my rightful magic.’

I wondered how long the resentment had festered in him. Then I recalled his excitement when Shrewd allowed me to be taught, and his frustration when I seemed to fail and would not even discuss my lessons with him. This was a very old anger, unveiled to me for the first time.

‘Why now?’ I asked him conversationally. ‘You’ve had the Skill-scrolls for fifteen years. Why have you waited?’ I thought I knew what the answer would be: that he had wanted me to be close by, to help him with it. Again, he surprised me.

‘What makes you think I waited? But, yes, I’ve applied more effort to it of late, because my need for this magic became so desperate. We’ve spoken of this before. I knew you would not wish to help me.’

It was true. Yet if he had asked me just then, I would not have been able to say why. I avoided the question. ‘What is your need now? The land is relatively peaceful. Why risk yourself?’

‘Fitz. Look at me. Look at me! I’m getting old. Time has played me a treacherous trick. When I was young and able, I was locked up in these chambers, forced to remain hidden and powerless. Now, when I have a chance to set the Farseer throne on a firm foundation, when indeed my family needs me most, I am old and becoming feeble. My mind totters, my back aches, my memories cloud. Do you think I haven’t seen the dread on your face whenever I tell you I must look through my journals to find you a titbit of information? Imagine then how I feel. Imagine how it is, Fitz, not to have your own memories at your beck and call any more. To grope for a name, suddenly to lose the thread of a conversation in the midst of a jest. As a boy, when you thought your body had betrayed you with your fits, you plunged into despair. Yet you always had your mind. I think I’m losing mine.’

It was a terrible revelation, as if I had discovered that the foundations of Buckkeep Castle itself were weakening and crumbling. Only recently had I begun to appreciate fully all that Chade juggled for Kettricken. The enmeshing net of social relationships that formed the politics of Buckkeep had snared me, and from within its folds, I struggled to comprehend it all. When I was a boy, Chade had interpreted for me all that went on in the castle, and I had been content to accept his word on it. Now I viewed things with a man’s eyes, and found the level of complication astonishing.

And fascinating. It was like Kettle’s Stone game, played on a grand scale. Markers moved, alliances changed and power shifted, sometimes all within a passage of hours. It made Chade’s depth of knowledge all the more amazing, as he conducted Queen Kettricken’s balancing act on the shifting loyalties of the nobility. I could not possibly keep up with it all, and yet it all was interconnected.

Since I had returned to Buckkeep, I had marvelled that he could integrate it all, and dreaded the coming of a day when he could not. None of this was as easy for him as it once had been. The presence of his journals, massive volumes of pages bound flat in the Jamaillian style, were an indication that he did not trust his own memory any more. There were six identical volumes, with covers of red, blue, green, yellow, purple and goldenrod, one for each of the Six Duchies. How he determined what information belonged in each was beyond my understanding. A seventh volume, white with the Farseer Buck on the front, was where he penned his day-to-day minutiae. This he referred to most often, leafing through it for scraps of gossip or the text of a conversation or the summary of a spy’s report. Even within this secret volume hidden in the concealed chamber, he made his entries in his own cryptic words. He did not offer me access to his volumes and I did not ask it. I am sure there was much in them that I would not have wished to know. And it was safer so for the spies who toiled for the Six Duchies, for I could not accidentally betray the secrets I did not know. Yet knowing Chade feared the failing of his memory still did not explain to me what he did. ‘I know things have been difficult for you lately. I’ve worried about you. But why, then, would you tax yourself further with trying to learn the Skill?’

His hands became knotty fists on the table edge. ‘Because of what I’ve read. Because of what you’ve told me you’ve done with it. The texts say a Skill-user can repair his own body, can extend his years. How old was that Kettle you journeyed with? Two hundred years, three hundred? And she was still spry enough to take on a Mountain winter. You yourself have told me that you reached into your wolf and with it made him whole again, at least for a time. If I could open myself to your Skill, could not you do that for me? Or, if you refused, as I think you might, could not I do it for myself?’

As if he needed to show his strength of resolve, he snatched up the cup and drained it in a manful draught. Then he choked and sputtered. His lips were wet with the dark potion as he seized his wine glass and gulped the contents. ‘I notice you do not spring to offer me your aid,’ he observed bitterly as he wiped his mouth.

I sighed deeply. ‘Chade. I barely know the rudiments I strive to teach the Prince. How can I offer to teach you a magic I barely understand myself? What if I …’

‘That has been your greatest weakness, Fitz. All your life. Too much caution. Not enough ambition. Shrewd liked that in you. He never feared you, as he did me.’

As I gaped in pain at him, he spoke on, seeming unmindful of the blow he had just dealt me. ‘I did not expect you to approve. Not that your approval is necessary. I think it is best I explore the edges of this magic on my own. Once I have the door open, well, then we shall see what you think of your old mentor. I think I will surprise you, Fitz. I think I have it, that perhaps I’ve always had it. You yourself gave me the hint of that, when you spoke of Thick’s music. I’ve heard it. I think. On the edges of my mind, just as I start to fall asleep at night. I think I have the Skill.’

I could not think of a word to say to that. He was waiting for me to react to his claim to have the Skill. All I could think was that I did not feel I had ever lacked in ambition, only that my aspirations had not matched his goals for me. So the silence grew and became ever more awkward. And when he broke it, with a complete change of topic, it only made it worse.

‘Well. I see you’ve nothing to say to me. So.’ He forced a smile to his face and inquired, ‘How is your boy doing at his apprenticeship?’

I stood up. ‘Poorly. I suppose that, like his would-be father, he lacks ambition. Good night, Chade.’

And I left and went down to my servant’s chambers for the rest of the night. I did not sleep. I dared not. Of late, I avoided my bed, surrendering to it only when complete exhaustion demanded it. It was not just that I needed to spend those dark hours in my studies of the Skill-scrolls, but because when I did close my eyes, I was besieged. Nightly I would set my Skill-walls before retiring, and near nightly, Nettle assaulted those walls. Her strength and her single-mindedness unsettled me. I did not want my daughter to Skill. There was no way I could bring her to Buckkeep to instruct her, and I feared for her, attempting these explorations on her own. I reasoned that to let her through would only encourage her in her pursuit of this magic. As long as she did not know that she Skilled, as long as she thought she was just reaching out to some dream companion, some other-worldly being she had imagined, perhaps I could keep her safe. And frustrated. If I had reached back to her even once, even to push her away, I feared she might somehow grasp who and where I was. Better to leave her in ignorance. Perhaps, after a time of failing to reach me, she might give it up. Perhaps she would find something else to distract her, a handsome neighbour lad or an interest in a trade. So I hoped. But I arose each morning near as haggard as I had gone to bed.

The rest of my personal life had become equally frustrating. My efforts to get time to speak to Hap alone were no more fruitful than Chade’s arranged meetings with Thick. Either Hap never arrived, or when he did, he came with Svanja. He was completely besotted with the girl. Over a period of three weeks, I spent most of my free nights sitting in the Stuck Pig, waiting in vain for a chance to speak to Hap alone. The establishment’s draughty common room and watery beer did little to extend my patience with my son. On the occasions when Hap actually met me there, he brought Svanja with him. She was a lovely young thing, all dark hair and huge eyes, slender and supple as a willow wand, yet conveying an air of toughness as well. And she loved to talk, giving me little opportunity to get a word in, let alone address Hap privately. Hap sat beside her, basking in her approval and beauty, as she told me a very great deal about herself and her parents and her plans for her future, and what she thought of Hap, Buckkeep and life in general. I gathered that her mother was worn down by her daughter’s wilful ways and was glad that she was seeing a young man with some prospects. Her father’s opinion of Hap was not as charitable, but Svanja expected to bring him around to her way of thinking soon. Or not. If he could not accept that she would choose her own young man, then perhaps her father should stay out of her life. That seemed a fine sentiment for an independent young woman to fling boldly to the winds, save that I was a father, and I did not completely approve of this young woman that Hap had chosen. Svanja herself seemed to care little that I might not favour her attitude. I found myself liking her spirit, but disliking her disregard of my feelings.

Eventually, there came an evening when Hap arrived alone, but my only opportunity for private conversation with him proved less than satisfying. He was morose that Svanja was not with him, and complained bitterly that her father had become more stubborn about forcing her to stay in for the evenings. The man would not give him a chance. When I forcefully steered the conversation to his apprenticeship, he only repeated what he had already told me. He felt dissatisfied with how he was treated in his work. Gindast thought he was a dolt and mocked him before the journeymen. They assigned him the most boring tasks and gave him no opportunity to prove himself. Yet, when I pressed him for an example, those he gave made me see Gindast as a demanding but not unreasonable master.

Hap’s complaints did not convince me he was ill-treated. I formed a different opinion from his talk. My boy was in love with Svanja, and she was the real focus of his thoughts. Many of his repeated mistakes and his late arrivals in the morning could be blamed on this feminine distraction. I felt certain that if Svanja did not exist, Hap would be more intent, and perhaps better satisfied with his lessons. A stricter father might have forbidden him to see the girl. I did not. Sometimes I thought it was because of how such restrictions had felt to me; at other times, I wondered if I feared that Hap would not obey such a command, and so I dared not give it.

I saw Jinna, too, but coward that I was, I attempted to visit her home only when the presence of the pony and wagon indicated that her niece was likely present. I wished to slow our headlong lust even as the simple warmth of her bed was a lure I could scarcely resist. I tried. Each time I called on her, I kept my visits brief, begging the excuse of pressing errands for my master. The first time Jinna seemed to accept that tale without question. The second time she asked when I might expect to have an afternoon free. Although she made the query in her niece’s presence, her eyes conveyed a separate question to me. I evaded her, saying that my master was capricious, and would not give me a set time to go freely about my own errands. I couched it as a complaint, and she nodded her condolences.

The third time I visited her, her niece was not home. She had gone off to help a friend in Buckkeep Town who had experienced a difficult birth. Jinna told me this after she had greeted me with a warm embrace and a lingering kiss. In the face of her willing ardour, my resolve to be restrained melted like salt in the rain. With no other prelude, she latched the door behind me, took my hand and led me to her bedchamber. ‘A moment,’ she cautioned me at the threshold, and I halted there. ‘Now come in,’ she told me, and when I did, I saw the charm had been draped with a heavy scarf. She took a deep breath, like a hungry man anticipating a good meal, and suddenly all I could focus on was the surge of her breasts against the bodice of her gown. I told myself it was a foolish mistake, but nevertheless I made it. Several times. And when we both were spent and she was half-dozing against my shoulder, I made an even more foolish mistake.

‘Jinna,’ I asked her softly, ‘do you think this is wise, what we do?’

‘Foolish, wise,’ she had sleepily responded. ‘What does it matter? It harms no one.’

Her question was asked lightly, but I answered seriously. ‘Yes. I think it does. Matter, that is. And perhaps does harm.’

She heaved a heavy sigh, and sat up, brushing her tousled curls from her face. She peered at me near-sightedly. ‘Tom. Why are you always so determined to make this a complicated matter? We are both adults, neither of us is vowed to another, and I’ve promised you that you cannot get me with child. Why should not we take a simple, honest pleasure in one another while we may?’

‘Perhaps for me, it feels neither simple nor honest.’ I struggled to make my reasons sound sensible. ‘I do what I have taught Hap is not right to do: to be with a woman I have not pledged myself to. Did he tell me today that he was doing with Svanja what we have just done, I would rebuke him severely, telling him he had no right to –’

‘Tom,’ she interrupted me. ‘We give our children rules to protect them. When we are grown, we know the dangers, and choose for ourselves what risks we take. Neither you nor I are children. Neither of us is deceived about what is offered by the other. What danger do you fear here, Tom?’

‘I … I dread what Hap would think of me, if he found out. And I do not like that I deceive him, doing that which I forbid him to do.’ I looked aside from her as I added, ‘And I would that there was more to this than just … adults taking a risk for pleasure.’

‘I see. Well, perhaps in time, there may be,’ she offered, but there was an edge of hurt in her voice. And I knew then that perhaps she had deceived herself as to what we shared.

What should I have replied? I don’t know. I took the coward’s part and said, ‘Perhaps in time there will be,’ but I did not believe my own words. We lingered a while longer in bed, and then rose to share a cup of tea by her fireside. When at last I told her I must go, and then lamely insisted that I could not tell her a specific night when I could call again, she looked aside and said quietly, ‘Well, then, come when you’ve a mind to, Tom Badgerlock.’

And with those words she gave me a parting kiss. After her door closed behind me, I looked up at the bright stars of the winter night and sighed. I felt guilty as I began my long walk back to Buckkeep. I was cheating Jinna out of something, not by denying her a false avowal of love, but by accommodating our attraction. I doubted that I would ever feel for her anything more than I felt right now. Worst was that I could not promise myself I would not continue to see her, even though a lusty friendship was all I could ever offer her. I did not think well of myself, and felt worse as I forced myself to admit that Hap probably guessed that I now shared Jinna’s bed from time to time. It was a poor example to set for my boy, and the road back to Buckkeep Castle seemed very black and cold that night.

NINE

Stone Wager

As a Skill-user advances in strength and sophistication, so also increases the lure of the Skill for him. A good instructor will be wary with his Skill-candidates, strict with his trainees, and relentless with his journeymen. Far too many promising Skill-users have been lost to the Skill itself. The warning signs that a Skill-student is being tempted by the Skill include distraction and irritability when he is about his normal daily tasks. When he Skills, he will exert more strength than is necessary for the task, for the pleasure of the power running through him, and spend more time in a Skilling state than is required for him to accomplish his business. The instructor should be aware of such students, and be quick to chastise them for such behaviour. Better to be cruel early, than to vainly wish one could call back a student who sits drooling and mumbling until his body perishes of hunger and thirst.

Treeknee’s translation, Duties of a Skill Instructor

The days of winter came and went as relentlessly as the tides that rose and fell on the beaches of Buckkeep Town, and as monotonously. Winterfest approached, that celebration which heralds both the longest night and the gaining day that follows it. Once I would have looked forward to it with anticipation. But now I had too many tasks to do, and no time to do any of them well. During the mornings I was the Prince’s instructor. During the meat of my day, I masqueraded as Lord Golden’s servant. Lord Golden had hired two lackeys to tend his wardrobe and fetch his breakfast, but I was still expected to ride out with him and trail after him at social functions. Folk had become accustomed to seeing me at his side, and so I shadowed him even though his ankle was apparently well healed now. It was useful to me. There were times when Golden led conversations about to test a noble’s opinion of trade with the Outislanders, or the way trading rights had been allocated. I was privy to many a casually expressed opinion, and gathered all such threads of information for Chade.

Lord Golden also professed an interest in the Wit, and asked about this strange magic. The virulence of the replies he received from some was shocking even to me. The acrimony against the magic ran deep, past all logic. When he asked what harm the magic did, he was told that Witted ones did everything from coupling with animals to gain their ability to speak their tongues to cursing their neighbours’ flocks and herds. Supposedly Witted ones could take on the guise of animals to gain access to those they would seduce or worse, rape and murder in their beast forms. Some spoke out angrily against the Queen’s leniency for the beast-magic, and told Lord Golden that the Six Duchies were a better place in the days when Witted ones could be dispatched easily. Oh, I learned more than I wished to know of the intolerance that my own people had for their neighbours in the evenings when I was occupied as Lord Golden’s servant. In the hours he left free to me, I tried to further my own studies of the Skill-scrolls. More often than I like to admit, I left my studies and went instead to Buckkeep Town, and not to meet my boy. Sometimes I caught a brief glimpse of Hap as he left Jinna’s home on his way to meet Svanja. Our conversations were limited to brief greetings, and his empty promise to come home early so that we might have a real visit. Often enough, I saw a speculative look pass over his face as he watched Jinna and me together, and just as often I was relieved that he did not come home as early as he had promised.

I was in danger of settling into a routine that was, if not comfortable, at least predictable. Despite my intentions to remain ever wary against the Piebalds, their continued silence and inactivity was lulling. I almost dared to hope that Laudwine had died of his injuries. Perhaps his followers had disbanded, and the threat was no more. Despite the way they had terrorized me that night on the road to Buckkeep Castle, it was difficult to maintain an ever-watchful stance when drowned by a constant wave of silence from them. Complacency threatened. Periodically, Chade would quiz me on my spying efforts, but I never had anything to report to him. As far as I could determine, the Piebalds had forgotten us.

I spied on Civil Bresinga regularly, but found nothing to justify my suspicions of him. He appeared to be no more than a lesser noble, come to court in a bid to increase his stature amongst the aristocracy. I found no sign of his cat in the stables. He rode out often accompanied by his groom, but on the few occasions when I shadowed him, he appeared to be doing no more than exercising his horse. I searched his room several times, but discovered nothing more interesting than a brief note from his mother assuring him that she was well and that she preferred he stay at court, for ‘we are all so pleased that your friendship with Prince Dutiful is prospering’. And indeed, his friendship with the Prince did prosper, despite my frequent entreaties that Dutiful regard him with caution. It was something Chade and I had discussed. Both of us would prefer that the friendship be severed, but we wondered how the Old Blood folk would interpret that.

We had had no more direct communications from any of the Witted, neither the Old Bloods nor the Piebalds. Their continued silence was uncanny. ‘We have kept our end of the bargain,’ Chade once observed to me grumpily. ‘Since the Prince was returned to us, there have been no executions of any Witted ones in Buck. Perhaps that was all they ever sought. As for what the Piebalds may do to their fellows, well, we cannot protect them from their own folk unless they bring complaint before us. It all seems to have died down, and yet in my heart I fear it is but the calm before the storm. Be wary, boy. Be wary.’

Chade was correct about the public executions. Queen Kettricken had accomplished this by the simple expedient of announcing that no criminal in Buck could be executed for any crime, save by royal decree, and that any such executions would take place only within Buckkeep. So far, no town had seen fit to petition for an execution. Paperwork is daunting to even the hottest quest for vengeance. Yet as time passed, and we heard nothing from the Piebalds, I felt not relief, but a sense of continued scrutiny. Even if the Piebalds ceased to trouble us, I could not forget that too many Old Bloods now knew our prince was Witted. It was a lever that could be used against us at any time. I regarded strange animals with suspicion and was glad of the little ferret Gilly on patrol within the walls of Buckkeep.

Then came a night that sharpened my wariness once more. I had gone down to Buckkeep Town. When I knocked at Jinna’s door, her niece told me that Aunt Jinna had gone out to deliver several charms to a family whose goats had been plagued with a mange. Privately, I wondered if charms would have any efficacy against such a thing, but aloud I asked her niece to let Jinna know I had come calling. When I asked after Hap, she made a face of disapproval and said that perhaps I might find him at the Stuck Pig with ‘that Hartshorn girl’. Her disparagement of my son’s companion stung. As I made my way to the Stuck Pig through the crisp winter night, I pondered what steps I should take. Hap’s passionate courtship of the girl was neither balanced nor appropriate. For those very reasons, I doubted he would listen to me advising him to temper his wooing.

Yet when I entered the Stuck Pig’s draughty common room, I saw no sign of Hap or Svanja. I wondered briefly where they were, but was sharply distracted from that question when I saw Laurel sitting at one of the stained tables. The Queen’s Huntswoman drank alone. I scowled at that, for I well recalled that Chade had assigned a man to guard her. As I watched, the tavern boy came to fill her mug again. The reckless way she lofted it told me it had already been filled several times that night.

I bought myself a beer and studied the population of the common room. Two men and a woman at a corner table seemed positioned to watch the Huntswoman. But just as I wondered if they had ill intentions, the obvious couple of the group rose, bid the lone man farewell, and sauntered out without a backward glance. The remaining man gestured a tavern maid to his table. To my glance, it appeared he was trying to purchase something warmer than beer from her. His loutish behaviour calmed my reservations.

I crossed the crowded common room. Laurel seemed startled as I set my mug down, then looked away miserably as I took a seat on the bench beside her. I spoke quietly.

‘Not the sort of place where one would expect the Queen’s Huntswoman to drink.’ I glanced about the grubby tavern pointedly, and then asked, ‘And where is your apprentice tonight?’ I’d had a glimpse or two of Chade’s man. The sheer muscle of him would have daunted any ambusher. I thought less of his intellect, especially at this moment. ‘Doesn’t it seem a bit unwise for you to visit Buckkeep Town without him?’

‘Unwise? Where, then, is your keeper? The danger to you is greater than the threat to me,’ she rebuked me bitterly. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but from tears or drink, I could not tell.

I kept my voice low. ‘Perhaps I am more accustomed to this sort of danger.’

‘Well. That might be true. I know little enough of you to know what you are accustomed to. But as for me, I have no intention of becoming accustomed to it. Or limiting the choices in my life by walking in constant fear.’ Laurel looked tired, and there were lines at the sides of her mouth and the corners of her eyes that I did not recall. She had been walking in constant fear despite her brave dismissal of it.

‘Have there been any further threats?’ I asked her quietly.

She smiled, a showing of teeth. ‘Why? Isn’t one enough for you?’

‘What’s happened?’

She shook her head at me and drank the rest of her ale. I signalled to the tavern boy to bring us more. After a moment, she said, ‘The first was nothing that anyone else would have recognized as a threat. Just a sprig of laurel tied to the latch of my horse’s stall. Hung by a little noose of twine.’ Almost unwillingly, she added, ‘There was a feather as well. Cut in four pieces and scorched.’

‘A feather?’

It took her a long time to decide to answer. ‘Someone I care about is bonded to a goose.’

For an instant, my heart was still. Then it started again with a jolt. ‘So they show you that they can reach inside the walls of the keep,’ I said quietly. She nodded as the boy replenished our mugs from a heavy pitcher. I gave him his coin and he turned away. Laurel picked her mug up immediately, and a small wave of ale slopped over the brim and onto her hand. She was slightly drunk.

‘Did they ask anything of you? Or simply show that they could reach you where you live?’

‘They asked quite clearly.’

‘How?’

‘A little scroll, left amongst the grooming gear for my horse. All in the stables know that I insisted on caring for Whitecap myself. It simply said that if I knew what was wise, I should leave your black horse and Lord Golden’s Malta in the far paddock at night.’

Cold seemed to spread out from my belly and fill the rest of my body. ‘You didn’t do it?’

‘Of course not. Instead, I assigned a groom that I trust to watch over them both last night.’

‘So this is recent?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Her head wobbled slightly as she nodded.

‘And you told the Queen?’

‘No. I told no one.’

‘But why not? How can we protect you if we don’t know you are threatened?’

She was silent for a time. Then she said, ‘I didn’t want them to think that they could use me against the Queen. I wanted it to be that if they pulled me down, they pulled only me down. I should protect myself, Tom, not hide behind the Queen’s skirts and let my fears spread to her.’

Brave. And foolish. I kept the thoughts to myself. ‘And what happened?’

‘To them? Nothing. But Whitecap was dead in her stall the next morning.’

For a moment, I couldn’t speak. Whitecap was Laurel’s horse, a willing and responsive creature that had been her pride. When I kept silent, she glared at me. ‘I know what you’re thinking.’ She lowered her voice to an ugly, taunting whisper. “She’s not Witted. The horse was no more to her than a horse, just a thing she rode.” But that’s not true. I raised Whitecap from a foal, and she was my friend as well as my beast. We didn’t have to share a mind to share a heart.’

‘I didn’t think anything of the kind,’ I said very quietly. ‘I’ve numbered many animals as my friends, without sharing the special bond of the Wit with them. Anyone who had seen you with Whitecap knew that the horse worshipped you.’ I shook my head. ‘I feel sick that you protected our horses, and paid for it with your own.’

I don’t know if she even heard me. She was staring at the scarred tabletop as she spoke. ‘She … she died slowly. They gave her something, somehow, that lodged in her throat and choked her as it swelled. I think … no, I know. It was their ultimate mockery, that I came from an Old Blood family but did not have the magic in me. If I had, I would have known that she was in trouble. I would have come to her and saved her. When I found her, she was down, her muzzle and chest all soaked in saliva and blood … She died slowly, Tom, and I wasn’t even there to ease it for her or say goodbye.’

Shock that a Witted person could do so cruel a thing froze me like an icy wave. It was evil past my imagining. I felt tainted that people who shared my magic could stoop to such wickedness. It gave substance to all the evil things said of the Witted.

She took a sudden gasping breath and turned to me blindly. Her face was panicky with a pain she did not want to admit. I lifted my arm and she put her face against my chest as I folded her in my embrace. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered by her ear. ‘I’m so sorry, Laurel.’ She didn’t weep, but only took long, shuddering breaths as I held her. She was past weeping, and nearly past fear. I thought to myself that if the Piebalds succeeded in pushing her to fury, they might face a stronger foe than they had intended to create. If they didn’t kill her first. I shifted in my chair. Habit had made me place my back to the wall. Now I deliberately sought a full view of the tavern and any who might have followed her here.

It was then that I saw Jinna. She had probably come to the tavern to look for me after speaking with her niece. She stood by the door she had just entered. For a fraction of an instant, our gazes met. She stared, stricken, at the woman I embraced. My eyes pleaded with her, but her face went cold. Then her gaze skated past me as if she had neither seen nor recognized me. She turned and departed, her stiff back speaking volumes to me.

Frustration squeezed my heart. I was doing nothing wrong, and yet Jinna’s posture as she left the tavern told me how affronted she was. Nor could I leave Laurel sitting alone and inebriated to hurry after Jinna and explain to her, even if I had felt inclined to do so. So I sat stewing in my discomfort while Laurel took several more deep breaths and recovered herself. She sat up abruptly, almost pushing me away. I released her from my embrace. She rubbed her eyes and then picked up her mug and drained it off. I had scarcely touched mine.

‘This is stupid of me,’ Laurel suddenly announced. ‘I came here because I’d heard a rumour that Witted ones congregated here. I came hoping someone would approach me so I could kill him. I’d probably just be killed. I don’t know how to fight that way.’

I saw a disturbing thing in her eyes then. They had gone calculating and cold as she considered just how she did know how to fight. ‘You should leave the fighting to those who –’

‘They should have left my horse alone,’ she broke in blackly, and I knew she would not hear anything else I said on that topic.

‘Let’s go home,’ I offered.

She gave me a weary nod and we left the tavern. The cold streets were lit only by what lamplight leaked from the windows. As we left the houses behind and began the long walk up the dark road to the keep, I asked her unwillingly, ‘What will you do? Will you leave Buckkeep?’

‘And go where? Take this home to my family? I think not.’ She drew a breath and sighed it out, steaming, in the cold night. ‘Yet I think you are right. I cannot stay here. What will they do next? What is worse than killing my horse?’

We both knew several answers to that. The rest of the way, we walked in silence. Yet she was neither angry nor taciturn. I could sense her eyes straining through the uncertain moonlight, and her head turned to every small sound. My vigilance matched hers. I broke the silence once, to ask, ‘Is it true, that Witted go to the Stuck Pig?’

She gave a shrug. ‘So it is said of that tavern. Folk say it of many dives. “Fit for the Witted.” Surely you’ve heard that phrase before.’

I hadn’t, but I filed the information away. Perhaps in that slander lurked a germ of truth. Was there a tavern in Buckkeep Town where the Witted congregated? Who would know? What might I learn there?

Just past the gates of Buckkeep Castle, I saw her ‘apprentice’ hastening to meet us. He wore a worried expression. At the sight of me, it changed to a snarl. Laurel sighed and took her hand from my arm. She walked unsteadily towards him and he all but swooped her up. Despite whatever her soft words were, he glared at me suspiciously before escorting her to her chambers. Before I sought my own room for the night, I made a quick and quiet tour of the stables. Myblack greeted me with her usual warm show of indifference. I could scarcely blame the horse; I had not had much time for her lately. In truth, she was to me ‘just a horse’. I rode her when Lord Golden rode Malta, but other than that, I trusted her care to the stablehands. It suddenly seemed a callous way to treat her, but I knew that I had no time to give her more. I wondered what the Piebalds had intended. If our horses had been left in the far paddock, would they have been stolen? Or worse?

Wit-sense straining, I strolled past every stall and scrutinized every drowsy stablehand there. I saw no one whom I recognized, and Laudwine was not lurking beneath the stairs or outside the door. Nonetheless, I did not feel at ease until I was in Chade’s upper chambers that night. He was not there, but I left him a full written account.

We discussed it the next day, but came to no real conclusion. He would rebuke Laurel’s bodyguard for letting her slip away alone. He could not think of any way to keep Laurel safer without confining her even more tightly. ‘And she would not care for that. She does not like that I have a man beside her. Yet, what more can I do, Fitz? She is valuable to us, for it may be she will draw these Piebalds out of hiding.’

‘At what cost?’ I had asked him harshly.

‘As little as we can make it,’ he replied grimly.

‘Why did they want my horse and Lord Golden’s?’

Chade lifted a brow at me. ‘You know more of Witted magic than I do. Could they ensorcel them to throw you, or somehow use them to listen in on your words?’

‘The Wit doesn’t work that way,’ I said wearily. ‘Why our horses? Why not Prince Dutiful’s? It is almost as if the Fool and I were their targets rather than the Prince.’

Chade looked uncomfortable. Almost reluctantly, he suggested quietly, ‘A cautious man might wish to follow that thought and see where it led.’

I stared at him, wondering what the old assassin was telling me in his obscure way. He folded his lips and shook his head at me, as if he regretted having spoken the words. Shortly after that, he made an excuse to leave. I sat pondering before the fire.

In the days that followed, I felt too uncomfortable to call on Jinna. I knew it was foolish, but there it was. I did not feel I owed her an explanation, but I was sure she would expect one. No convenient lie came to me to explain why I had been embracing Laurel in the Stuck Pig. I did not want to discuss Laurel with Jinna at all. It would lead her too close to dangerous topics. Hence, I did not visit Jinna at all.

On the occasions when I went down to Buckkeep Town, I sought Hap at his workplace. Our conversations there were brief and unsatisfactory. The boy seemed very aware of the other apprentices watching us talk, and spoke his words to me as if he were displaying to them his anger with his master. He was frustrated, too, with his stalled courtship of Svanja. Her father was making it hard for him to see her, and refused to speak with Hap on the streets. I sensed that some of Hap’s anger was for me. He seemed to think I neglected him, yet when it came to finding time to meet with me in the evening, he preferred Svanja’s company. I kept resolving that I would do better with Hap and make amends with Jinna, but somehow the days dribbled past and I could not find the time to accomplish either task.

Within Buckkeep, the festivities and trade negotiations of the Prince’s betrothal continued. Winterfest came and went, grander than ever I had seen it in the castle. Our Outislander guests enjoyed it tremendously. In the time that followed there were trading discussions every day and aristocratic amusements every night. The puppeteers, minstrels, jugglers and other entertainers of the Six Duchies prospered. The Outislanders became a familiar sight in the halls of Buckkeep Castle. Some formed genuine friendships, both with the nobles staying at the keep and with the merchant-traders from Buckkeep Town. In the town below, our ancient trade with the Outislands began to revive. Trading vessels arrived, and goods were bartered. Messages were exchanged as well, and it was no longer socially unacceptable to admit to a cousin or two in the Outislands. Kettricken’s plans seemed to be prospering.

The late nights of court gaiety showed me a Buckkeep I had never known. As a servant, I was almost as invisible as I had been when I was a nameless boy. The difference was that as Lord Golden’s man, I attended him on socially lofty occasions when the nobility were gaming, dining and dancing. I saw them in their best clothes and worst behaviour. Drunk with wine or vapid with Smoke, besotted with lust or frantic to recover gaming losses … if ever I had supposed that our lords and ladies were made of finer stuff than the fishers and tailors that crowded the Buckkeep Town taverns, I was disillusioned that winter.

Women, young and old, single and married, flocked to the Lord Golden’s charms, as well as young men desirous of distinguishing themselves as ‘the Jamaillian lord’s friend’. It amused me somewhat that not even Starling and Lord Fisher were immune to Lord Golden’s social allure. Often they joined him at the gaming table. Twice they even came to Lord Golden’s chambers to sample fine Jamaillian brandies with his other guests. It was difficult for me to maintain my attitude of servitude and uninterest in her presence. Her husband was a physically affectionate man, often drawing her body close to his and boyishly stealing a kiss. Then she would gaily rebuke him for such unseemly public conduct, yet often enough manage to snatch a glance at me as she did so, as if to be sure I had noticed how passionately Lord Fisher still courted his wife. At times, it was all I could do to keep a stoic expression on my face. It was not that my heart or flesh burned for her. The pang that assaulted me at such a time was that she deliberately flaunted her happiness in a way calculated to remind me of how solitary a life I led. In the midst of the fine court with its merriment and elaborate entertainment, I stood, a silent servant, witness only to their pleasures.

In this way, the long dark of winter dawdled on. The constant whirl of activity took a toll on the young prince as well as myself. One early morning, we both arrived at the tower with absolutely no inclination for studies or tasks of any kind. The Prince had been up late the night before, gaming with Civil and the other young noblemen currently residing at the keep.

I had had the good sense to seek my own bed at a more reasonable hour, and had succeeded in several hours of deep sleep before Nettle had insinuated herself into my dreams. I was dreaming of catching river fish, sliding my hands into the water and abruptly flipping the lurking fish out onto the bank behind me. It was a good dream, a comforting dream. Unseen but felt, Nighteyes was with me. Then my groping fingers encountered a door handle under the chill water. I plunged my head under to look at it. As I stared at it through water-green light, it opened and pulled me in. Suddenly I stood, wet and dripping, in a small bedroom. I knew I was in the upper chambers of the house by the slanting ceiling. The house was silent around me, and only a guttering candle lighted the room. Wondering how I had arrived here, I turned back to the door. A girl stood there, her back pressed resolutely to the door, her arms spread wide to bar it from me. She wore a cotton nightdress and her dark hair hung in a single long braid over one shoulder. I stared at her in astonishment.

‘If you will not let me into your dreams, then I will trap you in mine,’ she observed triumphantly.

I stood very, very still and held my silence. On some level, I sensed that anything of myself I might give her, word or gesture or look, would only increase her hold on me. I took my gaze from her, for in recognizing her, I was entering into her dream more deeply. Instead, I forced my eyes down, to my own hands. With a curious elation, I realized they were not my own. She had trapped me here as she visualized me, not as I truly was. My fingers were short and stubby. The palms of my hands and the inside surface of my fingers were black and coarse as a wolf’s pads, and rough black hair coated the backs of my hands and my wrists.

‘This isn’t me.’ I spoke the words aloud, and they came out as a queer growl. I lifted my hands to my face, found a muzzle there.

‘Yes, it is!’ she asserted, but already I was fading, drifting out of the form she had thought would contain me. The trap was the wrong shape to hold me. She leapt towards me and seized me by one wrist, only to find she grasped an empty wolfskin.

‘I’ll catch you next time!’ she declared angrily.

‘No, Nettle. You won’t.’

My use of her name froze her. Even as she struggled to mouth the question, how did I know her name, I dissipated from her dream into my own wakefulness. I shifted on my hard bed, and briefly opened my eyes to the now-familiar blackness of my servant’s chamber. ‘No, Nettle. You won’t.’ I spoke the words aloud, reassuring myself that they were true. But I had not slept well the rest of the night.

And so the two of us, Dutiful and I, faced one another blearily over the table in the Skill-tower the next dawn. It was dawn in name only. The winter sky outside the tower window was black, and the candles on our table reached vainly towards the darkness in the corners of the room. I had kindled a fire in the hearth, but it had not yet taken the edge off the chill. ‘Is there anything so miserable as being sleepy and cold at the same time?’ I asked him rhetorically.

He sighed, and I had the feeling he had not even heard my question. The one he asked me sent a different sort of chill up my back. ‘Have you ever used the Skill to make someone forget something?’

‘I … no. No, I’ve never done anything like that.’ Then, dreading the answer, ‘Why do you ask?’

He heaved an even deeper sigh. ‘Because if it could be used that way, it could make my life much simpler right now. I fear that I … I said something last night, to someone, never intending that … I didn’t even mean it that way, but she …’ He faltered to a halt, looking miserable.

‘Start at the beginning,’ I suggested.

He took a deep breath, then puffed it out, exasperated with himself. ‘Civil and I were playing Stones and –’

‘Stones?’ I interrupted him.

He sighed again. ‘I made myself a game-cloth and playing pieces. I thought I could get better at it by playing against someone besides you.’

I strangled back an objection. Was there any reason why he should not introduce his friends to the game? None that I could think of. Yet it disgruntled me.

‘I had played a game or two with Civil, which he lost. As he should and did expect to, for no one plays a game well the first few times one is shown it. But he had declared he had had enough of it for now, that it was not the sort of game he relished, and he got up from the table and went over to the hearth to talk to someone else. Well, Lady Vance had been watching us play earlier in the evening, and had said she wanted to learn, but we were in the midst of the game then, so there had been no place for her. But she had been standing by our table, watching us play, and when Civil left, instead of following him as I thought she would, for she had seemed very attentive to him, she sat down in his place. I had been putting the cloth and pieces away, but she reached over and seized my hand and commanded that I should set the game out afresh, for now it was her turn.’

‘Lady Vance?’

‘Oh, you wouldn’t have met her. She’s, let me see, about seventeen and she’s quite nice. Her full name is Advantage, but she thinks it’s too long. She’s very friendly and tells funny stories and, well, I don’t know, she’s just more comfortable to be around than most girls. She doesn’t always seem to be, you know, so aware that she is a girl. She acts just like anybody else. Lord Shemshy of Shoaks is her uncle.’ He shrugged a shoulder, dismissing my concern over who she was. ‘Anyway, she wanted to play, and even when I warned her that she’d likely lose the first few games, she said she didn’t care, that in fact if I would play her five straight games, she’d wager she’d win at least two of them. One of her friends overheard that and came close to the table, and asked what the wager was on the bet. And Lady Vance said that if she won, she wanted me to go riding with her on the morrow – that’s today – and that if I won, well, I could name my own stakes. And the way she said it was, well, daring me to make her bet something that might be a bit, well, improper or …’

‘Like a kiss,’ I suggested, my heart sinking. ‘Or something of that sort.’

‘You know I wouldn’t go that far!’

‘So how far did you go?’ Did Chade know anything of this? Or Kettricken? How late last night had it happened? And how much wine had been involved?

‘I said if she lost, she had to bring breakfast for Civil and me to Mirror Hall and serve it to us herself, owning up that what had been said earlier was true, that Stones is not a game that a girl can master.’

‘What? Dutiful, this game was taught to me by a woman!’

‘Well –’ He had the grace to look uncomfortable. ‘I didn’t know that. You had said it was part of your Skill-training. I thought my father had taught it to you. So … wait. Then a woman helped train you in the Skill? I’d thought it had only been my father who taught you.’

I cursed my carelessness. ‘Leave that,’ I commanded him crossly. ‘Finish your story.’

He snorted, and gave me a glance that promised he’d come back to his question later. ‘Very well. And besides, it wasn’t me who said that to Elliania, it was Civil, and –’

‘Said what to Elliania?’ Dread clutched at me.

‘That it wasn’t a game for a girl’s mind. Civil said it to her. Civil and I were playing, and she came up and said that she’d like to learn. But … well, Civil doesn’t like Elliania much. He says she is just like Sydel, that girl who insulted him and trampled his feelings, that Elliania is only interested in making a good match. So. He doesn’t like her to stand near us when we talk or are playing games of chance.’ He flinched before my scowl, and added grumpily, ‘Well, she’s not like Lady Vance. Elliania is always being a girl, she’s always so aware of what are proper manners and what courtesies are due between folk. She’s so correct that she’s always wrong. If you see what I mean?’

‘It sounds to me as if she is a foreigner at the court, intent on complying with our customs. But go on with the story.’

‘Well. Civil knows that about her, that she always strives to be absolutely correct in her manners. So he knew that the fastest way to be rid of her was to tell her that in the Six Duchies, Stones was considered a man’s occupation. He explained it to her in a way that seemed like he was being kind, but at the same time it was horribly funny, in a cruel sort of way, because she doesn’t know our language or our customs well enough to realize how ridiculous his excuse was … Don’t look at me like that, Tom. I didn’t do it. And once he had begun to do it, there was no way I could put a stop to it without making it worse. So. Anyway. He had told her that the Stone game wasn’t for girls, and Elliania had left us and gone off to stand near her uncle’s shoulder. He was playing toss-bones with her father, at a table on the other side of the hall. So. She wasn’t anywhere near us when Lady Vance sat down. Well. I set up the game and we began to play. The first two games went exactly as I had supposed they would. On the third game, I made a silly mistake, and she won. The fourth game, I won. And now – I think I deserve credit for this – halfway through the fifth game, I realized how it might be seen as improper when she lost if she actually did come to serve breakfast to Civil and me. I mean, even Duke Shemshy might see it as an insult, his niece acting as a servant to us, even if it didn’t bother Elliania or Mother. So. I decided it might be better to let her win. I’d still have to take her riding, but I could make sure there were others with us, perhaps even Elliania.’

‘So you let her win.’ I said the words heavily.

‘Yes. I did. And by then, because she had been quite excited when she won the third game, laughing and shouting and calling out to all that she had bested me, well, by then there was quite a group of people gathered around us, watching us play. So, when she won the final game, she was crowing over her victory, and one of her friends said to me, “Well, my lord, it seems you were badly mistaken earlier when you said this was not a game a girl could master.” And I said … I only meant to be clever, Tom, I swear, not to offer insult. I said –’

‘What did you say?’ I asked harshly as he faltered.

‘Only that no girl could master it, but perhaps a beautiful woman could. And everyone laughed, and lifted glasses to drink a toast to that. So we drank, and then it was cups down. And only then did I realize that Elliania was standing there, at the edge of the crowd. She hadn’t drunk with us, and she didn’t say a word. She just stared at me, with her face very still. Then she turned and walked away. I don’t know what she said to her uncle, but he stood up immediately and gave over the game to her father, even though there was quite a stack of coins riding on the outcome. And the two of them left the gaming hall and went directly to their chambers.’

I leaned back in my chair, striving to think my way through it. Then I shook my head and asked, ‘Does your lady mother know of this yet?’

He sighed. ‘I do not think so. She excused herself early from the gaming last night.’

‘Or Chade.’

He winced, already dreading the councillor’s opinion of his rashness. ‘No. He, too, left the tables early. He seems weary and distracted of late.’

Too well did I know that. I shook my head slowly. ‘This is not something that can be solved with the Skill, lad. Wiser to take it immediately to those who know diplomacy the best. And then do whatever they say.’

‘What do you think they will demand of me?’ There was dread in his voice.

‘I don’t know. I think a direct apology might be a mistake; it would only confirm that you had insulted her. But … oh, I don’t know, Dutiful. Diplomacy has never been my talent. But perhaps Chade will know something you can do. Some special attention from you to confirm that you do think Elliania is beautiful and a woman.’

‘But I don’t.’

I ignored his bitter little contradiction. ‘And above all, do not go out riding alone with Lady Vance. I suspect you’d be wise to avoid her company entirely.’

He slapped his hand on the table in frustration. ‘I can’t back out of paying my wager!’

‘Then go,’ I snapped. ‘But if I were you, I’d be sure that Elliania rode at my side, and that your conversation was with her. If Civil is as good a friend as you say he is, perhaps he can help you. Ask him to distract Lady Vance’s attention from you, make it appear as if he is the one accompanying her on the ride.’

‘What if I don’t want her attention distracted from me?’

Now he sounded simply stubborn and contrary, as vexing as Hap the last time I had seen him. I simply looked at him, flat and level, until he cast his eyes aside. ‘You’d best go now,’ I told him.

‘Will you go with me?’ His voice was very soft. ‘To speak to Mother and Chade?’

‘You know I cannot. And even if I could, I think you’d best do this on your own.’

He cleared his throat. ‘This morning, when we ride. Will you go with me then?’

I hesitated, then suggested, ‘Invite Lord Golden. That isn’t a promise to be there, only that I’ll think it over.’

‘And do what Chade thinks is best.’

‘Probably. He’s always been better than me at these niceties.’

‘Niceties. Pah. I’m so sick of them, Tom. It’s why Lady Vance is so much easier to be with. She’s just herself.’

‘I see,’ I said, but I reserved judgement on that. I wondered if Lady Vance was just a woman who had set her cap at a prince, or someone else’s playing piece, positioned to set Kettricken’s game awry. Well. We’d all find out soon enough.

The Prince left me, locking the door behind him. I stood, silent and considering in the tower room, listening to the sound of his footsteps on the stone stairs fade away. I caught the raised voice of the guard’s greeting at the bottom of the steps. I cast my eyes around the room, blew out the candle on the table and then left, carrying another taper to light my way.

I stopped at Chade’s tower room on the way back to my servant’s chamber. I stepped out of the secret door, then halted, surprised to find both Chade and Thick in the room. Chade had evidently been waiting for me. Thick looked sullen and sleepy, his heavy-lidded eyes even droopier than usual.

‘Good morning,’ I greeted them, and, ‘Yes, it is,’ Chade responded. His eyes were bright and he appeared well pleased about something. I waited for him to share it with me, but instead he said, ‘I’ve asked Thick to be here early this morning. So we could all talk.’

‘Oh.’ I could think of no more to say than that. Now wasn’t the time to tell Chade I’d wished he had warned me first. I would not talk over Thick’s head in his presence. I remembered too well how I had once underestimated the cunning of a little girl and spoken too freely. Rosemary had been Regal’s treacherous little pet. I doubted that Thick was anyone’s spy, but what I didn’t say in front of him, he could not repeat.

‘How is the Prince this morning?’ Chade asked suddenly.

‘He’s well,’ I replied guardedly. ‘But there is something he’ll wish to see you about, something rather urgent. You might wish to be, uh, where you can easily be found. Soon.’

‘Prince sad,’ Thick confirmed dolorously. He shook his heavy head commiseratingly.

My heart sank, but I resolved to test him. ‘No, Thick, the Prince isn’t sad. He’s merry. He has gone to have a fine breakfast with all his friends.’

Thick scowled at me. For an instant, his tongue stuck out even farther than usual, and his lower lip sagged pendulously. Then, ‘No. Prince is a sad song today. Stupid girls. A sad song. La-la-la-le-lo-lo-lo-o.’ The dimwit sang a mournful little dirge.

I glanced at Chade. He was watching our exchange closely. His eyes never left me as he asked Thick, ‘And how is Nettle today?’

I kept my face expressionless. I tried hard to breathe normally, but suddenly I could not quite remember how.

‘Nettle is worried. The dream man won’t talk to her any more, and her father and brother argue. Yah, yah, yah, yah, her head hurts with it, and her song is sad. Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na.’ It was a different tune for Nettle’s sadness, one fraught with tension and uneasiness. Then suddenly Thick stopped in mid-note. He looked at me and then jeered triumphantly, ‘Dog-stink doesn’t like this.’

‘No. He doesn’t,’ I agreed flatly. I crossed my arms on my chest and moved my glare from Thick to Chade. ‘This isn’t fair,’ I said. Then I clenched my jaw over how childish that sounded.

‘Indeed, it isn’t,’ Chade agreed blandly. Then, ‘Thick, you may go if you wish. I think you’ve finished your chores here.’

Thick pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘Bring the wood. Bring the water. Take the dishes. Bring the food. Fix the candles.’ He picked his nose. ‘Yes. Chores done.’ He started to go.

‘Thick,’ I said, and when he halted, scowling, I asked, ‘Do the other servants still hit Thick, take his coins? Or is it better now?’

He frowned at me, his brow wrinkling. ‘The other servants?’ He looked vaguely alarmed.

‘The other servants. They used to “hit Thick, take his coins”, remember?’ I tried to copy his inflection and gesture. Instead of jogging his memory, it made him draw back from me in panic. ‘Never mind,’ I said hastily. My effort to remind him that perhaps he owed me a favour had instead worsened his opinion of me. Thrusting out his lower lip, he backed away from me.

‘Thick. Don’t forget the tray,’ Chade reminded him gently.

The serving-man scowled, but he came back for a tray of dishes that held the remains of Chade’s breakfast. He took it up and then crabbed hastily from the room as if I might attack him.

When the wine rack swung back into place behind him, I sat down in my chair. ‘So?’ I asked Chade.

‘So, indeed,’ he replied agreeably. ‘Were you ever going to tell me?’

‘No.’ I leaned back in my chair, and then decided there was nothing more to say about it. Instead, I settled on a distraction. ‘Earlier I told you that Dutiful has something urgent to speak about with you. You should be available.’

‘What is it?’

I gave him a look. ‘I think what Dutiful wishes to tell you would come best directly from him.’ I bit down on my tongue before I could add, ‘of course, you could always ask Thick what it is about’.

‘Then I’ll go to my own chambers. Shortly. Fitz. Is Nettle in any danger?’

‘I’m sure I don’t know.’

I saw him rein in his temper. ‘You know what I mean. She’s Skilling, isn’t she? Without guidance of any kind. Yet she seems to have found you. Or did you initiate that contact?’

Had I? I didn’t know. Had I intruded on her dreams when she was younger, as I had on Dutiful’s? Had I unwittingly laid the foundation for the Skill-bond that she sought to build now? I pondered it, but Chade took my silence for mulishness. ‘Fitz, how can you be so short-sighted? In the name of protecting her, you’re endangering her. Nettle should be here, at Buckkeep, where she can be properly taught to master her talent.’

‘And she can be put into service for the Farseer throne.’

He regarded me levelly. ‘Of course. If the magic is the gift of her bloodlines, then the service is her duty. The two go hand-in-hand. Or would you deny it to her because she, too, is a bastard?’

I strangled on sudden anger. When I could speak, I said quietly, ‘I don’t see it so. As denying her something. I’m trying to protect her.’

‘You see it that way only because you are stubbornly focused on keeping her away from Buckkeep at all costs. What is the terrible threat to her if she comes here? That she could know music and poetry, dance and beauty in her life? That she might meet a young man of noble lineage, marry well, and live comfortably? That your grandchildren might grow up where you could see them?’

He made it all sound so rational on his part and so selfish on mine. I took a breath. ‘Chade. Burrich has already said “no” to his daughter coming to Buckkeep. If you press him, or worse, force the issue, he will suspect there is a reason. And how can you reveal to Nettle that she is Skilled without leading her to ask, “where did this magic come from?” She knows Molly is her mother. That leaves only her father’s lineage in question –’

‘Sometimes children are found to have the Skill with no apparent link to the Farseer bloodline. She might have received it from Molly or Burrich.’

‘Yet none of her brothers have it,’ I pointed out.

Chade slapped the table in frustration. ‘I have said it before. You are too cautious, Fitz. “What if this, what if that?” You hide from trouble that may never knock at our door. What if Nettle did discover that a Farseer had fathered her? Would that be so terrible?’

‘If she came to court, and found herself not only a bastard, but the bastard of a Witted Farseer? Yes. What of her fine husband and genteel future then? What does it do to her brothers and to Molly and Burrich, to have to face that past? Nor can you have Nettle here without Burrich coming to see her, to be sure she is well. I know I have changed, but my scars are no disguise to Burrich, nor are my years. If he saw me, he’d know me, and it would destroy him. Or would you try to keep secrets from him, tell Nettle that she must never tell her mother and father that she is taught the Skill, let alone that she is taught by a man with a broken nose and a scar down his face? No, Chade. Better she stays where she is, weds a young farmer she loves, and lives a settled life.’

‘That sounds very bucolic for her,’ Chade observed heavily. ‘I’m sure that any daughter of yours would be delighted with such a sedate and settled life.’ Sarcasm dripped from his words until he demanded, ‘But what of her duty to her prince? What of Dutiful’s need for a coterie?’

‘I’ll find you someone else,’ I promised recklessly. ‘Someone just as strong as she is, but not related to me. Not tarnished with any complications.’

‘Somehow I doubt that such candidates will be easy to find.’ He scowled suddenly. ‘Or have you encountered such others, and not seen fit to tell me of them?’

I noticed he did not offer himself. I let that sleeping dog lie. ‘Chade, I swear to you, I know of no other Skill-candidates. Only Thick.’

‘Ah. Then he is the one you will train?’

Chade’s question was flippant, an attempt to make me admit there were no other real candidates. I knew Chade expected a flat refusal from me. Thick hated and feared me, and was dim-witted besides. A less desirable Skill-student I could not imagine. Except for Nettle. And perhaps one other. Desperation forced the next words from my tongue. ‘There might be one other.’

‘And you haven’t told me?’ He trembled at the edge of rage.

‘I wasn’t sure. I’m still not sure. I’ve only recently begun to wonder about him myself. I met him years ago. And he may be as dangerous to train as Thick, or even more so. For not only has he strong opinions of his own, but he is Witted.’

‘His name?’ It was a demand, not a request.

I took a breath and stepped off the precipice. ‘Black Rolf.’

Chade scowled. He squinted, rummaging through the attics of his mind. ‘The man who offered to teach you the Wit? You encountered him on the way to the Mountains?’

‘Yes. That’s the one.’ Chade had been present when I had offered Kettricken my painfully complete account of my travels across the Six Duchies to find her. ‘He used the Wit in ways I’d never seen it used. He alone seemed to almost know what Nighteyes and I said privately to one another. No other Witted one has shown me that ability. Some could tell when we used the Wit, if we were not extremely careful, but did not seem to understand what we said to one another. Rolf did. Even at the times when we tried to keep it secret from him, I always suspected that he knew more than he let on. He could have been using the Wit to find us, and the Skill to listen to my thoughts.’

‘Wouldn’t you have felt it?’

I shrugged. ‘I didn’t. So perhaps I am mistaken. Nor am I eager to seek out Rolf to discover the truth of it.’

‘In any case, you could not. I’m sorry to tell you that he died three years ago. He took a fever, and his end was swift.’

I stood still, stunned as much by the news as by the fact that Chade knew it. I found my way to a chair and sat down. Grief did not flood me. My relationship with Black Rolf had always been a fractious one. But there was regret. He was gone. I wondered how Holly managed without him, and how Hilda his bear had endured his passing. For a time I stared at the wall, seeing a small house far away. ‘How did you know?’ I managed at last.

‘Oh, come, Fitz. You reported about him to the Queen. And I’d heard his name from you before, when you were delirious and raving with fever from the infection in your back. I knew he was significant. I keep track of significant people.’

It was like the Stone game. He’d just set another piece on the board, one that revealed his old strategy. I filled in all he had not said. ‘So you know that I returned there. That I studied with him for a time.’

He gave a half nod. ‘I wasn’t certain of it. But I suspected it was you. I received the news with joy. Prior to that, the last I had heard of you was what Starling and Kettricken reported when they left you at the quarry. To hear you were alive and well … For months, I half-expected you to turn up at my doorstep. I looked forward to hearing from your lips of what had happened after Verity-as-Dragon left the quarry. There was so much we did not know! I envisioned that reunion a hundred ways. Of course, you know that I waited in vain. And eventually, I realized you’d never come back to us of your own will.’ He sighed, remembering old pain and disappointment. Then he added quietly, ‘Still, I was glad to hear that you were alive.’

The words were not a rebuke. They were only his admission of pain. My choice had hurt him, but he had respected my right to make it. After my time with Rolf, he would have had spies watching for me. They would not know it was FitzChivalry Farseer they sought, but doubtless they had found me. Otherwise, how would Starling have found her way to my door, all those years ago? ‘You’ve always had an eye on me, haven’t you?’

He looked down at the table and said stubbornly, ‘Another man might see it as a hand sheltering you. As I have just told you, Fitz. I always keep track of significant people.’ He next spoke as if he could hear my thoughts. ‘I tried to leave you alone, Fitz. To find what peace you could, even if it excluded me from your life.’

Ten years ago, I could not have understood the pain in his voice. I would only have seen him as interfering and calculating. Only now, with a son of my own intent on ignoring every bit of advice I’d ever given him, could I recognize what it had cost him to let me go my own way and make my own choices. He had probably felt as I did about Hap, that he was so obviously choosing the wrong course. But Chade had let me steer it.

In that instant, I made my decision. I pushed Chade off balance with it. ‘Chade. If you wish, I could attempt … do you want me to try to teach you the Skill?’

His eyes were suddenly impenetrable. ‘Ah. So you offer that now, do you? Interesting. But I think I am proceeding with my own studies well enough. No, Fitz. I don’t wish you to teach me.’

I bowed my head. Perhaps I deserved his disdain. I took a breath. ‘Then I’ll do as you ask, this time. I’ll train Thick. Somehow, I’ll persuade him to let me teach him. As strong as he is, perhaps he will be all the coterie that Dutiful will need.’

Shock silenced him for a moment. Then, he smiled sourly, ‘I doubt that, Fitz. And you don’t doubt it; you don’t believe it at all. Nevertheless, for the time being, we will leave it at that. You will begin Thick’s training. In exchange, I will leave Nettle where she is. You have my thanks. And now I must go to see what mischief Dutiful had got himself into.’ He rose as if his back and knees pained him. I watched him go but said no more.

TEN

Resolutions

By all accounts, both Kebal Rawbread and the Pale Woman perished in the last month. They set sail in the last White Ship for Hjolikej with a crew of their most stalwart followers. They were not seen again, nor was any wreckage of the ship ever found. The assumption is that, like so many other Outisland ships, the dragons overflew it, throwing the crew into a vacant-eyed stupor, and then destroyed it with the great wind and waves that their wings could stir. As the ship was heavily loaded with what translates from the Outislander tongue as ‘dragonstone’, it probably went down swiftly.

A report to Chade Fallstar, penned at the end
of the Red Ship War

I made my slow descent to Lord Golden’s chambers. I tried to focus on the Prince’s difficulties, but could only wonder what larger problem I had created for myself. I could barely instruct the Prince, and he was an apt and amiable student. I’d be lucky if Thick didn’t kill me when I attempted to teach him. But there was a worse shadow to it. Chade had tempted me well, as only one who knew me so deeply could. Nettle, here at Buckkeep, where I could see her daily and watch her blossom into womanhood, and perhaps chart for her an easier life than the one Burrich and Molly could give her. I tried to tear that idea from my mind. It was a selfish yearning.

On my trip through Chade’s secret corridors, I made a brief detour to one of the spy-posts. I stood for a time beside it, hesitating. It would be the first time I had deliberately come to spy and listen. Then I sat down silently on the dusty bench and peered into the Narcheska’s chambers.

Fortune was with me. Their breakfast was still set out on the table between Peottre and the girl, though it did not look as if either one had eaten much. Her uncle was already dressed in his riding leathers. Elliania was in a pretty little frock, blue and white, with much lace on the cuffs and throat. Peottre was shaking his heavy head at her. ‘No, little one. As with a fish on a line, you must first set the hook before you can play him. Flaunt your displeasure with him now and he will avoid that bitter taste, to follow instead the bright feathers of someone else’s lure. You cannot show him what you feel, Elli. Set aside the insult; behave as if you did not notice it.’

She clacked her spoon back onto the tray, so that a tiny glop of porridge leapt from it. ‘I cannot. I have pretended as much calmness as I could muster, last night. Right now, I could not show him what I truly feel about him with less than a knife’s edge, Uncle.’

‘Ah. How well that would benefit your mother and little sister.’ He spoke the words quietly, but Elliania’s face grew very still, as if he spoke of death and disease in the next chamber. She tucked her proud little chin, bowing her head before him with lowered lashes. I sensed the strength of will she used to rein herself in and suddenly saw the changes that her months at Buckkeep had wrought in her. Peottre might call her his ‘little fish’ still, but this was a different girl from the one I had first spied on. The last vestiges of child had been hammered from her by the pounding of Buckkeep society. She spoke now with a woman’s determination.

‘I will do what I must, Uncle, for our mothers’ house. You know that. Whatever I must, to “hook” this fish.’ When she looked up at him, her mouth was set and flat in determination, but tears stood in her eyes.

‘Not that,’ he said quietly. ‘Not yet, and perhaps never at all. So I hope.’ He sighed suddenly. ‘But you must be warm to him, Elli. You cannot show him your anger. It tears my heart to say that to you, that you must appear untroubled by his insult. Smile upon him. Behave as if it never happened.’

‘She must do more than that.’ I could not see who spoke, but I recognized the serving-maid’s voice. She walked into view. I studied her more closely than I had previously. She appeared to be about my age, dressed simply as if she were a servant. Yet she bore herself as if she were in charge. Her hair and eyes were black, her cheeks wide, and nose small. She shook her head at both of them. ‘She must appear humble and willing.’

She paused, and I saw the muscles of Peottre’s face bunch as he clenched his jaws. It made the woman smile. She went on with evident relish. ‘And you must make him think it is possible that you will … yield yourself to him.’ Then she spoke in a deeper voice. ‘Bring the farmer-prince to heel, Elliania, and keep him there. He must not look at another, he must not even consider anyone else as someone to bed before he is wed. He must be yours alone. Somehow, you must claim him, heart and flesh. You have heard the Lady’s warning. If you fail in this, if he strays, and gets a child with another, you and yours are all doomed.’

‘I cannot do it!’ she burst out. She mistook her uncle’s horrified look for a rebuke, for she continued desperately, ‘I have tried, Uncle Peottre. I have. I have danced for him, and thanked him for his gifts, and tried to look entranced by his boring talk in his farmer’s tongue. But it is all useless, for he thinks I am a little girl. He disdains me as a child, an offering from my father simply for the making of a treaty.’

Her uncle leaned back in his chair, pushing his untouched dish away from him. He sighed heavily, then glared at the serving-woman. ‘You hear her, Henja. She has already tried your disgusting little tactic. He does not want her. He is a boy with no fire in his blood. I do not know what more we can do.’

Elliania suddenly sat up straight. ‘I do.’ Her chin had come up again, as had the fire in her black, black eyes.

He shook his head at her. ‘Elliania, you are only –’

‘I am not a child, nor a mere girl! I have not been a girl since this duty was laid upon me. Uncle. You cannot treat me as a child and expect others to see me as a woman. You cannot dress me like a doll, and bid me be sweet and tractable as some doting auntie’s little treasure, and expect me to attract the Prince. He has been raised in this court, among all these females as sweet as spoiling fish. If I am but one more of them, he will not even see me. Let me do what I must. For we both know that if I continue as I have, we will fail. So. Let me try it my way. If I fail on that path, also, what will we have lost?’

For a time he sat staring at her. She cast her gaze aside from his piercing eyes, and busied herself with topping the cups of untouched tea before them. Then she lifted hers and sipped from it, all the while avoiding meeting his glance. When he spoke, dread was in his voice. ‘What do you propose, child?’

She set down her cup. ‘Not what Henja suggests, if that is what you fear. No. This woman proposes that you tell him my age. Today. In his farmer’s years, rather than my God’s Rune years. And that, for this day at least, you let me dress and behave as one of the daughters of our mothers’ house would, insulted as he has insulted me, to prefer another woman’s beauty to my own, and announce it to all. Let me bring him to heel, as you have commanded. But not with cloying sweets, but with a whip, as a dog such as he deserves.’

‘Elliania. No. I forbid it.’ The serving-woman spoke with the snap of command.

But it was Peottre who replied to her. He surged to his feet, his broad hand lifted high. ‘Get out, woman! Get out of my sight, or you will be dead. I swear it, Lady. If she doesn’t leave now, I kill your servant!’

‘You will regret this!’ Henja snarled, but she scuttled from the room. I heard the door close behind her.

When Peottre spoke again, it was slowly and heavily, as if his words could fence Elliania from some precipice. ‘She had no right to speak to you so. But I do, Narcheska. I forbid this.’

‘Do you?’ she asked levelly, and I knew Peottre had lost.

A knock at the chamber door was her father. He came in and greeted them both, and Elliania almost immediately excused herself, saying she must dress appropriately to go out riding with the Prince by midmorning. As soon as she left the room, her father launched into some discussion of a shipload of trading goods that was overdue. Peottre answered him, but his eyes lingered on the door where Elliania had vanished.

A short time later, I emerged cautiously into my own servant cell, and thence even more cautiously into Lord Golden’s warm and spacious chambers. He was alone, at table, finishing his share of the ample breakfast he commanded daily for us. All at court must wonder at the suppleness of his waist given the substantial morning appetite he professed to.

His golden glance assessed me as I silently entered his room. ‘Hmm. Sit down, Fitz. I’ll not wish you a good morning, for it’s plainly too late for that. Care to share what has overshadowed you with gloom?’

Useless to lie. I took a chair opposite him at the table and picked food off the serving plate while I confided Dutiful’s social stumble to him. There was little point in doing otherwise. There had been enough spectators that I was sure the tale would reach him soon enough, if he had not witnessed it himself. Of Nettle, I said nothing. Did I fear he would concur with Chade? I am not sure, I only knew that I wished to keep it to myself. Nor did I speak of what I had seen through my peephole. I needed time to sort it out before I shared it with anyone.

When I had finished my tale, he nodded. ‘I was not at the gaming tables last night, preferring to listen instead to one of the Outisland minstrels who have recently arrived. But the tale reached me last night before I retired. I’ve already been invited to ride out with the Prince this morning. Do you want to come along?’ When I nodded, the Fool smiled. Then Lord Golden patted his lips with his napkin. ‘Dear, dear, this is a most unfortunate social stumble. The gossip will be delectable. I wonder how the Queen and her Councillor will manage to juggle it back into balance?’

There were no easy answers to that. I knew he would use the turmoil stirred by this to dig into where loyalties truly lay. Between us, we cleared the breakfast platters of food. I took them down to the kitchen, where I lingered briefly. Yes, the servants were already gossiping of it, and speculating that there was more between Lady Vance and the Prince than a mere game of Stones. Someone already claimed to have seen them walking alone in the snowy gardens several evenings ago. Another maid said that Duke Shemshy was said to be pleased, and quoted him as saying he saw no real obstacle to the match. My heart sank. Duke Shemshy was powerful. If he began to solicit support among the nobles for a match between his niece and the Prince, he could possibly put an end to both betrothal and alliance.

One other thing I saw while I was there that caused me suspicion. The Narcheska’s maid, whom I had last seen quarrelling with Peottre, hurried past the doors of the kitchen and out into the courtyard. She was dressed warmly, in a heavy cloak and boots, as if for a long walk on this cold day. I supposed it was possible that her mistress had sent her off on some task into Buckkeep Town, but she carried no market basket. Nor did she seem the type of serving-woman who would be chosen for such an errand. It both puzzled and concerned me. If I had not all but promised the Prince that I would be there for his ride, I would have shadowed her. Instead, I hurried up the stairs to dress for the morning ride.

When I re-entered Lord Golden’s chamber, I found him putting the finishing touches to his own costume. For a moment, I wondered if Jamaillian nobles truly dressed in such a gaudy fashion. Layer upon layer of rich fabric cloaked his slender form. A heavy fur cloak flung across a chair awaited him. The Fool had never had any great tolerance for cold, and Lord Golden apparently shared that weakness. He was turning up a fur collar to his satisfaction. One long narrow hand waved me on to my own chamber, bidding me hurry, while he continued to peruse himself in the mirror.

I glanced inside my room at the garments laid out on my bed and then protested, ‘But I’m already dressed.’

‘Not as I wish you to be. It has come to my attention that several of the other young lords of the court have also furnished themselves with bodyguard-servants, in a pale imitation of my style. It is time to show them than an imitation cannot equal the original. Garb yourself, Tom Badgerlock.’

I snarled at him, and he smiled sweetly in return.

The garments were servant’s blue, and of excellent quality. I recognized Scrandon’s tailoring. I supposed that now that he had my measurements, Lord Golden could inflict stylish clothing on me at will. It was fine fabric, very warm, and in that I recognized the Fool’s concern for my comfort. He had been kind enough to have it cut and sewn so that I could move freely. But stretching out an arm of the oddly-tailored shirt revealed pleated insets in varying shades of blue, with an effect like a bird’s wing opening to reveal the different colours of its plumage. I noticed as I donned it that a number of clever pockets had been fitted into interesting places. I approved of the pockets even as I winced at Lord Golden instructing the tailor to add them. I would rather that no one else had known of my need for concealed pockets.

As if he had sensed my concern, Lord Golden spoke from the other room. ‘You will note that I had Scrandon add pockets to permit you to carry a number of small but necessary items for me, such as my smelling salts, my digestive herbs, my grooming aids and my extra kerchiefs. I gave him most precise measurements for those.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ I responded gravely, and proceeded to fill those pockets as my own needs dictated. When I lifted the winter cloak, it revealed the final addition to my garb. The guard of the blade and the scabbard were so gaudily adorned that I winced. But when I drew the blade, it whispered death as it came free from the sheath and balanced like a bird on my fingers. I sighed and looked up to find the Fool standing framed in my door. The look on my face pleased him well. He grinned at my astonishment. I shook my head. ‘My skill doesn’t deserve a blade like this.’

‘You deserve to be able to carry Verity’s sword openly. That one is a pale compensation.’

It was too large a thing to offer thanks for. He watched me buckle the sword-belt and seemed to take as much pleasure in that as I did to wear it.

When we assembled in the courtyard to await the Prince, the gathering was larger than I had expected. A few nobles already awaited Dutiful. Young Civil Bresinga was there, deep in conversation with Lady Vance. Did she look displeased as she gestured at the waiting horses, a far larger party than she had obviously wagered on? Two other young women, her close friends by the way they stood, commiserated with her. They all greeted Lord Golden warmly as he joined them. It struck me that he looked only a few years older than they, a handsome, wealthy and exotic foreign nobleman in his early twenties. All the women drew closer to him, talking, while three young noblemen, one of them a Shemshy kinsman from his strong resemblance to the Duke, also lingered nearby. Lady Vance was obviously already the centre of her own tiny court. If she did manage to win the Prince, these newly-loyal courtiers would rise with her.

Servants held the bridles of their horses. The padded perch for Civil’s cat was empty behind his saddle. Privately, I doubted that he had left his cat at Galekeep as it was said; no Witted one would willingly be parted from his partner that long. Probably the beast was roaming the hills around Buckkeep. Civil must visit it regularly. I resolved to spy on one of those assignations. Perhaps a little confrontation with him and his cat would shake me out a bit more information about the Old Blood community, and his ties to the Piebalds.

I did not have time to ponder this for long. I took Myblack and Malta from a waiting stableboy and then stood holding their reins as Lord Golden mingled with the others gathered to accompany the Prince. I could not courteously stare at the nobles, but I could study their horses and deduce who would join us. One mare was so richly caparisoned that she must have been awaiting the Queen herself. I recognized Chade’s horse as well. In addition to the Prince’s horse there were three other richly-decked mounts; so it seemed that Arkon Bloodblade and Uncle Peottre would be part of the gathering as well. The bay mare with bells in her mane would be for the Narcheska.

Then there came a burst of conversation and laughter near the door and the main party arrived. The Prince was dazzlingly attired in Buckkeep blue trimmed with the white fox of his mother’s colours. The Queen had chosen blue and white as well, accented with goldenrod stripes on her mantle. Yet despite the brightness of the colours that echoed so well the blue and white of the winter day, the lines of her garb were simple in contrast to the extravagant clothing of her court. Chade was elegant in shades of blue, trimmed with black, and all the jewellery he wore was silver. The Prince was smiling, but I knew he was chastened by the way he lingered at the top of the steps, conversing with his mother and Chade rather than joining his younger companions. He acknowledged to no one that this ride was supposed payment for an ill-considered wager. By dismissing it, perhaps he hoped it would be devalued in the eyes of the others as well. Lady Vance stood smiling up at him and, for a moment, caught his eyes. He nodded courteously, but then his gaze wandered to Civil. The nod he gave him was equal to the first. Were Lady Vance’s cheeks a bit pinker than they were before? He descended only when Chade and the Queen did, and still he remained beside his mother.

Several Outislander merchant nobles next appeared with Arkon Bloodblade. They had adopted all the most extravagant fashions of Buckkeep. Lace and ribbons fluttered from them like pennants, and the heavy furs of their homeland had been replaced with rich fabrics from Bingtown and Jamaillia and even more distant ports. Kettricken, Chade and Dutiful greeted them effusively. Pleasantries were exchanged, comments made on the fine weather, compliments on clothing and other civilities were bandied about as all awaited the Narcheska and Peottre.

And we all waited.

It was a ruse calculated to set us all on edge. Kettricken’s eyes kept darting to the door. Dutiful’s laughter at Chade’s pleasantries sounded forced. Arkon scowled and spoke gruffly to a man at his side. The delay was long enough that the thought came to all of us: this will be how she displays her displeasure with Dutiful. She will humiliate him before all of his friends and family by leaving him standing. If she embarrassed her father before the Queen, would it create friction there as well? Just as I saw Chade and Kettricken conferring as to whether a servant should be sent to ask if the Narcheska would join them, Peottre appeared.

In contrast to the other Outislanders, he had reverted completely to his native garb, yet the effect was not that of barbarism, but of purity. His trousers were leather, his cloak of rich fur. His jewellery was ivory and gold and jade. The simplicity of line suggested he would be ready to ride, hunt, travel or fight, and not be encumbered by frippery. He emerged onto the steps above us, and stood there, as if he had taken the centre of a stage. He did not look happy to be there, but determined. As he stood silently, his arms crossed on his chest, the entire gathering fell silent. All eyes fixed on him. When he saw it was so, he spoke quietly, in a voice that was affable but would brook no disagreement.

‘The Narcheska desires me to make it known that ages are reckoned differently in the God Runes. She fears an ignorance of this may have led people to misunderstand her status among our folk. She is not a child by our standards, nor even by yours, I suspect. In our islands, where life is harsher than in your gentle, pleasant land, we think it bad luck to count a child a member of the family during those first twelve months when tiny lives may so easily wither. Nor do we give a child a name until that first crucial year is past. By our God Runes reckoning, then, the Narcheska is only eleven years old, nearly twelve. But by your reckoning, she is twelve, verging on thirteen. Nearly the same age as Prince Dutiful.’

The door opened behind him. No servant held it; the Narcheska shut it firmly behind herself. She emerged to stand beside Peottre, dressed in the same fashion as he was. She had discarded her Buckkeep finery. Her trousers were of spotted sealskin, her vest of red fox. The cloak that draped her from her shoulders to her knees was of white ermine, the tiny black tails swinging tassels. She pulled up her hood as she smiled coolly down upon us. The ruff was made of wolf. As she looked out of its depths, she observed, ‘Yes, I am nearly the same age as Prince Dutiful. Ages are accounted differently in our land. As are our ranks. For, although I was not named nor my days numbered until I was a year old, I was still the Narcheska. But Prince Dutiful, I understand, will not be a king; no, not even the King-in-Waiting for his crown, until he is seventeen. This is correct?’

She asked this of Kettricken as if she were uncertain, standing above the Queen at the top of the steps. My queen was unflustered as she looked up and replied, ‘In this you are correct, Narcheska. My son will not be accounted ready for that title until he has reached his seventeenth year.’

‘I see. An interesting difference from the customs of my home. Perhaps in my land we believe more in the strength of the lineage: that a babe is already who she will be, and hence worthy of her title from her first breath. While you, in your farmers’ world, wait to see if the line has bred true. I see.’

It could not be construed as an insult, quite. With her foreign accent and her odd placement of words, it could have been merely an unfortunate phrasing of thought. But I was sure it was not. Just as I was sure that her quiet, clear words spoken to Peottre as she descended the steps to his side were intended to be overheard. ‘Perhaps, then, I should not wed him until we are sure he will truly become the King? Many a man hopes to ride a throne, but is tumbled from it before he ascends to it. Perhaps the marriage should be postponed until his own people judge him worthy?’

Kettricken’s smile did not fade but it grew fixed. Chade’s eyes narrowed briefly. But Dutiful could not control the flush that seared his face. He stood silent, beaming his humiliation at her slight. I thought she had accomplished her revenge quite tidily; he had been humbled much as she had, and before much the same company. But if I thought she was finished with him, I was wrong.

When the Prince approached her courteously to assist her in her mount, she waved him away, saying, ‘Allow my uncle to help me. He is a man of experience, with both horses and women. If I require assistance, I shall be safest in his hands.’ And yet when Peottre approached her, she smiled and assured him that she was certain she could mount on her own, ‘For I am not a child, you know.’ And she did, though I was certain the tall horse was much larger than the tough little ponies the Outislanders used.

Astride, she moved her horse forward to ride at Kettricken’s side and converse with the Queen. The two, clad richly yet simply, presented a contrast to the sumptuous and extravagant dress of the others. Somehow, their clothing made it seem as if they not only belonged together, but also were the only two who shared a sensible attitude to a pleasure ride on a winter’s day. Either of them, if faced with a lamed horse, could easily have trekked home through the snow. Without an obvious intent, they had made the coiffed and decorated nobles appear silly and frivolous. I wrinkled my brow as the thought came to me. By complementing Kettricken’s simple attire, yet remaining true to the customs of her own folk, the Narcheska claimed an equal footing with our queen.

Prince Dutiful glanced at his youthful friends. I saw his eyes meet Civil’s, and Civil’s brows rise in a query. But constrained by his mother’s rebuking glance, the Prince rode at the Narcheska’s left side. She scarcely noticed him and when she did occasionally turn in her saddle to address a remark to Dutiful, it was with the air of someone who politely strives to include an outsider in the conversation. He could contribute little more to the talk than a nod and a smile before she dismissed him again.

Immediately behind them, Chade rode between Arkon Bloodblade and Peottre Blackwater. Lord Golden insinuated himself amongst the Prince’s young friends, and I trailed behind them. They rode together, in a chattering knot. I am certain Prince Dutiful was well aware of their eyes upon his back and that they discussed how his betrothed had snubbed him. Lord Golden was adroitly transparent to the conversation, encouraging it with his interest but contributing no remarks of his own that might have deflected its course. I noted that while Lady Vance was merry to her friends and attentive to Lord Civil, her eyes wandered often and speculatively to the Prince. I wondered if her ambitions were her own or those of her uncle, Lord Shemshy.

I knew one disconcerting moment, when Dutiful abruptly crashed through my barriers and into my thoughts. I don’t deserve this! It was an accidental remark, but she behaves as if I deliberately humiliated her. I almost wish I had!

The jolt of his thought was shock enough, but worse was to see Lord Golden flinch to it. He glanced back at me, one eyebrow raised, almost as if he thought I had spoken to him. Nor was he alone, though his reaction was the most extreme. Several other riders in our party glanced off abruptly in different directions, as if they had heard a distant shout. I took a breath, narrowed my focus to a pin’s head, and Skilled back to the lad.

Silence. Master your emotions, and do not do that again. Elliania has no way to know that you did not deliberately humiliate her. And she is not the only one who may believe that of you. Consider the attitudes of the young women who ride with Civil. But for now, ponder this to yourself. Your Skill-control is not good when you are emotional. Refrain from using it at such times.

The Prince lowered his head at my stern reprimand. I saw him draw a long breath, then he squared his shoulders and sat straighter in his saddle. Then he glanced about as if enjoying the beauty of the day.

I relented and offered him a bit of comfort. I know you don’t deserve this. But sometimes a prince, or any man, must endure what he did not deserve. Just as Elliania did last night. School yourself to patience, and submit to it.

He nodded as if to himself, and replied to one of the Narcheska’s brief comments.

It was not a long ride through the snowy fields, but I am sure it seemed so to Dutiful. He took his punishment manfully, but when it was time to dismount our eyes met for an instant and I saw the relief in his eyes. There. It was over. He had atoned for his gaffe of the night before, and now all would return to the way it had been.

I could have told him that is never so.

There was an entertainment planned for the afternoon, a play acted out by costumed individuals in the Jamaillian fashion rather than using puppets. I did not see how it could be done effectively, but Lord Golden had assured me that he had seen many such plays in the southern cities, and many clever things could be done to distract the watchers from the flaws. He had seemed quite pleased at the prospect of this diversion, and even more pleased at the arrival of the ship bringing the actors. Bingtown’s continuing war with Chalced was disrupting shipping and travel badly. Chalced’s fleet evidently had been temporarily beaten back, for two ships from the south had docked today, with rumours of others following. I had seen Lord Golden’s face light up at that news. Lord Golden dismissed the war to his friends as an inconvenience that interrupted his supply of apricot brandy but I noticed that the ships that did evade Chalced’s patrols often brought packets of letters for him as well as brandy, and these the Fool took into his private room immediately. I suspected that far more than his supply of brandy and money concerned him. But he said nothing of what the missives contained, and I knew better than to ask. Evincing curiosity on any topic had always been the swiftest way to make the Fool cut off the flow of information.

So I spent the afternoon standing at his shoulder in a darkened hall. The story was very Jamaillian, all about priests and nobles and intrigues, and at the end their dual-faced deity appeared to restore order and mete out justice. The play more befuddled than amused me. I could not adjust to people playing different roles. A puppet has no life of its own, save the story for which it is intended. It was disconcerting to recognize that the man now playing a servant had been one of the acolytes earlier in the play. It was difficult for me to concentrate on the story, and not just because of my confusion, but because the Prince’s misery spread out like a miasma that lapped against me in the dimmed hall. He did not deliberately Skill it; it leaked from him like moisture seeping from a waterskin. On the stage, actors gestured and shouted and struck poses. But the Prince sat beside his mother, alone and miserable in his social discomfort. In the last month or so, the renewed gaiety of Buckkeep Castle had exposed him to many folk his own age. Through Civil, he had begun to explore camaraderie and flirtation. Now all that must be curtailed for the sake of the political alliance his mother strove to forge. I could feel him pondering both the unfairness and the necessity of it. It was not sufficient that he be bound in marriage to the Narcheska Elliania. He must make it appear it was his choice to be so bound.

Yet it was not.

Later in the evening, Lord Golden granted me a few hours of my own. I changed back into comfortable clothes and made my way to Buckkeep Town and the Stuck Pig. In light of what I had witnessed at the keep, I was disposed to be more tolerant of Hap’s wayward courtship. Perhaps, I reflected as I strode through falling snow on my way to town, it struck some greater balance in the wide world, that Hap could freely indulge in what was completely denied to the Prince.

The Stuck Pig was quiet. I had been here often enough that I could recognize the tavern’s regular customers. They were there, but there were few others. Doubtless the blowing snow and rising storm were keeping many indoors tonight. I glanced about but saw no sign of Hap. My heart lifted a trifle; perhaps he was at home, already abed. Perhaps the novelty of life in town was wearing thin, and he was learning to order his life more sensibly. I sat in the corner that Hap and Svanja favoured and a boy brought me a beer.

My musing was brought to a swift close when a red-faced man of middle years came in the door. He wore no cloak or coat of any kind and his head was bare, his dark hair spangled with snowflakes. He gave his head an angry shake to clear both snow and water droplets from his hair and beard, and then glared at my corner of the tavern. He seemed surprised to see me sitting there; he turned and confronted the tavern keeper, asking him something angrily in a low voice. The man shrugged. When the newcomer clenched his fists and made a second demand, the tavern keeper gestured hastily at me, speaking in a low voice.

The man turned and stared at me, eyes narrowed, and then strode angrily towards me. I came to my feet as he drew near, but prudently kept the table between us. He thudded his fists on the scarred wood, and then demanded, ‘Where are they?’

‘Who?’ I asked, but with a sinking heart I knew to whom he referred. Svanja had her father’s brow.

‘You know who. The keeper says you’ve met them here before. My daughter Svanja and that demon-eyed country whelp who has lured her away from her parents’ hearth. Your son, is what the keeper says.’ Master Hartshorn made the words an accusation.

‘He has a name. Hap. And yes, he is my son.’ I was instantly angry, but it was a cold anger, clear as ice. I shifted my weight very slightly, clearing my hip. If he came across the table at me, my knife would meet him.

‘Your son.’ He spoke the word with contempt. ‘I’d be shamed to admit it. Where are they?’

I suddenly heard the desperation as well as the fury in his voice. So. Svanja wasn’t at home, and neither she nor Hap was here. Where could they be on a snowy, dark night like this? Little question of what they were doing. My heart sank, but I spoke quietly. ‘I don’t know where they are. But I feel no shame to claim Hap as my son. Nor do I think he “lured” your daughter into anything. If anything, it is the reverse, with your Svanja teaching my son town ways.’

‘How dare you!’ he roared and drew back a meaty fist.

‘Lower your voice and your hand,’ I suggested icily. ‘The first to spare your daughter’s reputation. The second to spare your life.’

My posture drew his eyes to my ugly sword at my hip. His anger did not die, but I saw it tempered with caution. ‘Sit down,’ I invited him, but it was as much command as suggestion. ‘Take control of yourself. And let us speak of what concerns us both, as fathers.’

Slowly he drew out a chair, his eyes never leaving me. I was as slow to resume my seat. I made a gesture at the innkeeper. I did not like the eyes of the other customers fixed on us, but there was little I could do. A few moments later, a boy scuttled over to our table, clapped down a mug of beer before Master Hartshorn and then scurried away. Svanja’s father glanced at the beer contemptuously. ‘Do you really think I will sit here and drink with you? I need to find my daughter, as swiftly as possible.’

‘Then she is not at home with your wife,’ I concluded.

‘No.’ He folded his lips. The next words he spoke were barbed, with bits of his pride torn free with them. ‘Svanja said she was going up to her bed in the loft. Some time later, I noticed a task she had left undone. I called to her to come back down and finish her work. When she did not reply, I climbed the ladder. She is not there.’ The words seemed to disarm his anger, leaving only a father’s disappointment and fear. ‘I came here directly.’

‘Without even a hat or cloak. I see. Is there nowhere else she might be? A grandmother’s house, a friend’s home?’

‘We have no kin in Buckkeep Town. We only arrived here last spring. And Svanja is not the kind of girl who makes friends with other girls.’ With every word, he seemed to have less fury and more despair.

I suspected then that Hap was not the first young man to claim her fancy, nor that this was the first time her father had sought for her after dark. I kept the observation to myself. Instead, I picked up my beer and drained it off. ‘I know of only one other place to seek them. Come. We’ll go there together. It’s where my son boards while I work up at the keep.’

He left his beer untouched, but rose as I did. Eyes followed us as we left the tavern together. Outside in the darkness, snow had begun to swirl more swiftly. He hunched his shoulders and crossed his arms on his chest. I spoke through the wind, asking the question I dreaded but must. ‘You completely oppose Hap’s courtship of your daughter?’

I could not see his face in the dimness but his voice was bright with outrage. ‘Oppose? Of course I do! He has not even had the courage to come to me, to say his name to me and declare his intent! And even if he did, I would oppose it. He tells her he is an apprentice … well then, why does not he live at his master’s house, if that is true? And if it is true, what is he thinking, to court a woman before he can even make his own living? He has no right. He is completely unsuitable for Svanja.’

He did not need to mention Hap’s mismatched eyes. Nothing Hap could do would overcome Hartshorn’s dislike of him.

It was a short walk to Jinna’s door. I knocked, dreading encountering her as much as I dreaded finding that Hap and Svanja were not there. It took a moment before Jinna called through the closed door, ‘Who’s there?’

‘Tom Badgerlock,’ I replied. ‘And Svanja’s father. We’re looking for Hap and Svanja.’

Jinna opened only the top half of her door, a clear indication of how far I had fallen in her regard. She looked at Master Hartshorn more than me. ‘They’re not here,’ she said briskly. ‘Nor have I ever permitted them to spend time in each other’s company here, though there’s little I can do to stop Svanja from knocking at my door and asking for Hap.’ She swung her reproachful gaze to me. ‘I haven’t seen Hap at all this evening.’ She crossed her arms on her chest. She didn’t need to say she had warned me it would come to this. The flat accusation was there in her eyes. Suddenly I could not meet her stare. I’d avoided seeing her since the night she had glimpsed Laurel in my arms. That I had never offered her the courtesy of an explanation shamed me. It was an act both cowardly and juvenile.

‘I’d best go look for him, then,’ I muttered. I’d hurt Jinna and tonight I had to face that. The truth speared me. It hadn’t been for any lofty moral reasons, but because I was afraid, because I had known she would become a facet of my life that I could not control. Just as Hap was now.

‘Damn him! Damn him for ruining my girl!’ Hartshorn suddenly raged. He turned and stumbled away into the swirling snowfall. At the edge of the light from Jinna’s door, he looked back to shake a fist at me. ‘You keep him away from her! Keep your demon-blasted son away from my Svanja!’ Then he turned. In a few steps, he was beyond the range of the light from Jinna’s door, vanished into blackness and despair. I longed to follow him, but I felt caught in the light.

I took a deep breath. ‘Jinna, I need to find Hap tonight. But I think –’

‘Well. We both know you won’t find him. Or Svanja. I doubt they want to be found this night.’ She paused, but before I could even draw breath, she said evenly, ‘And I think Rory Hartshorn is right. You should keep Hap away from Svanja. For all our sakes. But how you’re going to do it, I don’t know. Better you had never let your son run wild like this, Tom Badgerlock. I hope it isn’t too late for him.’

‘He’s a good boy,’ I heard myself say. It sounded feeble, the excuse of a man who has neglected his son.

‘He is. That is why he deserves better from you. Good night, Tom Badgerlock.’

She shut the door, shutting away her light and warmth. I stood in the dark, with the cold sweeping past me. Snowflakes were finding their way down my collar.

Something warm bumped my ankles. Open the door. The cat wants to go in.

I stooped to stroke him. Cold snow spangled his coat but the warmth of his body leaked through it. You’ll have to find your own way in, Fennel. That door doesn’t open for me any more. Farewell.

Stupid. You just have to ask. Like this. He stood up on his hind legs and clawed diligently at the wood as he yowled.

The sound of his demands followed me as I strode off into the darkness and cold. Behind me, I heard the door open for an instant and knew he had been admitted. I walked back up to Buckkeep Castle, envying a cat.

ELEVEN

Tidings from Bingtown

‘Past Chalced, keep your sails spread.’ This old saying is based on sound observations. Once your ship is past the Chalcedean ports and their cities, old as evil itself, spread sail and move swiftly. Aptly named are the Cursed Shores to the south of Chalced. Water from the Rain River will rot your casks and burn your crew’s throats. Fruit from those lands scalds the mouth and breaks sores on the hands. Beyond the Rain River, take on no water that comes from inland. In a day it will go green, and in three it seethes with slimy vermin. It will foul your casks so they can never be used again. Better to keep the crew on short rations than to put ashore there for any reason. Not even to weather a storm or take a day’s rest at anchor in an inviting cove is safe. Dreams and visions will poison your sailors’ minds, and your ship will be plagued with murder, suicide and senseless mutiny. A bay that beckons you to safe harbour may seethe with savage sea serpents before the night is over. Water-maidens come to the top of the waves, to beckon with bare breasts and sweet voices, but the sailor that plunges in for that pleasure is dragged under to be food for their sharp-toothed mates hiding below the water.

The only safe harbour along all that stretch is the city of Bingtown. The anchorage is good there, but beware of their docks where ensorcelled ships may call down curses on your own vessels of honest wood. Best to avoid their docks. Drop your hook in Trader Bay and row in, and likewise have goods brought out to your ship. Water and food from this port can be trusted, though some of the wares from their shops are uncanny and may bring ill luck to a voyage. In Bingtown, all manner of goods may be bought and sold, and the trade goods from there are unlike any others in the wide world. Yet keep your crew close by your vessel, and let only the master and mate go ashore and amongst the townsfolk. Better for common ignorant sailors not to touch foot to that soil, for it can entrance men of lesser mind and intellect. Truly is it said of Bingtown, ‘if a man can imagine it, he can find it for sale there’. Not all that a man can imagine is wholesome to a man, and much is sold there that is not. Beware, too, of the secret people of that land, sometimes seen by night. It brings on the foulest of bad luck should one of the Veiled Folk of that place cross a captain’s path when he is returning to his ship. Better to spend that night on shore, and return to your ship the next day than to sail immediately after such an ill omen.

Beyond Bingtown, leave the safety of the inner passage and take your ship out Wildside. Better to brave the storms and harsh weather than to tempt the pirates, serpents, sea-maidens and Others of those waters, to say nothing of the shifting bottoms and treacherous currents. Make your next stop corrupt Jamaillia with its many raucous ports. Again, keep a tight hand on your crew, for they are known to steal sailors there.

Captain Banrop’s Advice to Merchant Mariners

I left Prince Dutiful a note on the table in the Skill-tower. It said only, ‘Tomorrow’. Before the dawn watch had changed, I was standing outside Master Gindast’s establishment. The lamplight from the windows sliced across the snowy yard. In that dimness, apprentices crunched along the footpaths, hauling water and firewood for both the master’s home and his workshop and clearing snow from the canvassed tops of the wood stockpiles and the pathways. I looked in vain for any sign of Hap amongst them.

Light had brought colour to the day when he finally appeared. I could tell at a glance how he had spent his night. There was a gleam of wonder in his eyes still, as if he could not grasp his own good fortune, and an almost drunken swagger to his walk. Had I shone like that the first morning after Molly had shared herself with me? I tried to harden my heart as I lifted my voice and called out, ‘Hap! A word with you.’

He was smiling as he came to meet me. ‘It will have to be a short one then, Tom, for I’m already late.’

The day was blue and white around us, the air crisp with chill, and my son stood grinning up at me. I felt a traitor to all of it as I said, ‘And I know why you’re late. As does Svanja’s father. We were looking for you last night.’

I had expected him to be abashed. He only grinned wider, a knowing smile between men. ‘Well. I’m glad you didn’t find us.’

I felt an irrational urge to strike him, to wipe that expression from his face. It was as if he stood within a burning barn and rejoiced at the heat, unmindful of the peril to himself and Svanja. That, I suddenly knew, was what infuriated me, that he seemed completely unaware of how he endangered her. An edge of my anger crept into my voice.

‘So. I take it Master Hartshorn didn’t find you either. But I imagine he’ll be waiting for Svanja when she gets home.’

If I had hoped to dampen his reckless spirit, I didn’t succeed. ‘She knew he would be,’ he said quietly. ‘And she decided it was worth it. Don’t look so serious, Tom. She knows how to handle her father. It will be fine.’

‘It may be any number of things, but I doubt “fine” will be one of them.’ My voice grated past my anger. How could he be so cavalier about this? ‘You’re not thinking, boy. What will this do to her family, to their day-to-day life, to know their daughter has made this choice? And what will you do, if you get her with child?’

The smile finally faded from his face, but he still stood straight and faced me. ‘I think that’s for me to worry about, Tom. I’m old enough now to take charge of my own life. But, to put your mind at rest, she told me that there are ways women know to keep such a thing from happening. At least, until we are ready for it, until I can make her my wife.’

Perhaps the gods punish us by bringing us face to face with our own foolish mistakes, condemning us to watch our children fall into the same traps that crippled us. For all the sweetness of the secret hours I had shared with Molly, there had been a price. At the time, I had thought that we shared it, that the only cost was keeping our love secret. Molly had known better, I am sure. She had been the one to pay it, far more than I had. If Burrich had not existed to shelter and shield them both, my daughter would have paid it as well. Perhaps she still would, in her differences, in the dangers of being a cuckoo’s nestling, unlike her brothers. I wondered if I could warn Hap, if he would listen to me, as I had not listened to Burrich or Verity. I pushed my anger aside and spoke out of my fears for them both.

‘Hap. Please hear me. There are no safe and certain ways for a woman to avoid conceiving. All of them have a risk and a price to her. Every time she lies with you, she must wonder, “will I conceive from this? Will I bring shame to my family?” You know I would not cast you from my household for any mistake you made, but Svanja’s life is not so certain. You should protect her, not expose her to danger. You are asking her to risk all, for the pleasure of being with you, with no guarantees. What will you do if her father turns her out? Or beats her? What will you do if she suddenly finds herself ostracized and condemned by her friends? How can you be responsible for that?’

A scowl darkened his face. His stubbornness, so rarely woken, mastered him now. He took several breaths, each deeper than the last, and then the words exploded from him. ‘If he throws her out, I’ll take her in, and do whatever I must to support her. If he beats her, I’ll kill him. And if her friends turn on her, then they were never truly her friends anyway. Don’t worry about it, Tom Badgerlock. It’s my consideration now.’ He bit off each of his final words, as if somehow I had betrayed him just by stating my concerns. He turned away from me. ‘I’m a man now. I can make my own decisions and my own way. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get to my work. I’m sure Master Gindast is waiting for his turn to lecture me on responsibility.’

‘Hap.’ I spoke the word sharply. When the boy turned back to me, startled at the harshness in my tone, I forced out the rest of what I knew I had to say. ‘Making love to a girl does not make you a man. You have no right to do that; not until you both can declare yourself partners publicly, and provide for any children that come along. You should not see her again, Hap. Not like that. If you don’t go soon to meet her father and face him squarely, you’ll never be able to stand before him as a man in his eyes. And –’

He was walking away. Halfway through my speech he turned and walked away from me. I stood stunned, watching him go. I kept thinking he would stop and come back to ask my forgiveness and help in putting his life to rights. Instead, he strode into Master Gindast’s shop without a backward glance.

I stood a time longer in the snow. I was not calm. On the contrary, an anger flamed in me that seemed enough to warm all winter away from the land. My fists were clenched at my sides. I think it was the first time I had ever felt deeply furious with Hap, to the point at which I longed to beat some sense into him if he would not listen to reason. I pictured myself barging into the shop and dragging him out, forcing him to confront what he was doing.

Then I turned and stalked away. Would I have listened to reason at his age? No. I had not, not even when Patience had explained to me, over and over and over, why I must stay away from Molly. Yet such a realization did not decrease my anger with Hap, nor my belated contempt for my boyhood self. Instead it gave me a sense of futility, that I must witness my foster son committing the same foolish and selfish acts that I had performed myself. Just as I had, he believed that their love justified the risks they took, without ever considering that the child might come to pay the price for their intemperance. It could all happen again, and I could not stop it. I think I grasped then, fleetingly, the passion that powered the Fool. He believed in the terrible strength of the White Prophet and the Catalyst, to shoulder the future from the rut of the present and into some better pathway. He believed that some act of ours could prevent others from repeating the mistakes of the past.

By the time I reached Buckkeep and had ascended to the Skill-tower, I had walked away the fierceness of my anger. Yet the sick, dull weight of it lingered, poisoning my day. I was almost relieved to find that Dutiful had given up on me and left. Only a simple underlining of the word had altered my note. The boy was learning to be subtle. Perhaps at least with this young man I could succeed in turning him aside from the errors of the past. That errant thought only made me feel cowardly. Was I surrendering Hap then, abandoning him to his own poor judgement? No, I decided, I was not. But that decision put me no closer to knowing what to do about it.

I returned to Lord Golden’s chambers and was in time to join the Fool for his breakfast. As I entered, however, he was not eating. Rather he sat at table, bemusedly twirling a tiny bouquet of flowers between his forefinger and thumb. It was an unusual token, for the blossoms were made of white lace and black ribbon. It seemed a clever subterfuge for a season without flowers, and it put me in mind of his old fool’s motley for this season. He saw me looking at the posy, smiled at my bemusement, and then carefully pinned it to his breast. It was the Fool who gestured at the spread of food before him and said, ‘Sit down and eat quickly. We are summoned. A ship docked at dawn with an ambassadorial contingent from Bingtown. And not just any ship, but one of their liveships, with a talking, moving figurehead. Goldendown, I believe his name is. I don’t think one has ever ventured into Buck waters before. Aboard was an emissary mission from the Bingtown Council of Traders. They have applied with great urgency to see Queen Kettricken at her earliest convenience.’

The news startled me. Usually Six Duchies contacts with Bingtown were contacts between individual merchants and traders, not their ruling council treating with the Farseers. I tried to recall if the city-state had ever sent us ambassadors when Shrewd was king, then gave it up. I had not been privy to such matters when I was a lad. I took a seat at the table. ‘And you are to be there?’

‘At Councillor Chade’s suggestion, we will both be there. Not visibly, of course. You are to take me there through Chade’s labyrinth. He himself came to tell me so. I’m quite excited to see it, I admit. Save for my brief glimpse of it on the night Kettricken and I fled the castle and Regal, I’ve never glimpsed it.’

I was shocked. It was inevitable that he knew of the spy passages’ existence, but I had not thought Chade would ever offer him access to them. ‘Does the Queen concur in this?’ I asked, trying to be delicate.

‘She does, but reluctantly.’ Then, dropping the aristocratic air, he added, ‘As I have spent some time in Bingtown and know something of how their council operates, Chade hopes my evaluation of their words may give him a deeper understanding. And you, of course, provide an extra pair of eyes and ears for him, to catch any nuances that might otherwise be missed.’ As he spoke, he served us adroitly, adapting a platter to be my plate. He was generous with smoked fish, soft cheese and fresh bread and butter. A pot of tea steamed in the middle of the table. I went to my room to fetch my cup. As I returned with it, I asked, ‘Why could not the Queen simply invite you to be present when she receives them?’

The Fool shrugged one shoulder as he took a forkful of smoked fish. After a moment, he observed, ‘Don’t you think the Bingtown ambassadors might look askance at the Queen of the Six Duchies inviting a foreign noble to attend her first meeting with them?’

‘They might, but then they might not. I believe it has been decades since the Bingtown Council has sent a formal declaration to the Six Duchies court. And we have a Mountain queen now, a woman from a realm completely outside their ken. Did she greet them by slaughtering chickens in their honour or scattering roses before them, it would be all one to them. Whatever she does, they will assume it is her custom, and they will attempt to receive it politely.’ I took a sip of tea and then added pointedly, ‘Including inviting foreign nobles to her first reception of them.’

‘Perhaps.’ Then, grudgingly he admitted, ‘But I have reasons of my own for not wishing to be visibly present.’

‘Such as?’

He took his time cutting a bite of food and then eating it. After he had followed it with a sip of tea, he admitted, ‘Perhaps they would recognize that I bear no resemblance to any Jamaillian noble family that they have ever encountered. The traders of Bingtown have far more commerce with Jamaillia than any Six Duchies venture. They would see through my sham and spoil it.’

I accepted that, but reserved my opinion as to whether it was the complete reason. I did not ask if he feared he would be recognized. He had told me that he had spent some time in Bingtown. Even dressed as a nobleman, the Fool’s appearance was sufficiently unique that he might be recognized by any that had seen him there. He was looking more uncomfortable than I had seen him in a long time. I changed the subject.

‘Who else will be “visibly present” at the ambassadors’ initial reception by the Queen?’

‘I don’t know. Whoever represents each of the Six Duchies and is currently at court, I imagine.’ He took another bite, chewed thoughtfully, swallowed and added, ‘We shall see. It may be a delicate situation. I understand that there have been messages exchanged, but erratically. This delegation was actually expected to arrive months ago, but the Chalcedeans intensified the war. The Bingtown war with Chalced has disrupted shipping woefully to all points south of Shoaks. I gather that the Queen and Chade had given up all expectations until today.’

‘Messages?’ All of this was news to me.

‘Bingtown has approached the Queen, proposing an alliance to quell Chalced once and for all. To entice her, they have offered trade advantages in Bingtown, and a new closeness between the realms. Kettricken has rightly seen it as an empty offer. There can be no free trade until Chalced gives over its harassment of the ships in and out of Bingtown. Once Chalced is battered into submission, then Bingtown will be open for trade again, whether or not the Six Duchies took any part in subjugating Chalced. Bingtown lives on trade. It cannot even feed itself. So. A cold evaluation is that the Six Duchies risked inflaming its own disagreements with Chalced, with very little to gain by it. That being so, Kettricken has graciously declined their invitation to join their war. But now the Bingtown Councils hint that they have something else to offer, something so stupendous and so secret that word of it cannot be entrusted to a scroll. Hence, these envoys. A clever ploy, to play on the curiosity of the Queen and her nobles. They will have a rapt audience. Shall we eat and go?’

We dispatched the food swiftly between us, and then I cleared the breakfast tray away to the kitchens. All was in a hubbub there. The unexpected delegation demanded an amazing luncheon and an extraordinary feast in their honour. Old Cook Sara had actually descended into the thick of the culinary skirmish in progress, proclaiming that she would do it all herself, that those Bingtowners would never be able to say that the Six Duchies lacked in any sort of food. I retreated hastily from the commotion and hurried back to Lord Golden’s chambers.

I found the door latched. At my knock and quiet call, it was opened. I stepped through and shut it behind me, and then stood in shock. The Fool stood before me. Not the Fool in Lord Golden’s garb, but the Fool very nearly as I had known him when we were both boys. It was the garment he wore, close-fitting hose and a full tunic of solid black. His only ornaments were the earring and the tiny black and white posy. Even his slippers were black. Only his stature and colouring seemed changed from those days. I half-expected him to shake a rat’s-head sceptre at me or turn a flip. At my raised brows, he said, almost abashedly, ‘I did not wish to risk any of Lord Golden’s wardrobe in your dusty warren. And I can move most quietly in simple garments.’

I made no reply to that, but kindled a candle, and handed him two extra ones. I led him into my chamber. Closing the outer door, I triggered the entry to the concealed corridors and led him into Chade’s labyrinth. ‘Where is Queen Kettricken receiving them?’ I belatedly thought to ask.

‘In the West Reception Hall. Chade said to tell you the access is actually in the outer wall there.’

‘Directions on how to get there would have been more helpful. But never mind, we’ll find it.’

My optimism was not justified. It was an area of the castle’s internal maze that I had not explored before. I frustrated us both by finding the chamber above the audience hall, and one next to it before I deduced that I had to go to a lower level and then make my way up into the outer wall. The corridor had one very narrow bend in it, one I barely squeezed through. By the time we reached our spy post, we were both festooned with cobwebs. The sole peephole proved to be a narrow, horizontal slit. I hooded the candle flame and then moved the leather flap that concealed it from our side. Standing crouched side-by-side, we could each just put one eye to it. The Fool’s breathing by my ear seemed loud. I had to concentrate to pick out the words that dimly penetrated our hiding place.

We were late. The ambassadors had already been greeted. I could not see Kettricken or Chade. I imagined that Kettricken occupied the high seat, with Dutiful to one side and Chade standing on a lower step of the dais. Our vantage was such that we looked out over the hall, probably over the heads of the Queen and Prince. In the back of the audience chamber were seated the dukes and duchesses of the Six Duchies, or those representing them at court. Starling was there, of course. No gathering of significance could happen at court without a minstrel as witness. She was finely dressed, yet her expression was more solemn than alight with interest as I would have expected. She seemed distracted and pensive. I wondered what might be troubling her, and then resolutely fixed my gaze and attention where it belonged.

Central to our view were the four ambassadors from Bingtown. As befitted that wealthy trading town, these were merchants rather than dukes and lords. Nonetheless, the richness of their attire made them seem the equal of any noble. Their clothing glittered with jewels, and in the dimness of the audience chamber, some of the gems seemed to gleam with their own light. One short woman was robed in fabric that flowed over her form like water, so supple and fine was it woven. On the shoulder of one of the men perched a bird, its plumage every shade of red and orange, save for its head, which was of wrinkled white skin. It had an enormous blue-black beak.

Behind these impressive merchants stood a second row of folk, most likely servants despite their elegant dress. They bore the caskets and chests of goodwill gifts. Two stood out in their rank. One was a woman, her face heavily tattooed. There was no art to the marking, no balance, no discernible design, only a succession of ink scrawls that crawled across her cheeks. I knew it meant she had been a slave, and each tattoo was the sigil of an owner. I wondered what she had done, to be bought and sold so often. The other strange servant was hooded and veiled. The fabric of his drapery was rich and elaborate, the veil across his face of fine yet heavy lace. I could not see his features, and even his hands were gloved, as if to be sure that no part of his skin showed. It made me uneasy and I resolved to watch him most closely.

We were just in time for the presentation of the gifts. There were five gifts in all, and each more entrancing than the last. They were offered with flowery compliments and elegant titles, as if our queen’s favour could be bought with parsed words and flattery. I mistrusted the speeches, but the gifts fascinated me. The first was a tall glass vial containing a perfume. As the tattooed servant approached to offer it to Queen Kettricken, a tall woman explained that the fragrance would bring sweet dreams to even the most restless sleeper. I could not vouch for the dreams, but unstoppered for just a moment, the fragrance spread to fill the hall, reaching even to the Fool and me in our concealment. It was not a heady fragrance, but more like the wind-blown breath of a summer garden. Even so, I saw the expressions change on the faces of the nobles in the back of the hall as that rare essence reached them. Smiles grew wider and furrowed brows relaxed. Even I felt a lessening of my wariness.

‘A drug?’ I breathed to the Fool.

‘No. Only a perfume, a scent from a kindlier place.’ A faint smile played over his face. ‘I knew that scent of old, when I was a child. They traded far for that.’

The next servant approached, and opened his cask at the Queen’s feet. From it he lifted a simple set of dangling chimes, such as any garden might hold, save that these seemed to me made of scaled glass rather than metal. He kept them stilled with his hand until, at a signal from the parrot-man, he shook them, a delicate shiver that still set them to swinging and ringing. Each tone was sweet, and their random pattern swiftly fell into a rippling song. Abruptly the servant muted them, far too soon for me. But then he gave them another tiny shake, and again a shimmering melody burst forth, as different from the first as the crackling of a fire is from the muttering of a brook. He let them play for a time, and they showed no sign of stilling themselves. When the servant muted them again, the parrot-man spoke. ‘Fair Queen Kettricken, most noble lady of both the Mountains and the Six Duchies, we hope this sound pleases you. No one is certain how many tunes these chimes hold. Each time they are freed, they seem to spell a different song. As vast and great as your lands are, and as sophisticated as your tastes must no doubt be, we hope you will deem this humble gift worthy of you.’

Kettricken must have made some sign of acceptance, for the chimes were restored to their chest and brought forward to her.

The third gift was a length of fabric, similar in kind but not in hue to the one the woman wore. This was lifted from a small chest, but when the small woman and the parrot-man moved forward to take it from the servant, the cloth unfolded again, and yet again, and yet again, until the swathe of it was enough to cloth a long table in the great hall and drape still to the floor. It shimmered when they shook it, moving through shades of blue from deep violet to pale summer sky. And they folded it effortlessly to a compact square that they restored to its chest. This, too, was set before our queen. The fourth gift was a set of bells, arranged in a scale. The tone was good but no more than that. What was amazing about them was that the metal they were made of shimmered with light as each bell rang. ‘This is jidzin, most gracious Queen Kettricken, ruler of the Six Duchies and heir to the Mountain Throne,’ the short woman told her. ‘This is one treasure that can come from Bingtown alone. We are certain that you are worthy of no less than the very best we can offer you. Jidzin is among our most unique treasures. As are these.’ She waved a hand at the hooded man and he came forward. ‘Flame-jewels, fair Queen Kettricken. Rarest of the rare, for a rare queen.’

My muscles tightened as the veiled man approached the dais where Kettricken and Dutiful were seated. Chade was there, I reminded myself, even as my stomach clenched in apprehension. The old assassin would be as wary as I; he would let no harm come to the Queen or Prince. Even so, I sent a tiny Skill-thought to Dutiful.

Be wary.

I shall.

I had not expected the Prince to reply to my warning. His was a thought flung wide rather than a careful channelling. All the hair on the back of my neck stood up as I saw the veiled man twitch as if poked. For an instant, he stood very still. I sensed something from him, a reaching I had no name for.

Ssh, I cautioned Dutiful in a thread of thought. Be very still.

I desperately longed to see the veiled man’s expression. Did he stare at my prince? Did he glance about the chamber seeking me?

Whoever he was, his control was masterful. He made his abrupt halt a ceremonial pause. Then he bowed low, and presented his gift, setting the cask on the floor before him. At a stroke of his hand, it seemed to open by itself. He reached in and took out a smaller box. This he opened to reveal a torc of gold set with gems. He displayed it to the Queen, and then held it aloft so the gathered nobles might see it. While it was still raised, the bearer gave the ornament a shake. All of the jewels suddenly flared to life, glowing an unearthly blue in the dim hall. As he turned back towards the Queen, offering it for her regard, I heard the Fool give a quiet gasp at the beauty of the thing. The veiled man spoke clearly despite his muffling veils, and his voice was young, almost a boy’s. ‘The blues are the rarest of the flame-jewels, most gracious queen. They were chosen for you, in the colour of Buck Duchy. And for each noble and gracious ruler of each of your noble and gracious Duchies …’

There were gasps from the back of the hall as the gift-bearer lifted from the cask five additional boxes. He opened each in turn, to show neckpieces of narrow silver rather than wide gold. Each of these bore a single jewel, but they were nonetheless breath-taking. Someone had studied the Six Duchies well, for each gem was the proper colour for the duchy it was intended for, even to distinguishing between the pale yellow of the Bearns flower sigil to the deeper gold of Farrow. After the Queen had accepted her collar, the hooded servant moved to the gathered nobles, to bow gravely to each and then proffer the Bingtown gift. Despite the man’s unusual garb, I noticed that no one hesitated to accept his offering.

As this was going on, I watched the other Bingtown emissaries closely. ‘Who is their leader?’ I muttered to myself, for none seemed to give precedence to any of the others. The Fool took it as a query.

‘Do you see the woman with green eyes, the taller of the two?’ The Fool barely breathed the words by my ear. ‘I believe her name is Serilla. She was originally from Jamaillia and a companion to their satrap. That is, she was an advisor to the ruler of all Jamaillia, an expert within her chosen area. Hers was Bingtown and the surrounding area. She came to Bingtown under very odd circumstances, and has since remained there. Gossip had it that she had fallen into deep disfavour with the ruling satrap, and that he all but exiled her to Bingtown. Some say she had made an attempt to seize power from him. But instead of taking her exile as a punishment she has made Bingtown her home and has risen to the status of a professional negotiator for the Traders. Despite her bad blood with the Satrap, her intimate knowledge of both Bingtown and Jamaillia have given Bingtown an edge in its dealings with Jamaillia.’

‘Ssh,’ I hushed him hastily. I wondered how he knew all that, and wanted to hear more, but for now I must be aware of every nuance of all that was said. He subsided, but I could sense his ferment. His cool cheek was pressed against mine as we stared side by side through the narrow slit. He rested a hand on my shoulder to steady himself, but I could feel the tension of his suppressed excitement. Obviously, this meeting had a deeper significance to him. Later, I would ask him who the others were. For now, I was engrossed with the scene before me. I only wished I could see the Queen, Chade and Prince Dutiful as I watched this encounter unfold.

I listened as the Queen offered thanks for the gifts and extended welcome to the emissaries. Her words were simple. She did not reply with extravagant compliments and embroidered titles, but instead offered them sincerity in honest phrases. She was thrilled by the surprise of their long-expected visit. She hoped they would enjoy their stay in Buckkeep, and that this delegation represented a future of more open communication between the Six Duchies and Bingtown. The tall woman, Serilla, stood serenely, listening intently to the Queen’s words. The tattooed woman folded her lips as Kettricken spoke, plainly holding back some response. The man at her side cast her an anxious glance. He was a broad-shouldered, bluff man, his hair cropped short and curly above his weathered face. He was obviously accustomed to physical work, and to getting things accomplished rather than wading through protocol and courtesies. As he waited for the Queen to finish speaking, his fists knotted and unknotted themselves reflexively. The bird on his shoulder shifted restlessly. The other man, a narrow, bookish sort of fellow, seemed more of Serilla’s cast. He would let Kettricken set the pace for this encounter.

Serilla was the one who spoke when Kettricken’s voice fell silent. She, in turn, thanked the Queen and all the Six Duchies for such a gracious welcome. She told them that all of them would welcome the chance to rest in our peaceful land, far from the horrors of the war that Chalced had forced upon them. She spoke some little time on what they had been enduring; the random attacks on their ships that disrupted all commerce, the very lifeblood of Bingtown, and the hardships this created for a city that relied on trade to feed its population. She spoke of Chalcedean raids on outlying Bingtown settlements.

‘I didn’t think they had any outlying settlements,’ I breathed in an aside to the Fool.

‘Not many. But as their population has swelled with freed slaves, folk have been attempting to find arable land.’

‘Freed slaves?’

‘Sshh,’ the Fool responded. He was right. I needed to listen now, and ask my questions later. I leaned my forehead against the cold stone of the wall.

Serilla was swiftly reviewing Bingtown’s current list of grievances with Chalced. Most of them were ones I was very familiar with, and many were the same quarrels that the Six Duchies had with our grasping neighbour to the south. Chalcedean raiders, border disputes, harassment and piracy of passing trade vessels, ridiculous taxes on those merchants that did attempt to trade with them: all of these were familiar rants. But then she launched into an account of how Bingtown had risen up against corrupt Chalcedean influence to free all the slaves within its borders and to offer them a chance to become full citizens of Bingtown. Bingtown would no longer allow slave-ships to stop in its port, regardless of whether they were bound north to Chalced or south to Jamaillia. By an agreement with Bingtown’s new allies in the so-called Pirate Isles, slave-ships that put into Bingtown were boarded, the cargoes seized and the slaves offered freedom.

This disruption of the Chalcedean slave-trade was a major area of conflict. It had brought into new prominence the old disagreement over where the Chalcedean-Bingtown border actually lay. In both of these areas, Serilla hoped that the Six Duchies would recognize the legitimacy of Bingtown’s position. She knew that Shoaks Duchy welcomed escaped slaves to their lands as free men, and that Shoaks had also suffered from Chalced’s efforts to claim lands not rightfully part of that dukedom. Could she, perhaps, hope that the Six Duchies would grant what their previous envoys had proposed to the most gracious and royal Queen Kettricken – an alliance, and support for the war against Chalced? In return, Bingtown and her ally had much to offer the Six Duchies. Open trade with Bingtown, and a share in Bingtown’s favourable trade agreements with the so-called Pirate Isles could be of great benefit to all. The gifts bestowed today represented but a small part of the spectrum of goods that would become available to the people of the Six Duchies.

Queen Kettricken heard her out gravely. But at the end of Serilla’s speech, she had offered nothing new to us. It was Chade, in his role as Councillor, who gravely pointed this out. The wonders of their trade goods were well known, and justifiably so. But not even for such wonders could the Six Duchies consider moving into war. He concluded his remarks with, ‘Our most gracious Queen Kettricken must always consider first the well-being of our own folk. You know that our relations with Chalced are at best uneasy. Our grievances with them are many, and yet we have held our hands back from waging a full war with them on our own accounts. All know the saying, “Sooner or later, there is always war with Chalced.” They are a contentious folk. But war is expensive and disruptive. War later is almost always better than war now. Why should we risk provoking their full wrath on Bingtown’s behalf?’ Chade let the question hang for a moment, and then made it even plainer. ‘What do you offer the Six Duchies that will not eventually come to us, regardless of the outcome of this war of yours?’

Several dukes in the back nodded sagely. All knew this was the Trader way. All they understood was bargaining and trade. They expected Chade to haggle, and haggle he would.

‘Most gracious Queen, noble Prince, wise Councillor and lordly Dukes and Duchesses, we offer you …’ Serilla halted, obviously flustered by the directness of Chade’s question. ‘Our offer is a delicate one, perhaps best reviewed in private contemplation before you seek the agreement of your nobles. Perhaps it would be better …’ Serilla did not glance towards the nobles in the back of the room, but her pause was plain.

‘Please, Serilla of Bingtown. Speak plainly. Put your proposal before all of us, so that my nobles and my councillors and I may discuss it freely together.’

Serilla’s eyes widened, almost in shock. I wondered what sort of place Jamaillia was, that she was so surprised by my queen’s forthright answer. While she floundered, the man with the parrot on his shoulder suddenly cleared his throat. Serilla shot him a warning look, but the man stepped forward anyway. ‘Most gracious Queen, if I may presume to address you directly?’

Kettricken’s response was almost puzzled. ‘Of course. You are Trader Jorban, I believe?’

He nodded gravely. ‘That is correct. Most gracious Queen Kettricken, ruler of all the Six Duchies and heir to the Mountain Throne.’ I felt uncomfortable for the young man as he strung the titles awkwardly together. Obviously such flowery address was new to him, but despite Serilla’s angry glance, he was determined to forge ahead with it. ‘I believe you are a person, a queen, that is, who can appreciate directness. I have chafed under this delay. But now, hearing today that you have as little love for Chalced as we do, I dare to hope that you will be in favour of our proposition as soon as you hear it.’ He cleared his throat, then plunged on. ‘We come to you seeking to forge an alliance against a common enemy. We have had three years of war with Chalced. It has drained us, and our early hopes of a swift end to the conflict have faded. The Chalcedeans are a stubborn folk. Every defeat we deal them only seems to make them more determined to injure us. They thrive on war; they love raiding and destruction, as we do not. Bingtown needs peace to prosper, peace and free seas. We depend on trade, not just for our livelihoods, but for our most basic needs. Magic and wonders we may possess in Bingtown, and yet we cannot feed our children on that alone. We have no vast fields to grow grain and pasture cattle. Chalced would overrun us, out of simple greed. They would kill us all, to possess what we have, with no understanding of what that possessing requires of us. They will destroy what they seek, in the very act of trying to possess it. What we have cannot be taken from us, and still exist. It is …’ The man’s words shuddered to a halt, like a ship run aground on a sand-bar.

Kettricken waited for a time, as if offering him a chance to find his tongue, but the man only spread his hands open, wide and helpless. ‘I’m a trader and a sailor, ma’am. Most gracious Queen.’ He appended the honorific as if he had suddenly recalled it. ‘I speak out of our need, and yet I do not explain myself well.’

‘What do you ask, Trader Jorban?’ Queen Kettricken’s question was simple yet polite.

Hope gleamed suddenly in the man’s eyes, as if her directness reassured him. ‘We know that the folk of your Shoaks Duchy hold a hard border with Chalced. You contain them, and your vigilance demands much of their attention.’ He turned suddenly, to sweep a wide bow to the nobles in the back of the chamber. ‘For this, we thank you.’

The Duke acknowledged his thanks with a grave nod. Trader Jorban turned back to the Queen. ‘But we must ask more than this. We ask your warships and warriors to pressure Chalced from your side. To harry and sink the ships that interfere in our trade with you. We would … put an end to the generations of strife Chalced has forced on all of us.’ He drew a sudden breath. ‘We would subjugate that land completely, and end this ancient strife. If they will not abide as our neighbour, then let them accept our rule instead.’

Serilla the Jamaillian suddenly interrupted. ‘Trader Jorban, you go too far! Fair and gracious Queen Kettricken, we come but to make suggestions, not to propose a conquest.’

Jorban set his jaw and dived in as soon as Serilla fell silent. ‘I do not make a suggestion. I come to bargain with potential allies. I seek for an end to Chalced’s endless war against us. I will speak plainly what is in many Traders’ hearts.’ His blue eyes glinted as he met Kettricken’s gaze. He spoke honestly, with passion. ‘Let us subjugate the Chalcedean states completely, dividing their territory between us. All would gain. Bingtown would have arable land, and an end to Chalcedean harassment. The Duke of Shoaks could expand his holdings and have, not an enemy at his back, but an ally and trading partner. Trade to the south would open wide for the Six Duchies.’

‘Subjugate Chalced completely?’ I could tell from Kettricken’s voice that she had never even considered it, that such a conquering ran counter to all her Mountain ways. But in the back of the room, the Duke of Shoaks was grinning broadly. This was a war he would relish, a meal of vengeance long in the simmering for him. He overstepped himself, perhaps, when he lifted a fist and suggested, ‘Let us include the Duke of Farrow in this partitioning. And perhaps your lord father, King Eyod of the Mountains, would like a share of this, my queen. He, too, shares a boundary with Chalced, and from all accounts has never been too fond of them.’

‘Peace, Shoaks,’ she rebuked him, but it was a gentler shushing than I would have expected. Perhaps there was history there I did not know. Just how bitterly did the Mountain Kingdom dispute its own border with Chalced? Did Kettricken bring an older rancour to this conflict than I knew? Yet there was reserve as she replied to the Bingtown delegation. ‘You offer us a share of your war, as if it were trade goods we should covet. We do not. We have had a war, and even now we seek to make those former enemies our friends. Your war does not tempt us. You offer us Chalced’s lands, if we defeat them. That is a distant and uncertain victory. Holding that territory might be more of a burden than an advantage. A conquered people are seldom content to accept foreign rule. You offer us free trade to the south, if we achieve that victory. Yet Bingtown has ever courted open trade with us; I do not see that as a new gain. Again, I ask you. Why should we even consider this?’

I watched the Bingtown envoys exchange glances, and smiled small to myself. So. A proposal to divide Chalced’s territory was not the limit of their offer. But whatever it was that they held back, they would not part with it unless forced to it. I felt no sympathy. They should not have provoked Chade’s curiosity as to how deep their purse might be. Trader Jorban made a small gesture with his hand, palm up, as if inviting someone else to succeed where he had failed in his bargaining.

Then, as if by accord, the Bingtown merchants stepped aside, parting to let the shrouded man stand directly before the Queen. Some unspoken agreement had been reached amongst them.

I swiftly revised my opinion of the hooded man. He was no servant. Perhaps none of them were, not even the woman with the slave tattoos. As the veiled man stepped suddenly forward, I winced, expecting some sort of attack, but all he did was to throw back his hood. His lace veil, attached to it, was swept away with it. I gasped at what was revealed, but others, Chade amongst them, were less subtle.

‘Eda, mercy!’ I heard the old assassin exclaim, and from the back of the hall there were exclamations of both horror and shock.

The envoy was young, younger than Dutiful and Hap, though he was as tall. Scales rimmed his eyes and framed his mouth. They were not cosmetic. A fringe of shaggy growths depended from his jaw. He drew himself up very straight. I had thought his hood exaggerated his height. Instead I saw now that the bones of his arms and legs were unnaturally long, yet somehow he still managed to convey grace rather than awkwardness. He looked directly at Kettricken, uncowed by her position, and spoke in a boy’s clear tenor.

‘My name is Selden Vestrit, of the Bingtown Trader Vestrits, fostered by the Khuprus family of the Rain Wild Traders.’ The second part of his introduction made no sense to me. No one lived in the Rain Wilds. The lands adjacent to the river were all swamp and bog and morass. It was one reason that the boundary between Chalced and Bingtown had never been firmly set. The river and its swampy shores defied them both. But what the boy said next was even more outrageous. ‘You have heard Serilla, who speaks for the Council of Bingtown. There are others here who can speak for the Tattooed, those once slaves and Bingtown citizens, and for the Bingtown Traders and for our liveships. I speak for the Rain Wild Traders. But I also speak for Tintaglia, the last true dragon, sworn to aid Bingtown in our time of need. Her words do I bear.’

A shiver ran over me at the dragon’s name. I did not know why.

‘She is tired of Chalced’s constant wrangling with her Bingtown folk. It distracts them and hinders them from another, greater work that she has in mind for them. This war Chalced is intent on waging imperils a far greater destiny.’ He spoke as if he were not a man, with a contempt that dismissed petty human concerns. It was both chilling and inspiring. He swept us all with his eyes. I realized then that I had not imagined the faint bluish glow from his gaze. ‘Aid Bingtown in destroying Chalced and putting this war to an end, and Tintaglia will bestow on you her favour. And not only her favour, but also the favour of her offspring, rapidly growing in size, beauty and wisdom. Aid us, and one day the Six Duchies legends of dragons rising to protect them will be replaced by the reality of a dragon ally.’

A stunned silence followed his words. I am sure they all misinterpreted it. Trader Jorban rashly grinned at what must have been the shock on Kettricken’s face, and dared to add, ‘I do not blame you for doubting us. But Tintaglia is real, as real as I am. But for her need to tend her offspring, she would have made a swift end to Chalced’s harassment of us years ago. Have not you heard rumours of the battle of Trader Bay, and how a Bingtown dragon, silver and blue, swept forth to drive the Chalcedeans from our shore? I was there that day, fighting to free our harbour of Chalcedeans. Those rumours are neither fanciful exaggerations nor wild tales, but simplest truth. Bingtown possesses a rare and marvellous ally, the last true dragon in the world. Aid us in subduing Chalced, and she could be your ally as well.’

I do not think he expected his words to be spark to Kettricken’s tinder. I doubt he could understand how deeply her feelings for our Six Duchies dragons went.

‘The last true dragon!’ she exclaimed. I heard the rustle of her gown as she shot to her feet. She strode down the steps, to confront the Bingtown upstarts, stopping but one riser above them. My rational, gracious queen’s voice grated with fury. It rose to fill the hall. ‘How dare you speak so! How dare you dismiss the Elderling dragons as legends! I have seen the skies jewelled with not one, but a horde of dragons that rose to the defence of the Six Duchies. I myself bestrode a dragon, the truest of them all, when he bore me back to Buckkeep Castle. There is not a grown person in this chamber who did not witness their wide wings over our waters, scattering the Red Ships that had harried us so long. Do you insinuate our dragons were false somehow, in heart or deed? The boy may plead the excuse of his youth and inexperience, not just in that he probably was not even born when we fought our war, but that he has had little training in the respect due to such creatures. You can plead only your ignorance of our history. The last true dragon, indeed!’

I doubt that any insult to our queen’s person would have provoked such an outraged reaction. No one there could know that it was her king, Verity, her love, whose honour she upheld. Even some of our own nobles looked startled to see their usually placid queen rebuke an envoy so sharply, but their surprise did not mean they disagreed with her. Heads nodded at her words. Several of her dukes and duchesses came to their feet, and she who represented Bearns set a hand to her sword. The scaled boy glanced around, mouth ajar with dismay as Serilla rolled her eyes at his gaffe. The Bingtown contingent instinctively drew closer to one another.

The scaled lad advanced a step closer to the Queen. Chade made a motion to forbid it, but the boy merely dropped to one knee. He looked up at her as he spoke. ‘I beg forgiveness if I have given offence. I speak only of what I know. As you have said, I am young. But it is Tintaglia who has told us, with great sadness, that she is the last true dragon in the world. If it were otherwise, I would rejoice to bring her these tidings. Please. Let me see your dragons, let me speak to them. I will explain to them her need.’

Kettricken’s shoulders were still rising and falling with the strength of her passion. She drew a quieter breath at last, and when she spoke, she was herself again. ‘I bear no resentment against you for speaking of what you knew not. As for speaking to our dragons, it is out of the question. They are Six Duchies dragons, for the Six Duchies alone. Young sir, you presume too much. But you are young, and on that basis I forgive you.’

The boy remained as he was, on one knee but not at all subservient as he gazed up doubtfully at our queen.

It was up to Chade to calm the room. He stepped forward to confront the Bingtown delegation. ‘It is, perhaps, natural that you appear to doubt our queen’s word, even as we doubt yours. The last true dragon, you say, but then you speak of her offspring. It sets my mind a puzzle; why do you not consider them “true dragons”? If your dragon exists, why has not she come with you, to show herself and give impetus to our decision to side with you?’ He swept them with his hard green gaze. ‘My friends, there is something very peculiar about your offer. There is much you are not saying. Doubtless, you believe your reasons for doing so are sound. But keeping your secrets may lose you not only an alliance, but also our respect. Weigh that bargain well.’

Even looking at his back, I knew that Chade pulled now at his chin, considering. He glanced over at the Queen. Whatever he saw on her face made up his mind. ‘Lords and ladies, I suggest we end this audience for the time being. Let our fair and gracious queen discuss your offer with her nobles. Chambers have been prepared for you. Enjoy our hospitality.’ I could hear the faint smile that came into his voice as he added, ‘Any of the minstrels we have provided will be happy to enlighten you, in song or story, about the dragons of the Six Duchies. Perhaps when next we meet, all our tempers will be evened with song and rest.’

Dismissed so firmly, the Bingtown envoys could do little but withdraw. The Queen and Prince Dutiful departed next. Chade lingered amongst the nobles; he seemed to be arranging a time for all to sit down and discuss the Bingtown proposal. The Duke of Shoaks was striding about, visibly excited, while the Duchess of Bearns stood, tall and silent, her arms crossed before her breast as if denying any interest at all. I leaned back from the peephole, letting the flap of leather fall. ‘Let us go,’ I whispered to the Fool, and he nodded in silent agreement.

I took up our candle again, and we negotiated the narrow warren of rat-runs that threaded Buckkeep’s walls. I did not take him directly back to my chamber, but instead stopped at Chade’s old tower room. Immediately inside the room, the Fool halted. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then took a deep breath. ‘It has not changed much since the last time I was here,’ he said in a choked voice.

I used my candle to kindle the waiting ones on the table. I added another piece of wood to the coals on the hearth. ‘I imagine Chade brought you here the night King Shrewd was murdered.’

He nodded slowly. ‘I had encountered Chade before, and conversed with him over the years. The first time I met him was shortly after I came to King Shrewd. Chade would come by night, to speak with the King. Sometimes they played dice together; did you know that? Mostly they sat by the fire and drank fine brandy and talked of whatever danger was currently confronting the kingdom. That was how I first heard of your existence. In a fireside conversation between those two. My heart pounded until I thought I would faint as I understood what their words meant to me. They scarcely noticed me listening. They thought me but a child, perhaps lacking in true wit, and I had taken care initially to appear to have little mastery of your language.’ He shook his head to himself. ‘Such a strange time in my life. So significant and portentous, and yet, sheltered by King Shrewd, it was the closest I ever came to having a true childhood.’

I found two cups and Chade’s current bottle of brandy. I set them out at the table and poured for us. The Fool lifted an eye to that. ‘This early in the day?’

I shrugged. ‘It seems later to me than it is, perhaps. My day started early. With Hap.’ I sat down heavily as that particular worry weighed my heart again. ‘Fool. Do you ever long to go back in your life and do something differently?’

He took his seat but did not touch the glass. ‘All men do. It’s a foolish game we play. What troubles you, Fitz?’

And I told him, pouring out my heart as if I were a child, giving him all my fears and disappointments to sort, as if somehow he could make sense of them for me. ‘I look back, Fool, and sometimes it seems that the times when I was most certain I was doing the right thing were when I made my gravest errors. Hunting down Justin and Serene and killing them before the assembled dukes after they had assassinated my king. Look what that did to us, the cascade of events that followed.’

He nodded to that. ‘And?’ he prompted me as I poured more brandy for myself.

I drank it off. ‘And bedding with Molly,’ I said. I sighed, but felt no easing. ‘It seemed so right. So sweet and true and precious. The only thing in my world that belonged completely to me. But if I had not …’

He waited for me.

‘If I had not, if I had not got her with child, she would not have left Buckkeep to hide her pregnancy. Even when I made my other stupid mistake, she would have been able to take care of herself. Burrich would not have felt that he had to go to her, to watch over her until her child was born. They would not have fallen in love; they would not have married. When … After the dragons, I could have come back to her. I could have something, now.’

I wasn’t weeping. This was pain past weeping. The only thing new about this was admitting it aloud, to myself. ‘I brought it all down on myself. It was all my own doing.’

He leaned across the table to set his long cool hand atop mine. ‘It’s a foolish game, Fitz,’ he said softly. ‘And you attribute too much power to yourself, and too little to the sweep of events. And to Molly. If you could go back and erase those decisions, who knows what others would take their places? Give it over, Fitz. Let it go. What Hap does now is not a punishment for what you did in the past. You didn’t cause him to make this choice. But that doesn’t free you from your duties as a father, to try to turn him aside from that path. Do you think because you made that same decision it disqualifies you from telling him it was a mistake?’ He took a breath, then asked, ‘Have you ever considered telling him about Molly and Nettle?’

‘I … no. I can’t.’

‘Oh, Fitz. Secrets and things held back …’ His voice trailed away sorrowfully.

‘Such as Bingtown’s dragons,’ I said levelly.

He lifted his hand from mine. ‘What?’

‘We were drinking that night, and you told me a story. About serpents that went into butterfly cocoons and came out as dragons. But for some reason they came out small and sickly. You thought somehow it was your fault.’

He leaned back in his chair. He looked more sallow than golden. ‘We had been drinking. A lot.’

‘Yes. We had. You were drunk enough to talk. But I was still sober enough to listen.’ I waited, but he just sat quietly looking at me. ‘Well?’ I demanded at last.

‘What do you want to know?’ he asked in a low voice.

‘Tell me about Bingtown’s dragons. Are they real?’

I sat and watched him reach some decision. Then he sat up and poured more brandy for us both. He drank. ‘Yes. As real as the Six Duchies dragons were, but in a different way.’

‘How?’

He took a breath. ‘Long, long ago, we argued this. Remember? I said that at one time there had to have been dragons of flesh and bone, to inspire Skill-coteries to create dragons of stone and memory.’

‘That was years ago. I barely recall the conversation.’

‘You don’t need to. All you need to know is that I was right.’ A smile flickered across his face. ‘Once, Fitz, there were real dragons. The dragons that inspired the Elderlings.’

‘The dragons were the Elderlings,’ I contradicted him.

He smiled. ‘You are right, Fitz, but not in the way you think you mean those words. I think. It is a shattered mirror I am still reassembling. The dragons you and I awoke, the Six Duchies dragons … they were created things. Carved by coteries or Elderlings, the memory-stone took on the shapes they gave it, and came to life. As dragons. Or as winged boars. Or flying stags. Or as a Girl-On-A-Dragon.’

He was putting it together almost too swiftly for me to follow. I nodded nonetheless. ‘Go on.’

‘Why did Elderlings make those stone dragons and store their lives in them? Because they were inspired by real dragons. Dragons that, like butterflies, have two stages to their lives. They hatch from eggs into sea serpents. They roam the seas, growing to a vast size. And when the time is right, when enough years have passed that they have attained dragon size, they migrate back to the home of their ancestors. The adult dragons would welcome them and escort them up the rivers. There, they spin their cocoons of sand – sand that is ground memory-stone – and their own saliva. In times past, adult dragons helped them spin those cases. And with the saliva of the adult dragons went their memories, to aid in the formation of the young dragons. For a full winter, they slumbered and changed, as the grown dragons watched over them to protect them from predators. In the hot sunlight of summer, they hatched, absorbing much of their cocoon casing as they did so. Absorbing, too, the memories stored in it. Young dragons emerged, full-formed and strong, ready to fend for themselves, to eat and hunt and fight for mates. And eventually to lay eggs on a distant island. The island of the Others. Eggs that would hatch into serpents.’

As he spoke, I could almost see it. Perhaps my dreams had primed me to it. How often in my sleep had I imagined what it would be to be a dragon as Verity had become, to fly the skies, to hunt and to feed? Something in his words reached those dreams, and they suddenly seemed true memories of my own rather than the imaginings of sleep. He had fallen silent.

‘Tell the rest,’ I prodded him.

He leaned back in his chair and sighed. ‘Something killed them. Long ago. I don’t know exactly what. Some great cataclysm of the earth, that buried whole cities in a matter of days. It sank the coast, drowning harbour towns, and changed the courses of rivers. It wiped out the dragons, and I think it killed the Elderlings as well. All of that is a surmise, Fitz. Not just from what I have seen and heard, but from what you have told me and from what I have read in your journals. That empty, riven city you visited, your own vision there of a dragon landing in the river, and of a strangely-formed folk who greeted it. Once, those people and dragons lived alongside one another. When the disaster came that ended them both, the folk tried to save some of the cocooned dragons. They dragged them into their buildings. The dragon cocoons and the people were buried alive together. The people perished. But inside the cocoons, untouched by the light and warmth that would signal a time of awakening, the half-formed dragons lingered on.’

Rapt as a child, I listened to his wild tale.

‘Eventually, another folk found them. The Rain Wild Traders, an offshoot of the Bingtown Traders, dug into the ancient buried cities, seeking treasure. Much did they find there. Much of what you saw today, offered as gifts to Kettricken, the flame-gems, the jidzin, even the fabric, is the trove of those Elderling dwellings. They also found the cocooned dragons. They had no idea that was what they were, of course. They thought … who knows what they thought at first? Perhaps they seemed like massive sections of tree trunks. So they refer to it: wizardwood. They cut them up and used the cases as lumber, discarding the half-formed dragons within. That is the material they made their liveships from, and those strange vessels have the roots of their vitality in the dragons they would have been. Most of the half-formed dragons were dead, I suspect, long before their cocoons were cut up. But one, at least, was not. And a chain of events that I am not fully privy to exposed that dragon cocoon to sunlight. It hatched. Tintaglia emerged.’

‘Weak and badly formed.’ I was trying to connect this tale with what he had told me previously.

‘No. Hale and hearty, and as arrogant a creature as you would ever wish to encounter. She went searching for others of her own kind. Eventually she gave up looking for dragons. Instead, she found serpents. They were old and immense, for – and again, I speculate, Fitz – for whatever cataclysm that had destroyed the adult dragons had changed the world enough to prevent the serpents from returning to their cocooning grounds. Decade after decade, perhaps century after century, they had made periodic attempts to return, only to have many of their number perish. But this time, with Tintaglia to guide them, and the folk of Bingtown to dredge the rivers so they could pass, some of the serpents survived their migration. In the midst of winter, they made their cases. They were old and weakened and sickly, and had but one dragon to shepherd them and help them spin their cases. Many perished on their journey up the river; others sank into dormancy in their cases, never to revive. When summer came, those that hatched in the strength of the sunlight emerged as weaklings. Perhaps the serpents were too old, perhaps they did not spend enough time in their cocoons, perhaps they were not in good enough condition when they began their time of change. They are pitiable creatures. They cannot fly, nor hunt for themselves. They drive Tintaglia to distraction, for the dragon way is to despise weakness, to let perish those not strong enough to survive. But if she lets them die, then she will be completely alone, forever, the last of her kind, with no hope of rekindling her race. So Tintaglia spends all her time and energy in hunting for them and bringing kills back to them. She believes that if she can feed them sufficiently, they may yet mature to full dragons. She wishes, nay, she demands that the Rain Wild Traders aid her in this. But they have young of their own to feed, and a war that hinders them in their trading. So, they all struggle. So it was when last I was on the Rain Wild River, two years ago. So I suspect it remains.’

I sat for a time not speaking, trying to fit his exotic tale into my mind. I could not doubt him; he had told me far too many other strange things in our years together. And yet, believing him made so many of my own experiences suddenly take on new shapes and significance. I tried to focus on what his tale meant to Bingtown and the Six Duchies now.

‘Do Chade and Kettricken know any of what you’ve told me?’

Slowly he shook his head. ‘At least, not from me. Perhaps Chade has other sources. But I’ve never spoken of this to him.’

‘Eda and El, why not? They treat with the Bingtowners blindly, Fool.’ A worse thought struck me. ‘Did you tell any of them about our dragons? Do the Bingtown Traders know the true nature of the Six Duchies dragons?’

Again he shook his head.

‘Thank Eda for that. But why haven’t you spoken of these things to Chade? Why have you concealed them from everyone?’

He sat looking at me silently for so long that I thought he would not answer. When he did speak, it was reluctantly. ‘I am the White Prophet. My purpose in this life is to set the world into a better path. Yet … I am not the Catalyst, not the one who makes changes. That is you, Fitz. Telling what I know to Chade would most definitely change the direction of his treating with the Bingtowners. I cannot tell if that change would aid me or hinder me in what I must do. I am, right now, more uncertain of my path than I have ever been.’

He stopped speaking and waited, as if he hoped I would say something helpful. I knew nothing to say. Silence stretched between us. The Fool folded his hands in his lap and looked down at them. ‘I think that I may have made a mistake. In Bingtown. And I fear that in my years in Bingtown and … other places, that I did not fulfil my destiny correctly. I fear I went awry, and that hence all I do now will be warped.’ He suddenly sighed. ‘Fitz, I feel my way forward through time. Not a step at a time, but from moment to moment. What feels truest? Up until now it has not felt right to speak of these things to Chade. So I have not. Today, now, it felt as if it was time you knew these things. So I have told them to you. To you, I have passed on the decision. To tell or not to tell, Changer. That is up to you.’

It felt odd to have Nighteyes’ name for me spoken aloud by a human voice. It prodded me uncomfortably. ‘Is this how you always have made these crucial decisions? By how you “feel”?’ My tone was sharper than I intended, but he did not flinch.

Instead he regarded me levelly and asked, ‘And how else would I do it?’

‘By your knowing. By omens and signs, portentous dreams, by your own prophecies … I don’t know. But something more than simply by how you feel. El’s balls, man, it could be no more than a bad serving of fish that you’re “feeling”.’ I lowered my face into my hands and pondered. He had passed the decision on to me. What would I do? It suddenly seemed a more difficult decision than when I had been rebuking the Fool for not telling. How would knowing these things affect Chade’s attitude towards Bingtown and a possible alliance? Real dragons. Was a share of a real dragon worth a war? What would it mean not to ally, if the Bingtowners prevailed, and then had a phalanx of dragons at their command? Tell Kettricken? Then there were the same questions, but very different answers were likely. A sigh blasted out of me. ‘Why did you give this decision to me?’

I felt his hand on my shoulder and looked up to find his odd half-smile. ‘Because you have handled it well before, when I’ve previously done it to you. Ever since I went hunting for a boy out in the gardens and told him, “Fitz fixes a feist’s fits. Fat suffices”.’

I goggled at him. ‘But you’d told me you’d had a dream, and so come to tell me it.’

He smiled enigmatically. ‘I did have a dream. And I wrote it down. When I was eight years old. And when the time felt right, I told it to you. And you knew what to do with it, to be my Catalyst, even then. As I trust you will now.’ He sat back in his chair.

‘I had no idea of what I was doing, then. No concept of how far the consequences would reach.’

‘And now that you do?’

‘I wish I didn’t. It makes it harder to decide.’

He leaned back in his chair with a supercilious smile. ‘See.’ Then he leaned forward suddenly. ‘How did you decide how to act back then, in the garden? On what you would do?’

I shook my head slowly. ‘I didn’t decide. There was a course of action and I took it. If anything decided me, it was based on what I thought would be best for the Six Duchies. I never thought beyond that.’

I turned my head an instant before the wine rack moved, revealing the passage behind it. Chade entered. He looked out of breath and harassed. His eyes fell on the brandy. Without a word, he walked to the table, lifted my glass and drained it. Then he took a breath and spoke. ‘I thought I might find you two hiding out here.’

‘Scarcely hiding,’ I objected. ‘We were having a quiet discussion where we were sure things would remain private.’ I got up from my chair and he sank into it gratefully. Evidently he had hastened up the secret steps into the tower.

‘Would that Kettricken and I had kept our audience with the Bingtown Traders similarly private. Folk are already talking and the kettle already simmering.’

‘About whether or not to ally with them and join their war with Chalced. Let me guess. Shoaks is willing to launch the warships tomorrow.’

‘Shoaks I could deal with,’ Chade replied irritably. ‘No. It’s more awkward than that. Scarcely had Kettricken returned to her chambers, scarcely had we begun to sort out between us what Bingtown is really asking and offering than a page knocked at the door. Peottre Blackwater and the Narcheska required an immediate meeting with us. Not requested: required.’ He paused to let us ponder that. ‘The message was conveyed most urgently. So, what could we do but comply? The Queen feared that the Narcheska had taken some new offence at something Dutiful had done or said. But when they were admitted to her private audience chamber, Peottre informed us that he and the Narcheska were most distressed that the Six Duchies was receiving the ambassadors from the Bingtown Traders. They both seemed extremely agitated. But the most interesting part was when Peottre declared firmly that if the Six Duchies entered into any sort of alliance with “those dragon-breeders”, he would terminate the entire betrothal.’

‘Peottre Blackwater and the Narcheska came to you about this, not Arkon Bloodblade?’ I clarified.

At almost the same moment, the Fool asked with intense interest, ‘Dragon-breeders? Blackwater called them “dragon-breeders”?’

Chade glanced from one to the other of us. ‘Bloodblade wasn’t there,’ he replied to me, and to the Fool, ‘Actually, it was the Narcheska who used that term.’

‘What did the Queen say?’ I asked.

Chade took in a long breath. ‘I had hoped she would say that we needed a moment to confer. But evidently Kettricken felt more short-tempered about the previous day’s humiliation of Prince Dutiful than I thought. Sometimes I forget she is a mother as well as a queen. She rather stiffly told the Narcheska and her uncle that the Six Duchies arrangements with the Bingtown Traders will be determined by the Six Duchies’ best interests, not by threats. From anyone.’

‘And?’

‘And they left the audience chamber. The Narcheska seemed in high dudgeon, walking stiff-backed as a soldier. Blackwater hunched like a man heavily burdened.’

‘They’re scheduled to return to the Outislands soon, aren’t they?’

Chade nodded heavily. ‘A few days from now. All of this happens just in time to leave everything out of balance. If the Queen does not return an answer to the Bingtowners soon, then when the Narcheska departs, the whole betrothal will be left in uncertainty. All of that work to solidify our relations gone to waste or worse. Yet I feel there must be no haste in returning an answer to the Bingtown Traders. This whole offer must be considered carefully. This talk of dragons … is this a threat? A mockery of our dragons? A wild offer to us, of something that doesn’t even exist, because they need our help so desperately? I need to make sense of that. I need to send spies and buy information. We dare not return an answer until we have our own sources of facts.’

The Fool and I exchanged a glance.

‘What?’ Chade demanded.

I took a deep breath and threw caution to the wind. ‘I need to speak with you and the Queen. And perhaps Dutiful should be present as well.’

TWELVE

Jek

I am no coward. I have always accepted the will of the god-born. More than a dozen times has my life been put at the feet of Duke Sidder, for the good of glorious Chalced. None of those risks do I regret. But when the most gracious and divinely just Duke Sidder finds fault with us for failing to hold Bingtown Harbour, he is unfortunately basing his judgement on the reports of men who were not there. Hence, our most gracious and divinely just duke cannot be faulted in any way for coming to flawed conclusions. Herewith, I endeavour to correct those reports.

Scribe Wertin wrote that ‘… a fleet of seasoned battleships was defeated and driven away by slaves and fishermen.’ This is not the case. Slaves and fishermen were, indeed, responsible for much treachery against our ships, done in secret and under cover of darkness rather than in true battle. But as our captains had not been given warning that the Bingtown Traders might have such organized forces at their disposal, why would we be expected to be on guard against them? I think the fault here lies not with our captains, but with those Bingtown emissaries, scribes and accountants, not warriors, who neglected to keep us well informed. Hanging is too kind for them. Many brave warriors died unworthy deaths due to their laxity in reporting.

Scribe Wertin also suggests that perhaps treasure was loaded from the warehouses before they were destroyed, and that individual captains kept it for themselves following our defeat. This is most emphatically not true. The warehouses, stuffed with the spoils our assiduous treasure collecting had gathered for you, were burned to the ground with all their contents by Bingtown fanatics. Why is this so hard for scribes to believe? There were also reports of Bingtown folk who killed their kinfolk and themselves rather than face our raiders. In consideration of our reputations, I think this can be taken as fact.

But Scribe Wertin’s gravest and most unjust error is his denial of the existence of the dragon. May I ask, most courteously and humbly, on what he bases this report? Every captain who returned to our shores reported sightings of a blue-and-silver dragon. Every captain. Why are their words dismissed as cowardly excuses, while the tales of a soft eunuch are heralded as truth? There was, indeed, a dragon. We took disastrous damage from it. Your scribe fatuously states that there is no proof of this, that the reports of the dragons are ‘the excuses of cowards for fleeing a certain victory, and perhaps a subterfuge for keeping treasure and tribute from Duke Sidder’. What proof, I ask, could be sought that is more telling than those hundreds of men who never returned home?

Captain Slyke’s rebuttal of his Execution Verdict, Chade Fallstar’s translation from the Chalcedean

It was hours later when I wearily climbed the stairs back to Lord Golden’s room. I had had a long audience with the Queen and Chade. Chade had declined to summon Prince Dutiful to attend it. ‘He knows that we know one another, you and I, of old. But I don’t think we would be wise to strengthen that connection in his mind. Not just yet.’

On reflection, I decided that perhaps I agreed with him. Chade was technically my great-uncle, though I had never related to him that way. Always he had been my mentor. Old as he was and scarred as I was, we still shared some family resemblance. Dutiful had already voiced his suspicions that I was related to him. Best that he did not see us together, and gain strength for any of his theories.

My session with Chade and the Queen had been long. Chade had never before had the opportunity to have both of us in the same room while he questioned us about the true nature of the Six Duchies dragons. He sipped one of his foul tisanes and took copious notes until his bony hand wearied. After that, he passed the pen to me and commanded me to write as we spoke. As ever, his questions were concise and thoughtful. What was new in his demeanour was his obvious enthusiasm and fervour. For him the wonder of the stone dragons, brought to life with blood, Skill and Wit, were a manifestation of the extended powers of the Skill. I saw hunger in his eyes, as he speculated that perhaps men seeking to avoid death’s cold jaws had first worked this magic.

Kettricken frowned at that. I surmised that she preferred to believe that the stone dragons had been created by Skill-coteries in the hope of serving the Six Duchies some day. She probably believed that the older dragons had likewise been carved for some loftier goal. When I countered this with the concept that a Skill-addiction led one to the creation, they both scowled at me.

I had been scowled at a great deal. My relaying of the information about the Bingtown dragons was treated first with scepticism, and then annoyance that I had not spoken sooner. Why I shielded the Fool from their disapproval, I could not have said. I did not lie directly; Chade had trained me too well for that. Instead, I let them think that he had told me his tales of Bingtown dragons when first he came to visit me. I took upon myself the responsibility that I had not passed the knowledge on to them. I shrugged, and said carelessly that I had not thought such tales could affect us here in Buckkeep. I did not have to add that it seemed a wild story to me then. Both of them were still teetering on whether they accepted it.

‘It puts our own dragons into a new light,’ Kettricken mused softly.

‘And makes the veiled man’s remarks a bit less offensive,’ I ventured to add.

‘Perhaps. Though I still feel affront that he dared to doubt our dragons were real.’

Chade cleared his throat. ‘We must let that pass, for now, my queen. Last year I came into possession of some papers that spoke of a dragon defending Bingtown from the Chalcedean fleet. It seemed but a wild battle tale to me, such as men often use to excuse defeat. I surmised that the rumours of our real dragons had led the Chalcedeans to pretend themselves defeated by a Bingtown dragon rather than simple strategy. Perhaps I should have heeded it; I will see what other information I can purchase. But for now, let us consider our own resources.’ He cleared his throat and stared at me as if he suspected me of withholding vital information. ‘The buried cities the Fool told you about … could they be related to the abandoned city that you visited?’ Chade pushed the question in as if it were more important than the Queen’s comment about affront.

I shrugged. ‘I have no way of knowing. The city I visited was not buried. Some great cataclysm had riven it, true. It was like a cake chopped with an axe. And the water of the river had flowed in to fill the chasm.’

‘What cracks the earth in one city could have precipitated a sinking of the ground in another,’ Chade speculated aloud.

‘Or wakened a mountain to wrath,’ Kettricken put in. ‘We have many such tales in the Mountain Kingdom. The earth quakes, and one of the fire mountains awakes to pour forth lava and ash, sometimes darkening the sky and filling the air with choking smoke. Sometimes it is only a slurry of water and muck and stones that cascade down, filling valleys to the brim and spreading out across plains. There are also tales, not that old, of a town in a valley near a deep lake. The day before the earthquake, all was well there. It bustled with life. Travellers arriving there two days after the quake found folk dead in the street, yes, and their beasts beside them. None of the bodies bore any marks. It was as if they had simply dropped where they stood.’

A silence had followed her words. Then Chade had made me recite yet again all the Fool had told me of the Bingtown dragons. He had asked me a number of questions about the Six Duchies dragons, most of which I did not know the answers to. Could there be serpent-born dragons among the dragons I woke? If Bingtown’s serpent-born dragons rose against the Six Duchies, did I think our own dragons could be persuaded to rise and protect us again? Or would they side with their scaly kin? And speaking of scales, what of the lizardish boy? Did the Fool know aught of people of that kind?

When finally they dismissed me so that they might deliberate together, I felt sure that several meals must have passed me by. I left Kettricken’s private chambers by secret ways, emerged from my own room to find Lord Golden absent from his chambers, and went down to scavenge the kitchens for whatever I could find. The bustle and clatter was intense, and I found myself firmly refused entrance. I retreated, and then made a foray into the guardsmen’s hall, where I secured bread, meat, cheese and ale, which were all I really needed to content my soul anyway.

As I climbed the stairs, I was wondering if I could steal a moment or two of sleep while Lord Golden and the rest of the Buckkeep nobility were at dinner with the Bingtown contingent. I knew I should dress and descend, to stand at his shoulder and watch how the evening proceeded, but I felt I had already taken in as much information as my mind could hold. I had passed on the information to Kettricken and Chade; let them deal with it. My dilemma with Hap still impaled my heart. I could think of no course of action that would better it.

Sleep, I told myself firmly. Sleep would shield me for a time from all of it, and upon waking perhaps some aspect of it would have come clear.

I tapped at Lord Golden’s chamber door and entered. As I did so, a young woman stood up from one of the hearthside chairs. I glanced about the room, assuming that Lord Golden must have admitted her, but saw no sign of him. Perhaps he was in one of his other chambers, though it seemed unlike him to leave a guest unattended. Nor did I see food or wine set out, as he certainly would have done.

She was a striking woman. It was not just her extravagant garb; it was the sheer scale of her. She was at least my height, with long blonde hair and light brown eyes, and a warrior’s muscling in her arms and shoulders. Her clothing was chosen to emphasize that last feature. Her black boots came to her knees, and she wore leggings rather than skirts. Her shirt was of ivory linen, and her fancifully decorated vest of soft doeskin. The sleeves of the shirt were pleated, and there was lace at the cuff, but not enough to get in her way. The cut of the garments was simple, but the extravagance of the fabrics was only exceeded by the embroidery that graced them. She wore several earrings in each ear, some of wood and some of gold. In the spiralling wooden ones, I recognized the Fool’s handiwork. There was gold at her throat and on her wrists as well, but it was simple gold, and I would wager she wore it more for her own pleasure than for show. She bore a plain sword on one hip, and a practical knife on the other.

In the first moment of mutual surprise, her gaze met mine. Then her stare wandered over me in a way that was overly familiar. When her eyes came back to mine, she grinned disarmingly. Her teeth were very white.

‘You must be Lord Golden.’ She extended a hand to me as she strode towards me. Despite her foreign dress, her accent was Shoaks Duchy. ‘I’m Jek. Perhaps Amber has spoken of me.’

I took her hand by reflex. ‘I’m sorry, my lady, but you are mistaken. I am Lord Golden’s serving-man, Tom Badgerlock.’ Her grip was firm, her hand callused and strong. ‘I am sorry I was not here to admit you when you first arrived. I had not realized Lord Golden was expecting a visitor. May I bring you anything?’

She gave a shrug and released my hand as she walked back to the chair. ‘Lord Golden isn’t exactly expecting me. I came looking for him and a servant directed me here. I knocked, no answer, so I came in to wait.’ She seated herself, crossed her legs at the knee and then asked with a knowing grin, ‘So. How is Amber?’

Something was not right here. I glanced at the other closed doors. ‘I know no one named Amber. How did you get in?’ I stood between her and the door. She looked formidable, but her clothing and hair were unruffled. If she had done any damage to the Fool, she’d likely show some signs of a struggle. Nor was anything in the room awry.

‘I opened the door and walked in. It wasn’t locked.’

‘That door is always locked.’ I tried to make my contradiction pleasant, but I was becoming more and more worried.

‘Well, it wasn’t today, Tom, and I have important business with Lord Golden. As I am well known to him, I doubt he would mind me entering his rooms. I’ve conducted a lot of business on his behalf in the last year or so, with Amber as the go-between.’ She tilted her head and rolled her eyes at me. ‘And I don’t believe for a minute that you don’t know Amber.’ She cocked her head the other way and stared at me discriminatingly. Then she grinned. ‘You know, I like you better with brown eyes. Much more becoming than the blue ones Paragon has.’ As I stared at her in consternation, her grin grew wider. It was like being stalked by a large, overly-friendly cat. I sensed no animosity from her. Rather it was as if she suppressed mirth and deliberately strove to make me uncomfortable, but in a friendly, teasing way. I could make no sense of her. I tried to decide if it would be better to eject her from the room or detain her here until Lord Golden returned. More and more, I longed to open the door to his bedchamber and privy, to be sure that no treachery had befallen him in my absence.

With sudden relief, I heard his key in the lock. I strode to the door, and opened it for him, proclaiming before he stepped in, ‘Lord Golden, a visitor awaits you. A Lady Jek. She says this is a –’

Before I could get any further in my warning speech, he pushed past me in a most uncharacteristic hurry. He shut the door behind him as if Lady Jek were a puppy that might race out into the corridor, and latched it before he turned towards her. His face was as pale as I’d seen it in years as he confronted his unexpected guest.

‘Lord Golden?’ Jek exclaimed. For a long moment she stared. Then she burst into hearty laughter, pounding a doubled fist against her thigh. ‘But, of course. Lord Golden! How could I not have guessed? I should have seen through it from the start!’ She advanced on him, completely confident of a warm welcome, to hug him heartily and then step back. As she gripped him by the shoulders, her delighted gaze wandered over his face and hair. To me, he looked dazed, but her grin didn’t fade. ‘It’s marvellous. If I didn’t know, I never would have guessed. But I don’t understand. Why is this ruse necessary? Doesn’t it make it difficult for the two of you to be together?’ She glanced from him to me, and it was apparent the question was addressed to both of us. Her implication was obvious, although I could not fathom her reference to a ‘ruse’. I felt the rush of heat and colour to my face. I waited for Lord Golden to make some clarifying remark to her but he held his silence. The look I wore must have shocked her, for she turned her gaze back to Lord Golden. She spoke uncertainly. ‘Amber, my friend. Aren’t you glad to see me?’

Lord Golden’s face seemed immobilized. His jaws moved and then he finally spoke. His voice was low and calm but still seemed somewhat breathless. ‘Tom Badgerlock, I have no further need of your services today. You are dismissed.’

Never had it been harder for me to remain in my role, but I sensed desperation in his retreat into formality, so I clenched my teeth and bowed stiffly, containing my seething affront at Jek’s obvious assumption about us. My own voice was icy as I answered him.

‘As you will, my lord. I will take the opportunity to rest.’ I turned and retreated to my own chamber. As I passed the table, I took a candle. I opened my door, went into my room and shut the door behind me. Almost.

I am not proud of what I did next. Shall I blame it on Chade’s early training of me? I could, but that would not be honest. I burned with indignation. Jek obviously believed Lord Golden and I were lovers. He had not bothered to correct her misconception; her words and manner told me that he was the source of it. To some end of his own, he allowed her to continue in that belief.

It was the way Jek had looked at me, as if she knew far more about me than I knew of her. Obviously, she knew Lord Golden, but from another place and by another name. I was sure I had never seen her before. So, whatever she knew of me, she knew from the Fool. I justified my spying on the grounds that I had the right to know what he had said about me to strangers. Especially when it made a stranger look from him to me and smile in a way so knowing and so offensive. What things had he said about me to her, to make her assume such a thing? Why? Why would he? Outrage struggled to blossom in me, but I suppressed it. There would be a reason, some driving purpose behind such talk. There had to be. I would trust my friend, but I had a right to know what it was. I set the candle on my table, sat down on my bed and gripped my hands in my lap, forcing myself to discard all emotion. And no matter how distasteful my situation, I would be rational in my judgement. I listened. Their conversation came faintly to my straining ears.

‘What are you doing here? Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?’ There was more than surprise or annoyance in the Fool’s voice. It was almost despair.

‘How could I let you know?’ Jek demanded cheerfully. ‘The Chalcedeans keep sinking all the ships that head this way. From the few letters I’ve received from you, it’s obvious that half my own have gone awry.’ Then, ‘So, admit it. You are Lord Golden?’

‘Yes.’ He sounded exasperated. ‘And it is the only name I am known by in Buckkeep. So I would thank you to bear that in mind at all times.’

‘But you told me that you went to visit your old friend, Lord Golden, and that all my correspondence to you must be sent through him. And what of all the transactions I’ve made in Bingtown and Jamaillia? All the inquiries I’ve made and the information I’ve sent you? Were all of those actually for you, as well?’

He spoke tightly. ‘If you must know, yes.’ And then, pleading, ‘Jek, you look at me as if I’ve betrayed you. I haven’t. You are my friend, and I was not pleased to deceive you. But it was necessary. This ruse, as you put it, all of this, is necessary. And I cannot explain why to you, nor can I tell you the whole of it. I can only repeat to you, it is necessary. You hold my life in your hands. Tell this tale in a tavern some night, and you might as well have slit my throat now.’

I heard the sound of Jek’s body dropping into a chair. When she spoke, there was a trace of hurt in her voice. ‘You deceived me. And now you insult me. After all we’ve been through, do you really doubt my ability to hold my tongue?’

‘I did not set out to do either,’ said someone. And the hair on the back of my neck rose, for the voice was neither Lord Golden’s nor the Fool’s. This voice was lighter and devoid of any Jamaillian accent. Amber’s voice, I surmised. Yet another façade for the person I thought I knew. ‘It is just … you have taken me by surprise, and frightened me badly. I entered this room and there you were, grinning as if it were a fine joke, when actually you … Ah, Jek, I cannot explain it. I simply must trust to our friendship, and to all we have been through together, all we have been to one another. You have stumbled into my play, and now I fear you must take up a role in it. For the duration of your visit, you must speak to me as if I am truly Lord Golden, and as if you are my agent in Bingtown and Jamaillia.’

‘That’s easy enough for me to do, for such I have been. And you speak truly when you say we are friends. It hurts me still that you thought any of this deception was needed between us. Still, I suppose I can forgive it. But I wish I understood it. When your man, this … Tom Badgerlock, when he came in and I recognized his face, I was filled with joy for you. I watched you carve that figurehead. Don’t deny to me what you feel for him. “They are reunited at last,” I thought to myself. But then you bark at him and send him off as if he were a servant … Lord Golden’s serving-man, in fact, is what he told me he was. Why the masquerade, when it must be so difficult for both of you?’

A long silence followed. I heard no sound of footsteps, but I recognized the chink of a bottle’s neck against a glass’s lip. I guessed that he poured wine for both of them as Jek and I awaited his answer.

‘It is difficult for me,’ the Fool replied in Amber’s voice. ‘It is not so difficult for him, because he knows little of it. There. Fool that I am and have been, truly, to have ever let that secret have breath to anyone, let alone shape. Such a monstrous vanity on my part.’

‘Monstrous? Immense! You carved a ship’s figurehead in his likeness, and hoped no one would ever guess what he meant to you? Ah, my friend. You manage everyone’s lives and secrets so well and then when it comes to your own … Well. And he doesn’t even know that you love him?’

‘I think he chooses not to. Perhaps he suspects … well, after chatting with you, I am certain that he suspects now. But he leaves it alone. He is like that.’

‘Then he’s a damned fool. A handsome damned fool, though. Despite the broken nose. I’ll wager he was even prettier before that happened. Who spoiled his face?’

A small sound, a little cough of laughter. ‘My dear Jek, you’ve seen him. No one could spoil his face. Not for me.’ A pretty little sigh. ‘But come. I’d rather not talk of it, if you don’t mind. Tell me of other things. How is Paragon?’

‘Paragon. The ship or the pirate princeling?’

‘Both. Please.’

‘Well, of the heir to the Pirate Islands throne, I know little more than what is common gossip. He’s a lively, lusty boy, the image of King Kennit, and his mother’s delight. The whole Raven fleet’s delight and darling, actually. That’s his middle name, you know. Prince Paragon Raven Ludluck.’

‘And the ship?’

‘Moody as ever. But in a different way. It’s not that dangerous melancholy he used to sink into, more like the angst of a young man who fancies himself a poet. For that reason, I find it much more annoying to be around him when he’s moping. Of course, it’s not entirely his fault. Althea’s pregnant, and the ship obsesses about the child.’

‘Althea’s pregnant?’

This ‘Amber’ took a woman’s delight in such tidings.

‘Yes,’ Jek confirmed. ‘And she’s absolutely furious about it, despite Brashen walking on air and choosing a new name for the child every other day. In fact, I think that’s half of why she’s so irritable. They were wed in the Rain Wild Traders Concourse … I wrote to you about that, didn’t I? I think it was more to placate Malta, who seemed humiliated by her sister’s cavalier attitude towards her arrangement with Brashen than for any desire on Althea’s part to be married. And now she’s with child, and puking her guts up every dawn, and spitting at Brashen whenever he gets solicitous.’

‘She must have known that eventually she’d get with child?’

‘I doubt it. They’re slow to conceive, those Traders, and half the time they can’t carry the calf to term. Her sister Malta’s lost two already. I think that’s part of Althea’s anger; that if she knew she’d have a baby to show for all the puking and cramps, she might accept it gracefully, even welcome it. But her mother wants her to come home to have it, and the ship insists the babe will be born on his decks and Brashen would let her give birth in a tree, so long as he had a baby to dandle and brag over afterwards. The constant stream of advice and suggestions just leaves her spitting mad. That’s what I told Brashen. “Just stop talking to her about it,” I said to him. “Pretend you don’t notice and treat her as you always have.” And he said, “How am I to do that, when I’m watching her belly rub the lines when she tries to run the rigging?” But of course, she was just around the corner when he said that, and she overheard, and like to burn his ears off with the names she called him.’

And so they went on, gossiping together like goodwives at a market. They discussed who was pregnant, and who was not but wished to be, doings at the Jamaillian harbours and courts, politics of the Pirate Islands and Bingtown’s war with Chalced. If I had not known who was in the other room, I would not have guessed. Amber bore no resemblance to Lord Golden or the Fool. The change was that complete.

And that was the second thing that scalded me that evening. Not just that he had spoken of me to strangers, in such detail that Jek could recognize me and believe I was his lover, but that there still remained a life or lives of his about which I had no knowledge. Strange, how being left out of a secret always feels like a betrayal of trust.

I sat alone by the light of my candle and wondered who, in truth, the Fool was. I scraped together in a small heap all the tiny hints and clues that I had gathered over the years and considered them. I’d put my life in his hands any number of times. He’d read all my journals, demanded a full report of all my travels, and I’d given such to him. And what had he offered to me in return? Riddles and mysteries and bits of himself.

And like cooling tar, my feelings for the Fool hardened as they grew colder. The injury grew in me as I thought about it. He had excluded me. The heart knows but one reaction to that. I would now exclude him. I stood and then walked to the door of my room. I shut it completely, not loudly, but not caring if he noticed that it had been ajar. I triggered the secret door, then crossed the room to open it and entered the spy labyrinth. I wished that I could close that door and leave that part of my life behind me. I tried. I walked away from it.

There are few things so tender as a man’s dignity. The affront I felt was a thing both painful and angry, a weight that grew in my chest as I climbed the stairs. I fingered all my grievances, numbering them to myself.

How dared he put me in this position? He had compromised his own reputation when we visited Galekeep in search of Prince Dutiful. He had kissed young Civil Bresinga, deliberately setting off a social flap that misled Lady Bresinga as to the purpose of our visit at the same time that it got us expelled from her home. Even now, Civil avoided him with distaste, and I knew that his act had inspired a squall of excited gossip and speculation about his personal preferences at Buckkeep. I thought I had managed to hold myself aloof from those rumours. Now I reconsidered. There had been Prince Dutiful’s question. And suddenly my confrontation with the guardsmen in the steams took on a new connotation. Blood burned my face. Would Jek, despite her assurances of a still tongue, become a source of even more humiliating talk? According to her words, the Fool had carved my countenance onto a ship’s figurehead. I felt violated that he would do such a thing without my consent. And what had he said to folk while he was carving it, to lead to Jek’s assumption?

I could not fit what he had done with either what I knew of the Fool or what I knew of Lord Golden. It was the act of this Amber, a person I knew not at all.

Hence I did not truly know him at all. And never had.

And with that, I unwillingly knew I had worked my way down to the deepest source of my injury. To discover that the truest friend I had ever had was actually a stranger was like a knife in my heart. He was another abandonment, a missed step in the dark, and a false promise of warmth and companionship. I shook my head to myself. ‘Idiot,’ I said quietly. ‘You are alone. Best get used to it.’ But without thinking, I reached towards where there had once been comfort.

And in the next instant, I missed Nighteyes with a terrible physical clenching in my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut, and then walked two more steps and sat down on the little bench outside the spyhole to the Narcheska’s apartments. I blinked, denying the stinging boy’s tears that clung to my eyelashes. Alone. It always came back to alone. It was like a contagion that had clung to me since my mother had lacked the courage to defy her father and keep me, and since my father had abandoned his crown and holdings rather than own up to me.

I leaned my forehead against the cold stone, forcing control onto myself. I steadied my breathing, and then became aware of faint voices through the wall. I sighed deeply. Then, as much to retreat from my own life as for any other reason, I set my eye to the spyhole and listened.

The Narcheska sat on a low stool in the middle of the room. She was weeping silently, clasping her elbows and rocking back and forth. Tears had tracked down her face and dripped from her chin and they still squeezed out from her closed eyes. A wet blanket shawled her shoulders. She held herself in such silence amidst her pain that I wondered if she had just endured some punishment from her father or Peottre.

But even as I wondered, Peottre came hurrying into the room. A tight little whimper burst from her at the sight of him. His jaw was clenched and at the sound, his face went tighter and whiter. He carried his cloak, but it was bundled to serve as a sack. He hurried to Elliania’s side and set the laden cloak on the floor before her. Kneeling, he took her by the shoulders to get her attention. ‘Which one is it?’ he asked her in a low voice.

She gasped in a breath, and spoke with an effort. ‘The green serpent. I think.’ Another breath. ‘I cannot tell. When he burns, he burns so hot that the others seem to burn, too.’ And then she lifted her hand to her mouth and bit down on the meat on her thumb. Hard.

‘No!’ Peottre exclaimed. He caught up the dripping hem of the blanket, folded it twice, and offered it to her. He had to shake her hand free of her jaws. Then, eyes closed, she clamped her teeth on the blanket edge. I saw the clearly demarcated prints of her teeth on her hand as it fell away to her side. ‘I am sorry I took so long. I had to go secretly, so no one would notice what I did and ask questions. And I wanted it fresh and clean. Come, turn this way, into the light,’ he told her. Taking her by the shoulders, he turned her so that her back was towards me. She let the wet blanket fall from her shoulders.

She was stripped to the waist above doeskin trousers. From shoulder to waist, she was tattooed. That was shocking enough to me, but the markings were like none I had ever seen. I knew that the Outislanders tattooed themselves, to show clan and claim victories and even to show the status of a woman, with marks for marriages and for children. But those were like the clan tattoo on Peottre’s brow, a simple pattern of blue marks.

Elliania’s tattoos were nothing like that. I’d never seen anything to compare to them. They were beautiful, the colours brilliant, the designs sharp and clear. The colours had a sparkling metallic quality to them, reflecting the lamplight like a polished blade. The creatures that sprawled and twined on her shoulders and spine and down her ribs gleamed and glistened. And one, an exquisite green serpent that began at the nape of her neck and meandered down her back amongst the others, stood out puffily, like a fresh burn blister. It was oddly lovely, for it gave the impression that the creature was trapped just below her skin, like a butterfly trying to break free from its chrysalis. At the sight of it, Peottre gave a sharp exclamation of sympathy. He opened the bundled cloak at his feet to reveal a mound of fresh, white snow. Cupping a handful of it, he held it to the serpent’s head. To my horror, I heard a sizzling like a quenched blade. The snow melted immediately, to run down her spine in a narrow rivulet. Elliania cried out at the touch, but it was a cry of both shock and relief.

‘Here,’ Peottre said gruffly. ‘A moment.’ He spread his cloak out and then pushed the snow out into an even layer on it. ‘Lie down here,’ he instructed her, and helped her from the stool. He eased her back onto the bed of snow and she whimpered as it quenched the burning. I could see her face now, and the sweat that ran from her brow as well as the tears that still flowed down her face. She lay still, eyes closed, her new breasts rising and falling with each ragged breath she took. After a few moments, she began to shiver, but she did not roll away. Peottre had taken the discarded blanket and was wetting it fresh with water from a pitcher. He brought it back to her and set it by her side. ‘I’m going out for more snow,’ he told her. ‘If that melts and stops soothing your back, try this blanket. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

She unclenched her jaws and wet her lips. ‘Hurry,’ she pleaded in a gasp.

‘I will, little one. I will.’ He stood up, and then said gravely, each word solemn, ‘Our mothers bless you for what you endure. Damn these Farseers and their stiff-necked ways. And damn those dragon-breeders.’

The Narcheska rolled her head back and forth on the snow bed. ‘I just … I just wish I knew what she wanted. What she expected me to do about it, past what we have done.’

Peottre had begun moving about the room, looking for something to carry snow in. He had picked up the Narcheska’s cloak. ‘We both know what she expects,’ he said harshly.

‘I am not a woman yet,’ she said quietly. ‘It is against the mothers’ law.’

‘It is against my law,’ Peottre clarified, as if his will was the only one that mattered in this. ‘I will not see you used that way. There must be another path.’ Unwillingly, he asked, ‘Has Henja come to you? Has she said why you are tormented like this?’

Her nod was a jerk of her head. ‘She insists I must bind him to me. Open my legs to him to be sure of him before I leave. It is the only path she believes in.’ Elliania spoke through gritted teeth. ‘I slapped her and she left. And then the pain became fourfold.’

Anger froze his features. ‘Where is she?’

‘She is not here. She took her cloak and left. Perhaps it is to avoid your temper, but I think she has gone into the town again, to further her cause there.’ Elliania’s teeth clenched in a smile. ‘Just as well. Our position here is difficult enough without having to explain why you’ve killed my maid in a fury.’

I think her words recalled him to practicality, even if they did not calm him.

‘It is well that slut is out of my reach. But aren’t you a bit late to counsel me to restraint? My little warrior, you have inherited your uncle’s temper. Your act was not wise, but I cannot find it in me to rebuke you for it. That empty-souled whore. She truly believes that is the only way a man can be bound to a woman.’

Unbelievably, the Narcheska gave a small laugh. ‘It is the only one she believes in, Uncle. I did not say it was the only one I knew. Pride may bind a man, even where there is no love. That is the thought I cling to now.’ Then her brow clenched in pain. ‘Fetch more snow, please,’ she gasped, and he nodded sharply and went out.

I watched him go. Then she sat up slowly. She scraped the melting snow into a narrower pallet. The tattoos on her back stood out as glowingly as ever. Around them, her bared flesh was bright red from cold. Gingerly she lay back down on her snow couch. She took a breath and lifted the backs of her hands to her brows. I recalled that one scroll had said that was how Outislanders prayed. But the only words she said were, ‘My Mother. My Sister. For you. My Mother. My Sister. For you.’ It soon became a toneless chant in time with her breathing.

I sat back on my stool. I was trembling, as much with awe at her courage as pity for what she suffered. I wondered what I had just witnessed and what was the significance of it. My candle had burned down to half its length. I took it up and slowly climbed the rest of the stairs to Chade’s tower room. I was exhausted and downhearted and sought familiar comfort somewhere. But when I reached there, the room was empty and the fire gone out. A sticky wine glass stood empty on the table by the chairs. I cleaned the ashes from the hearth, muttering to myself at Thick’s neglect of his duties, and built a fresh fire.

Then I took paper and ink and wrote down what I had witnessed. I coupled it to the previous interplay I had witnessed between Elliania, Peottre and the serving-woman Henja. Plainly the last one was a woman to be watched. I sanded the fresh ink, tapped it off and left the paper on Chade’s chair. I hoped he would come up to the rooms tonight. I reflected again, bitterly, on the stupidity that he refused to let me have a way of contacting him directly. I knew what I had witnessed was important; I hoped he would know why.

Then I reluctantly went back down the stairs to my own chamber. There I stood for a time, in silence, listening. I heard nothing. If Jek and Lord Golden were still there, they were either sitting silently or they were in his bedchamber. After what she had implied about me, that did not seem likely. After a time, I eased the door open a crack. The room was darkened, the fire banked on the hearth. Good. I had no wish to confront either of them just now. I had, I decided, words to say to both of them, but I was not yet calm enough to say them.

Instead I took my cloak from its hook and left Lord Golden’s chamber. I would go out, I decided. I needed to be away from the castle for a time, away from all the interconnecting webs of intrigue and deceit. I felt I was drowning in lies.

I made my way down the stairs and towards the servants’ entrance. But as I walked down the main hall, I felt a sudden shiver in the Wit. I lifted my eyes. Coming towards me from the opposite end of the hall was the veiled Bingtown youth. His veil was over his face, but through the lace that obscured his features I caught the faint blue glow of his eyes. It tightened the flesh on the nape of my neck. I wanted to turn aside, or even turn around and walk away, anything to avoid him. But such an action would have looked very strange. I steeled myself and resolutely walked towards him. I averted my eyes, but then when I dared to glance up at him, I felt his gaze on me. He slowed as we approached one another. When he was very close, I bobbed my head, a servant’s gesture of acknowledgement. But before I could pass him, he stopped and stood still. ‘Hello,’ he greeted me.

I stiffened and became a correct Buckkeep servant. I bowed from the waist. ‘Good evening, sir. May I be of service?’

‘I … Yes … Perhaps you could.’ He lifted his veil and pushed back his hood as he spoke, baring his scaled face. I could not help but gawk at him. Up close, his visage was even more remarkable than what I had glimpsed earlier. I had over-estimated his age. He was years younger than Hap or Dutiful, though I could not guess his exact age. His height made his boyish face incongruous. The silvery gleam in the scaling on his cheekbones and brow reminded me of the Narcheska’s glimmering tattoos. Abruptly, I recognized that this scaling was what the Jamaillian make-up Lord Golden sometimes wore mimicked. It was an odd little insight, one I stored away with all the other significant things that the Fool had never bothered to explain to me. Doubtless, when it suited his purpose, he would reveal it to me. Doubtless. Bitterness welled in me like blood from a fresh wound. But the Bingtowner was beckoning me closer, even as he backed away from me. I followed him unwillingly. He glanced into a small sitting room and then gestured me into it. He was making me nervous. I repeated my question like a good servant. ‘How may I be of service?’

‘I … that is … I feel as if I should know you.’ He peered at me closely. When I only stared at him as if puzzled, he tried again. ‘Do you understand what I speak about?’ He seemed to be trying to help me begin a conversation.

‘I beg your pardon, sir? You are in need of help?’ It was all I could think of to say.

He glanced over his shoulder and then spoke to me more urgently. ‘I serve the dragon Tintaglia. I am here with the ambassadors from Bingtown and the representatives from the Rain Wild. They are my people, and my kin. But I serve the dragon Tintaglia, and her concerns are my first ones.’ He spoke the words as if they should convey some deep message to me.

I hoped that what I felt did not show on my face. It was confusion, not at his strange words, but at the odd feeling that rang through me at that name. Tintaglia. I had heard the name before, but when he spoke it, it was the sharp tip of a dream breaking through into the waking world. I felt again the sweep of wind under my wings, tasted dawn’s soft fogs in my mouth. Then that blink of memory was gone, and left behind only the uncomfortable feeling of having been someone other than myself for a sliced instant of my life. I said the only words I could think of. ‘Sir? And how can I assist you?’

He stared at me intently, and I’m afraid I returned that scrutiny. The dangles along his jawline were serrated tissue. The fleshy fringe was too regular to be a scar or unnatural growth. It looked as if it belonged there as rightfully as his nose or lips. He sighed, and as he did so, I clearly saw him close his nostrils for a moment. He evidently decided to begin anew, for he smiled at me and asked gently, ‘Have you ever dreamed of dragons? Of flying like a dragon or of … being a dragon?’

That was too close a hit. I nodded eagerly, a servant flattered at conversing with his betters. ‘Oh, haven’t we all, sir? We Six Duchies folk, I mean. I’m old enough to have seen the dragons that came to defend the Six Duchies, sir. I suppose it’s natural that I’ve dreamed of them, sometimes. Magnificent they were, sir. Terrifying and dangerous, too, but that’s not what stays with a man who has seen them. It’s their greatness that stays in my mind, sir.’

He smiled at me. ‘Exactly. Magnificence. Greatness. Perhaps that is what I sensed in you.’ He peered at me, and I felt the bluish gleam in his eyes was more probing than the eyes themselves. I tried to retreat from that scrutiny.

I glanced aside from him. ‘I’m not alone in that, sir. There are many in the Six Duchies who saw our dragons on the wing. And some that saw far more than I did, for I lived far from Buckkeep then, out on my father’s farm. We grew oats, there. Grew oats and raised pigs. Others could tell you far better tales than I could. Yet even a single glimpse of the dragons were enough to set a man’s soul on fire. Sir.’

He made a small dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘I don’t doubt that they were. But I speak of another thing, now. I speak of real dragons. Dragons that breathe, that eat and grow and breed just as any other creature does. Have you ever dreamed of a dragon like that? One named Tintaglia?’

I shook my head at him. ‘I don’t dream much, sir.’ I left a little pause there and let it grow just long enough to be slightly uncomfortable. Then I bobbed a bow to him again and asked, ‘And how can I be of service to you, sir?’

He stared past me for so long that I thought he had forgotten me entirely. I thought of simply leaving him there and slipping away, except that I seemed to feel something in the air. Does magic hum? No, that is not quite the way of it, but it is a similar wordless vibration that one feels, not with the body but with that part of a man that does magic or receives it. The Wit whispers and the Skill sings. This was something like to both of them, and yet its own. It crept along my nerves and stood up the hair on the back of my neck. Suddenly his eyes snapped back to me. ‘She says you are lying,’ he accused me.

‘Sir!’ I was as affronted as I could manage for the terror I felt. Something groped at me angrily. I felt as if swiping claws passed through me. Some instinct warned me to leave my Skill-walls as they stood, that any effort to reinforce them now would only display me to her. For it was unmistakably a ‘she’ that sought to seize me. I took a breath. I was a servant, I reminded myself. Yet any servant of Buckkeep would have taken righteous offence at such words from a foreigner. I stood a bit straighter. ‘Our queen keeps a good cellar, sir, as all in the Six Duchies know. Perhaps it has been too good a cellar for your sensibilities. It is known to happen to foreigners here. Perhaps you should retire to your chamber for a time.’

‘You have to help us. You have to make them help us.’ He did not seem to hear my words. Desperation tinged his own. ‘She is stricken to the heart over this. Day after day, she strives to feed them but there is only one of her. She cannot feed so many, and they cannot hunt for themselves. She herself grows thin and weary with the task. She despairs that they will ever grow to proper size and strength. Do not doom her to being the last of her kind. If these Six Duchies dragons of yours are any kind of true dragons, then they will come to her aid. In any case, the least you can do is persuade your queen that she must ally with us. Help us put an end to the Chalcedean threat. Tintaglia is true to her word; she keeps their ships out of the Rain Wild River, but she can do no more than that. She dares not range further to protect us, for then the young dragons would die. Please, sir! If you have a heart in you, speak to your queen. Do not let dragons pass away from this world because men could not stop their bitter squabbling long enough to aid them.’

He stepped forward and tried to catch at my hand. I hastily retreated from him. ‘Sir, I fear you have taken too much to drink. You have mistaken me for someone of influence. I am not. I am but a servant here in Buckkeep Castle. And now I must be about my master’s errands for me. Good evening, sir. Good evening.’

And as he stared after me, I backed hastily from the room, bobbing and bowing as if my head were on a string. Once I was in the hall, I turned and strode hastily away. I know he came to the doorway and looked after me, for I felt his blue gaze on my back. I was glad to turn the corner to the kitchen wing, and gladder still to put a door between him and me.

Outside it was snowing, huge white flakes wafting down with the nightfall. I left the keep, barely nodding to the guards on duty at the gate, and began the long walk down to town. I had no set destination in mind, only a desire to be away from the castle. I hiked down through the gathering darkness and thickening snowfall. I had too much to think about: Elliania’s tattoos and what they meant, the Fool and Jek and what she believed of me because of something he had said, dragons and boys with scales and what Chade and Kettricken would say to the Bingtowners and to the Outislanders. Yet the closer I came to town, the more Hap pushed into my mind. I was failing the boy I considered my son. No matter how serious the events up at Buckkeep Castle were, I couldn’t let them displace him. I tried to think how I could turn him around, make him return to his apprenticeship with a willing heart and eager hands, make him set aside Svanja until he could make an honest offer for her hand, make him take up residence with his master … make him live a tidy life, abiding by all the rules that could keep him safe but never ensure him success or happiness.

I thrust that last traitor thought aside. It angered me and I turned the anger on my boy. I should do as Jinna had suggested. I should take a firm line with him, punish him for disobeying my wishes for him. Take away both money and security until he agreed to do as I wished. Turn him out of Jinna’s and tell him he must live with his master or fend for himself. Force him to toe the line. I scowled to myself. Oh, yes, that would have worked so well on me at that age. Yet something must be done. Somehow, I had to make him see sense.

My thoughts were interrupted by the hoofbeats of a horse on the road behind me. Instantly, Laurel’s warning leapt foremost in my mind. I moved to one side as the horse and rider came abreast of me and set my hand lightly to my knife. I expected them to pass me without comment. It wasn’t until the horse was reined in that I recognized Starling in the saddle. For a moment, she just looked down on me. Then she smiled. ‘Get up behind me, Fitz. I’ll give you a ride down to Buckkeep Town.’

The heart will flee anywhere when it is seeking comfort. I knew that and kept a rein on mine. ‘Thank you, but no. This road can be treacherous in the dark. You’d be risking your horse.’

‘Then I’ll lead him and walk beside you. It has been so long since we talked, and I could use a friendly ear tonight.’

‘I think I would prefer to be alone tonight, Starling.’

She was silent for a moment. The horse jigged restlessly and she pulled him in too tightly. When she spoke, she did not hide her irritation. ‘Tonight? Why do you say tonight when you mean, “I’d always prefer to be alone rather than with you”? Why do you make excuses? Why don’t you just say that you haven’t forgiven me, that you’ll never forgive me?’

It was true. I hadn’t. But that would have been a stupid thing to tell her. ‘Can’t we just let it go? It doesn’t matter any more,’ I said, and that was true as well.

She snorted. ‘Ah. I see. It doesn’t matter. I don’t matter. I make one mistake, I fail to tell you one thing that doesn’t really concern you at all, and you decide you can not only never forgive me, but that you will never speak to me again?’ Her fury was building in an astounding way. I stood looking up at her as she ranted. The failing light touched her face indistinctly. She looked older and wearier than I had ever seen her. And angrier. I stood stunned in the flow of her wrath. ‘And why is that, I ask myself? Why does “Tom Badgerlock” dispose of me so easily? Because perhaps I never mattered at all to you, save for one thing. One convenient little thing that I brought right to your door for you, one thing that I thought we shared in friendship and fondness and yes, even love. But you decided you don’t want that from me any more, so you throw all of me aside. You make that the whole of what we shared, and discard me with it. And why? I confess, I’ve given much more thought to it than I should. And I think I’ve found the answer. Is it because you’ve found another place to quench your lusts? Has your new master taught you his Jamaillian ways? Or was I wrong, all those years ago? Perhaps the Fool was truly a man, and you’ve simply gone back to what you preferred all along.’ She jerked her horse’s head again. ‘You disgust me, Fitz, and you shame the Farseer name. I’m glad you’ve given it up. Now that I know what you are, I wish I had never bedded with you. Whose face did you see, all those times when you closed your eyes?’

‘Molly’s, you stupid bitch. Always Molly’s.’ It was not true. I had not played that cheat on her or myself. But it was the most hurtful reply I could think of to insult her. She did not, perhaps, deserve it. And it shamed me that I would use Molly’s name that way. But my festering anger had finally found a target this evening.

She took several deep breaths, as if I had doused her with cold water. Then she laughed shrilly. ‘And no doubt you mouth her name into your pillow as your Lord Golden mounts you. Oh, yes, that I can imagine well. You’re pathetic, Fitz. Pathetic.’

She gave me no chance to strike back, but spurred her horse cruelly and galloped off into the snowy night. For a savage instant, I hoped the beast would stumble and that she would break her neck.

Then, just when I needed that fury most, it deserted me. I was left feeling sick and sad and sorry, alone on the night road. Why had the Fool done this to me? Why? I resumed my trudge down the road.

Yet I did not go to the Stuck Pig. I knew I wouldn’t find Hap or Svanja there. Instead I went to the Dog and Whistle, an ancient tavern I had once frequented with Molly. I sat in the corner and watched patrons come and go and drank two tankards of ale. It was good ale, far better than I’d been able to afford when Molly and I last sat here. I drank and I remembered her. She, at least, had loved me true. Yet comfort in those memories trickled away. I tried to remember what it was to be fifteen years old and in love and so terribly certain that love conveyed wisdom and shaped fate. I recalled it too well, and my thoughts spun aside to Hap’s situation. I asked myself, once I had lain with Molly, could anyone have said anything to persuade me that it was not both my right and my destiny to do so? I doubted it. The best thing, I concluded a tankard later, would have been not to have allowed Hap to meet Svanja in the first place. And Jinna had warned me of that, and I hadn’t paid attention. Just as Burrich and Patience had once warned me not to begin with Molly. They’d been right. I should have admitted that a long time ago. I would have told them that, that very minute, if I could have.

And the wisdom of three tankards of ale after a sleepless night and a long day of unsettling news persuaded me that the best thing to do would be to go to Jinna and tell her that she had been right. Somehow, that would make things better. The fuzziness of why that would be so did not dissuade me. I set out for her door through the quiet night.

The snow had stopped falling. It was a clean blanket, mostly smooth, over Buckkeep Town. It draped eaves and gentled the rutted streets, hiding all sins. My boots scrunched through it as I walked the quiet streets. I nearly came to my senses when I reached Jinna’s door, but I knocked anyway. Perhaps I just needed a friend, any kind of a friend, that badly.

I heard the thud of the cat leaping from her lap, and then her footsteps. She peered out of the top half of her door. ‘Who’s there?’

‘It’s me. Tom Badgerlock.’

She shut the top half of the door. It seemed like a long time before she unlatched the whole door and opened it to me. ‘Come in,’ she said, but her voice sounded as if she didn’t care if I did or didn’t.

I stood outside in the snow. ‘I don’t need to come in. I just wanted to tell you that you were right.’

She peered at me. ‘And you are drunk. Come in, Tom Badgerlock. I’ve no wish to let the night cold into my house.’

And so I went in instead. Fennel had already claimed her warm spot in her chair, but he sat up to look at me disapprovingly. Fish?

No fish. Sorry.

‘Sorry’ is not fish. What good is ‘sorry’? He curled up again, and hid his face in his tail.

I admitted it. ‘Sorry isn’t much good, but it’s all I have to offer.’

Jinna looked at me grimly. ‘Well, it’s far more than anything else you’ve given me lately.’

I stood with the snow from my boots melting on her floor. The fire crackled. ‘You were right about Hap. I should have intervened a lot sooner and I didn’t. I should have listened to you.’

After a time longer she said, ‘Do you want to sit down for a while? I don’t think you should try to walk back to the castle just now.’

‘I don’t think I’m that drunk!’ I scoffed.

‘I don’t think you’re sober enough to know how drunk you are,’ she replied. And while I was trying to unravel that, she said, ‘Take your cloak off and sit down.’ Then she had to move her knitting off one chair and the cat off the other, and then we both sat down.

For a short time we both just looked into her fire. Then she said, ‘There’s something you should know about Svanja’s father.’

I met her eyes unwillingly.

‘He’s a lot like you,’ she said quietly. ‘It takes some time for him to get his temper up. Right now, he just feels grief over what his daughter is doing. But as it becomes common talk in town, there will be men who will goad him about it. Grief will change to shame, and not long after that, to fury. But it won’t be against Svanja that he vents it. He’ll go after Hap, as the culprit who has deceived and seduced his daughter. By then, he’ll be righteous as well as angry. And he is strong as a bull.’

When I sat silent, she added, ‘I told Hap this.’ Fennel came to her and wafted up into her lap, displacing her knitting. She petted him absently.

‘What did Hap say?’

She made a disgusted sound. ‘That he wasn’t afraid. I told him that had nothing to do with it. And that sometimes being stupid and being not afraid were two twigs of the same bush.’

‘That pleased him, no doubt.’

‘He went out. I haven’t seen him since.’

I sighed. I was just starting to get warm. ‘How long ago?’

She shook her head at me. ‘It’s no use your going after him. It was hours ago, before sundown.’

‘I wouldn’t know where to look for him anyway,’ I admitted. ‘I couldn’t find him last night, and wherever they were then is where they probably are now.’

‘Probably,’ she agreed quietly. ‘Well, at least Rory Hartshorn didn’t find them last night, either. So they’re probably safe for now.’

‘Why can’t he just keep his daughter in at night? Then no one would have a problem.’

She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘No one would have a problem if you could just keep your son in at night, Tom Badgerlock.’

‘I know, I know,’ I admitted resignedly. And a moment later I added, ‘You really shouldn’t have to deal with any of this.’

A few moments later, the rest of that thought forced its way to the front of my mind. ‘When Svanja’s father decides to look for Hap, he’ll look for him here.’ I squeezed my brows together. ‘I never meant to bring all this trouble to your door, Jinna. I started out just wanting a friend. And now everything is a mess, and it’s all my fault.’ I considered the conclusion of that. ‘I suppose I’d best go face up to Rory Hartshorn.’

‘Wallow in it, Tom Badgerlock,’ she said in disgust. ‘What on earth would you say to the man? Why must you take full credit for everything that goes wrong in the world? As I recall, I met Hap and befriended him long before I knew you. And Svanja has been trouble looking for a place to sprout since her family came to Buckkeep Town, if not before. And she has two parents of her own. Nor is Hap the blundering innocent in this. You’ve not been dallying with Hartshorn’s daughter, Hap has. So stop bemoaning what a mess you’ve made, and start demanding that Hap take responsibility for himself.’ She settled herself deeper into her chair. As if to herself, she added, ‘You’ve quite enough messes of your own to clean up, without claiming responsibility for everyone else’s.’

I stared at her in amazement.

‘It’s simple,’ she said quietly. ‘Hap needs to discover consequences. As long as you claim that it’s all your fault for being a bad parent, Hap doesn’t have to admit that a good share of this is his own fault. Of course, he doesn’t think it’s a problem yet, but when he suddenly perceives that it is, he’s going to come running to you to see if you can fix it. And you’ll try, because you think it’s your fault.’

I sat still, soaking up the words and trying to find the sense in them. ‘So what should I do?’ I demanded at last.

She gave a helpless laugh. ‘I don’t know, Tom Badgerlock. But telling Hap this is all your fault is certainly something you should not do.’ She lifted up the cat and set him back on the floor. ‘However, there is something I should do as well.’ She went into her bedroom. A few moments later, she came back with a purse. She held it out to me. When I didn’t move to take it, she shook it at me. ‘Take it. This is the coin I haven’t spent on Hap’s keep. I’m giving it back to you. Tonight, when he comes back, I’m telling him that I’m turning him out of my house, because I don’t want trouble to come calling at my door.’ She laughed aloud at the look on my face. ‘It’s called a consequence, Tom. Hap should feel more of them. And when he comes moaning to you, I think you should let him deal with it on his own.’

I thought of the last conversation we’d had. ‘I doubt that he’ll come moaning to me,’ I said sombrely.

‘All the better,’ she said tartly. ‘Let him handle it himself. He’s used to sleeping indoors. It won’t take him long to realize that he’d best settle himself in at the apprentices’ hall. And I think you might be wise enough to leave it up to him to have to ask Master Gindast to let him.’ The cat had reinstated himself on her lap. She shook out her knitting over him and tugged more yarn free. It slid through Fennel’s lazy clasp.

I winced at the thought of how much pride Hap was going to have to swallow. A moment later, I felt an odd sense of relief. Hap could do that for himself. I didn’t have to humble myself on his behalf. I think she saw it on my face.

‘Not every problem in the world belongs to you alone, Badgerlock. Let others have their share.’

I thought about it for a time longer. Then I said gratefully, ‘Jinna, you’re a true friend.’

She gave me a sideways look. ‘So. You’ve worked that out, have you?’

I winced at her tone, but nodded. ‘You’re a true friend. But you’re still angry at how I’ve behaved.’

She nodded as if to herself. ‘And some problems do belong to you, Tom Badgerlock. Entirely.’ She stared at me expectantly.

I took a breath and steeled myself to it. I’d lie as little as possible, I comforted myself. It was thin comfort.

‘That woman, in the Stuck Pig that night. Well, we aren’t … that is, she is just a friend. I don’t bed with her.’ The words clattered awkwardly out of me like dropped crockery, and lay between us, all sharp shards.

A long silence followed. Jinna looked at me, then into the fire, and then back at me. Tiny glints of anger and hurt still danced in her eyes, but a very tiny smile played around the corners of her lips as well. ‘I see. Well, that is good to know, I suppose. And now you have two friends that you don’t bed with.’

Her meaning was unmistakable. That comfort would not be offered to me tonight, and perhaps never again. I will not pretend I didn’t feel disappointment. But there was relief as well. Had it been offered, I would have had to refuse it. I’d already been through the consequences of refusing a woman once tonight. I nodded slowly to her words.

‘The water in the kettle is hot,’ she pointed out. ‘If you wanted to stay, you could make tea for us.’ It was not forgiveness. It was a second chance to be friends. I was happy to accept it. I got up to find the pot and cups.

THIRTEEN

Challenges

Now this is the way it must be for the ones who construct the maps and charts. A map of land must be made from the hide of a land beast, and it should show no more than can be helped of the sea. A chart can only be drawn on a sea creature’s hide, and though land must be marked on it, it is sin to show the features of that land on a chart that is devoted to the sea. To do otherwise is to offend the god who made the world as it is.

Our islands are as the god made them. Thus he wrote on the seas of the world, long ago. They are his runes, and so when they are drawn within the chart of the great seas, they must be drawn in the blood of a land beast. And if you would make a mark for good harbour or plentiful fish or hidden shoals or any other feature that belongs to the seas, these marks must be made with the blood of a sea creature. For this is how the god made the world, and who is a man to try to draw it otherwise?

Our islands are the runes of the god. Not all is made clear to us, for we are but men and it is not for us to know every rune the god can write, nor what it is he has spelled across the face of the sea. Some islands he cloaks in ice from us, and this we are to respect. Draw then the ice that cloaks the rune, and this must be drawn in the blood of a creature of that ice, but not one that flies. The blood of a seal is good for this, but the blood of a white bear best of all.

If one wishes to draw the sky’s face, then is the time to use the blood of a bird for ink, and draw but lightly on the skin of a gull.

These are very old laws. Every woman with a good mother knows them already. I write them down only because our sons’ sons and their offspring are grown foolish and unwary of the god’s will. They will bring disaster on us all if we do not remind them that we have been taught better, and that these laws are from the god’s own lips.

The Making of Guides – Chade Fallstar’s translation of an Outisland scroll

I was relieved to be on better terms with Jinna again. We spent no time in her bed that night, nor did I kiss her goodbye. But both those things were a relief to my mind if not to my clamouring body. When I left her that night, I resolved to treat our patched friendship gently and to keep it within bounds I felt I could deal with. I think she still felt this was untrusting on my part, but, so I have ever been. At least, so Chade has often told me.

There followed a trying three days for me. The rest of my life remained unsettled. I didn’t hear from Hap. I dreaded that my lad was sleeping out in the snow somewhere, even as I disgustedly told myself he was a sharper boy than that. The Queen and Chade were meeting daily with the leaders of the Six Duchies, in deep discussion about Bingtown’s offer of an alliance. They did not summon me to share their thoughts. The Bingtown delegation was very visible within Buckkeep Castle, assiduously courting the individual dukes and duchesses with gifts and attentions of every kind. On our part, the banquets and entertainment proceeded with an eye to soothing the ruffled feelings of the Outislanders and to being gracious to our Bingtown guests. The success of those evenings was mixed. Strangely enough, Arkon Bloodblade and his Outisland traders seemed fascinated with the Bingtown folk, and openly talked with them about expanding trade alliances based on the betrothal between Prince Dutiful and their Narcheska. Yet both Elliania and Peottre Blackwater were largely absent from the festivities. On the few occasions when Elliania did make an appearance, she was grave and quiet.

Both the Narcheska and Peottre carefully avoided the Bingtown Traders in every way that they could. She exhibited a marked aversion to the scaled boy, Selden Vestrit of the Rain Wild Traders. Once I saw her physically recoil as he walked past her. But I was not certain that it was her choice, for afterwards she sat very stiff in her chair while the beads of sweat broke out on her brow. It was not long after that both she and Peottre excused themselves from attending a puppet play on the grounds that the Narcheska was weary and Peottre must attend to their packing. This was a scarcely-veiled reminder of the imminent departure of the Outisland contingent. The Bingtown Traders and their offer could hardly have arrived at a worse time for us.

‘A week later, and they would have been gone when the Bingtown folk arrived. Yes, and I don’t doubt that we could have mended the Prince’s little stumble with the Narcheska, and sent them off happy. Now it appears that we stack our refusal to break off talk with Bingtown on top of the Prince’s slighting of the Narcheska. It throws everything into doubt.’

This was Chade’s curmudgeonly observation as we sat over wine one evening. He was out of sorts for a number of reasons. Starling had tried to give him a note to pass to me. She had done it privately, but even so, it was indiscreet in the extreme for her to acknowledge that she knew he and I were connected. Somehow, that was my fault. When he had refused, she had said, ‘Then just tell him that I’m sorry. I’d quarrelled with my husband, and I wanted the comfort of his friendship. I’d been drinking at the keep before I started down to town to finish my drink. I know I shouldn’t have said those things.’

While I was still gaping, he’d asked delicately if Starling and I had any sort of ‘an arrangement’ and when I angrily replied that it was no one else’s business if we did, but we didn’t, he had surprised me by saying that only a foolish man would deliberately provoke a minstrel to anger.

‘I didn’t provoke her to anger. All of this is because I’ve refused to have her in my bed since I discovered she was married. I think I have a right to decide with whom I’ll sleep. Don’t you?’

I’d expected him to be shocked at this revelation. Almost, I hoped that it would be enough to embarrass him and make him resolve not to pry into my personal affairs any more. He only slapped his forehead. ‘Of course. Well, she should have expected you to shake her out of your sheets once you discovered she was married, but … Fitz, do you understand what it means to her? Think.’

Had he not been so intent on teaching me something, I think I would have been offended. Yet his air was so familiar I could not accept his question as anything other than the opening to a lesson. Thus he had often spoken to me when trying to teach me to see all the possible motivations for a man to do something, rather than just the first ones that sprang to mind. ‘She is ashamed because my finding out she was married and yet still sleeping with me has lowered my opinion of her?’

‘No. Think, boy. Did it really lower your opinion of her?’

Reluctantly, I shook my head. ‘I only felt stupid. Chade, in some way I was not even surprised. Starling has always allowed herself to do such things. I’ve known that since I first met her. I didn’t expect her to change her minstrel ways. I simply didn’t want to be a party to it.’

He sighed. ‘Fitz, Fitz. Your biggest blind spot is that you cannot imagine anyone seeing you in a different way from how you see yourself. What are you, who are you to Starling?’

I shrugged a shoulder. ‘Fitz. The bastard. Someone she has known for fifteen years.’

A very small smile played across his face. He spoke softly. ‘No. You are FitzChivalry Farseer. The unacknowledged prince. She’d made a song about you before she’d even met you. Why? Because you’d captured her imagination. The bastard Farseer. Had Chivalry acknowledged you, you’d have had a chance at the throne. Denied and ignored by your father, you were still loyal, still the hero of the battle at Antler Island Tower. You died in ignominy in Regal’s dungeons, and rose as a vengeful ghost to plague Regal through his days as a pretender. She accompanied you on a quest to save your King, and though it did not come out as any of us intended, still there was triumph at the end. And she not only witnessed it, she was a part of it.’

‘It seems a fine tale, to hear you tell it that way, with none of the dirt and pain and misfortune.’

‘It is a fine tale, even with the dirt and pain and misfortune. A fine and glorious tale, one that would make any minstrel’s reputation for life, did she ever sing it. Yet it is one Starling can never sing. Because it has been forbidden to her. Her great adventure, her wonderful song, locked up as a secret. Still, at least she knew she was a part of it, and she was a part of the royal bastard’s life. She became his lover, a party to his secrets. I think she expected that when you returned to Buckkeep some day you would again be at the centre of intrigue and wondrous events. And she expected to be part of that also, to turn heads and bask in that shared glory. The Witted Bastard’s minstrel mistress. If she could not sing the song herself, at least she was guaranteed a place in that tale, if it should ever be told. And don’t doubt that she has composed it somewhere, as a song or a poem. She saw herself as a part of your tale, touched by your wild glory. Then, you took that from her. You not only walked away from her, you returned to Buckkeep as an ignominious servant. You are not only ending your tale on a disappointing note; you are making her of no consequence by doing it. She is a minstrel, Fitz. How did you think she’d react to that? Gracefully?’

I saw her suddenly in a different light. Her cruelty to Hap, her offence at me. ‘I don’t think of myself like that, Chade.’

‘I know you don’t,’ he said more gently. ‘But do you see that she could? And that you crashed her dreams down around her?’

I nodded slowly. ‘But there’s nothing I can do about it. I won’t take a married woman into my bed. And I can’t come back as FitzChivalry Farseer. I’d still face a noose around my neck if I did.’

‘That’s most likely true. I agree that you cannot be known as FitzChivalry again. As to the other … well. Let me remind you that Starling knows a great many things. We are all vulnerable to her. I expect you to maintain her goodwill towards us.’

Before I could think of a reply to that, he demanded to know why I had cancelled all of the Prince’s Skill-lessons until after the Bingtown representatives had left. The Prince had already asked that question. I said to Chade what I’d told Dutiful: that I feared the scaled boy in the Bingtown party had some sensitivity to the Skill, and that until the Traders departed, we would limit our lessons to translating scrolls together. The Prince was not patient with these more mundane studies. My suspicion of the veiled Trader intrigued both him and Chade. Thrice Chade had chewed over Selden Vestrit’s conversation with me. Neither of us could find any meat in it. I was learning that sometimes it was easier to keep Chade uninformed than to give him bits of information he could not confirm. Such as telling him of the Narcheska’s tattoos.

I know he spent some hours of his own time at the spyhole without glimpsing her tattoos. As she had not made any complaint about her health, he could not send the healer to her rooms to confirm what I had seen. Elliania had pointedly refused several invitations to ride or game with the Prince, so Dutiful could make no observations on whether or not she seemed to be in pain. And the Queen dared not make too many pressing invitations lest it appear that the Six Duchies desired the betrothal to proceed more than the Outislands did. In the end, all they had was my account of what I had seen. It baffled all of us, as did her handmaid, Henja.

The woman remained a complete cipher to us. Her references to a Lady were unclear, unless she referred to an older female relative with authority over Elliania. Discreet inquiries in that area availed us nothing. Chade’s spies had failed us as well. Twice Henja had been followed down into Buckkeep Town. Each time she had vanished from their scrutiny, once in a market crowd, and once simply by turning a corner. We had no idea who she saw there, or even if it was of any significance. The arcane punishment of the searing tattoos bespoke a magic that neither of us knew. Perhaps we should have felt glad of an unseen power urging the Narcheska to make strong her betrothal to the Prince. Instead, we both were dismayed by the dark cruelty of it. ‘Are you sure Lord Golden could not cast some light on this?’ Chade demanded abruptly. ‘I recall him telling several people at a dinner that he had once made quite a hobby of studying the Outisland history and culture.’

I shrugged eloquently.

Chade snorted. ‘Have you asked him yet?’

‘No,’ I replied shortly. Then, as he lowered his brows at me, I added, ‘I told you. He has taken to his bed and scarcely comes out. Even his meals are taken in to him. He has the curtains drawn, both across his windows and about his bed.’

‘But you don’t think he is ill?’

‘He hasn’t said he is ill, but that is the impression he lets his serving-boy chatter about the keep. Sometimes I think that was half his reason for taking Char on, so that the boy could be fed the rumours he wishes to spread. I think that the truth is that he wishes to avoid any public appearances until after the Bingtown folk have departed. He lived there for some time, and while he was there he was certainly not known as the Fool, nor as Lord Golden. I think he fears that if one of them recognized them, it could cause difficulties for him at court.’

‘Well. I suppose that’s sensible then. But it’s damned inconvenient for me. Look, Fitz, can’t you just go in and talk to him? See if he has any ideas about this Selden Vestrit being Skilled?’

‘As he has no Skill himself, I don’t think he could possibly have detected that aura from Vestrit.’

Chade set down his wine cup. ‘But you haven’t asked him, have you?’

I lifted my cup and drank from it to gain a moment. ‘No,’ I said as I set it down. ‘I haven’t.’

He peered at me. After a moment, he said in amazement, ‘You two have had a falling out of some sort, haven’t you?’

‘I’d rather not discuss it,’ I said stiffly.

‘Hmph. Wonderful timing on everyone’s part. Let’s mix the Bingtown Traders with the Outislanders, and in the midst of it you can offend the Queen’s favourite minstrel, and then have some silly squabble with the Fool that renders you both all but useless.’ He leaned back in his chair in disgust as if we had done it solely to inconvenience him.

‘I doubt he would have any insights on this,’ I replied. I had not been able to bring myself to say more than a dozen words to him in the last three days, but I was not going to share that with Chade. If the Fool had noticed my coldness, he had ignored it. He had given Tom Badgerlock an order to turn away all guests at the door until he was feeling more like himself, and so I had. I spent as little time in the chambers we shared as possible. Yet several times when I returned to the room I saw small signs that someone had called while I was gone, and it was not just Char tidying things. I recognized Jek’s spicy perfume lingering in our chambers.

‘Well. That’s as may be.’ He scowled at me. ‘Whatever it is, you’d best patch it up soon. You’re not worth a tinker’s damn when something like this has your back up.’

I took a breath to keep my temper down. ‘It’s not the only thing I’ve had on my mind lately,’ I excused myself.

‘No. We’ve all had far too much on our minds. What did your boy want, the other day when he came up to the castle? Is all well with him?’

‘Not exactly.’ I had been shocked when one of the kitchen boys had tapped at the door to tell me that a young man was asking for me in the kitchen yard. I hastened down to find Hap standing outside in the courtyard, looking both angry and sheepish. He wouldn’t come in, even to the guards’ room, though I assured him none of them would mind. They’d become accustomed to seeing me there of late. He didn’t want to take much of my time, for he knew I was occupied with tasks of my own. And at that my guilt began to build, for I had been busy of late, often too busy to see him when I knew I should have. By the time he worked up the courage to tell me that Jinna had turned him out and why, my resolve was already wavering.

He looked past my shoulder as he spoke to the lowering sky. ‘So, with no coin of my own, I’ve been sleeping wherever I could find a bit of shelter the last two nights. But I can’t do that the rest of winter. So I’ve no choice save to move into the apprentice house with the others. Only … it seems so awkward for me to ask after Master Gindast has suggested it so often and I’ve always refused it.’

This was news to me. ‘He has suggested it? Why? Seems he saves himself a bit of money, not having to give you your breakfast nor supper.’

Hap squirmed unhappily. He took a breath. ‘He suggests it whenever my work is poor. He says if I slept a proper night and rose with the others, if I were on time to work and on time to bed, I would do better.’ He glanced away. There was a gruff pride as he added, ‘He says he can see that I could do better, far better at my work, if I weren’t so sleepy in the mornings. I’ve always insisted I could manage my own hours. And I have. Oh, I’ve been late a time or two, but I’ve been there every day since I came to Buckkeep Town. I have.’

He said this as if I might doubt it. I kept to myself that I had wondered if he had been faithful to his master’s hours.

I had let some little time lag. ‘So, then? What is the difficulty now? It seems that as he has asked you several times, he’d be pleased to see you take his suggestion.’

Hap was silent. He went a bit pinker about the ears. I waited. Then he steeled himself to it. ‘I wonder if perhaps you couldn’t go by and tell him you had decided it was best for me. It just seems simpler that way. Less awkward.’

I had spoken slowly, wondering if the words were wise. ‘Less like you knuckling under to his suggestion, perhaps? Or less like Jinna turning you out because she didn’t want trouble on her doorstep?’

Hap flushed a deep scarlet and I knew I had struck true. He started to turn away. I put a hand on his shoulder and when he tried to shrug it off, I tightened my grip. He startled when he could not twist free of it. So my daily practices on the weapons court had counted for something. I could hold a squirming lad against his will now. Such an accomplishment. I waited until he stopped struggling. He hadn’t tried to hit me, but neither had he turned back to face me. I spoke quietly, for his ears only, not for those who had turned to stare at our little contest. ‘Go to Gindast yourself, son. You might save face with the other apprentices by saying your father had forced you to move in with them. But in the long run, Gindast will respect you more if you go to him and say you’ve thought it over and decided it would be for the best if you lived there. And you might recall that Jinna has been kind, not just to you but to both of us, far beyond what any coin would buy and far beyond what either of us deserves from her. Don’t shun her because she wanted no trouble in her home. Trouble shouldn’t be the price of her being our friend.’

Then I had loosened my hold and allowed him to shrug free of me and stalk off. I didn’t know what he had done. I hadn’t gone to check on him. I had to let him sort that much of his life out for himself. He had food and shelter if he chose to accept them on the terms offered. More than that I could not do for him. I dragged my thoughts back to my conversation with Chade.

‘Hap’s had some difficulties adjusting to life in town,’ I admitted to the old assassin. ‘On our holding, he was used to setting his own hours, as long as his chores were done. It was a simpler life. Less of a daily grind, and more choices for him.’

‘Less beer and fewer girls, too, I imagine,’ Chade added, and I suspected that, as usual, he knew far more about everything than he was letting on. But he smiled as he said it, and I let it pass. Not only because he meant no insult to Hap or me by it, but because it was a relief to me to see the old man as sharp as he had ever been. It seemed that the thicker the intrigue in Buckkeep Castle, the more Chade throve on it. ‘Well. I hope you know that whatever your Hap gets into, you can turn to me for help. If it’s needed. Without a price on it.’

‘I know that,’ I had replied, if a bit gruffly, and he had let me go. We both had to prepare ourselves for the afternoon’s event. Chade had to dress appropriately for the formal farewell ceremony for the Outislanders. He was hoping desperately that tonight’s honours and gifts would heal the cracks and rifts, and that they would depart on the morrow with the betrothal confirmed. As for me, I had to gather my supplies and make my way to my spy-post to watch from that vantage and store up any titbits that might escape Chade’s eyes.

He departed to his chambers to make himself ready. My own preparations were far different. I gathered a supply of candles, a pillow from his bed and a blanket, a bottle of wine and some victuals. I expected to crouch in my hiding place for several hours, and I was determined that this time I would be comfortable. Winter had clenched its grip on the castle over the last few days, and the hidden tunnels and corridors were chill and comfortless.

I bundled it all together, removing Gilly several times from my efforts. The ferret had become a social little fellow of late, greeting me with whiskers twitching and sniffing whenever we encountered one another in the hidden network. As much as he enjoyed his hunting and despite the numerous trophies he left about to demonstrate his prowess, he surprised me often by begging for raisins or bits of bread. These he seemed to relish hiding behind the scroll rack or under the chairs more than he did eating them. His mind darted like a hummingbird, inquisitive and restless. Like most animals, he was completely uninterested in bonding with a human. Our Wit-sense of one another brushed often but never engaged. Still, he was companionably intrigued in what I did, and followed me curiously as I made my way through the cramped passages.

I arrived in plenty of time to witness the farewell banquet. I set my cushion upon a rickety stool that I had gathered on the way, put my food on the dusty floor beside me and my candle and extra tapers beyond it. I seated myself, wrapped the blanket about my shoulders and settled myself by the peephole. This one offered a good vantage, I decided with approval. From here, I could see the high dais and almost a third of the hall.

The winter finery of the Great Hall had been renewed. Evergreen boughs and garlands trimmed the entrances and hearths, and the minstrels played softly as folk entered and sought their places. All in all it reminded me very much of the Betrothal Ceremony, witnessed from a different angle. Embroidered cloths covered the long tables, and bread and fruit preserves and wine glasses awaited the guests. Southern incense, a gift from the Bingtown Traders, sweetened the air of the hall. There was a bit less ceremony as the dukes and duchesses entered this time. I suspected that even the nobility had become a bit weary of all the festivities and pomp of late. The Bingtown delegation, I noted with interest, came in with the lesser aristocrats and was seated well away from the Outislanders’ dais. I wondered if the distance would be enough to prevent sparks flying.

What I had begun to think of as Arkon Bloodblade’s contingent entered next. They seemed in high spirits, and were once more decked in their extravagant versions of Buckkeep garb. Heavy furs had been replaced with satin and velvet, lace had been used indiscriminately and the colours seemed to favour the red and orange section of the spectrum. Strange to say, it suited them well, both the men and the women. The barbaric excess in adopting our modes of dress made them the Outislanders’ own style. And that they had chosen to emulate some of our ways indicated to me that the doors would soon open wide to trade of all sorts. If Arkon Bloodblade had his way.

Peottre Blackwater and Elliania were not with them.

They still had not entered by the time the Queen and the Prince made their way to the high dais, with Chade trailing demurely behind them. I saw the Queen’s eyes widen with dismay, but she did not let it reach her smile. Prince Dutiful kept a lordly reserve, apparently not noticing that his intended had not yet seen fit to join the ceremony designed to honour her departure. When the Farseers had assumed their places, an awkward little delay ensued. Ordinarily, the Queen would have ordered the servants to pour the wine and begun with a toast to her honoured guests. It had just reached the point at which folk had begun to mutter when Peottre Blackwater appeared at the entrance to the hall. He had retained his Outisland skins and chains but the richness of the furs and the gold that weighted his forearms bespoke his very best. He stood in the doorway until the startled murmur at his appearance had stilled. Then he stepped silently aside and the Narcheska entered. The narwhal symbol of her matriarchal line was picked out in ivory beads on her leather vest. It was trimmed with white fur, probably snowfox. She wore a sealskin skirt and slippers. Her arms and fingers were innocent of all jewellery. Her hair flowed unfettered as night down her back, and upon her head she wore a curious blue ornament, almost like a crown. It reminded me of something but I could not quite recall what.

She stood for a moment in the entrance. Her gaze met Kettricken’s and held it. Head up, she paced the length of the room towards the high dais with Peottre Blackwater coming slowly behind her. He let her lead him by enough that his presence did not distract from hers, but as always, he was close enough to protect her should any seek to do her harm. Never once did she look away from the Queen as she trod the length of the hall. Even when she ascended the steps to the dais, their gazes remained locked. When finally she stood before Kettricken, she made her a solemn curtsey, yet she did not bow her head nor avert her gaze as she did so.

‘I am so pleased you have joined us,’ Kettricken said graciously in a low voice. There was genuine welcome in her tone.

I thought for a moment that I saw a flicker of doubt pass over the Narcheska’s face. But then her resolve seemed to harden. When she spoke, her young voice was clear, her enunciation crisp and her voice pitched to carry. They were not private words she spoke. ‘I am here, Queen Kettricken of the Six Duchies. But I fear I have begun to have doubts that I will ever truly join you, as wife to your son.’ She turned then, and her gaze slowly swept the assembly. Her father was sitting very straight. I surmised that her words were a surprise to him, one he sought to cover. The initial look of shock on the Queen’s face had been replaced with a cold and courteous mask.

‘Your words disappoint me, Narcheska Elliania Blackwater of the God Runes.’ That was all Kettricken said. She spoke no question that would have invited a reply. I saw Elliania hesitate, fumbling for a way to begin her planned speech. I suspected she had expected more of a reaction; a demand for an explanation. Lacking that introduction, she had no choice but to tone her words to meet the Queen’s attitude of polite regret.

‘I find that this betrothal does not meet my expectations, which are those of my mothers’ house. I was told that I would come here to promise my hand to a king. Instead I find my hand offered to a youngster who is but a prince, not even the King-in-Waiting, as you term one who learns the duties of his crown. This is not to my satisfaction.’

Kettricken did not reply immediately. She let the girl’s words die away. When she did speak, it was with simplicity, as if she were explaining something to a child who might be too young to understand it. The effect was that of a mature and patient woman addressing a wayward young girl. ‘It is unfortunate that you were not taught our customs in this matter, Narcheska Elliania. Prince Dutiful must be at least seventeen before he may be declared the King-in-Waiting. After that, it is up to his dukes to decide when he may be crowned as a full king. I do not expect it will take long for him to earn that responsibility.’ She lifted her eyes and scanned her dukes and duchesses as she spoke. She honoured them when she acknowledged their role and they were sensible of that. Most of them nodded sagely to her words. It was smoothly done.

I think Elliania sensed her moment slipping away from her. Her voice was just the least bit shrill and she spoke perhaps a second too soon when she said, ‘Nevertheless. If I accept my betrothal to Prince Dutiful now, none can deny that I am taking the chance of binding my fate to a prince who may never be declared King.’

As she drew breath, Kettricken quietly interjected, ‘That is most unlikely, Narcheska Elliania.’

I felt, almost as if it were my own, Dutiful’s prodded pride. A Farseer temper lurked behind his cool Mountain exterior. The Skill-link between us throbbed with his rising anger.

Steady. Let the Queen handle this. I kept my thread of suggestion small and tight between us.

I suppose I must, he replied recklessly. However little I like it. Just as I must tolerate this arranged marriage at all.

In the heat of his provocation, his control was more absent than sloppy. I winced at it and glanced towards the veiled Bingtown Trader. Selden Vestrit sat very straight, and perhaps his intentness was only the interest in the proceedings that he shared with all the other Bingtown Traders. Yet he seemed entirely too still, as if he listened with every pore of his body. I feared him.

‘Nevertheless!’ the Narcheska said again, and this time her accent flawed the word more sharply. I could see her losing her aplomb, but she ploughed ahead stubbornly. Doubtless this speech had been practised endlessly in her room, but now it was delivered without finesse or gestures. It was only words, pebbles hurled in desperation. Doubtless many thought it was to save herself from the betrothal. My suspicions were different.

‘Nevertheless, if I am to accept this custom of yours as good, and give my promise of marriage to a prince who may never become a king, then it seems to me fair and good that in return I ask him to honour a custom of my land and people.’

There were too many faces to watch for responses from everyone. One I made sure of was Arkon Bloodblade. I was certain that his daughter’s speech was a complete surprise to him. Yet at her naming this condition, he seemed pleased. But then, I reflected, he was obviously a man who enjoyed a challenge and a gamble, as well as putting on a show. He was content to let her stir the pot while he waited to see what would bob to the top. Perhaps it would be to his advantage. Several of the people seated alongside him did not look so sanguine. They exchanged apprehensive glances, fearing the girl’s effrontery would endanger the betrothal and cripple their trade negotiations.

The blood had started to rise in Prince Dutiful’s face. I could see and feel him fighting to maintain a serene demeanour. Kettricken held her calm almost effortlessly.

‘Perhaps that might be acceptable,’ she said quietly, and again it sounded as if she were indulging a child. ‘Would you care to explain this custom to us?’

Narcheska Elliania seemed to know that she was not showing well. She pulled herself straighter, and took a breath before she spoke. ‘In my land, in the God Runes, it is customary that if a man seeks to marry a woman, and the woman’s mothers are uncertain of his blood or his character, then the mothers may propose a challenge to him whereby he can prove himself worthy.’

And there it was. Insult bald enough that no duchy would have blamed their queen if she had immediately voided the betrothal and alliance. No, they would not have blamed her, yet in the faces of more than one pride warred with the possible loss of trade profits. Eyes flickered as dukes and duchesses silently conferred with one another, faces set in stillness, mouths flat. But before the Queen could even draw breath to compose a reply, the Narcheska added to her words.

‘As I stand before you without the benefit of my mothers to speak for me, I would myself propose a challenge that would prove the Prince worthy of me.’

I had known Kettricken in the days when she was the daughter of the Mountain Sacrifice, before she was Queen of the Six Duchies. I had known her in the days when she was transforming herself from a girl barely a woman into both woman and queen. Others might have been at her side longer, or spent more recent years with her, but I think my early knowledge of her let me read her as no one else could. I saw in the tiny movement of her lips how disappointed she was. All the months of effort spent crawling towards an alliance between the Six Duchies and the Outislands were erased in the rush of an impetuous girl’s words. For Kettricken could not allow the worthiness of her son to be questioned. When Elliania looked askance at Dutiful, she looked askance at the entire Kingdom of the Six Duchies. It could not be tolerated, not because of maternal pride, but because of the danger of debasing the value of the Six Duchies alliance. I held my breath, waiting to hear how Kettricken would sever the negotiations. So focused was I on the Queen’s face that I only caught from the tail of my eye the furtive grab that Chade made at the young prince’s shoulder as Dutiful surged to his feet.

‘I will accept your challenge.’ The Prince’s voice rang out, young and strong. Violating all protocol he stepped clear of his chair and moved to face the Narcheska as if this were truly a confrontation between lovers. His action seemed to exclude the Queen, as if she had no say in the matter at all. ‘I will do it, not to prove myself worthy of your hand, Narcheska. I will not do it to prove anything about myself to you, or to anyone else. But I will do it because I would not see the days of negotiation towards a peace between our peoples put into jeopardy over a prideful girl’s doubts of me.’

She was equal to his scalded pride. ‘It matters little to me why you do it,’ she said, and suddenly her crisp diction and precise pronunciation were back. ‘So long as the task is performed.’

‘And the task?’ he demanded.

‘Prince Dutiful,’ said the Queen. Any son would have recognized the meaning of those words. In the naming of his name, she commanded him to be silent and step back. But the Prince did not seem even to hear them. His entire attention was focused on the girl who had humiliated him and then spurned his efforts at apology.

Elliania took a breath. When she spoke again I recognized plainly the polished diction of a prepared speech. Like a courser who finds solid ground beneath her feet, she sprang to the chase.

‘You know little of our God Runes, Prince, and less of our legends. For legend many will term the dragon Icefyre, though I assure you he is real. As real as your Six Duchies dragons were, when they flew over our villages, snatching memories and sense from those who lived there.’

Bitter words that could only wake bitter memories in the Six Duchies folk who heard them. How dared she complain of what our dragons had done to her people, after the years of raids and Forging had provoked us to it? She walked on very thin ice, black water seeping up in her footprints. I think that only the sheer drama of the moment saved her. She would have been shouted down, had not all ardently wished to know what this Icefyre was. Even the Bingtown Traders had suddenly come to a more pointed attention.

‘Our “legend” is that Icefyre, the black dragon of the God Runes, sleeps deep in the heart of a glacier on Aslevjal Isle. His slumber is a magic one, preserving the fires of his life until some deep need of the God Runes folk awakens him. Then, he will rip himself free of the glacier and come to our aid.’ She paused and slowly scanned the whole room. Her voice was cool and emotionless when she observed, ‘Surely, he should have done so when your dragons flew over us? Surely that was an hour of great need for us. Yet our hero failed to arise. And, for that, as for any hero who forsakes his duty, he deserves to die.’ She turned back to Dutiful. ‘Bring me Icefyre’s head. Then I will know that, unlike him, you are a worthy hero. And I will wed you and be your wife in all ways, even if you never become the King of the Six Duchies.’

I felt Dutiful’s instantaneous reaction. NO I forbade him, and for the first time since I had accidentally Skill-imprinted on him the command not to fight me, I hoped with all my heart that it was well and truly still in place.

And it was. I felt him hit that barrier like a rabbit finding the length of the snare. Like a rabbit, he struggled against the choking restriction of my command. But unlike a rabbit, I felt him, even in his panic and outrage, consider the type of stricture it was. He acted as swift as thought. He lifted his head, and almost like a tracing finger, I felt him follow the noose back to me.

He severed it. Not easily. In the moment before I lost my contact with him, I could feel the sweat burst from his skin. For me, it was like being slammed brow-first onto an anvil. I reeled with the impact, but had no time for considering the pain. For I was suddenly aware that the veiled Trader’s pale blue eye-light was visible through his lacy veil. And he stared, not at the Prince, but at the peephole where I cowered, out of sight. I would have given much to see his expression just then. Even as I prayed it was some bizarre coincidence, I longed to huddle down, to shut my own eyes and hide until his gaze had swept past me.

But I could not. I had a duty, not just as a Farseer but as Chade’s extra eyes. I kept my gaze fixed on the room. My head pounded with pain, and Selden Vestrit continued to stare at the wall that should have shielded me. Then Dutiful spoke.

His voice boomed forth, Verity’s voice, a man’s voice. ‘I accept the challenge!’

So swift it all had happened. I heard Kettricken’s gasp. She had not had time to think of nor phrase a refusal. A stunned silence followed Dutiful’s words. Outislanders, including Arkon Bloodblade, exchanged worried glances at the thought of a Six Duchies prince slaying their dragon. At the Six Duchies tables, the palpable thought was that Dutiful did not need to meet this foreign challenge. I saw Chade wince. Yet a moment later, the old assassin’s eyes opened wide and I saw hope gleam in them. For cheers erupted, not just from the Six Duchies tables but from the Outislanders as well. The enthusiasm for a young man roaring like a bull that he would meet a challenge overpowered every shred of common sense that any man in the room might have held. Even I felt a surge of pride in my chest for this young Farseer prince. He could have refused the challenge, and rightfully so, with no loss to his honour. But he instead had stepped up to it, to defy the Outislanders’ slighting assumption that he was less than worthy of their Narcheska’s hand. At the Outislander table, I suspected that wagers were already being laid that the boy would fail. But even if he failed, his willingness to step up to Elliania’s challenge to him had increased their regard for him. Perhaps they were not marrying their Narcheska off to a farmer prince at all. Perhaps there was a bit of hot blood in his veins.

And for the first time I noted the looks of consternation, even horror, amongst the Bingtown Traders. The veiled Trader was no longer staring at my wall. Selden Vestrit gestured frantically, speaking urgently to the others at his table, trying to make himself heard through the roar of sound that filled the Great Hall.

I caught a glimpse of Starling Birdsong. She had leapt to a tabletop, and her head pivoted like a beleaguered wind-vane as she tried to take in every aspect of the scene, mark every man’s reaction and harvest every comment. There would be a song to be made from all this, and it would be hers.

‘And!’ Prince Dutiful shouted into the din. Something in the set of the lines around his eyes warned me.

‘Eda, mercy,’ I prayed, but knew no god or goddess would stop him. There was a wild and stubborn gleam in his eyes, and I feared whatever it was he was about to say. At his shout, the uproar in the Great Hall quieted abruptly. When he spoke again, his words were pitched for the Narcheska. Nonetheless, in the brimming silence in the room, they carried clearly.

‘And I’ve a challenge of my own. For if I must prove myself worthy to wed the Narcheska Elliania, who has no prospects of being Queen of anything, save that she give her hand to me, then I think she must first prove herself worthy of being a queen of the Six Duchies.’

Now it was Peottre’s turn to startle and then grow pale, for the words were scarcely out of the Prince’s mouth before Elliania replied, ‘Call me this challenge, then!’

‘I shall!’ The Prince took a breath. The eyes of the two youngsters were locked. They might have stood in the midst of a desert for all the care they took for the rest of us. The glance between them was not fixed, but alive, as if for the first time they saw one another as they clinched in this battle of wills. ‘My father, as you may know, was “only” the King-in-Waiting when he embarked on a quest to save the Six Duchies. With little more than his own courage to guide him, he set forth to find the Elderlings that would rise to our aid and end the war your people had forced upon us.’ The Prince paused, almost, I think, to see if his words had struck home, but Elliania remained icily silent in her stern contemplation of him. He cut on. ‘When months passed and no word was heard from him, my mother, who by then was the besieged but rightful Queen of the Six Duchies, set out after him. With but a handful of companions she sought and found my father, and aided him in waking the dragons of the Six Duchies.’ Again, that pause. Again, Elliania refused to put words in it. ‘It seems fitting to me, that as she proved herself by joining my father’s quest to wake the dragons, so you should play a similar role in my quest to slay your country’s dragon. Go with me, Narcheska Elliania. Share the hardship and witness the deed you have laid upon me. And if, in truth, there be no dragon to slay, witness that.’ Dutiful spun suddenly to the room and shouted, ‘Let no man here ever say it was the will of the Six Duchies alone that slew Icefyre. Let your Narcheska who has commanded this deed see it through beside me.’ He turned back to her and his voice dropped to a sugary whisper. ‘If she dares.’

Her lip curled in disdain. ‘I dare.’

If she had said more, the words would have gone unheard, for the hall erupted in noise. Peottre stood as pale and still as if he had been turned to ice, but every other Outislander, including Elliania’s father, was pounding on the table. A sudden rhythmic chant in their own tongue burst from them, a song of determination and blood-lust more fit to the rowers on a raiding ship than to treaty negotiators in a foreign hall. The lords and ladies of the Six Duchies shouted as they attempted to be heard. The comments seemed to run the gauntlet that the Narcheska deserved the Prince’s scornful challenge to that she had responded bravely and perhaps there was indeed a worthy queen inside the Outislander girl.

Amidst it all, my queen stood still and tall, silently regarding her son. I saw Chade’s mouth move as if he offered some quiet bit of counsel to her. She sighed. I suspected I knew what he had said. Too late to change it; the Six Duchies must follow through on the Prince’s thrust. To one side of them, Peottre was struggling to mask his deep dismay. And before them the Prince and the Narcheska still stood, their eyes locked in duel.

The Queen spoke, her voice low, the first words intended only to quell the sound in the hall. ‘My guests and my lords and ladies. Hear me, please.’

The uproar died slowly, ending with the thumping at the Outislander table that gradually slowed and ceased. Kettricken took a deep breath and I saw resolve firm her features. She turned, not to Arkon Bloodblade and his table, but to where she knew the true power resided now. She looked towards the Narcheska, but I knew her focus was actually on Peottre Black-water. ‘It seems we now have a firm agreement. Prince Dutiful is hereby affianced to the Narcheska Elliania Blackwater of the God Runes. Providing that Prince Dutiful can bring to her the head of the black dragon Icefyre. And providing that Narcheska Elliania accompany him to witness the doing of this task.’

‘BE IT SO!’ roared out Arkon Bloodblade, unaware that the decision had never been his to make.

Peottre nodded twice, grave and silent. And to my queen, the Narcheska Elliania turned and lifted her chin. ‘Be it so,’ she agreed quietly, and the deed was done.

‘Bring in the food and wine!’ the Queen commanded suddenly. It was not at all the proper way the meal should have been commanded, but I suspected she needed to sit down, and that a glass of wine to fortify her would be welcome. I was trembling myself, not just in fear of what must eventually come of this but from the thundering pain that Dutiful had inflicted on me in the course of severing my power over him. The minstrels struck up suddenly at a signal from Chade as the serving-folk flooded into the hall. All resumed their seats, even Starling the Minstrel, stepping gracefully from the tabletop into her husband’s waiting arms. He swung her to the floor, infected with the court’s heady elation. It seemed whatever their quarrel had been, it was mended now.

As if Dutiful sensed me wondering at how he had freed himself of my Skill-command, the Prince swept suddenly into my skull. Tom Badgerlock. You will answer to me later for this. As abruptly, he was gone. When I falteringly reached after him, he was simply unavailable to me. I knew he was there, but I could not find a handle to open his mind to mine. I drew a deep breath. This did not bode well. He was angry with me, and quite likely the trust between us was badly damaged. It would not make teaching him any easier. I pulled my blanket more tightly around my shoulders.

Below, in the hall, only the Bingtown Traders were subdued. Their talk was quiet and confined to their own group. Even so, it did not prevent them from filling their plates and their glasses generously. Alone amongst them, Selden Vestrit sat, seemingly in deep thought. His plate and his glass were empty and he seemed to stare at nothing.

But at every other table, the talk was lively and the eating as ravenous as if they were men-at-arms fresh returned from battle. The excitement in the hall was palpable, as was the sense of triumph. It was done. For now, at least, the Six Duchies and the Outislands had a firm understanding with one another. The Queen had done it, well, yes, and the Prince, and the glances that were tossed his way seemed more appraising of him than previously. Obviously, this lad was proving himself spirited, to both his lords and ladies, and to the Outislander folk.

The guests in the hall settled down to their meat and drink. A minstrel struck up a lively tune, and the talk subsided as folk began to eat. I opened the bottle of wine I had brought with me. From my folded napkin, I took bread and meat and cheese. The ferret miraculously appeared at my elbow, his tiny paws on my knee. I broke off a piece of meat for him.

‘A toast!’ someone shouted in the hall. ‘To the Prince and the Narcheska!’

A lusty cheer followed the words.

I raised my bottle, grinned grimly, and drank.

FOURTEEN

Scrolls

Owan, a fisherman, lived on the rune island called Fedois. His wife’s mothers’ house was of wood and stone and stood well above the tide line, for tides can run both exceeding high and very low in that place. It was a good place. There were clams on the beach to the north, and enough pasturage below the glacier that his wife could keep three goats of her own in a flock of many, even though she was a younger daughter. She bore for them two sons and a daughter, and all helped him fish. They had enough and it should have been enough for him. But it was not.

From Fedois, on a clear day, a keen-eyed man can see Aslevjal with its heart glacier glinting blue beneath the azure sky. Now all know that when the lowest tide of the winter season comes, a boat can venture under the glacier’s skirts and find a way to the heart of the island. There, as all know, the dragon sleeps with a hoard of treasure scattered about him. Some say a bold man can go there and ask a favour of Icefyre as he sleeps locked in the glacier’s cold, and some say it is only a man both greedy and foolish who would do such a thing. For it is told that Icefyre will give such a man not only what he asks, but what he deserves, and that is not always good luck and gold. To visit Icefyre by that path, a man must go swift, waiting for the tide to lower away from the ice, and then darting under it as soon as his boat will slide between the water and the icy roof. Once in that cold sapphire place, he must count the beats of his own pulse, for if he tarries too long, the tide will return to grind him and his boat between the water and the ice. And that is not the worst thing that can befall a man who ventures there. Few are there who tell the tale of visiting that place, and even fewer are truthful men.

Owan knew this well, for his mother had told him, and so had his wife and his wife’s mother. ‘No call have you to go begging at the dragon’s door,’ they warned him. ‘For you will get no better of Icefyre than would an impudent beggar that came to our own door.’ Even his younger son knew this was so, and he was a lad of only six winters. But his older son had seventeen years, and his heart and his loins burned hot for Gedrena, daughter of Sindre of the Linsfall mothers. She was a rich bride, high above choosing the son of a fisherman for her mate. So his older son buzzed in Owan’s ear like a gnat by night, whining and humming that if they had the courage to visit Icefyre, they both could be the richer for it.

Outislander Scroll, Icefyre’s Lair

The following morning the Outislanders departed, sailing with the dawn tide. I didn’t envy them their trip. The day was rough and cold, spray flying from the tips of the waves. Yet they seemed to make little of the harsh weather, accepting it as routine. I heard that there was a procession down to the docks, and a formal farewell as Elliania boarded the ship that would carry her back to the God Runes. Dutiful bent over her hand and kissed it. She curtseyed to him and to the Queen. Then Bloodblade made his formal farewells, followed by his nobles. Peottre was the last to bid goodbye to the Farseers. He was also the one who escorted the Narcheska aboard the ship. They all stood on the deck to wave as the ship was pulled out of the harbour. I think the folk who went to witness it were disappointed that there were no last-minute dramatics. Almost, it was a calm following a storm. Perhaps Elliania was still too dazed from the previous evening’s late night and cataclysmic agreements to present any last-minute hurdles.

I knew that a quiet meeting between the Queen, Chade, Blackwater and Bloodblade had followed the formal banquet. It had been arranged hastily and lasted into the early hours of the morning. The behaviour of the Prince and Narcheska had doubtless been discussed, but more importantly, the Prince’s quest had now metamorphosed into but one element of an extended visit to the Outislands. Chade told me later that the slaying of the questionable dragon had not been discussed so much as the time-table for the Prince to meet not only the Hetgurd of the Outislands but to visit the Motherhouse of Elliania’s family. The Hetgurd was a loose alliance of head men and tribal chiefs who functioned more as a trade clearinghouse than any sort of a government. Elliania’s Motherhouse was a different matter. Chade told me later that Peottre had seemed very uneasy when Blackwater had calmly assumed that it must be a part of Dutiful’s visit to the Outislands, almost as if he would have refused it if he could. The Prince and his entourage would depart for the Outislands in spring. My private response to that was that it gave Chade precious little time for his information gathering.

I was not a witness to that hastily-convened negotiation, nor to any of the farewell events. Lord Golden, much to Chade’s annoyance, still begged off of any public appearances, citing his health. I was just as glad not to go. I was cramped and stiff from an evening spent wedged in a wall peering through a spyhole. A nice stormy ride down to Buckkeep Town and back was not alluring.

In the wake of the departure of the Outislanders, many of the lesser lords and ladies of the Six Duchies began to leave the court also. The festivities and occasions of the Prince’s betrothal were over, and they had many stories to share with those at home. Buckkeep Castle emptied out like an upended bottle. The stables and servants’ quarters suddenly became roomier, and life settled into a quieter winter routine.

To my dismay, the Bingtown Traders lingered on. This meant that Lord Golden continued to keep to his rooms lest he be recognized, and that at any hour I might encounter Jek visiting him. Propriety meant nothing to her. She had grown up rough, the daughter of fisherfolk, and had kept the carefree ways of that people. Several times I met her in the halls of the castle. Always she grinned at me and gave me a jovial good day. Once, when our steps were carrying us in the same direction, she thumped me on the arm and told me not to be so sombre all the time. I made some neutral reply to that, but before I could get away, she clamped her hand on my forearm and drew me to one side.

She glanced all about us to be sure the hall was deserted and then spoke in a low voice. ‘I suppose this will get me into trouble, but I can’t stand to see the two of you like this. I refuse to believe you don’t know “Lord Golden’s” secret. And knowing it –’ She paused for a moment, then said quietly and urgently, ‘Open your eyes, man, and see what could be yours. Don’t wait. Love such as you could have doesn’t –’

I cut her off before she could say anything more. ‘Perhaps “Lord Golden’s secret” is not what you think it is. Or perhaps you have lived among Jamaillians for too long,’ I suggested, offended.

At my sour look, she had only laughed. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘You might as well trust me. “Lord Golden” has, for years now. Believe in my friendship for both of you, and know that, like you, I can keep a friend’s secrets when they deserve to be kept.’ She turned her head and regarded me as a bird looks at a worm. ‘But some secrets beg to be betrayed. The secret of undeclared love is like that. Amber is a fool not to voice her feelings for you. It does neither of you any good to ignore such a secret.’ She stared into my eyes earnestly, her hand still gripping my wrist.

‘I don’t know what secret you refer to,’ I replied stiffly, even as I wondered uneasily just how many of my secrets the Fool had shared with her. At that moment, two serving maids appeared at the end of the hall and continued towards us, gossiping merrily.

She had dropped my wrist, sighed for me and shook her head in mock pity. ‘Of course you don’t,’ she replied, ‘and you won’t even see what is put right on the table before you. Men. If it was raining soup, you’d be out there with a fork.’ She slapped me on the back, and then our ways parted, much to my relief.

After that, I began to long to have things out with the Fool. Like an aching tooth, I jiggled over and over what I would say to him. The frustration was that he excluded me from his bedchamber, even as he seemed to welcome Jek in for private talks. Not that I rapped at his door and demanded entrance. I had been maintaining a sullen silence towards him, waiting hungrily for him to demand just what ailed me. The problem was that he did not. He seemed focused elsewhere; it was as if he did not notice my silence or my surliness. Is there anything more provoking than waiting for someone to open the lowering quarrel? My mood became ever darker. That Jek believed the Fool was some woman named Amber did nothing to soothe my irritation. It only made the situation ever more bizarre.

In vain, I tried to distract myself with other mysteries. Laurel was gone. In the dwindling days of winter, I had noticed her absence. My discreet inquiries as to where the Huntswoman was had led me to rumours that she had gone to visit her family. Under the circumstances, I doubted that. When asked bluntly, Chade informed me that it was not my concern if the Queen had decided to send her Huntswoman out of harm’s way. When I asked where, he gave me a scathing look. ‘What you don’t know is less danger for you and for her.’

‘And is there more danger, then, that I should know of?’

He considered for a moment before replying, then sighed heavily. ‘I don’t know. She begged a private audience with the Queen. What was said there, I don’t know, for Kettricken refuses to tell me. She gave some foolish promise to the Huntswoman that it would remain a secret between the two of them. Then, Laurel was gone. I don’t know if the Queen sent her away, or if she asked permission to leave, or if she simply fled. I have told Kettricken that it is not wise to leave me uninformed about this. But she will not budge from her promise.’

I thought of Laurel as I had last seen her. I suspected she had gone forth to fight the Piebalds in her own way. What that could be, I had no idea. But I feared for her. ‘Have we had any word about Laudwine and his followers?’

‘Nothing that we know is absolutely true. But three rumours might as well be the truth, as the saying goes. And there are plentiful rumours that Laudwine has recovered from the injury you dealt him, and that he will once more take up the reins of power over the Piebalds. The closest we have to good news is that some may dispute his right to lead them. We can only hope that he has problems of his own.’

And so I hoped, fervently, but in my heart I did not believe it.

There was little to lighten my life elsewhere. The Prince had not come to the Skill-tower on the morning of the Narcheska’s departure. I thought little of that. He had had a late night, and his presence was demanded early on the docks. But on the two mornings since then, I had waited in vain for him. I had arrived at our appointed hour, and waited, labouring over some scroll translations alone, and then I left. He sent me no word of explanation. After simmering in my own anger through the second morning, I made a firm decision that I would not contact him. It was, I told myself firmly, not my place. I tried to put myself in the Prince’s skin. How would I have felt if I had found that Verity had given me a Skill-command to be loyal? I knew too well how I felt about Skillmaster Galen fogging my mind and masking my Skill-talent from me. Dutiful had a right to both his anger and his royal contempt of me. I’d let them run their course. When he was ready, I’d give him the only explanation I could: the truth. I had not meant to bind him to obey me, only to stop him from attempting to kill me. I sighed at the thought and bent over my work again.

It was evening and I was sitting up in Chade’s tower. I had been there since afternoon, waiting for Thick. It was yet another meeting that he had missed. As I had pointed out to Chade, there was little he or I could do if the half-wit would not voluntarily come to meet me. Still, I had not wasted my time. In addition to several of the older and more obscure Skill-scrolls that we were deciphering piecemeal, Chade had given me two old scrolls that dealt with Icefyre, the God Runes’ dragon. They both dealt with legends, but he hoped I could sift whatever seed of truth had begun them. He had already dispatched spies to the Outislands. One had sailed secretly aboard the Narcheska’s vessel, ostensibly working his way across to visit relatives there. His true mission was to reach Aslevjal, or at least to discover as much about that isle as could be learned, and to report back to Chade with it. The old man feared that having committed himself to the quest, Dutiful must actually go. But he was determined the Prince would go well prepared and well accompanied. ‘I myself may go with him,’ Chade had informed me at our last chance encounter in the tower. I had groaned, but managed to keep it a silent one. He was too old for such a trip. By an amazing effort of will, I managed to keep those words to myself also. For I knew what would follow any protest: ‘Who, then, do you think I should send?’ I was no more in favour of visiting Aslevjal myself than I was for Chade going. Or Prince Dutiful, for that matter.

I pushed the Icefyre scroll to one side and rubbed my eyes. It was interesting, but I doubted that anything there was going to prepare the Prince for his quest. From what I knew of our stone dragons, even from what the Fool had told me of the Bingtown dragons, it seemed highly unlikely to me that there was a dragon asleep in a glacier on an Outislander isle. Far more likely that a ‘slumbering dragon’ was fancifully blamed for earthquakes and glaciers calving. Besides, I’d had enough of dragons for a time. The more I worked on the scroll, the more troubling thoughts of the veiled Bingtowner menaced my sleep. Yet I could wish those were my only concerns.

My eyes fell on a heavy pottery bowl, upside down on the corner of the table. There was a dead rat under it. Well, there was most of a dead rat under. I’d taken it from the ferret last night. From a sound sleep, a Wit-scream of hideous pain had awakened me. It was not the ordinary snuffing of a small creature’s life. Anyone with the Wit had to become inured to those constant ripples. Usually, little creatures went like popping bubbles. Among animals, death is a daily chance one takes in the course of living. Only a human bonded to a creature could have given such a roar of dismay, outrage and sorrow over a creature’s death.

Once jolted awake by it, I had given up all hope of going back to sleep. It was as if my wound of losing Nighteyes had suddenly been torn afresh. I had arisen and, loath to awaken the Fool, had instead come up to the tower. On the way I had encountered the ferret dragging the rat. It had been the largest, most glossily healthy rat I had ever seen. After a chase and a tussle, the ferret had surrendered it to me. There was no way I could prove that this dead rat had been someone’s Wit-beast, but my suspicions were strong. I had saved it to show it to Chade. I knew we had a spy sneaking about within the keep’s walls. Laurel’s lynched sprig of laurel was proof enough of that. Now it seemed possible that the rat and his Wit-partner had not only penetrated to the royal residence, but knew something of our hidden lairs. I hoped the old man would come to the tower this evening.

I now turned to the two old Skill-scrolls we’d been piecing together. They were more challenging than the Icefyre vellums, and yet more satisfying to work on. Chade believed the two were part of the same work, based on the apparent age of the vellum and the style of lettering used. I believed they were two separate works, based on the choice of words and the illustrations. Both were faded and cracked, with portions of words or whole sentences unreadable. Both were in an archaic lettering that gave me headaches. Beside each scroll was a clean piece of vellum, with Chade’s and my line-for-line translations of the two. Looking at them, I realized that my handwriting predominated now. I glanced at Chade’s latest contribution. It was a sentence that began, ‘The use of elfbark’. I frowned at that, and found the corresponding line in the old scroll. The illustration beside it was faded, but it was definitely not elfbark. The word Chade had translated as ‘elfbark’ was partially obscured by a stain. But squinting at it, I had to agree that ‘elfbark’ did seem the most likely configuration of the letters. Well, that made no sense. Unless the illustration did not pertain to that part of the text. In which case, the piece I had translated might be all wrong. I sighed.

The wine rack swung open. Chade entered, followed by Thick bearing a tray of food and drink. ‘Good evening,’ I greeted them, and carefully set my work to one side.

‘Good evening, Tom,’ Chade greeted me.

‘Evening, master,’ Dogstink. Thick echoed him.

Don’t call me that. ‘Good evening, Thick. I thought you and I were going to meet here earlier today.’

The half-wit set the tray down on the table and scratched himself. ‘Forgot,’ he said with a shrug, but his little eyes narrowed as he said it.

I gave Chade a glance of resignation. I had tried, but the old man’s surly stare seemed to say I had not tried hard enough. I tried to think of a way to be rid of Thick so I could discuss the rat with Chade.

‘Thick? Next time you bring up wood for the fire, could you bring an extra load? Sometimes in the evening, it gets quite cold up here.’ I gestured at the dwindling flames. I’d had to let it die down as there was no more wood to fuel it.

Cold dogstink. The thought reached me clearly but he simply stood and stared at me slackly as if he had not understood my words.

‘Thick? Two loads of firewood tonight. All right?’ Chade spoke to him, a bit more loudly than was needed and saying each word clearly. Could he not sense how much that annoyed Thick? The man was simple, but not deaf. Nor stupid, really.

Thick nodded slowly. ‘Two loads.’

‘You could go get it right now,’ Chade told him.

‘Now,’ Thick agreed. As he turned to go, he gave me a brief glance from the corner of his eyes. Dogstink. More work.

I waited until he had gone before I spoke to Chade. He had set the tray on the table opposite the scrolls. ‘He doesn’t try to assault me with the Skill any more. But he uses it to insult me, privately. He knows you cannot hear him. I don’t know why he dislikes me so much. I’ve done nothing to him.’

Chade lifted one shoulder. ‘Well, you will both just have to get past that and work together. And you must begin soon. The Prince must have some sort of Skill-coterie to accompany him on this quest, even if it’s only a serving-man he can draw strength from. Court Thick, Fitz, and win him. We need him.’ When I met his words with silence, he sighed. Glancing about, he offered, ‘Wine?’

I indicated my cup on the table. ‘No, thank you. I’ve been drinking hot tea this evening.’

‘Oh. Very good.’ Chade walked around the table to see what I was working on. ‘Oh. Did you finish the Icefyre scrolls?’

I shook my head. ‘Not yet. I don’t think we’re going to find anything useful in them. They seem to be very vague about the actual dragon. Mostly accounts of earthquakes that proved that the dragon would punish someone if he didn’t do what was just, and so the man realizes that he had best behave in a righteous way.’

‘Nevertheless, you should finish reading them. There might be something in there, some hidden mention of a detail that could be useful.’

‘I doubt it. Chade, do you think there even is a dragon? Or might not this be Elliania’s ploy to delay her marriage, by sending the Prince off to slay something that doesn’t exist?’

‘I am satisfied that some sort of creature is encased in ice on Aslevjal Isle. There are a number of passing mentions of it being visible in some of the very old scrolls. A few winters of very deep snowfalls and an avalanche seem to have obscured it. But for a time travellers in that area would go far out of their way to stare into the glacier and speculate on what they were seeing inside it.’

I leaned back in my chair. ‘Oh, good. Perhaps this will be more a task for shovels and ice saws than for a prince and a sword.’

A smile flickered briefly over Chade’s face. ‘Well, if it comes to moving ice and snow swiftly, I think I’ve come up with a better technique. But it still needs refinement.’

‘So. That was you on the beach last month?’ I had heard rumours of another lightning blast, this one witnessed by several ships out in the harbour. The explosion had happened in the deep of night during a snowstorm. It befuddled all who spoke of it. No one had seen lightning streak through the sky, nor would expect to on such a night. But no one could deny hearing the blast. A sizeable amount of stone and sand had been moved by it.

‘On the beach?’ Chade asked me as if mystified.

‘Let it go,’ I conceded, almost with relief. I had no wish to be included in his experiments with his exploding powder.

‘As we must,’ Chade agreed. ‘For we have other things to discuss, things of much greater importance. How is the Prince progressing with his Skill-lessons?’

I winced. I had not informed Chade that the Prince had not been coming to them. I hedged at first, reminding him, ‘I’ve been reluctant to let him do any actual Skilling while the scaled Bingtowner is still here. So we had only been studying the scrolls –’

Then I suddenly saw little sense in withholding the truth, and no future at all in lying to Chade. ‘Actually, he hasn’t come to any of his lessons since the farewell banquet. I think he’s still angry at discovering I’d placed a Skill-command on him.’

Chade scowled at the news. ‘Well. I’ll take steps to correct him. Regardless of how ruffled his feathers are, he had best put himself to that task. Tomorrow, he will be there. I will arrange that he will be able to spend an extra hour with you each morning and not be missed. Now. As to Thick. You must get to the task of teaching him, Fitz, or at least getting him to obey you. I leave how you do that to you, but I suggest that bribes will work better than threats or punishments. Now. On to our next task: how do you propose that we begin looking for other Skill-candidates?’

I sat down and crossed my arms on my chest. I tried to hold in my anger as I asked, ‘Then you’ve found a Skillmaster to teach other candidates if you find them?’

He knit his brows at me. ‘We have you.’

I shook my head. ‘No. I teach the Prince at his request. And you’ve coerced me into trying to teach Thick. But I am not a Skillmaster. Even if I had the knowledge to be one, I would not be one. I cannot. You are asking me for a lifetime commitment. You’re asking me to take on an apprentice who would eventually assume the duties of Skillmaster when I died. There is no possible way I could take on a class of students and instruct them in the Skill without revealing to all of them who I am. I won’t do that.’

Chade stared at me, mouth slightly ajar at my contained anger. It seemed to give my words momentum.

‘Furthermore, I’d prefer that you let me settle my quarrel with the Prince in my own way. It will go better so. It’s a personal matter, between him and me. As for when and where I will be able to teach Thick? Never and nowhere,’ I said shortly. ‘He doesn’t like me. He’s unpleasant, ill-mannered and smelly. And, if you haven’t noticed before, he’s a half-wit. A bit dangerous to trust him with the Farseer magic. But even if he weren’t all those things, he has rejected all my efforts to teach him anything.’ That was true, I defended it to myself. He had quickly terminated all of my half-hearted attempts at conversation, leaving me in a cloud of Skilled insults. ‘And he’s strong. If I push him, he may take that dislike of me to a violent level. Frankly, he scares me.’ If I had thought to provoke Chade to anger, I failed. He slowly sat down across from me and took a sip from his wine glass. He regarded me silently for a moment, then shook his head. ‘This won’t do, Fitz,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I know that you doubt you can instruct the Prince and create a coterie for him in the time we have, but as it is something we must do, I have faith you will find a way.’

‘You are convinced the Prince needs a coterie at his side before he undertakes this quest. I’m not even sure this is a real quest, let alone that a coterie will be able to assist him better than a troop of soldiers with shovels.’

‘Nevertheless, sooner or later the Prince will need a coterie. You might as well begin to create one now.’ He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms on his chest. ‘I’ve an idea of how to find likely candidates.’

I stared at him silently. He blithely ignored my refusal to be Skillmaster. His next words incensed me.

‘I could simply ask Thick. He located Nettle easily. Perhaps if he put his mind to it and was rewarded for each success, he could find others.’

‘I really want nothing to do with Thick,’ I said quietly.

‘A shame,’ Chade replied as softly. ‘For I’m afraid this is no longer a matter for discussion between you and me. Let me say this plainly: it is the Queen’s command for us. We met for several hours this morning, discussing Dutiful and his quest. She shares my opinion that he must have a coterie to accompany him. She asked what candidates we had. I told her Thick and Nettle. She wishes their training to begin at once.’

I crossed my arms on my chest and held my silence in. I was shocked, and not just by Nettle being included. I knew that in the Mountain Kingdom babes such as Thick were usually exposed shortly after birth. I had surmised that she would be dismayed at the thought of such a man serving her son. In fact, I had been relying on her to refuse him. Once more, Kettricken had surprised me.

When I was sure I could speak in a steady voice, I asked, ‘Has she sent for Nettle yet?’

‘Not yet. The Queen wishes to handle this matter herself, with great tact. We know that if she requests this, Burrich may refuse again. If she commands it, well, neither of us can decide what response he might make to that. She wishes both Burrich and the girl to agree to this. And thus the precise way to phrase the summons will demand thought, but right now, the Bingtown delegation takes every spare moment she has. When they have departed, she will invite both Burrich and Nettle here to explain the need to both of them. And perhaps Molly as well.’ Very carefully he added, ‘Unless, of course, you would like to broach the matter to them for the Queen. Then Nettle could begin her lessons sooner.’

I took a breath. ‘No. I would not. And Kettricken should not waste her time considering how to approach them. Because I won’t teach Nettle to Skill.’

‘I thought you might feel that way. But feelings no longer have anything to do with it, Fitz. It is our queen’s command. We have no choice except to obey.’

I slid down in my chair. Defeat rose like bile in the back of my throat. So. There it was. The command of my queen was that my daughter be sacrificed to the need of the Farseer heir. Her peaceful life and the security of her home were as nothing before the needs of the Farseer throne. I’d stood here before. Once, I would have believed I had no choice except to obey. But that had been a younger Fitz.

I took a moment and considered it. Kettricken, my friend, the wife of my uncle Verity was a Farseer by virtue of marriage. The vows I had sworn as a child and a youth and as a young man bound me to the Farseers, to serve as they commanded me, even to giving up my life. To Chade, my duty seemed clear. But what was a vow? Words said aloud with good intentions of keeping them. To some, they were no more than that, words that could be discarded when the situation or the heart changed. Men and women who had vowed faithfulness to one another dallied with others or simply abandoned their mates. Soldiers under oath to a lord deserted in the cold and lean winters. Noblemen vowed to one cause cast off their obligations when another side offered them more advantage. So. Truly, was I bound to obey her? I found that my hand had strayed to the little fox pin inside my shirt.

There were a hundred reasons I did not wish to obey her, reasons that had nothing to do with Nettle. The Skill, I had told Chade before, was a magic better left dead. Yet I had allowed myself to be persuaded to teach Dutiful. Reading the Skill-scrolls had not made me more secure in my decision to teach him. The scope of the Skill that I had glimpsed from these forgotten scrolls was vaster than anything Verity had ever dared imagine. Worse, the more I read, the more I realized that what we had was not the Skill-library, but only the remaining fragments of it. We had the scrolls that spoke of the duties of instructors, and the scrolls that delineated the most sophisticated uses of the Skill. There must have been other scrolls, ones that spoke of the basics and how a Skill-user could build his abilities and control to the level demanded for the most advanced purposes. But we did not have those ones. El alone knew what had become of them. The bits and pieces of Skill-knowledge that I had glimpsed had convinced me that the magic offered abilities almost on a footing with the powers of the gods. With the Skill, one could injure or heal, blind or enlighten, encourage or crush. I did not think I was wise enough to wield such authority, let alone decide who should inherit it. The more Chade read, the more eager and avid he became for the magic that had been denied to him by his illegitimate birth. He frightened me, often, with his enthusiasm for all the Skill seemed to offer. It frightened me in a different way that he insisted on venturing into the magic alone. That he had lately said nothing made me hope he had had no success.

Yet I dared not hope that left the decision in my hands. I could refuse, I could flee, but even without me, Chade would pursue the magic. His will was strong, as was his desire for the Skill. He would try to teach, not only himself but also Dutiful and Thick. And Nettle, I realized. Because Chade saw the Skill not as dangerous, but as desirable. He felt he was entitled to it. He was a Farseer, and the Farseer magic was rightfully his; but his birthright had been denied him, because he was a bastard Farseer. Just as my daughter was.

I suddenly put my finger on a sore that had festered in me for years. The Farseer magic. That was what the Skill was. Supposedly, the Farseers had a ‘right’ to this magic. And with that assumption went the notions that a Farseer had the wisdom to deploy such a magic within the world. Chade, born on the wrong side of the sheets, had been judged unworthy and callously denied any education in the Skill. Perhaps he had never had any talent for it; perhaps it had withered away, unnourished. But the unfairness of being denied the opportunity still ate at the old man, after all these years. I was certain that his thwarted ambition was behind his consuming desire to restore the Skill to use. Did he see me as depriving Nettle in the same way he had been denied? I looked at him. Had not Verity and Chade and Patience intervened for me, I might be as he was.

‘You’re very quiet,’ Chade said softly.

‘I’m thinking,’ I replied.

He frowned. ‘Fitz. It is the Queen’s command. Not a request to think about. An order to obey.’

Not a request to think about. In my youth, there had been so many things that I hadn’t thought about. I’d simply done my duty. But I had been a boy then. Now I was a man. And I teetered, not between duty and not duty, but between right and wrong. I took a step back from the question. Was it right to teach another generation the Skill and preserve it in our world? Was it right to let that knowledge fail and pass beyond humanity’s reach? If there would always be some who could not have it, was it more righteous to deny it to all? Was the guarded possession of magic like the hoarding of wealth, or was it simply a talent one did or did not have, like the ability to shoot a bow well or sing each note of a song perfectly?

I felt besieged by the questions whirling in my head. In my heart, another question clamoured at me. Was there no way to preserve Nettle from this? For I could not bear it. I could not bear to see all I had sacrificed made useless as the secrets of her birth and of my survival were suddenly revealed to those most vulnerable to them. I could refuse to teach the Skill, but that would not preserve her peace. I could steal her from her home and flee, but then I would have been every bit as destructive as what I feared.

When Kettle had taught me the Stone game, I had had a sudden shift in perception one day. The wolf had been with me then. I had seen the little stones set in their places on the crossing lines of the gamecloth not as a fixed situation but as only one point in a spreading flow of possibilities. I could not win Chade’s game by saying ‘no’. But what if I said ‘yes’?

You always chose to be bound by who you are. Now choose to be freed by who you are.

I caught my breath as that thought floated unbidden into my mind. Nighteyes? I reached after it but it was as sourceless as the wind. I was not sure if the Skill had carried the thought to me from some other person, or if the conviction had welled from some place deep within me. Whence ever it had come, it rang with truth. I handled the conviction delicately, fearing it might cut me. So I was bound by who I was. I was a Farseer. But in a strange, detached way that freed me.

‘I want a promise,’ I said slowly.

Chade sensed the sea change in me. Carefully, he set down his wine glass. ‘You want a promise?’

‘It always went both ways between King Shrewd and me. I was his. And in exchange for that, he provided for me and saw that I was taught. He provided for me very well, something that I have only realized the fullness of since I have been a man. I would ask a similar promise now.’

Chade knit his brows at me. ‘Are you lacking anything? Well, I know your present quarters leave much to be desired, but as I have told you, this chamber may be modified however you please to suit your needs. Your present mount seems a good one, but if you prefer a better horse, I could arrange …’

‘Nettle,’ I said quietly.

‘You wish Nettle provided for? It could most easily be done if we brought her here, to be educated and offered the opportunity to meet young men of good position and –’

‘No. I do not wish her provided for. I wish for her to be left alone.’

He shook his head slowly. ‘Fitz, Fitz. You know I cannot give you that. The Queen commands that she be brought here and taught.’

‘I don’t ask it of you. I ask it of my queen. If I agree to become her Skillmaster, then she must agree to let me teach in my own way, whom I choose, in secret. And she must promise to leave my daughter in peace. Forever.’

A terrible expression crossed his face. His eyes lit with the wild hope that I would step into the role of Skillmaster. But the price I had set upon it made him quail. ‘You would ask a promise of your queen? Do you not think you presume too much?’

I set my jaw. ‘Perhaps. But perhaps for a long time, the Farseers have presumed too much of me.’

He took in a long breath through his nose. I knew he bottled his anger with his hope. His words were icily formal. ‘I shall present your proposal to Her Majesty and relay to you her reply.’

‘Please,’ I replied in a low and courteous voice.

He rose stiffly and without another word to me he departed. I realized in that silence that his anger went deeper than I had supposed. It took me a moment to put my finger on it. I was not as he was, neither as a Farseer nor as an assassin. I was not sure that made me a better man. I longed to let him leave just then, but I knew there were other matters we had to discuss.

‘Chade. Before you go, there is something else I must tell you. I think we’ve had a spy in our secret corridors.’

He set his anger aside, almost visibly drawing himself back from it. As he turned, I lifted the bowl to reveal the rat. ‘The ferret killed this last night. I felt someone grieve for its death. I think this was the Wit-beast of someone within Buckkeep. It could be the same one I encountered on the road the night before the Prince’s betrothal.’

Grimacing with distaste, Chade bent over the rat and poked at it. ‘Is there any way to know whose?’

I shook my head. ‘Not absolutely. But this will have distressed someone greatly. I suspect they would need a day or so at least to recover. So, if anyone vanishes from the social whirl of court for a day or so, you might want to pay a call on them, to see what ails them.’

‘I’ll make inquiries. You think our spy is a noble, then?’

‘That’s the difficult part. It could be a man or a woman, noble or servant or bard. It could be someone who has lived here all his life, or someone who has been here only since the betrothal festivities began.’

‘Is there anyone you suspect?’

I frowned for a moment. ‘We might look most closely at the Bresinga group. But only because we know at least some of them are Witted and sympathetic to others with the Wit.’

‘That’s a small group. Civil Bresinga is here, with a manservant, a page, and I think a groom for his horse. I’ll make inquiries about them.’

‘It interests me that he remains when so many other nobles have returned to their own holdings. Could we discreetly find out why?’

‘He has become a close friend of the Prince. It is in the best interests of his family that he exploit that connection. But I will quietly ask how things are at Galekeep. I have a person there, you know.’

I nodded gravely.

‘She has said that the household seems to be declining in the last month or so. Old servants have left, and the new ones seem unmannered and undisciplined. She said there was an incident of some new cook’s assistants who helped themselves to the wine cellar. The cook was quite upset to find them drunk, and even more distressed to discover that the pilferage had been going on for some time. When Lady Bresinga did not send the guilty parties packing, the cook left, and she had been with the household for some years. And it seems there is a change in the guests entertained there. In place of the landed gentry and the lesser nobles who used to guest there, Lady Bresinga has hosted several hunting parties who seemed to my person to be rather unsophisticated, even boorish.’

‘What do you think it means?’

‘That perhaps Lady Bresinga is forming new alliances. I suspect her new friends are at best Witted, and at worst, Piebalds. Yet it may not be with the Lady’s willing consent. My person there says that Lady Bresinga spends more and more time alone in her own chambers, even when her “guests” are dining.’

‘Have we intercepted any letters between her and Civil?’

Chade shook his head. ‘Not in the last two months. There don’t seem to be any.’

I shook my head. ‘I find that exceedingly curious. Something is going on there. We should watch young Civil more closely than ever.’ I sighed. ‘This rat is the first evidence of Piebald activity that we’ve had since Laurel’s lynched twig. I had hoped that their restlessness had settled.’

Chade drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. He came back to the table and sat down. ‘There have been other signs,’ he said quietly. ‘But like this one, they have not been obvious ones.’

This was news to me. ‘Oh?’

He cleared his throat. ‘The Queen has managed to quell executions of Witted ones in Buck. At least, public ones. I suspect that in the smaller towns and villages, it could happen and no word of it reaches us. Or it could be done under the pretence of punishment for some other crime. But in place of the executions, there have been murders. Are these citizens killing Witted? Or Piebalds moving against their own to force compliance with them? We can’t tell. Only that the deaths go on.’

‘We have discussed that before. As you said, there is little Queen Kettricken can do about that,’ I said neutrally.

Chade made a small sound in his throat. ‘It would be most helpful to me if you could convince our queen of that. It bothers her a great deal, Fitz. And not just because her son is Witted.’

I bowed my head in acknowledgement of her concern for me. ‘And outside Buck?’ I asked quietly.

‘It is more difficult. The duchies have always resented the crown taking too deep an interest in what they regard as “personal” questions of power and justice. To demand that Farrow or Tilth cease executing people for the Wit is like demanding that Shoaks cease all harassment along their border with Chalced.’

‘Shoaks has always wrangled with Chalced about the border they share.’

‘And Farrow and Tilth have always executed Witted ones.’

‘That’s not completely true.’ I leaned back in my chair. I had enjoyed having access to Chade’s scroll collection and the Buckkeep library. ‘Prior to the time of the Piebald Prince, the Wit was regarded in the same light as hedge magics. Not particularly powerful magic, but if a man had it, he had it. It did not make him evil and disgusting.’

‘Well,’ Chade conceded. ‘That’s so. But the attitude of the people is so set now that it is near impossible to root it out. Lady Patience had done her best in Farrow. When she has not been able to prevent an execution, she has most assiduously punished those involved afterwards. No one can accuse her of not trying.’ He chewed his upper lip again. ‘Last week, the Queen received an anonymous message.’

‘Why wasn’t I told?’ I instantly demanded.

‘Why should you be told?’ he demanded in reply. Then, at my scowl, he softened his tone. ‘There was little to tell. It made no demands or threats. It simply listed by name those who had been executed in the Six Duchies for the Wit in the last six months.’ He sighed. ‘It was a sizeable list. Forty-seven names.’ He cocked his head at me. ‘It was not marked with the Piebald horse. So, we think this comes from a different faction of Witted.’

I pondered this for a time. ‘I think the Witted know they have the Queen’s ear. I think they are letting her know what is happening, to see what she will do. To take no action would be a mistake, Chade.’

He nodded at me, grudgingly pleased. ‘So I saw it also. The Queen says it shows we are making progress in gaining the trust of the Witted. They would not send such a list to her unless they thought there was something she could do. We are making an effort to find kin of the executed ones. Then each duchy will be informed by the Queen that they must pay blood-gold to them.’

‘I doubt you will have much success finding kin. Folk are not comfortable admitting they are related to anyone with the Wit.’

Again he nodded. ‘We have found a few, however. And the blood-gold for the others will be held here at Buckkeep by the Queen’s counting-man. Where she cannot find kin, she will command that notices be posted, informing that those related to the executed can come to Buck for compensation.’

I pondered a bit. ‘For the most part, they’ll be afraid to come. And gold may be seen as a cold thing. Some nobles may even think it is worth the price to rid their realms of Witted ones. Like a fee paid to a rat-catcher.’

Chade bent his head down and rubbed his temples. When he lifted his face and looked at me, his face was weary. ‘We do the best we can, FitzChivalry. Have you any better suggestions?’

I thought a bit. ‘Not really. But I should like to see the scrolls they have sent. This one listing the names, and any earlier ones. Especially the one that came right before the Prince was taken.’

‘If you wish to see them, then you shall.’

There was something in his voice. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I spoke carefully. ‘I’ve already said that I wished to see them. Several times. I do wish to see them, Chade. When can I look at them?’

He gave me a look from under lowered brows. Then he got up and with ponderously slow steps walked to his scroll rack. ‘I suppose that eventually all of my secrets must pass to you,’ he observed reluctantly. Then, by a means I did not discern, he did something to release a catch. The decorative crown-piece on top of the scroll rack folded down. He reached inside, and after a moment he drew out three scrolls. They were all small and rolled tight into cylinders which could have been concealed in a man’s closed fist. I stood, but he shut the rack-front before I could see what else might be concealed there.

‘How did you open that?’ I demanded.

His smile was very small. ‘I said “eventually”, Fitz. Not “today”.’ His tone was that of my erstwhile mentor. He seemed to have set aside his earlier annoyance with me. He came back to me and offered me the three rolled scrolls on his outstretched palms. ‘Kettricken and I had our reasons. I hope you will think them good enough.’

I took the scrolls, but before I could open even one, the scroll rack swung to one side again and Thick entered. I flipped all three scrolls up my sleeve with a move so practised it was almost instinctive. ‘And now I must be going, FitzChivalry.’ He turned from me to Thick. ‘Thick. You were to meet Tom earlier. Now that you are both here, I want you to spend some time together. I want you to be friends.’ The old assassin gave me a final withering look. ‘I’m sure that you’ll have a pleasant chat now. Good night to both of you.’

And with that he left us. Did he sound relieved to leave? He hastened out before the rack could even close behind Thick. The half-wit carried a double load of wood in a canvas sling over one shoulder. He looked around, perhaps surprised to see Chade leave so swiftly. ‘Wood,’ he told me. He dumped his burden to the floor, straightened up, and turned to go.

‘Thick.’ My voice stopped him. Chade was right. I should at least teach the man to obey me. ‘You know that is not what you are supposed to do. Stack the wood in the holder by the hearth.’

He glared at me, flexing his shoulders and rubbing his stubby hands together. Then he seized one end of the sling and dragged the wood towards the hearth, spilling logs, bits of bark and dirt as he went. I said nothing. He crouched down beside it and, with a great deal more vehemence and noise than was required, began to stack the wood. He looked over his shoulder at me frequently as he worked, but I could not decipher if his squint was antagonism or fear. I poured myself a glass of wine and tried to ignore him. There had to be a way out of dealing with Thick each day. I did not want him around me, let alone to teach him. In truth, I found his malformed body and dim ways somewhat revolting.

As Galen had me. Just as Galen had not wanted to teach me.

That thought nudged me in a bruised place that had never quite healed. I felt a moment of shame as I watched him labour sullenly. He hadn’t asked to become a tool for the Farseer crown, any more than I had. Like me, the duty had fallen upon him. Nor had he chosen to be born malformed and dim-witted. It grew in my mind that there was a question that no one had asked yet, one that suddenly seemed important to me. One that might put the entire question of a coterie for Dutiful in a different light.

‘Thick,’ I said.

He grunted. I said nothing more until he stopped in his wood tantrum and turned to glare at me. It was, perhaps, not the best time to ask him anything. But I doubted that there would ever be a favourable time for Thick and me to have this conversation. When I was sure he was paying attention, his small eyes beetling at me, I spoke again. ‘Thick. Would you like me to teach you to Skill?’

‘What?’ He looked suspicious, as if he expected me to make him the butt of a joke.

I took a breath. ‘You have an ability.’ His scowl deepened. I clarified. ‘A thing you can do that others can’t. Sometimes you use it to make people “not see” you. Sometimes you use it to call me names, names that Chade can’t hear. Like “dogstink”.’ That made him smirk. I ignored it. ‘Would you like me to teach you to use it in other ways? In good ways that could help you serve your prince?’

He didn’t even think about it. ‘No.’ He turned back and resumed thunking the wood chunks onto the pile.

The swiftness of his reply surprised me a bit. ‘Why not?’

He rocked back on his heels and looked over at me. ‘I got enough work.’ He glared meaningfully from me to the firewood. Dogstink.

Don’t do that. ‘Well. We all have work we have to do. That’s life.’

He made no reply of either kind, just kept on deliberately clunking each log into place. I took a breath and resolved not to react to that. I wondered what it would take to make him even a little more agreeable. For I suddenly wanted to teach him. I could make a start with him, as a sign to the Queen of my commitment. Could Thick be bribed to try to learn to Skill, as Chade as suggested? Could I buy my daughter’s safety by enticing him? ‘Thick,’ I asked him. ‘What do you want?’

That made him pause. He turned to look at me and his brow wrinkled. ‘What?’

‘What do you want? What would make you happy? What do you want out of life?’

‘What do I want?’ He squinted at me, as if by seeing better he could understand my words. ‘You mean, to have? My own?’

At each query, I nodded. He stood slowly, and scratched at the back of his neck. His lips pushed out as he thought, his tongue sticking out with them. ‘I want … I want that red scarf that Rowdy has.’ He stopped and stared at me sullenly. I think he expected me to tell him that he could not have it. I didn’t even know who Rowdy was.

‘A red scarf. I think I could get that for you. What else?’

For minutes he just stared at me. ‘And a pink sugar cake, to eat it all. Not a burnt one. And … and a whole lot of raisins.’ He stopped, and then looked at me challengingly.

‘And what else?’ I asked him. None of those things sounded too difficult.

He peered at me, coming closer. He thought I was mocking him. I made my voice gentle as I asked, ‘If you had all those things, right now, what else would you want?’

‘If I … raisins and a cake?’

‘Raisins and a cake, and a red scarf. Then what else?’

His mouth worked, his small eyes squinting. I don’t think he’d ever considered the possibility of wanting more than those things. I’d have to teach him to be hungry if I were going to use bribery. At the same time, the simplicity of the things that this man longed for as unattainable cut to my heart. He wasn’t asking for better wages or more time to himself. Just the small things, the little pleasures that made a hard life tolerable.

‘I want … a knife like you got. And one of those feathers, those big feathers with the eyes in them. And a whistle. A red one. I used to have one – my mam gave me a red whistle, a red whistle on a green string.’ He scowled more deeply, pondering. ‘But they took it and broke it.’ For an instant he said no more, breathing hoarsely as he remembered. I wondered how long ago it had happened. His little eyes were squinted nearly shut with the effort of the recall. I had thought him too stupid to have memories that went back to his childhood. I was rapidly revising my image of just who Thick was. His mind certainly did not work as mine or Chade’s did, but work it did. Then he blinked his small eyes several times and took a long shuddering breath. The next words came out on a sob. His words, blunted at the best of times, were barely understandable now. ‘They didn’t even want to blow it. I said, “you can blow it. But then give it back.” But they didn’t even blow it. They just broke it. And laughed at me. My red whistle that my mam gave me.’

Perhaps there was an element of humour in the tubby little man with the jutting tongue weeping for the loss of his whistle. I’ve known many men who would have laughed aloud. As for me, I caught my breath. Pain radiated off him like heat from a fire, and it ignited boyhood memories of my own, long buried. The way Regal would give me a casual push as he passed me in the hallway, or trample through my playthings as I sat in one of my private games on the floor in the corner of the Lesser Hall. It broke something in me, some wall I had held between Thick and myself because of all the differences I perceived between us. After all, he was slow-witted and fat, awkward-bodied and ill-made, rude. Ragged and smelly and ill-mannered. And as much an outcast in this castle of wealth and pleasure as I had been when I was Nameless the dog-boy. It did not matter that he had a man’s years to him. The boy was suddenly who I saw, the boy who could never be a man, could never say that such hurts were a part of his past when he was vulnerable. Thick would always be vulnerable.

I had intended to bribe him. I had intended to find out what he wanted, and then hold it over him to get him to do what I wanted. Not in a cruel way, but to barter with him for obedience to my will. It would not have been so different from how my grandfather once bought me. King Shrewd had given me a pin and a promise of an education. He had never offered me his love, though I believe he had eventually come to care for me as I had for him. Yet I had always wished that his compassion had been the first thing he had offered me, instead of the last. Towards the end, I had suspected that he shared that vain wish.

And so I found myself speaking words aloud before I knew I had thought them. ‘Oh, Thick. We haven’t done well by you, have we? But we will do better. That I promise you. We will do better by you before I ask you again to learn this thing for me.’

FIFTEEN

Quarrel

In the Outislands, there are but three places worthy of a traveller’s time. The first of these is the Ice Boneyard on Perilous Island. This is a place where the Outislanders have for centuries interred their greatest warriors. Women are customarily buried within the confines of their own family’s lands. Mingling one’s blood, flesh and bones with the poor soil most holdings farm is considered to be the last sharing offered to their families. Men, on the other hand, are customarily offered to the sea. Only the very greatest of their heroes are interred within the glacier field on Perilous Island. The monuments that cover each grave are of sculpted ice. The oldest ones are weathered past recall, though from time to time they seem to be renewed by the folk of the island. In an effort to stave off the inevitable polishing away of the ice, the monuments are carved many times life-size. The creatures depicted are usually the hero’s clan sign. Thus the visitor will discover here immense bears, looming seals, gigantic otters and a fish that would fill an oxcart.

The second place worthy of a visit is the Cave of the Winds. Here resides the Oracle of the Outislanders. Some say she is a young and nubile maid who walks forth naked despite the icy winds. Others say she is a crone, aged beyond imagining, and always clothed in a heavy garment of bird skins. Still others say she is one and the same. She does not venture forth to greet every traveller who comes to her door. Indeed, this one had no sight of her. The ground all around the cave’s mouth for several acres is littered with offerings to the Oracle. Even to stoop to touch one is rumoured to bring death.

The third place worth the traveller’s effort is the immense ice island of Aslevjal. Whereas many of the isles of the Outislands are saddled with glaciers, Aslevjal is immersed in one. It can only be approached at a low tide that bares a hem of black and rocky beach on the east side of the island. From there, one must ascend the flank of the glacier with rope and axe. Guides to assist one in doing so can be hired at Island Rogeon. They are expensive, but greatly lessen the risk of the climb. The path to the Glacier Monster is a treacherous one. What appears solid ice may be but snowflakes blown across a crevasse to form a deceptive crust. Yet despite the cold, hardship and danger, it is worth the risk to confront the Monster trapped within the ice. Upon arrival, expect your assistants to spend some time sweeping the latest layer of snow from the icy window on the beast. Once cleared, the traveller can gape his fill. Although little more than the creature’s back, shoulder and wings are visible, and the view is hazy, the size of the Monster cannot be disputed. As each year the ice hazes more, this strange site will eventually vanish from all but man’s memory.

Travels in the North Lands – Cron Hevcoldwell

For perhaps an hour after Thick had gone, I sat staring into the freshly-fuelled fire. My conversation with the man had left me heavy of heart. He bore such a burden of sadness, all for the cruelty of folk who could not tolerate his difference. A whistle. A red whistle. Well, I would do my best to see that he got one, regardless of whether it made him more receptive to learning to Skill.

I sat for a time longer, wondering what the Queen would say to Chade when he offered my bargain. I regretted it now: not that I had decided to ask for it, but that I had not told him I would make the request myself. It seemed cowardly to send the old man in my stead, as if I feared to stand before her. Well. It could not be changed now.

After a time of brooding on that, I recalled the little scrolls I had tucked into my cuff. One by one, I tugged them out. They were written on bark paper, crisp and stiff as it aged, and already reluctant to unfurl. I coaxed one carefully open on the table and weighted it flat. Then I had to bring a branch of candles near it before I could make out the crabbed and faded handwriting. The first one I opened was one Chade had not mentioned to me. It simply said, ‘Grim Lendhorn and his wife Geln of Buckkeep Town are both Witted. He keeps a hound and she has a terrier.’ This was signed only with the sketch of a piebald horse. There was nothing to indicate when it had been sent. I wondered if it had been sent directly to the Queen, or if this were an example of the sort of betrayals they posted to expose Old Bloods who did not wish to ally themselves with the Piebalds. I’d have to ask Chade.

The second scroll I managed to unfurl was the one he had mentioned to me that day. It was the freshest, and not as reluctant to uncoil. It simply said, ‘The Queen says that to be Witted is no crime. For what, then, were these folk executed?’ And there followed the list of names. I read them, noticing at least two family groups who had died together. I clenched my teeth and hoped they were not children, though how such a death might be easier for a grown man or an oldster, I could not say. There was only one name on the list that I thought I recognized, and even then I told myself I was not certain it was the same woman. Relditha Cane might not be the same as Rellie Cane. There had been a woman of that name among the Old Blood folk who lived near Crowsneck. I had met her several times at Black Rolf’s house. I had suspected that Rolf’s wife Holly had thought that Rellie and I might fancy one another, but Rellie had never been more than coolly courteous to me. It probably wasn’t her, I lied to myself, and tried not to imagine her curly brown hair shrivelling when the flames touched it. There was no signature or symbol of any kind on the scroll.

The last scroll was rolled so tight it seemed almost solid. Likely it was the oldest. As I forced it open it broke in pieces: two, three, and eventually five. I regretted doing it, but it was the only way to read it. If it had stayed coiled much longer, it would have crumbled into bits, never to be read again.

After I had read it, I wondered if that had not been Chade’s hope and intention.

This had been the scroll that had come before the Prince vanished. This was the message that had precipitated Chade sending a rider to my door with the urgent demand that I come to Buckkeep at once. He had told me what the unsigned threat had said. Now I read the words for myself. ‘Do what is right and no one else ever need know. Ignore this warning, and we will take action of our own.’

What Chade had left out were the words that preceded those ones. The ink had soaked into the bark paper unevenly and the curled surface made it hard to read. Stubbornly, I pieced it together. Then I sat back and tried to remember how to breathe.

‘The Witted Bastard lives. You know it and so do we. He lives and you shield him from harm, because he has served you. You protect him even as you let honest men and women die simply because they have the Old Blood. They are our wives, our husbands, our sons, our daughters, our sisters, and our brothers. Perhaps you will stop the slaughter when we show you what it is like to lose one of your own. How close must the cut be to you before you bleed as we do? We know much of what the minstrels do not sing. The Wit runs still in the Farseer bloodline. Do what is right, and no one else ever need know. Ignore this warning and we will take action of our own.’ There was no signature of any kind.

Very slowly I came back to myself. I pondered all that Chade had wrought, and why he had deliberately withheld this threat to me from my knowledge. The moment the Prince vanished, the moment he knew the threat was serious, he had sent for me. He had led me to believe that the Piebalds had sent a note threatening the Prince before his disappearance. Certainly, this scroll could be read that way. But the more overt threat was to me. Had he called me close to protect me, or to shield the Farseer reign from scandal? Then I pushed Chade’s actions from my thoughts and leaned forward once again to peruse the faded ink on the bark. Who had sent this? The Piebalds seemed to take delight in signing their missives with their stallion emblem. This was unsigned, as was the one that listed the dead. I put them side by side. Some of the letters were similar. The same hand could have written them. The one signed by the Piebalds was written boldly, in larger letters and more flourishes. A different person could have written it, yet that would prove little. The choice of paper for all was the same. Not surprising: good paper was expensive, but anyone could strip bark paper from a birch. It did not mean the notes came from only one source, or even two. I tried theories against one another. Even before the Prince was taken, had there been two factions of the Witted striving to put an end to the persecution of their fellows? Or did I think so only because I so longed for it to be true? Bad enough that Black Rolf and his friends had suspected who I was, and therefore surmised that the Witted Bastard hadn’t died in Regal’s dungeon. I did not want the Piebalds to know that FitzChivalry lived.

I looked again at the list of the dead. There was one other name on there, Nat of the Fens. He might have been someone I had met once when I was staying with Black Rolf. I could not be sure. I drummed my fingers on the table, wondering if I dared visit the Witted community near Crowsneck. To do what? Ask them if they had sent the Queen a note threatening my life? That didn’t seem the best strategy. Perhaps it had only been a bluff. If I went there and they saw me, it would confirm to them that I did still live, even after all the years. At the very least, I’d be a valuable hostage to them, an embarrassment to the Farseers whether I was displayed dead or alive. No. This was not a time for confrontations. Perhaps in truth Chade had taken the best action. He had removed me from where I had been, whilst outwardly behaving as if the threat had no teeth in it. My annoyance with him faded. Nonetheless, I must convince him that this withholding of truth from me was a poor idea. What had he feared? That I would not come to the Prince’s aid, that I would flee the country to begin life elsewhere? Was that what he thought of me?

I shook my head to myself. Plainly it was time I had it out with Chade. He needed to accept that I was a man now, in full control of my own life and capable of making my own decisions. And with Kettricken. I’d have Chade arrange a meeting with her, so that I could tell her myself my fears for my daughter, and ask her promise that Nettle be left alone. And the Fool. Best to settle that festering as well. Those were my thoughts as I left Chade’s tower and sought my bed for the night.

I did not sleep well. Nettle battered at my dreams like a moth trying to destroy itself in a lantern’s flame. I slept, but it was the rest of a man who sleeps with his back braced against a besieged door. I was aware of her. At first she was determined, then angry. Towards morning, she became desperate. Her pleas then were the hardest to hold my walls against. ‘Please. Please.’ That was all she said. But her Skill made it a sweeping wind of pleading against my senses.

I awoke with my head pounding dully. All my senses felt abraded. The yellow candlelight in my room seemed too bright, and any sound too loud. The guilt that gnawed me for ignoring her didn’t improve any of it. It was definitely a morning that deserved a bit of elfbark, and with or without Chade’s approval, I wasn’t going to begin the day without it. I rose, splashed my face and dressed. The shock of the cold water on my face and the necessity of bending down to fasten my shoes seemed as battering as a beating.

I left our chambers. Slowly I descended to the kitchens. On my way down, I met Lord Golden’s serving-boy. I dismissed Char for the morning, telling him that I would fetch the lord’s breakfast that day. His delighted grin and repeated thanks reminded me that once I had been a boy who could have easily filled any free hour with a dozen activities. It made me feel old and his heartfelt thanks gave me a moment of shame. I wanted to eat alone in our rooms, and fetching Lord Golden’s breakfast was my best pretence for doing so.

The clatter and steam and shouting in the kitchen did nothing for my headache. I filled the tray, including a generous pot of hot water, and headed back up the stairs. I was halfway up the second landing when a panting woman overtook me. ‘You’ve forgotten Lord Golden’s flowers,’ she told me.

‘But it’s winter,’ I grumbled as I reluctantly halted. ‘There are no flowers to be found anywhere.’

‘Nevertheless,’ she replied with a warm smile that made her a maid again. ‘There will always be flowers for Lord Golden.’ I shook my head at the Fool’s curious particulars. She set a small nosegay on the tray, a confection of stark black twigs with white ribbon stitched into tiny buds on them. The creation was finished with two narrow bows, one white and one black. I thanked her dutifully, but she assured me that it was her pleasure before she went off about her other duties.

When I carried the tray into our chambers, I was surprised to see the Fool up and sitting in a chair by the hearth. He wore one of Lord Golden’s elaborate dressing gowns, but his hair was in loose disarray down to his shoulders. He was not posing as the nobleman right now. It put me off balance. I’d planned on taking food into my room and then rapping on his door to let him know there was food on the table for him. Well, at least Jek was not here. Perhaps I’d finally be able to have private words with him. He turned his head slowly as I came in. ‘There you are,’ he said languidly. He looked as if he’d had a late night.

‘Yes,’ I agreed shortly. I thunked the tray on the table and went back to latch the door. Then I went to my room for the dishes I’d been gradually purloining from the kitchens, and set up breakfast for both of us at the table. Now that the moment had come to confront him, I couldn’t find a place to begin. I hungered to have this over with. Yet, the first words out of my mouth were, ‘I need a red whistle. On a green string. Do you think you could make one for me?’

He rose, a pleased but puzzled smile on his face. He came slowly to the table. ‘I suppose so. Do you need it soon?’

‘As soon as possible.’ My voice sounded flat and hard, even to my own ears. As if it hurt me to ask him this favour. ‘It isn’t for me. It’s for Thick. He had one once, but someone took it from him and broke it. Evidently just to cause him pain. He’s never forgotten it.’

‘Thick,’ he said, and then, ‘He’s an odd one, isn’t he?’

‘I suppose so,’ I conceded stiffly. He seemed not to notice my reserve.

‘Whenever I encounter him, he stares at me. But if I look back at him at all, he scuttles away like a whipped dog.’

I shrugged. ‘Lord Golden is not the kindliest noble in the keep, as far as the servants are concerned.’

He took a small breath and sighed it out. ‘True. A necessary deception, but it pains me to see the man react to it. A red whistle on a green string. As soon as possible, then,’ the Fool promised

‘Thank you.’ My reply was crisp. His words had reminded me yet again that Lord Golden was only a role he played. I already wished I hadn’t asked anything of him. Asking a favour is a poor way to begin a quarrel. I refused to meet his puzzled gaze. I carried my cup to my room. I shook a measure of elfbark into the bottom of it and then returned to the table. When I got there, the Fool was bemusedly turning his posy in his fingers, his mouth twisted in a small smile. I poured the hot water over my elfbark and over the tea herbs in the waiting pot. As he watched, the smile ran away from his face and eyes.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked softly.

I groaned, then spoke briskly. ‘Headache. Nettle was rattling my shutters all last night. It’s getting harder and harder to keep her out.’ I lifted my cup and swirled the water. Inky black tendrils were rising from the steeping elfbark. The brew darkened and I sipped at it. Bitter. But the throbbing in my head quieted almost immediately.

‘Should you be doing that?’ the Fool asked me evenly.

‘If I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t be doing it,’ I pointed out pleasantly.

‘But Chade –’

‘Chade has not the Skill, and does not know the pains of it, nor understand the remedies for those pains.’ I spoke more sharply than I intended, from a well of unexpected annoyance. I realized then that I was still angry with Chade for withholding from me the full content of the note. As he always had, he was still trying to control my life. It is strange to find that an emotion you thought you had set aside is still simmering under the surface. I took a second mouthful of the bitter brew. As elfbark always did, it would plunge my spirits into a low even as it fired me with restlessness. It was a bad combination, but better than trying to wade through the day with a Skill-headache hammering through my skull.

The Fool sat deathly still for several long moments. Then, with his eyes on the teapot as he lifted it and delicately filled his cup, he asked, ‘Will not the elfbark interfere with your teaching Prince Dutiful to Skill?’

‘The Prince himself has already interfered with that by not coming to his lessons for the last several days. Elfbark or no, I cannot teach a student who does not come to me.’ Again, I felt a small twinge of surprise to find how much I was upset by that. Somehow, the act of sitting down at table with my old friend, knowing I intended to confront him, was making all these odd and painful truths bubble out of me. As if somehow they were all his fault for holding himself so aloof from me for the past week, while allowing his friend to believe falsehoods about us.

The Fool leaned back in his chair, the cup of tea cradled between his long and graceful hands. He looked past me. ‘Well. It seems as if that is a matter to take up with the Prince.’

‘It is. But there is also a matter that I must take up with you.’ I heard how my voice dropped accusingly as I said those words, but could not control it.

A long silence held between us. For a moment the Fool folded his lips, as if holding in words. Then he took a sip of his tea. He lifted his eyes to meet mine, and I was surprised by the weariness on his face. ‘Is there?’ he asked unwillingly.

Reluctance tugged at me but I forced the word out. ‘Yes. There is. I want to know what you have said to that Jek woman to make her think that I, that we, that –’ I hated that I could not form the words. It was as if I feared to express the thought, that by speaking it aloud it would gain some sort of reality.

An odd expression fleeted over the Fool’s face. He shook his head. ‘I’ve said nothing to her, Fitz. “That Jek woman” as you name her, is capable of concocting her own theories on just about anything. She is one of those people you never need lie to; simply withhold information, and she makes up her own stories. Some, wildly inaccurate, as you have seen. Rather like Starling, in some ways.’

I didn’t need to hear that name right then. She was another one who had believed that my bond with the Fool went beyond friendship. I recognized now that he had led her to believe that by the same technique he had used with Jek. No denials of it, leading remarks and witticisms, all encouraging her to form a mistaken opinion. At one time it had seemed a trifle uncomfortable but humorous all the same, to watch her labouring under her delusion. Now it seemed humiliating and deceitful that he had led her to believe that.

He set his teacup down on the table. ‘I thought I was feeling stronger, but I am not,’ he said in Golden’s aristocratic tones. ‘I think I shall retire to my room. No visitors, Tom Badgerlock.’ He started to rise.

‘Sit down,’ I said. ‘We need to talk.’

He stood. ‘I think not.’

‘I insist.’

‘I refuse.’ He looked past me, into a distance I could not see. He lifted his chin.

I stood. ‘I need to know, Fool. You look at me sometimes, you say things, apparently in jest, but … you let both Starling and Jek believe that we could be lovers.’ The word came out harshly, like an epithet. ‘Perhaps you deem it of little importance that Jek believes you are a woman and in love with me. I cannot be so blithe about such assumptions. I’ve already had to deal with rumours of your taste in bed partners. Even Prince Dutiful has asked me. I know that Civil Bresinga suspects it. And I hate it. I hate that people in the keep look at us, and wonder what you do to your servant at night.’

At my harsh words, he shuddered and then swayed, like a sapling that feels the first blow of the axe. When he spoke, his words were faint. ‘We know what is real between us, Fitz. What others may wonder about should remain their issue, not ours.’ Slowly he turned from me, ending the discussion.

I almost let him go. It was such a long habit with me, to accept the Fool’s decisions on such things. But suddenly it did matter to me what others in the keep gossiped about, what Hap might overhear as a crude jest in a Buckkeep Town inn. ‘I want to know!’ I suddenly roared at him. ‘It does matter, and I want to know, once and for all. Who are you? What are you? I’ve seen the Fool, I’ve seen Lord Golden, and I heard you speak to that Jek in a woman’s voice. Amber. I confess that baffles me most of all. Why would you live as a woman in Bingtown? Why do you allow Jek to go on believing you are a woman and in love with me?’

He did not look at me. I thought he would let my questions go unanswered, as he so often had before. Then, he took a breath and spoke quietly. ‘I became Amber because she most suited my purpose and needs in Bingtown. I walked amongst them as a foreigner and a woman, unthreatening and without power. In that guise, all felt free to speak to me, slave and Trader, man and woman. That role suited my needs, Fitz. Just as Lord Golden fulfils them now.’

His words cut right to my heart. I spoke coldly what injured me most. ‘Then the Fool, too, was only a role? Someone you became because it “suited your purpose”? And what was your purpose? To gain a doddering king’s trust? To befriend a royal bastard? Did you become what we most needed in order to get close to us?’

He still was not looking at me, but as I gazed at his still profile, he closed his eyes. Then he spoke. ‘Of course I did. Make of that what you will.’

His words were like spurs to my fury. ‘I see. None of it was real. I’ve never known you at all, have I?’ I expected no answer as for an instant I strangled silently on my anger and insult.

Then, ‘Yes. You have. You more than anyone in my life.’ He looked down now and stillness seemed to grow around him.

‘If that is true, then I think you owe me the truth about yourself. What is the reality, Fool, not what you jest about or allow others to suspect? Who and what are you? What is it you feel for me?’

He looked at me at last. His eyes were stricken. But as I continued to gaze at him, demanding this knowledge, I saw his own anger come to life there. He suddenly stood straight and gave a small huff of disdain, as if unbelieving that I could ask. He shook his head then drew a deep breath. The words rushed out of him in a torrent. ‘You know who I am. I have even given you my true name. As for what I am, you know that, too. You seek a false comfort when you demand that I define myself for you with words. Words do not contain or define any person. A heart can, if it is willing. But I fear yours is not. You know more of the whole of me than any other person who breathes, yet you persist in insisting that all of that cannot be me. What would you have me cut off and leave behind? And why must I truncate myself in order to please you? I would never ask that of you. And by those words, admit another truth. You know what I feel for you. You have known it for years. Let us not, you and I, alone here, pretend that you don’t. You know I love you. I always have. I always will.’ He spoke the words levelly. He said them as if they were inevitable. There was no trace of either shame or triumph in his voice. Then he waited. Words such as that always demand an answer.

I took a deep breath and managed the elfbark’s black mood. I spoke honestly and bluntly. ‘And you know that I love you, Fool. As a man loves his dearest friend. I feel no shame in that. But to let Jek or Starling or anyone think that we take it beyond friendship’s bound, that you would want to lie with me is –’ I paused. I waited for his agreement. It did not come. Instead, he met my eyes with his open amber gaze. There was no denial in them.

‘I love you,’ he said quietly. ‘I set no boundaries on my love. None at all. Do you understand me?’

‘Only too well, I fear!’ I replied, and my voice shook. I took a deep breath and my words grated out. ‘I would never … do you understand me? I could never desire you as a bed partner. Never.’

He glanced aside from me. A faint rose came to his cheeks, not of shame, but of some other deep passion. He spoke quietly in a controlled voice. ‘And that, too, is a thing that we both have known for years. A thing that never needed speaking, those words that I must now carry with me for the rest of my life.’ He turned to look at me, but his eyes seemed blinded. ‘We could have gone all our lives and never had this conversation. Now you have doomed us both to recall it forever.’

He turned and began to walk slowly towards his bedchamber. His pace was measured, as if he truly were ill. Then he stopped and looked back at me. Anger gleamed in his eyes and it shocked me that he could look at me so. ‘Did you ever truly believe I might seek from you something that you did not share my desire for? Well do I know how distasteful you would find that. Well do I know that seeking that from you would irreparably damage all else that we have shared. So I have always avoided this very discussion that you have forced upon our friendship. It was ill done, Fitz. Ill done and unnecessary.’

He went another halting step or two, like a man who walks dazed after a blow. Then again he halted. Hesitatingly, from the pocket of his dressing gown, he took the black and white posy. ‘This isn’t from you, is it?’ he asked. His voice was suddenly husky. He did not look at me.

‘Of course not.’

‘Then whom?’ His voice trembled.

I shrugged, irritated by the strange question in the midst of a serious discussion. ‘The garden woman. She puts one on your tray every morning.’

He drew a deeper breath and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Of course. They were never from you, not any of them.’ A long pause. He closed his eyes and from the set of his face I suddenly thought he might faint. Then he spoke softly. ‘Of course. There would be one who saw past my semblances, and if there was one, it would be she.’ He opened his eyes again. ‘The garden woman. She is about your age. Freckles on her face and arms. Hair the colour of clean straw.’

I called the woman’s image back into my mind. ‘Freckles, yes. Her hair is light brown, not gold.’

He clenched his eyes shut. ‘Then it must have darkened as she grew older. Garetha was a garden girl here, when you were just a boy.’

I nodded. ‘I recall her, though I had forgotten her name. You’re right. So?’

He gave a short laugh, almost bitterly. ‘So. So love and hope blind us all. I thought the flowers were from you, Fitz. A fatuous notion. Instead they are from someone who, long ago, was infatuated with the King’s fool. Infatuated, I thought. But like me, she loves where love is not returned. Yet she remained true enough of heart to recognize me, despite all other changes. True enough of heart to keep my secret, yet let me know privately that she knew it.’ He held the posy up again. ‘Black and white. My winter colours, Fitz, back when I was the King’s jester. Garetha knows who I am. And she still harbours some fondness for me.’

‘You thought I was bringing you flowers?’ I was incredulous at his fancy.

He looked aside from me suddenly, and I perceived that my words and tone had shamed him. Head bowed, he walked slowly towards his bedchamber. He made no reply to my words and I felt a sudden rush of sympathy for him. As my friend, I loved him. I could not change my feelings about his unnatural desires, but I had no wish to see him shamed or hurt. So of course I made it worse as I blundered in with, ‘Fool, why do you not let your desires go where they would be welcome? Garetha is a fairly attractive woman. Perhaps, if you gladly received her attention –’

He rounded on me suddenly, and the true anger that flared up in his eyes lit them to a deep gold. His face flushed darker with the emotion as he demanded caustically, ‘Then? Then what? Then I could be like you, sate myself with whoever was available merely because it was offered to me? That, I would find “distasteful”. I would never use Garetha or any person that way. Unlike some we both know.’ He weighted those last two words for me. He took two more steps towards his room, then rounded on me again. A terrible, bitter smile was on his face. ‘Wait. I see. You imagine that I have never known intimacy of that sort. That I have been “saving myself” for you.’ He gave a contemptuous snort. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, FitzChivalry. I doubt you would have been worth the wait.’

I felt as if he had struck me, yet he was the one who suddenly rolled up his eyes and collapsed limply on the floor. For a moment, I stood frozen with both fury and terror. As only friends can do, we had found each other’s most tender spots to wound. The worst part of me bade me let him lie where he had fallen; I owed him nothing. But in less than a moment I went down on one knee by his side. His eyes were nearly closed, showing only a slit of white. His breath puffed in and out as if he had just run a race. ‘Fool?’ I said, and my pride forced annoyance into my voice. ‘Now what is wrong with you?’ Hesitantly I touched his face.

His skin was warm.

So he had not been feigning illness these last few days. I knew that ordinarily the Fool’s body was cool, much cooler than an ordinary man’s, so this mild warmth in him now was as a raging fever would be to me. I hoped it was no more than one of those strange times that came on him occasionally, when he was febrile and weakened. My experience of them was that in a day or two he recovered, with much peeling of skin to reveal a darker complexion beneath. Perhaps this fainting was only that weakness. Yet even as I stooped to slide my arms under him and lift him, my heart pinched with the fear that perhaps he was seriously ill. Truly, I had picked the worst possible time for my little confrontation with him. With him feverish and me dosed with elfbark, no wonder all our words to one another had gone awry.

I lifted him and carried him to his room, kicking the door open. The room smelled heavy and oppressive. The bedding was rucked about as if he had tossed restlessly all night. What sort of a senseless clod was I, not even to have wondered if he could have been truly ill? I set his limp body down on the bed. I shook a pillow fat again and awkwardly slid it under his head, then tried to tug the bedding straight around him. What was I going to do? I knew better than to run for the healer. The Fool had never allowed any healer to touch him in all his years at Buckkeep. Occasionally he had gone to Burrich for some remedy or other when Burrich was the Stablemaster, but that help was far beyond my reach now. I patted his cheek lightly but he showed no sign of waking.

I went to the windows. I pushed the heavy curtains aside, and then unfastened the shutters and pushed them open to the cold winter day. Clean, chill air flowed into the room. I found one of Lord Golden’s kerchiefs, and gathered snow from the windowsill into it. I folded it into a compress and carried it back to the bed. I sat down on the bed beside him and pressed the kerchief gently to the Fool’s forehead. He stirred slightly, and when I pressed it to the side of his neck he suddenly revived with a frightening alacrity. ‘Don’t touch me!’ he snarled, thrusting my hands aside.

His rejection of my concern ignited my anxiety into anger. ‘As you wish.’ I jerked away from him and slapped the compress down onto the bedside table.

‘Please leave,’ he replied in a voice that rendered the courtesy an empty word.

And I did.

In a sort of frenzy, I put the other chamber to rights, clattering the dishes back onto the tray. Neither of us had eaten anything. So be it. My appetite had fled anyway. I took the tray back to the kitchens and cleared it there. Then I hauled water and wood for our chambers. When I came back upstairs with my load, I found the door to the Fool’s bedchamber closed. Even as I stood there, I heard the window shutters inside it slammed shut. I knocked loudly on his door. ‘Lord Golden, I’ve firewood and water for your room.’

He made no reply, so I replenished the main room’s hearth and my wash water. I left the remaining supplies outside the door of his room. Anger and pain simmered in my heart. A great deal of my anger was for me. Why hadn’t I realized he was truly ill? Why had I insisted on pursuing this discussion over all his objections? Above all, why had not I trusted the instincts of our own friendship over the gossip of know-nothings? And the pain that ate at me was the pain of knowing what Chade had told me so often; that saying I was sorry could not always mend everything. I greatly feared that the damage I had done today was not something I could repair; that, as the Fool had warned me, today’s conversation was something that we both must carry to the very end of our days. I could only hope that the sharp-edged memory of my words would eventually dull with time. His still sliced me like razors.

I recall the next three or four days as a time foggy with misery. I did not see the Fool at all. He still admitted his young serving-boy to his bedchamber, but as far as I was aware, he himself did not emerge at all. Evidently Jek saw him at least one more time before the Bingtown delegation departed, for she stopped me once on the stairs. With icy courtesy, she said that Lord Golden had completely cleared from her mind any erroneous opinions she might have formed about my relationship to my master. She begged my pardon if her assumptions had in any way distressed me. Then, in a low hiss, she added that I was the stupidest and cruellest person she had ever met. Those were the last words she said to me. The Bingtown delegation departed the next day. The Queen and her dukes had not given them any firm answer on an alliance, but had accepted from them a dozen messenger birds, and given into their care as many Bingtown pigeons. Those negotiations would continue.

On the heels of their departure, there was an uproar in the keep when the Queen herself rode out with a company of her guards late that night. Chade told me that even he had found her action rather extreme. Evidently her dukes found it even more so. The purpose of her ride was to halt an execution in Bidwell, a small hamlet near Buck’s border with Rippon. They rode out in the deep of night, evidently in response to some spy’s report that a woman was to be hanged and burned the following morning. Torches streaming and the horses’ breath smoking, they had departed in haste. The Queen, dressed in her purple cloak and white fox tunic, had ridden in their midst. I had stood at the window and impotently wished that I were riding at her stirrup. My role as Lord Golden’s servant always seemed to condemn me to be where I least wished to be.

They had returned the following evening. A battered woman, swaying in her saddle, rode with them. Evidently they had arrived at the last possible moment, literally plucking the rope from her neck. The lynch throng had made no physical resistance to the armed and mounted guardsmen. Kettricken had not been content with gathering the town elders for several hours of stern royal reprimand. She had commanded that every citizen of every cot be rousted out to stand in the town’s tiny square and attend to her. She herself had stood before them, to read aloud to them her royal proclamation that forbade the execution of folk solely for being Witted. Afterwards, every soul down to the smallest child that could hold a pen was required to make a sign on that copy of the proclamation, attesting that they had been present, had heard the royal command and would abide by it. As they lacked a town hall, Kettricken further decreed that the signed proclamation must be continuously displayed over the hearth of the sole tavern in the town. She assured the folk that her road guards would drop by often to be sure that it was still in place and intact. She also assured them that if any of the signers ever again participated in such an attempt against a Witted, he would forfeit all property and be banished, not just from Buck, but from the entire Six Duchies.

On the Queen’s return, the accused woman was taken to the guards’ infirmary and treated for her injuries. Her village had not been gentle with her. She was a newcomer there with few ties. She had come to visit her cousin, who had been the one to accuse her to the elders when she supposedly caught the woman conversing with pigeons. There was some talk of an inheritance dispute which left me wondering if the accused were Witted at all, or merely a threat to her cousin’s holdings. As soon as the woman was well enough to travel, Queen Kettricken furnished her with funds, a horse, and some said a deed to a bit of land far away from her cousin’s village. In any case, the woman took herself well away from Buck as soon as she could travel.

The incident became the centre of a swirl of controversy. Some said the Queen had overstepped her bounds, that Bidwell actually straddled the border of Buck and Rippon and that she should not have taken action without at least consulting the Duke of Rippon. The Duke seemed to take her personal intervention as a criticism and an affront. Although he himself did not utter such words, it was gossiped about that perhaps the Mountain queen was too eager to make ties with foreigners such as Outislanders and Bingtown Traders while not giving enough respect to the dukes of the Six Duchies. Did she not trust her own nobility to manage their own domestic affairs? From there, the rumours and grumbling wandered farther afield. Did she not think a Six Duchies bride would be good enough for her half-Mountain son? And even more insidious, the gossip that the bloodlines of Duke Shemshy had been slighted, for the Prince had shown an obvious interest in Lady Vance until his lady mother had crushed it. Why did she court the disdainful Outislander Narcheska when even the young prince could see that there was a worthier lady closer to hand?

Because no such complaints were ever officially uttered, it was difficult for Kettricken to make any response to them. Yet she knew they could not be completely ignored, for that would feed the fires of Rippon’s and Shoaks’s discontent and encourage its spread to her other dukes. Kettricken’s solution was to command that her dukes each send a representative to a council, with the objective of creating solutions to end the persecution of the Witted. That yielded her only the results I could have predicted; they suggested that all Witted enter their names on a roll, to be sure they were not unfairly persecuted. A second suggestion was that the Witted be removed to certain villages and encouraged to live only within their boundaries, for their own protection. And most generous of all, a proposal that any person found to be Witted should be given passage to either Chalced or Bingtown, where they would undoubtedly be more welcome than in the Six Duchies.

I knew my own reaction to such suggestions. The dullest could perceive that such a registration and resettlement within the Six Duchies could easily be a prelude to a wide-scale massacre. As for ‘passage’ to Chalced or Bingtown it was little different from banishment. The Queen tartly told these councillors that their solutions lacked imagination and bade them try again. This was when a young man from Tilth inadvertently gave the Queen a great advantage. He suggested facetiously that the executions of Witted ones ‘trouble most folks not at all. In truth, those who practise the beast-magic bring these disasters upon themselves. As it is only the Witted they bother; perhaps you should seek your solution from them.’

The Queen seized on his suggestion with alacrity. The smirk faded from his face and the chuckles of the other councillors died away as she announced, ‘Now this, at least, is a suggestion with both imagination and merit. As my councillors have suggested to me, so I will do in this matter.’ Perhaps only Chade and I knew it was an idea she had long cherished. She wrote up a royal proclamation and ordered couriers to bear it throughout the Six Duchies, where it was not only to be announced in the towns and cities but also to be posted prominently. The Queen invited the Witted ones, also known as those of Old Blood, to form a delegation to meet her, to discuss ways in which their unlawful persecution and murder might be ended. The Queen chose her words deliberately, despite Chade’s beseeching that she be more circumspect. Many a noble was incensed by her indirect accusation that they sanctioned murder within their holdings. Yet I appreciated the stance she took, and surmised that other Witted would as well, even as I doubted that any Witted delegation would ever come to speak out on their own behalf. Why would they risk their lives by becoming known?

After my disastrous attempt to confront my differences with the Fool, I at least gained the wisdom to be more circumspect with Chade, the Queen, and the Prince. I left the bits of scroll where Chade must see them, on our worktable. A chance encounter in the tower gave me the opportunity to ask him, calmly, what had been his reason for keeping such knowledge from me. His assassin’s answer was one that I had not expected. ‘Under the circumstances, it was too personal a thing for you to know. I needed you to help me discover the Prince’s whereabouts and return him safely to Buckkeep. If I had shown you this, that would never have been your focus. Instead you would have devoted all your energies to discovering who had sent this note, even though we could not absolutely connect it to Dutiful’s disappearance. I needed you to have a cool head for that, Fitz. I could not help but recall your temper of old, and how it had often led you to wild actions. So, I withheld what I feared might distract you from the most important part of our task.’

It did not mollify me completely, but it made me realize that Chade often brought a very different perspective to a problem than what I had expected. I think my calm acceptance of his reasoning almost rattled him. He had expected the confrontation I had so recently planned. He was almost shamefaced as he, without prompting from me, assured me that he now knew I had matured and that it had been incorrect of him to keep the full missive to himself.

‘And if I turn my attention to it now?’ I asked quietly.

‘It would be useful to us, to know who sent it,’ he admitted. ‘But not at the price of losing or distracting the Prince’s Skillmaster. I have not been lax in pursuing all tracks that might lead us back to them. Yet they seem to vanish like mist. I have not forgotten about the rat, but despite all my queries, I have not found a single trace of a Wit spy. You know that our observations of Civil have yielded nothing.’ He sighed. ‘I beg you, Fitz, trust me to pursue this thread, and let me use you where you are most important to us.’

‘Then you have spoken to the Queen. She agreed to my terms.’

His green eyes hardened to the colour of copper ore. ‘No. I haven’t. I had hoped you would reconsider.’

‘Actually, I have,’ I said, and tried not to enjoy the shock on his face. Then, before he could think I had capitulated completely, I added, ‘I’ve decided this is a thing I must discuss with her myself.’

‘Well.’ He sought for words. ‘In that we concur. I will ask her to make time to speak with you today.’ And so we parted, having disagreed but not quarrelled. He gave me a strange look as he left, as if I still puzzled him. It left me feeling pleased with myself, and wishing I had learned this lesson earlier.

So when he notified me of my appointed rendezvous with the Queen, I again approached my encounter calmly. Kettricken had set out a small table of wine and cakes for us. I had schooled myself to equanimity before I entered. Perhaps that was what allowed me to see Kettricken’s wariness.

My queen sat tall and poised as I entered, but I recognized her stillness as her armour. She, too, expected hot words and outrage from me. Her guarded attitude almost provoked me to express my injured feelings at her obvious opinion of my temperament. Instead, I took a deep breath and quelled that rising tide of affront. I forced myself to make my courtesy to her calmly, to wait until she had invited me to be seated at the table with her, and even then to exchange some small pleasantries about the weather and the state of her health before I approached my true concern. Even so, I marked the small narrowing at the corners of her eyes that plainly said she held herself in readiness for a tirade. When had all those who knew me best decided that I was such an unreasonable, ill-tempered man? And then I reined aside from even considering who might be at fault for that. Instead, I met my queen’s gaze and asked quietly, ‘What are we going to do about Nettle?’

For an instant, I saw her blue-green eyes widen almost in shock. Then she recovered herself. She leaned back in her chair and for a moment she considered me. ‘What has Chade told you about this?’ she countered.

Despite myself, I grinned. For a moment, all my concerns for my daughter fled. I heard myself reply, ‘Chade has told me to beware of women who answer a question with a question.’

For a moment, I thought my sally had overstepped our bounds. Then an answering smile woke on her face. Sadly, with the dawning of that smile, she lowered her guard to me. I suddenly perceived that behind my queen’s placid façade of calm, she was weary and troubled. Too many concerns snapped at her like yapping feists. The Prince’s betrothal to the unpredictable Narcheska and his ridiculous ‘quest’, the problem of the Witted, the political unrest of the Piebalds, her contentious nobles and even Bingtown with its war and dragons all vied for her attention. As an errant gust of wind may kindle a faded ember to a glow, so her beleaguered expression woke in me a distant echo of the love Verity had borne for this woman. The Skill-link I had once shared with my king had occasionally made me privy to his feelings. Still, it was strange to feel that remote rippling of his love for her. For his sake, as well as for my own fondness for her, I felt a sudden and compelling concern for her. As she leaned back in her chair, obviously relieved that I did not intend to clash with her, I felt a moment of shame. In the welter of my own concerns, I too often forgot that other people had burdens just as heavy.

She released a pent-up breath. ‘Fitz, I am glad that you have come yourself to discuss this with me. Chade is a wise councillor, tried and true to the Farseer throne. On his good days, he sees clearly in affairs of state. He is wise also in the ways of the hearts of my people. His advice is sage and solid. But when he speaks to me of Nettle, he speaks always as a councillor to the Farseer throne.’ She reached across the table and set her gracile hand upon my rough one. ‘I would rather speak to her father, as his friend.’

It seemed a very good time to hold my silence.

The Queen’s hand did not move from mine as she spoke simply. ‘Fitz, Nettle should be trained in the Skill. You know that, in your heart. Not only to protect her from the dangers of that magic in untrained hands – yes, I have read something of those scrolls, when deciding how to deal with Dutiful’s potential – but also because of who she is. The potential Farseer heir.’

Her words knocked the wind out of me. I had expected to debate the wisdom of teaching Nettle to Skill, not to come back to that older, graver threat to her. I could not find words to express my dismay, but it was just as well. My queen was not finished speaking.

‘We cannot change who we are. Ever, I am Verity’s queen. You are Chivalry’s son, illegitimate but a Farseer nonetheless. Yet you are also dead to our people, and Chade is both elderly and unacknowledged as a Farseer. August, as we both know, never fully recovered his wits after Verity reached through him to me. My king, I am sure, never intended to do the damage he did to his cousin, and yet again, there it is. We cannot change who we are, and August, though his name makes him a Farseer, is a wandering old man before his time. He cannot seriously be considered a likely heir to the throne in the event that Verity’s line should fail.’

Her careful construction of logic drew me in. I found myself forced to nod in agreement with her, even as I saw where the chain of her thoughts inexorably led.

‘Yet there must be, there must always be, one who stands in reserve, ready to assume the throne should all else fail.’ She looked past me. ‘Your daughter, invisible as she is to her people, is nonetheless next in line. We cannot change who Nettle is. No amount of wishing on anyone’s part can make her any less a Farseer. Should the need arise, FitzChivalry Farseer, your daughter must serve. So we arranged it, all those years ago. I know you opposed it then, when we drew up those documents in Jhaampe. I know you oppose it still. But she is a Farseer acknowledged, by you her father, by me as Queen, and a minstrel to whom you had told the truth witnessed all this. The written document still exists, Fitz, as it must. Even should you and I and Chade and Starling Birdsong die all at once, still in the treasury will be found that document, with a codicil that spells out where she can be found. This must be, Fitz. We cannot change her bloodlines; we cannot undo her birth. Would you ever truly desire to? I think not. Even to wish such a thing is an affront to the gods.’

And then it happened again. I suddenly saw with another’s eyes. It gutted my anger, this sudden insight into my queen’s reasoning. Kettricken saw as unchangeable that Nettle had a place in the line of heirs to the throne. To her, it was not a matter of what I wished or what she wished. It simply was, and we could not tamper with that. Nettle was not a bargaining point for her. She could not agree to release her from a duty she had been born to: that was how Kettricken saw it.

I took a deep breath, but she lifted a finger, asking me to let her finish speaking her thoughts. ‘I know that you dread the thought of Nettle becoming Sacrifice. I, too, pray it will never come to pass. Think what it would mean for me: that my only son was dead, or somehow unfit to serve. As a mother, I put such a possibility furthest from my mind, even as you beseech fate that Nettle never be burdened with a crown. Yet even as we both hope such a thing never comes to pass, we must prepare that if it should happen, she would be ready to serve her people well. She should be trained, not only in the Skill, but educated in languages, in the history of her land and people, and in the courtesy and traditions that go with the throne. It is negligent of us both that she has gone uninstructed in such things, and unforgivably negligent of us that she remains unenlightened of her own bloodlines. If a time ever arrives when she must serve, do you think she will thank either of us for letting her remain ignorant?’

And that was yet another blow to my conviction. The world twisted around me, and suddenly I questioned every decision I had made for Nettle. I felt sickened as the truth came to me. I spoke it aloud. ‘She would probably hate me for letting her remain ignorant. Yet, I do not see how I can change that at this late time, without doing even more damage.’ I sagged back in my chair. ‘Kettricken, neglectful as it must seem to you, I still implore you. Let her continue as she is. If you will say “yes” to that, then I promise you that I will bend all my efforts, with a willing heart, to make certain that she must never serve as Sacrifice.’ I swallowed, and then bound myself anew. Yet again, I stood before a Farseer monarch and ceded my life. This time, I did it as a man. ‘Willingly will I try to craft a coterie for Dutiful. I will serve as Skillmaster.’

The Queen regarded me steadily. After a moment she asked, ‘And how is this a new offer from you, FitzChivalry? Or a new request to me?’

There was a rebuke in those questions. I bowed my head and accepted it. ‘Perhaps because now I will be honestly willing in my efforts.’

‘And will you also accept your queen’s word, and not ask to have it reaffirmed to you again? I will speak it to you clearly. I will allow your daughter, Nettle Farseer, to remain where she is, fostered to Burrich, for as long as it is safe for us to do so. Will you accept that I will abide by my words to you?’

Another rebuke. Had I injured her feelings with my repeated demand that Nettle be left in peace? Perhaps. ‘I will,’ I said quietly.

‘Good,’ she said, and the tension that had been between us eased. For a time longer we sat at the table, in silence, as if silence between us completed the affirmation. Then, without a word, she poured wine for me and set a little spiced cake before me. For a time, we ate and talked, but only of inconsequential things. I did not mention to her that Dutiful was snubbing me. That I would settle with the Prince himself. Somehow.

When I rose to go, she looked up at me and smiled. ‘It seems a shame, FitzChivalry, that I am so seldom able to speak to you. I regret the shams we must make, for they keep us apart. I miss you, my friend.’

I departed from her, but when I went, I carried those words with me like a blessing.

SIXTEEN

Fathers

If a merchant captain has sufficiently strong contacts in Jamaillia, it is entirely possible that he can fill his holds there with valuable goods from many a far and foreign port. He will get the advantage of having these exotic stuffs to sell without having to face the risks to both crew and vessel that a deep sea voyage always presents. He will, of course, pay in coin for what he saves in worry, but that is ever the trade that a wise merchant must face.

Jamaillia is not only the northernmost port that Spice Island traders regularly visit, it is the only port on our shores visited by the Great Sail fleet. These ships come as a fleet to visit Jamaillia (which they call, in their barbarous way, West Port) but one year out of three. The hazards of the crossing that they make can well be seen by their tattered canvas and weary sailors. The goods that they bring are both exotic and expensive. These ships are the only source for redspice and sedgum. As their entire stocks of these items are always bought by the Satrap’s palace, with very little released back to the market, we can safely dismiss them as out of the reach of ordinary merchants. But other items they bring may be available to the sagacious merchant who is both lucky and wise enough to time a Jamaillia visit to the arrival of the Great Sail fleet.

Captain Banrop’s Advice to Merchant Mariners

Another handful of days came and went. Lord Golden emerged from his bedchamber, polished and sophisticated as ever, to announce to all and sundry that he once more enjoyed perfect health. His Jamaillian make-up, applied carefully every morning, had become even more extravagant. Sometimes he wore the scaling even by daylight. I suspected he did it to distract any attention away from the darkening of his skin. It must have succeeded, for no one mentioned it. The court greeted his return to health with enthusiasm, and his popularity was undiminished.

I once again took up my duties as his servant. Sometimes Lord Golden entertained in his rooms in the afternoon, with games of chance or hired minstrels. The young nobility, both youths and maidens, vied to be invited. On those occasions, I remained at his beck within my own little chamber, or was dismissed entirely. I still accompanied him on his pleasure rides with other members of the nobility, and I still stood behind his chair at elaborate dinners. Such events were rarer now. With the departure of both the Outislanders and the Bingtown Traders, the population of Buckkeep Castle had thinned and returned to a more normal routine as the Six Duchies nobility also returned to their holdings. There were fewer gaming sessions and puppet shows and other amusements. The evenings became longer and quieter. If I was given an hour to myself in the evening, I often spent it in the Great Hall. Once more, the children of the keep studied their lessons by the hearths, while weavers wove and fletchers shaped arrows. Gossip and tales were spun alongside yarn. Shadows draped the corners of the room, and if I tried, I could pretend this was my Buckkeep from the days of my boyhood.

But of the Fool, I saw nothing at all. By no word or sign to me did Lord Golden ever indicate that we were anything other than what Buckkeep believed us to be: master and servant. At no time did he address any words to me that would have been out of character for Lord Golden to speak. And if I vouchsafed some pleasantry that strayed outside the limit of those roles, he ignored it.

The gulf that opened inside my soul at this isolation surprised me. Wider it yawned each day. When I returned one day from my weapons training session with Wim, I found a small packet on my bed. Within the fabric pouch, I found a red whistle threaded onto a green string. ‘For Thick,’ read the note in the Fool’s plain hand. I had hoped it was some sort of peace offering, but when I dared thank Lord Golden, he looked up from the herbery he was perusing with a glance at once distracted and irritated. ‘I have no idea what you are thanking me for, Tom Badgerlock. I do not recall giving you any gift, let alone a red whistle. Preposterous. Find some other vagary to occupy yourself, man. I am reading.’

And I withdrew from his presence, recognizing that the whistle had not been created as a favour to me, but as a sincere gift to Thick, from someone who knew well what it was to be ignored or mocked. Truly, it had nothing to do with me. And with that thought, my heart sagged a notch lower in my chest.

Worst was that there was no one I could confide my misery to, unless I wanted to share the full depth of my stupidity with Chade. So I bore it silently and did my best to conceal it from all.

On the day the Fool gave me the whistle, I decided I was ready to take my errant students in hand. It was time to do as I had promised my queen.

I visited first Chade’s tower and then clambered up to the Skill-tower. When, as had become usual, Dutiful did not arrive, I opened the shutters wide to the chill and dark of the winter morn. I seated myself in Verity’s chair and stared bleakly out into that blackness. I knew that Chade had directed Dutiful to come to me, and had even arranged the Prince’s social schedule to allow him more time with me. It had made no difference. Since he had discovered the Skill-command and broken it, he had not come to me once for a lesson. I had let Dutiful go much longer in his errant behaviour than Verity would ever have tolerated in me. Left to himself, the Prince would not come back to me. I dismissed my doubts as to the wisdom of my actions. I took several deep, slow breaths of the cold sea air and closed my eyes. I narrowed my Skill to a fine and demanding point.

Dutiful. Come to me now.

I felt no response. Either he had not made one or he was ignoring me. I expanded my awareness of him. It was difficult to grasp him. I concluded he was deliberately blocking me, having set his Skill-walls against me. I leaned on them, and became fairly certain that he was sleeping. I tested the strength of his walls. I knew that I could punch past them, if I chose to do so. I took a breath, summoning the strength to do just that. Then, abruptly, I shifted my strategy. Instead I leaned on his walls, an insidious pressure. Distantly, I felt a thin smile stretch my lips. The Nettle technique, I thought to myself as I slipped through his wall and into his sleeping mind.

If he was dreaming, I could not sense it. Only the stillness of his unaware mind spread around me like a quiet pool. I dropped into it like a pebble. Dutiful.

He twitched into awareness of me. His instant reaction was outrage. Get out! He tried to thrust me from his mind, but I was already inside his defences. I offered a quiet resistance to him, displaying no aggression but simply refusing to be banished. Just as he had the first time we had wrestled, he threw himself against me in a fury without strategy. I maintained my resistance, accepting the mental pummelling as he wore himself out against me. When he was all but stunned with exhaustion, I spoke again.

Dutiful. Please come to the tower.

You lied to me. I hate you.

I did not lie to you. Without intending to, I did you a wrong. I attempted to undo it; I believed I had undone it. Then, at the worst possible moment, we both discovered I had not.

You’ve been restraining me. Forcing me to do your will, ever since we met. You probably forced me to like you.

Search your memories, Dutiful. You will discover that is not so. But I will no longer discuss this matter in this manner. Come to the Skill-tower. Please.

I won’t.

I’ll be waiting.

And with that I withdrew from his mind.

For a time I sat still, gathering both my strength and my thoughts. A headache pressed against my skull, demanding attention. I pushed it to one side. I took a deep breath, and once more reached out.

Finding Thick was easy. Music was spilling from his mind, a music uniquely his own, for it was music without sound. When I let it flow unimpeded into my mind, it became even stranger, for it was not composed of notes from a flute or harp. For a moment, I became caught in it. On one level, the ‘notes’ of his song were bits of ordinary noises from everyday life. The clop of a hoof, the clack of a plate on a table, the sound of wind slipping past a chimney, the ring of a dropped coin on a cobblestone. It was a music made of the sounds of life. Then I slipped deeper into it, and discovered it was not music on this new level, but was instead a pattern. The sounds were separated from one another by different degrees of pitch, but there was a pattern to that as well as to how they were repeated. It was rather like approaching a tapestry. One sees first the whole picture that is formed, then a closer inspection reveals the material used to make up the images. A deeper study reveals the individual stitches, the different colours and textures of the threads.

With difficulty I disentangled myself from Thick’s song. I wondered at how so simple a mind could conceive of so convoluted and intricate a music. And in the next moment, I grasped an understanding of him. This embroidery of music was the framework of his thoughts and world. It was what he paid attention to, putting each sound he heard into its proper place in the vast scheme of sound. Little wonder, then, that he had so little thought or focus to spare for the petty concerns of the world Chade and I perceived. How much consideration did I give to the sound of water trickling or the ringing of a blade against a sharpening stone?

I came to myself sitting in Verity’s chair. I felt as if my mind were a sponge that had been dipped into a water of music. I had to let Thick’s song drain away from me before I could recall my own thoughts and intents. After a time, I once more drew breath into my lungs, settled my mind and reached out.

This time I made sure I only brushed against the edges of his music. I hesitated there, trying to decide how to make him aware of me without startling him. As gently as I could, I made contact. Thick?

I felt the impact of his fear and anger like a fist in the belly. It was like poking a sleeping cat. He fled, but not before he had clawed me. Shaken, I opened my eyes to the tower’s view of rolling waves. Even so, it was hard to settle myself into my body again and persuade myself I belonged there. Nausea roiled through me. Well, that first effort had gone well, I thought sourly. I sat for a time in discouragement. Dutiful was not coming and Thick was not going to accept any sort of training from me. To that linked chain of defeat, I added the thought that I had heard nothing from Hap since I had bade him make his own peace with his master. I marvelled at my knack for sowing disillusion and discontent among those I most cherished. Then once more I collected myself.

One more effort, I promised myself. Then I would return to my dismal chamber, and from thence announce to Lord Golden that his lowly servant was taking the day off. I’d go down to Buckkeep Town and make some sort of contact with Hap. That was my frame of mind as I once more settled myself into my chair. I took out the red whistle and considered it. The Fool had outdone himself. It was much fancier than any penny whistle I’d ever seen before. It was decorated with tiny birds. I set it to my lips and tried a few notes on it. When I was a youth, Patience had tried to teach me to play several musical instruments. I’d had little success with any of them. Still, I could pick out the notes of a simple child’s song. I played it several times, trying in vain to smooth out the roughness. Then I leaned back, the whistle still set to my lips. As I played, I reached out to Thick, trying to send him only the piping notes of the whistle rather than any thoughts or hints of my presence. It broke in on his own music, and for a time we jangled discordantly together. Then his notes died away as he focused on mine.

What’s that?

The thought was not intended for me. He merely reached out to see where the sound was coming from. I tried to make the thought I sent him very delicate. I did not stop playing as I told him, It’s a red whistle. On a green string. It’s yours, if you want to come and get it.

A long moment of guarded thought. Then, Where?

That gave me a moment of thought. There was a guard on duty at the base of the Skill-tower steps. I couldn’t tell Thick to come that way. He’d be turned back. Chade had trusted him with at least some of the labyrinth of passages of the keep. I knew I should consult Chade before I revealed more to him, but this was too good an opportunity to miss. I wanted to see if I could guide Thick through the passages via our mind-link. Not only would it test the current limits of our ability to Skill to one another, but also it would give me an insight into what he was capable of. I refused to spend too much time in hesitation. Come to me this way. I showed him a mental image of Chade’s tower room. Then I showed him, step by step, the passages he must use to come to the Skill-tower. I did not rush through them, but neither did I linger. I finished with, If you get lost, reach out to me. I will help you.

Then I gently broke the link between us. I leaned back in the chair, and considered the whistle in my hand. I hoped it would be bait enough. I set it down on the table, and beside it I placed the figurine of a woman. It was the one the Prince had found on the beach that the Skill-stones had taken us to. Without any clear idea why, I had brought it from Chade’s tower, to give it back to Dutiful. With a sudden lurch of my heart, I thought of the feathers I had found on the same beach. I had never shared that discovery with the Fool. The time had never seemed right. Now I wondered if I ever would. I pushed the thought from my mind. I had to focus on what I did now.

I wiped away the sweat on my brow. I found I was a bit shaky when I stood. This morning’s exercise was more Skill than I had used in quite some time. The headache was proportionately larger, rather too big for my skull. If I’d had a kettle, cup, water and elfbark, I probably would have indulged. Instead I had to settle for pouring myself a measure of brandy and leaning out of the window for a while.

When I heard the scuff of footsteps coming up the tower stairs, I thought it was the guard. I took the bottle and my glass, retreated to a dim corner of the room and stood very still. I heard the key turn slowly in the lock, and the door opened. Then Dutiful entered. He shut the door firmly behind himself and then glanced about the apparently empty room. His irritation was plain on his face. He crossed to the table and once more looked about him. A slow realization came to me. Witted the Prince might be, but not as strongly as I was. Even in the room with me, he remained unaware of my presence. This was a new idea to me: that, just as with the Skill, men could possess the Wit-magic in various strengths.

‘Here.’ When I spoke, he jumped, and then became aware of me as I stepped from the shadows, bottle and glass in hand. He glared at me as I advanced to the table and set the glass down. ‘Good morning, my prince.’

He spoke firmly, with great disdain. ‘Tom Badgerlock, you are dismissed. I no longer wish to have you teach me anything. I will be speaking to my mother to have you removed from Buckkeep entirely.’

I kept my calm. ‘As you wish, my prince. Undoubtedly, that would be the easiest route for me as well.’

‘This is not about what is “easiest” for me. This is about treachery and betrayal. You have used the Skill against me, your rightful prince. I could ask for your banishment. Even your execution.’

‘You could, my prince. Or, you could ask for my explanation.’

‘No explanation could excuse what you did.’

‘I did not say you could ask for my excuse. I said you could ask for my explanation.’

And there the conversation stopped. I refused to lower my eyes. I met his gaze steadily. I was determined that he would ask, courteously, for my explanation before he would hear another word from me. He seemed equally determined that he would cow me with his princely stare until I decided to beg his pardon.

Suspense was on my side.

‘An explanation is long overdue.’

‘Perhaps it is,’ I conceded, and waited again.

‘Explain yourself, Tom Badgerlock.’

A ‘please’ would have been nice, but I sensed he had bent as far as he could. A boy’s pride can be a brittle thing.

I walked back over to the table and refilled my glass. I lifted the bottle questioningly towards him, but he shook his head, an abrupt refusal to share drink with such as me. I sighed. ‘How much do you recall of the beach? The one that we fled to through the standing stone?’

His face clouded a bit and he looked wary. ‘I …’ He came very close to lying. Then, ‘I recall parts of it. It fades, like a dream, and then sometimes bits of it come back to me bright and clear. I know you used the Skill-magic to take us there. It weakened and confused me somehow. I imagine that is when you cast your power-spell over me.’

I sighed. This was going to be even more difficult than I had feared. ‘Do you remember a time by the fire, when you attacked me? Attacked me with every intent of killing me?’

He looked aside briefly, then nodded as if surprised that he did recall such a thing. ‘But that was not entirely of my own will. You know that! Peladine was striving even then to control my body. And I did not know you, then. I thought you were my enemy!’

‘Nor did I know you. Not as I do now. Yet already we were bound by a Skill-link, for I had had to go after your soul once before, and haul it back to your body.’ I hesitated, then decided I would not speak of that other being I had encountered, the great being that had aided us both to return. That memory remained hazy even for me. Best not to bring up what I could not explain. I took a breath. ‘I knew Peladine was within you. And that she would stop at nothing to kill me, even if she had to damage you in the process. It frightened me. And then, in my anger and fear for my life, I commanded you, “Dutiful, stop fighting me.” It was a Skill-command. One that printed itself onto your mind with far more force than I intended. I never meant to do it, Dutiful. It was an accident, one I have regretted, and one I have tried to amend. I thought I had amended it.’ I felt an unwanted smile twist my mouth. ‘I thought I had lifted it from you, right up until the very moment when I tried to keep you from your foolish declaration in the hall. Only then did I perceive that some final shadow of it remained, and only when you broke it.’

‘Yes. I broke it.’ He spoke with satisfaction. Then he glared at me again. ‘But knowing that it existed, knowing that you can do such a thing to me, how can I ever trust you again?’

I was still pondering an answer to that when Thick pushed the mantel-side door open. The entry was an even tighter fit for the stout-bodied man than for me, and he was festooned with cobwebs and powdered with dust. For a moment he stood blinking his sleepy-looking eyes at the startled Prince and me. His jaw was thrust forward, his tongue protruding thoughtfully. Then he spoke. ‘I come for my whistle.’

‘And you shall have it,’ I said. I scooped it up from the table and held it out to him, dangling by its green string. Gently, I added, ‘And that was good Skilling, Thick. You followed my directions and here you are.’

He shuffled forward suspiciously. I doubt that he recognized Prince Dutiful, out of context of his throne and robes of state. He included him in his scowl as he said, ‘You made me come a long way.’ Then he snatched the whistle and held it close to his peering little eyes. Then he frowned. ‘This isn’t my whistle!’

‘It is now,’ I told him. ‘It’s a new one, made especially for you. Did you see the birds on it?’

He turned it in his hands, then grudgingly admitted, ‘I like birds.’ Then he turned to go, the whistle clutched to his chest.

The Prince was staring at him in dismay bordering on disgust. I knew the Mountain way for babes such as Thick had been; he would have been exposed to a swift and perhaps merciful death, much as Burrich would have drowned a deformed puppy. But Queen Kettricken had commanded that I train this man. Would Mountain ethics prevent Dutiful from accepting Thick? I tried not to hope that the Prince would refuse him as a coterie member. I wanted to delay Thick’s leaving. ‘Aren’t you even going to try it, Thick?’

‘No.’ Thick was shuffling towards the door.

‘Try that tune you Skill to yourself. The one that goes la-da-da-da-de –’ Even as I tried to mimic back to him the music I had come to know by heart, Thick spun around to face me. Outrage glittered in his little eyes.

‘Mine!’ he roared. ‘My song! My Mum’s song!’ He came at me with murder in his eyes. He lifted the whistle as if it were a knife that he could plunge into my heart.

‘I’m sorry, Thick. I didn’t realize that was private.’ But I should have, I suddenly knew. I gave ground before him. His body was thick, his limbs short and awkward, his belly pudgy. I knew that in a physical struggle, I could master him. I also knew it would involve hurting him, because that would be the only way to defeat him. I didn’t want to do that. I needed his goodwill. I darted behind the table.

‘My song!’ Thick repeated. ‘Dog poop stink stealer!’

An unwilling bubble of laughter burst from the Prince’s lips. I think he was both horrified and fascinated by the spectacle of the dimwit attacking me over a song. Then a sudden frown divided his brow. Even as I circled the table, trying to keep it between Thick and me until I could find a way to calm him, the Prince suddenly exclaimed, ‘I know that song!’ He hummed a short bit of it, making Thick’s scowl deepen. ‘It’s the first thing that I always hear when I try to Skill. It comes from you?’ His question was incredulous.

‘My song!’ Thick asserted again. ‘My Mum’s song! You can’t hear it. Only me!’ He diverted his steps and suddenly charged the Prince in a wild run. As he went, he caught up the brandy bottle, lifting it like a club heedless of the liquor that galloped out of it and down his arm. The Prince’s eyes went wide, but he was too foolishly proud to retreat before Thick’s onslaught. He stood his ground, dropping into the fighter’s crouch I’d taught him. His hand moved to his belt knife. In response, I felt Thick’s mind-numbing cloud of Don’t see me, don’t see me, don’t see me even as he closed on the Prince. I saw Dutiful struggle against the little man’s Skill and felt him begin to mount a blast of his own to thrust through it.

‘No!’ I roared in dismay. ‘Don’t hurt each other!’

And my command shimmered with an edge of Skill. I saw them both flinch at it, saw them both spin to confront me, arms upraised as if that would ward off the magic. I could almost see it rebound from them, but just for an instant it dizzied them both. The backwash of my command as they instinctively repulsed it giddied me, but I recovered faster than they did. The Prince staggered back a step, while Thick lifted his pudgy hands to cover his eyes. I was horrified at what I had done, yet when they stood still and for a moment docile, I added, ‘That’s enough. You must never attack one another that way. Not if you are going to work together to master the Skill.’ I was proud that I kept my voice from shaking.

Dutiful shook his head and then spoke in a dazed voice. ‘You did it again! You dared to use the Skill against me!’

‘That I did,’ I admitted, and then demanded, ‘What else would you have me do? Watch you blast the sense from one another? Have you ever met your cousin August, Dutiful? That drooling, doddering old man? What happened to him was an accident. Yet there have been instances of Skill-users maiming one another in a battle such as you both nearly engaged in. Yes, and there have been deaths as well, deaths that seared the ones who wrought them almost as severely as the ones that died.’

Dutiful leaned against the table. Thick lowered his hands from his eyes slowly. He’d bitten his tongue and it dripped blood. Dutiful spoke to both of us. ‘I am your prince. You are sworn to me. How dare you attack me?’

I took a breath and reluctantly stepped up to the task Chade had laid upon me. ‘Not here,’ I said quietly. ‘It is true that I am sworn to the Farseers. I serve them, as best I may. And to serve them best in this, know this well, Dutiful. In this room, you are not my prince, but my student. And just as your swordmaster deals you bruises with a blunt blade to teach you, so will I use whatever force is necessary.’ I swung my eyes to Thick, who was pouting sourly at us both. ‘In this room, Thick is not a servant. Here, he is my student.’ I looked from one to another and buckled them into the harness they must share. ‘Here you are equals. Students. I will respect you as such, and I will demand that you respect each other as such. But make no mistake. Within this chamber, during the hours of our lessons, my authority is absolute.’ I looked from one to the other. ‘Do you both understand this?’

The Prince looked stubborn, and Thick suspicious. ‘Not a servant?’ he asked slowly.

‘Not if you choose to be a student here. To learn what I have to teach. So that, eventually, you can help the Prince.’

He scowled, working through it slowly. ‘Help the Prince. Work for him. Servant. More work for Thick.’ His little eyes glittered maliciously as he exposed what he thought was my hidden intention.

I shook my head again. ‘No. Help the Prince. As his coterie. His friend.’

‘Oh, please,’ Dutiful groaned disdainfully.

‘Not a servant.’ This obviously pleased Thick. It gave me yet another insight into him. I would have thought him too dull to care what his position was in the world. Yet plainly, he would prefer not to be a servant.

‘Yes. But only if you are a student. If you do not come here, every day, and try to learn what I teach, then you are not a student. Thick is the servant again. Haul the wood, fetch the water.’

He set the empty bottle down on the table. Hastily he looped the string of the whistle around his neck. ‘I’m keeping the whistle,’ he insisted, as if that were an important part of the bargain.

‘Servant or student, the whistle belongs to Thick,’ I told him. This seemed to set back his understanding of the situation. His fat little tongue pushed farther out of his mouth as he considered it.

‘You cannot be serious,’ the Prince said in an undertone. ‘That is to be a member of my coterie?’

I knew both an instant of sympathy for him and a strong irritation with his disdain for Thick. I spoke levelly. ‘He is the best candidate that Chade and I have discovered so far. Unless, of course, you have encountered others with his natural predilection for the Skill?’

He stood silent, then shook his head unwillingly. In some corner of my mind, I was amused that he was more distressed at the idea of Thick being his fellow student than he was by my declaration that I would treat them both the same during our lessons. I decided to take advantage of his temporary distraction. ‘Good. That’s settled, then. And I believe we’ve all learned enough for one morning. I shall expect you both to be on time tomorrow. For now, you are dismissed.’

Thick was just as happy to leave. Still clutching his whistle, he scuttled for the mantel door. As he shut it behind him, the Prince asked in a low voice, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

‘Because I am sworn to the Farseer reign. To serve it as best I can. And you, Dutiful, are now dismissed.’

I hoped he would turn towards the door, but he did not. Not until there was a sharp rap at it. We both startled. I glanced at the Prince, who called out loudly, ‘What is it?’

The voice of a young page reached us through the stout timbers of the door. ‘A message for you, Prince Dutiful, sir, from Councillor Chade. He bade me beg your pardon, but also said to let you know it was urgent.’

‘A moment.’

I faded back to a corner of the room as the Prince went to the door, unlatched it, opened it a crack and accepted a small, sealed scroll. As I watched him, I reflected sourly that despite all else Skillmaster Galen had been he had been right in several areas. No students of his would ever have dared attack one another, let alone question his authority over them. He had immediately reduced all his students to a harsh equality, though I had been the exception to that; all had known that he regarded me as beneath them. As much as it choked me, I needed to emulate at least some of his attitudes, even as I refused his harsh techniques. Discipline is not the same as punishment, I thought, and recognized it as an echo of some old words of Burrich’s.

The Prince had shut the door behind him and picked the wax off the scroll. Then he frowned as he unrolled it to reveal a second, sealed scroll within it. ‘I think this must be for you,’ he said uneasily. In a script I would never have recognized as Chade’s, the word ‘teacher’ was written on the outside of the scroll. At the sight of my own charging Farseer buck impressed in the wax, I took the scroll from Dutiful’s hand.

‘It is,’ I agreed shortly. I turned aside from him, broke the wax, and read the single sentence. Then as he watched, I consigned it to the fire.

‘What was it?’ the Prince demanded.

‘A summons,’ I said shortly. ‘I must go now. But I expect to see you on time tomorrow, and ready to learn. Good day, my prince.’

His stunned silence followed me as I squeezed behind the fireplace mantel and shut and latched the little door behind me. Once within the narrow passageway, I hurried as much as I could. Silently I cursed the low ceilings, the corners I must squeeze past and the labyrinthine wandering of the burrows when I wished to run as fast as I could in the straightest possible line.

When I arrived at my peephole outside the Queen’s private audience chamber, my mouth was parched and I was panting like a hound. I took several deep breaths, forced myself to stand still until my breathing was steady and silent again. Then I flung myself down on the little stool and applied my eye to the tiny peephole. I was late. Chade and Queen Kettricken were already there, the Queen seated while the councillor stood at her shoulder. Their backs were to me. A gangly boy of perhaps ten years stood before them. His dark curls were sweated to his skull, and the hem of his cloak dripped muddy snow-water on the floor. The low shoes he wore had never been intended for winter travel. Caked snow was still melting on his leggings and feet. Wherever he had come from, he must have walked all night. His dark eyes were immense but he met his queen’s gaze steadily. ‘I see,’ she said quietly.

Her answer seemed to embolden him. I wished I had heard the entire conversation. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he agreed. ‘And so, hearing that you would not tolerate what was being done to the Witted, I came to you. Maybe here in Buckkeep I can just be what I am and not get beaten for it. I promise I’ll never use it to any low end. I will vow myself to the Farseers and serve you well in any way you ask of me.’ He lifted his eyes to meet the Queen’s, not a bold stare but an honest, direct look from a boy confident that he had chosen the right path. I stared at Burrich’s son, seeing Molly mingled in the boy’s cheekbones and lashes.

‘And your father approved of this?’ Chade asked, stern but gentle.

The boy looked away. When he spoke, his voice was softer. ‘My father doesn’t know, sir. I just left when I knew that I couldn’t take it any more. I won’t be missed. You saw our home. He has other sons, good sons who are not Witted.’

‘That does not mean he won’t miss you, Nim.’

For the first time, the boy looked annoyed. ‘I’m not Nim. Nimble doesn’t have the Wit. I’m Swift, the other twin. See, that’s another reason that my father won’t miss me. He already has one of me that’s perfect.’

A shocked silence followed his words. I am sure he mistook the cause of it. When Kettricken spoke, she tried to mend it.

‘I knew Burrich, years ago. However much he may have changed, I am still certain that, Witted or no, he will miss you.’

Chade added, ‘When I spoke with Burrich, he seemed very fond and proud of all his children.’

For a moment, I thought the boy would break. Then he took a breath and said matter-of-factly, ‘Well, yes, but that was before.’ Chade must have looked at him blankly, for the boy elaborated painfully, ‘Before the taint came out in me. Before he knew I had the Wit.’

I saw the Queen and Chade turn to one another and confer silently. After a moment, Kettricken said softly, ‘Then, Swift, Burrich’s son, I say this to you. I am willing to take you into my service. But I think it best that I do so with your father’s consent. He must be told of your whereabouts. It is unfair to let your parents fear that you have come to a bad end.’

Even as she spoke, we all became aware of raised voices in the corridor outside the chamber. There was a light knock at the door, and before they could respond, a hasty and heavier one. Kettricken nodded to a little page at her side, who went to answer it. When the door was opened, a guard stood before it, ready to relay a message. Behind him hulked Burrich, dark and scowling, and despite all the years that had passed, I quailed before that look. His black eyes glowered as he peered past the sentry into the room. Plainly dismissing the man as inconsequential, Burrich called out, ‘Chade. A word with you, please.’

It was Queen Kettricken who replied. ‘Burrich. Please, come in. Page, you are dismissed. Close the door behind you. No, Guardsman Senna, I assure you, all is well. We have no need of your service just now. Close the door.’

Even as Burrich strode angrily into the chamber, the quiet courtesy of her words and her calm air as she received him took much of the wind from his sails. He walked with a swing to one leg where that joint did not bend well.

He went down on one knee before her, despite her, ‘Oh, Burrich, that is hardly necessary. Please. Get up.’

It cost him to haul himself back to his feet, yet he did. When he lifted his eyes to hers, I saw something that smote me. The palest of cataracts, the barest beginning of a creeping cloud, hazed his dark glance. ‘My queen. Lord Chade,’ he greeted them formally. Then, as if there was no more to say to them, he turned to Swift and said, ‘Boy. Get home. Now.’ When the lad dared to glance at the Queen for confirmation, Burrich growled, ‘I said, get home! Do you forget who your father is?’

‘No, sir. I do not. But how … how did you find me?’ Swift demanded in dismay.

Burrich snorted contemptuously. ‘Easily enough. You asked the smith in Trura which road led to Buckkeep. Now I’ve had a long, cold ride and you’ve annoyed these people enough. I’m taking you home now.’

I admired Swift then, for he stood his ground gamely before his father’s rising wrath. ‘I have asked asylum of the Queen. And if she grants it to me, I intend to stay.’

‘You’re talking nonsense. You need no asylum. You’ve worried your mother to hysteria and had your sister in tears for two nights. Now you’ll come home, and settle back into your place and do your duties. Without complaint.’

‘Sir,’ Swift replied. It was not assent, only a confirmation that he had heard Burrich’s words. Silently he lifted his dark eyes to the Queen. It was a strange sight, Burrich, older and grayer, and beside him, his son mirroring the stubborn gaze of his father.

‘If I might offer a suggestion –’ Chade began, but Kettricken cut in with, ‘Swift, you have come far and quickly. I know you are wet, cold and tired. Tell the guardsman at the door to take you down to the kitchens and see you are fed, and then to let you stand before the hearth and get warm and dry. I wish to speak to your father.’

The boy hesitated, and Burrich’s scowl deepened. ‘Obey her, boy!’ he snapped at the lad. ‘That is your queen. If you cannot show the filial piety to obey your father, at least show you’ve the upbringing to obey your rightful queen. Make your bow, and then go as you were told.’

I saw the boy’s hopes die. He bowed stiffly but correctly and left. Even then, Swift did not scuttle from the room, but strode out, with dignity, as if to his own execution. When the door had closed behind him, Burrich swung his glance back to Kettricken. ‘I beg my queen’s pardon that you have been troubled with this. He’s a good enough lad, ordinarily. He’s just at … a difficult age.’

‘He has not troubled us. Truth to tell, I would willingly be so troubled, if that is what it takes to bring you to visit us. Will you sit down, Burrich?’ She gestured at an empty chair, one of several in a row before her.

Burrich held himself stiffly erect. ‘You are kind to offer it, but I have not the time to linger, my lady. I promised my wife I would return to her, with the boy, as swiftly as I could and –’

‘Must I command you to sit down, my stubborn old friend? Your good lady will forgive you the delay to rest yourself for a moment, I am sure.’

He was silent. Then, like a dog commanded to sit and stay, he walked to one of the chairs and sat down in it. Again, he waited.

After a pause, Kettricken recommenced. ‘After all these years, this is an awkward way for all of us to come together again. And yet, no matter how awkwardly it came about, I am glad to see your face once more. Yes, and to see that you have a son with his father’s proud spirit.’

Another man might have warmed to that paternal compliment, but Burrich only glanced down and tempered it with, ‘And I fear he has many of his father’s faults as well, my lady.’

Kettricken did not waste words or time. ‘The Wit, you mean.’

Burrich twitched to that as if she had cursed at him.

‘Swift told us, Burrich. I do not see it as a shameful thing. He told me he had come to me as I have forbidden men to persecute those with the Wit. He asked to take service with me. In truth, I would be glad to have such a stout-hearted lad to page for me. But I told him it must be with his father’s consent.’

He shook his head as he refused her. ‘I do not give it, my lady. Swift is far too young to live amongst strangers. To be raised so quickly and so far above his natural station could spoil him. He needs to remain at my side for some years yet, until he learns to control his boyish impulses.’

‘Until you’ve extinguished the Wit in him,’ Chade filled it in.

Burrich considered, then frowned. ‘I don’t believe that can be done. I’ve tried for many years to wipe it from myself. Still, it lingers. But if it cannot be purged from a man, he can nevertheless be taught to refuse it. Just as a man must learn to refuse all sorts of other vices.’

‘And you are so certain that it is a vice, and something to despise?’ Kettricken’s voice was gentle. ‘But for your possession of the Wit, I would have died at Regal’s hands, all those years ago. But for your Wit, Fitz would have perished in Regal’s dungeons.’

Burrich took a short breath. It seemed to catch in his throat, and he took another one, as a man who fights for control of himself. He looked up, blinking, and it wrung me to see that his lashes were wet with unshed tears. ‘You can speak his name,’ he said huskily. ‘And yet do not perceive that he is why I take the stand I do? Lady Queen, but for the Wit, Fitz would have learned the Skill well. But for the Wit, he could never have been thrown into Regal’s dungeons. But for the Wit, he might even now be alive. The Wit doomed him to die, and not even as a man. As a beast.’ He dragged in a shuddering breath. His voice rasped but he held himself straight and retained command of himself. ‘Every day I live, I live with my failure. My prince, Prince Chivalry, entrusted me with his only child, with the sole command that I raise him well. I failed my prince. I failed Fitz and I failed myself. Because I was weak. Because I had not the strength of will to be harsh with the boy where harshness was needed. And so he fell into the way of that vile magic, and he practised it, and it brought about his downfall. He paid the price for my misplaced tenderness. He died, horribly, and alone, and as a beast.

‘My lady, I loved Fitz, first as my friend’s son, and then as my friend. I loved him just as I love my own son now. And I will not lose another boy to that low magic. I will not.’ Only on the last words did his deep voice begin to shake. His hands knotted and unknotted and then clenched into fists at his side. He regarded them both through his misted eyes.

‘Burrich. Old friend.’ Chade’s voice was thick. ‘Long ago, you sent me word Fitz had perished. I doubted it then. I still do. How can you be sure of his death? Remember what he said to both of us. That he intended to go south, to Chalced and beyond Chalced. Perhaps he did as he said he would and –’

‘No. He did not.’ Burrich’s hands went slowly to his throat. He unfolded his collar, and then from beneath it, he drew a small and shining thing. My heart turned over in my chest and tears flooded my eyes. He showed it to both of them, gleaming on his callused palm. ‘Do you recognize it? It’s the pin King Shrewd gave him, when he claimed the boy as his own.’ He sniffed loudly, and cleared his throat. ‘When I found his body, Fitz was long dead. Many a creature had gnawed on him. But this was still there, in the collar of the shirt he died in. He died as an animal, fighting with beasts almost like himself. He was the son of a prince, the son of the finest man I ever knew and he died like a dog.’ He abruptly closed his hand around the stickpin. He spoke not a word as he refastened it into his collar.

I sat in the dark, behind the wall, my hand tight over my own mouth. I tried not to choke on my tears and betray myself. I must keep my secret. I must remain dead to him. Never had I thought what his assumption of my death might mean to him. I had little considered how much grief and guilt he might bear over how he supposed I had died. Burrich still believed that I had succumbed to the Wit, had reverted to an animalistic lifestyle, a beastman living in the woods until the Forged ones attacked and killed me. It was not so far from the truth. For a time I had retreated into being a wolf in a man’s body. But I had dragged myself up and out of that refuge, and forced myself to become a man again. When the Forged ones had raided my home and attacked me, I had fled. Days passed before I realized that I had left my precious pin behind. Burrich had found the body of a Forged one I had killed. The shirt with the pin thrust into the collar had been on that body. And so he had assumed it was mine. For all these years, it had suited my purposes to leave him in ignorance of my survival. I had thought it the kindest thing for all of us. He and Molly had found a love and a life together. To discover I still lived could only damage that bond between them. It must remain so. It must. In a numbed stillness, I stood and peered at the man who felt responsible for my death. He must continue to carry that guilt. I could not change it.

‘Burrich. I do not think you failed anyone.’ Kettricken spoke softly. ‘And I do not see the Wit as a flaw in your son. Leave him here with me. Please.’

Burrich shook his head slowly and heavily. ‘You would not say that if he were your son. If he walked daily in danger of folk discovering what he was.’

I saw Kettricken’s shoulders rise as she drew breath and knew she was about to tell him that her own son was Witted. Chade realized the danger as well, for he cut in smoothly with, ‘I see your point, Burrich. I do not agree with it, but I see it.’ He paused, then asked, ‘What will you do to the boy?’

Burrich stared at him. Then he gave a brief bark of laughter. ‘What? Do you fear I’ll tan the hide off him? No. I’ll take him home, and keep him well away from animals, and work him daily until he is so tired that he falls asleep before he gets into his bed at night. No worse than that. His mother’s tongue will probably flay him worse than a cane ever could. Nor will his sister easily forgive him for the worry he’s given us.’ Then suddenly he scowled more blackly than ever. ‘Did the lad tell you he was in fear of life or limb from me? For that’s a lie, and he knows it, and for that he might get the back of my hand.’

‘He said nothing of the kind,’ Kettricken said quietly. ‘Only that he could not stand it any more, to live at home and be forbidden the Wit.’

Burrich snorted. ‘No one dies from being forbidden the Wit. There’s a loneliness to giving it up, and well do I know that. But no one dies from avoiding the Wit. Using the Wit is how one dies from it.’ Burrich rose abruptly from his chair. I heard his bad knee crack as he rose and saw him wince. ‘My lady, forgive me, but if I sit too long, I’ll stiffen, and this day’s ride home will be all the harder for me.’

‘Then take a day here, Burrich. Go to the steams to ease that leg of injuries twice taken in defending a Farseer’s life. Eat well, and sleep in a soft bed tonight. Tomorrow is soon enough for your journey home.’

‘I cannot, my lady.’

‘You can. Must I command this comfort to you, also?’ The Queen’s voice was fond.

Burrich met her gaze squarely. ‘My queen, would you command me to break my word to my own lady?’

Kettricken gravely bowed her head to him. ‘Good man, your honour is the only thing as stiff as your stubbornness. No, Burrich, I would never command you to break your word. Too often has my own life depended upon it. I will let you go then, as you please. But you shall delay long enough to allow me to pack such gifts as I wish you to take back to your family. And while I do so, you may as well eat a hot meal and warm yourself at the hearth.’

Burrich was silent for a moment. Then, ‘As you wish, my lady.’ Again, he went ponderously and painfully down upon one knee.

When he rose and waited her permission, Kettricken sighed. ‘You may go, my friend.’

When the door had closed behind him, Kettricken and Chade sat silently for a time. They were the only people left in the chamber. Then Chade turned and looked towards my peephole. He spoke softly. ‘You have a little time while he eats. Think hard. Shall I summon him back to this chamber? You could be alone here with him. You could put his heart at ease.’ He paused. ‘This is your decision, my boy. Neither I nor Kettricken will make it for you. But …’ His words died away. Perhaps he knew just how much I did not want his advice on this. In a soft voice, he added, ‘If you wish me to ask Burrich to come back to this chamber, tell Lord Golden to send me a message. If you do not, then … do nothing.’

Then the Queen arose, and Chade escorted her from the audience chamber. She gave one pleading backward glance at my wall before she left the room.

I don’t know how long I sat there in the dust and dimness. When my candle began to drown in its own wax, I rose and made my way back to my own small chamber. The corridor seemed long and dreary. I walked unseen, through dust and cobwebs and mouse-droppings. Like a ghost, I smiled stiffly to myself. Just as I walked through my life.

In my room, I took my cloak from its hook. I listened for a moment at the door, then stepped out into the central chamber of Lord Golden’s apartments. He sat alone at the table. He had pushed his breakfast tray aside. He did not appear to be doing anything. He gave me no greeting. I spoke without preamble.

‘Burrich is here. He followed his son Swift, Nimble’s twin. Swift is Witted, and sought asylum in the Queen’s service. Burrich refused to let her have the boy. He’s taking him home with him, to teach him not to use the Wit. He still thinks the Wit is evil. He blames it for my death. He also blames himself, that he did not beat it out of me.’

After a moment, Lord Golden turned his head indolently to look at me. ‘An interesting bit of gossip. This Burrich, he was Stablemaster here at one time, was he not? I don’t believe I’ve ever met him.’

For a time, I just looked at him. He returned my stare with a gaze devoid of interest. ‘I’m going down to Buckkeep Town today,’ I announced flatly.

He turned back to his contemplation of the tabletop. ‘As you will, Tom Badgerlock. I’ve no need of your services today. But be ready to ride out tomorrow at noon. Lady Thrift and her niece have offered to take me out hawking. I don’t care to keep a bird of my own, you know. Their talons spoil the sleeves of my coats. But perhaps I shall be able to add some feathers to my collection.’

My hand was on the door latch before he had finished his hateful charade. I shut it firmly behind me and went briskly down the stairs. I dared myself and fate. If I ran into Burrich in the hallway, he would know me. Let the gods decide for themselves if he should walk in guilty ignorance or pain-racked truth. But I did not encounter him in the halls of Buckkeep, nor even glimpse him as I went past the guards’ dining hall. Then I snorted at my own foolish fancy. Doubtless they would take the Queen’s guest to the main hall, and there feed him well, alongside his wayward son. I did not let myself pause to consider any other temptations. I went out into the courtyard, and soon was striding down the road to Buckkeep Town.

The day was fine, clear and cold. It bit the tops of my cheeks and the tips of my ears, but my pace kept the rest of me warm. I played a dozen scenes in my head of how it might go were I to confront Burrich. He would embrace me. He would strike me and curse me. He would not recognize me. He would faint with shock. In some of these visions he welcomed me warmly with tears of joy, and in others he cursed me for all the years I had let him live in guilt. But in none of those scenes could I imagine how we would speak of Molly and Nettle, nor what would come after. If Burrich discovered that I was alive, could he keep it from Molly? Would he? Sometimes his honour operated on such a lofty scale that what was unthinkable for any other man became the only correct option for him.

I broke from my thoughts to find myself in the centre of Buckkeep Town. Men and women alike gave me a wide berth, and I realized I was scowling darkly and probably muttering to myself. I tried to find a more pleasant expression, but my face could not seem to recall how to form one. Nor could I decide where I wished to be. I went by the woodjoiner’s shop where Hap was apprenticed. I lingered outside until I caught a glimpse of him within. There were tools in his hands. I wondered if that meant he was being given more responsibility, or if it only meant he was fetching them for someone. Well, at least he was where he was supposed to be. I would not trouble him today.

I next wandered by Jinna’s shop, but found it closed up tight. A quick check of her shed showed that the pony and cart were gone. Something must have called her away today. I was not sure if I felt relief or disappointment. To quench my loneliness in her company would not have eased me, but if she had been home, I would probably have given myself over to the temptation.

So I made the next most foolish decision that I could make, which was to go to the Stuck Pig. A tavern fit for the Witted Bastard. I entered, and as I stood in the doorway with the bright winter sunlight flowing in from behind me, I decided it was one of those places that always looked better by lamplight. Daylight revealed, not just the weariness of the leaning tables and the damp straw that begged pardon on the floor, but the dreariness of the folk who came to such a tavern on a bright winter afternoon. People such as myself, I surmised sourly. A gaffer and a man with a twisted leg and only one arm sat together at a table near the hearth, some game bones between them. At another table, a man with a badly bruised face sat nursing a tankard and muttering to himself. A woman looked up as I came in. When she raised one brow inquiringly, I shook my head. She scowled at me and returned to staring at the hearthfire. A boy with a bucket and rag was scrubbing tables and benches. When I sat down, he wiped his hands on his trouser legs and came over to me.

‘Beer,’ I said, not because I wanted it, but because I was there and I had to order something. He bobbed acknowledgement, took my coin, brought me a mug, and went back to his tasks. I took a sip of it and tried to remember why I had walked down to Buckkeep Town. I decided it had simply been the need to be moving. But now I was sitting still. Stupid.

I was still sitting still when Svanja’s father walked in. I don’t think he saw me at first, coming into the dim tavern from the bright winter day. When I recognized him, I looked down at the tabletop, as if by not looking at him, I could make myself invisible. It didn’t work. I heard his heavy boots on the sodden straw, and then he dragged out a chair and sat down across from me. I nodded at him guardedly. He stared at me blearily. His eyes were red-rimmed, but whether from weeping, lack of sleep or drink, I could not tell. His dark hair had been brushed that morning, but he had not shaved. I wondered that he was not at his trade. The tavern boy soon scurried over with a mug of ale for him. He took the man’s coin and went back to his scrubbing. Hartshorn took a drink of his ale, scratched his whiskery cheek and said, ‘Well.’

‘Well,’ I agreed mildly and drank from my beer. I wished so intensely to be somewhere else that it seemed unbelievable that my body remained where it was.

‘Your boy.’ Hartshorn shifted in his chair. ‘Does he intend to marry my girl, or just ruin her?’ His face remained calm as he spoke, but I could see both anger and pain bubbling up in him like vapours from the bottom of a stagnant pond. I think I knew then that we would come to blows. I realized it as a sort of enlightenment. The man had to do something to regain some self-respect, and I presented the first opportunity. Both the gaffer and the maimed man had lost interest in their game and were watching us. They knew what was coming as well as I did. They’d be Hartshorn’s witnesses.

There wasn’t a way out of what was to come, but I tried to find one. My voice was low and steady and earnest. I tried to reach him, father to father. ‘Hap tells me that he loves Svanja. So there is no intent there to ruin her, or to use her and cast her aside. They are both very young. But, yes, there is a danger of ruining, and for my son as well as your daughter.’

I made a mistake when I paused then. I think if I had kept speaking, he would have stayed seated and paid some attention to my words. I had intended to ask him what he thought that we, as parents, could do to curb our children until their passions found some sort of foundation in planning for a future. Perhaps if I had not been thinking so earnestly of what to say to him, and what we actually could do, I would have noticed that he was earnestly thinking of the best way to give me a beating.

He surged suddenly to his feet. His mug was in his hand and desperate fury flamed in his eyes. ‘Your son’s fucking her! My little girl, my Svanja! And you think that isn’t ruin for her?’

I was coming to my feet when the heavy mug hit me in the face. A miscalculation, some part of me observed. I had thought he would club me with it, and I thought I’d leaned back out of his range. When he let it fly, that small distance was not enough. It hit my left cheekbone with a crack I heard, and white pain spider-webbed out from the impact.

Sharp pain makes some men retreat and paralyses others. My time under Regal’s torture had branded in me a different reaction. Attack now, before it gets any worse, before your attacker can overcome you and torment you at his leisure. I had launched myself over the table at him before the thrown mug even thudded to the floor. The pain in my face reached its zenith at about the same time my fist slammed into his mouth. His teeth cut my knuckles and my left hand slammed into his breastbone, above my intended target.

Jinna’s warning about him had been valid. He did not go down, but roared his fury at me. I had one of my knees on the tabletop. I got my other leg under me and pushed off from there, my hands going for his throat as the weight of my body bore him down to the dirty floor. The bench behind his knees helped me knock him down, but I clipped my own shins against it painfully as I landed on top of him.

He was stronger than he looked, and he fought without restraint, without concern for his own body. His entire aim was to hurt me, with no concern for himself and as we rolled and grappled, I heard his knuckles crack as his fist met my skull. I had not made good my grip on his throat, and the benches and tables that crowded the tavern added obstacles to our struggle. At one point he was on top of me, but we were under a table, and I was able to surge up against him and slam his head against the underside of the board. That stunned him for a moment and I rolled clear of his grasp. I scuttled clear of the table and came to my feet. He snarled at me from under the table, showing no sign of relenting in his anger.

Fights are simultaneous things: in one moment, I readied myself to kick him as he came out from under the table, the tavern keeper roared, ‘I’ve called for the guard! Take your fight outside,’ while the gaffer at the game-table shouted in a cracked voice, ‘Watch out, Rory! He’s gonna kick you, watch out!’ But the voice that broke my concentration was Hap’s crying, ‘Tom! Don’t hurt Svanja’s father!’

Rory Hartshorn seemed to have no compunction about hurting Hap’s father. He delivered a strong kick to my ankle that unbalanced me as he rolled out from under the table. I fell, but I fell on him. I grabbed his throat, but he tucked his chin, trying to defeat my strangle while his fists pounded my ribs.

‘City Guard!’ A bass voice bellowed in warning. As one we were plucked from the floor by two brawny armsmen. They didn’t waste time trying to break our clinch, but dragged us bodily to the door and tumbled us out into the snowy street. A circle of men surrounded us as I still strove to clench my fingers into Rory’s throat. He gripped my hair, forcing my head back as his fingers clawed at my eyes. ‘Kick them apart!’ bellowed a sergeant and my determination suddenly seemed foolish. I let go my grip and twisted myself off Rory’s body. I left a scant handful of my hair in his fist as I did so. Someone grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. Whoever it was, he gripped both my wrists and hauled them expertly up behind my back. I gritted my teeth and concentrated all my will on not resisting him. As I stood panting and docile, I felt his grip ease slightly.

Rory Hartshorn was not thinking as clearly. He struggled as a guard dragged him to his feet, and was soundly thumped with her truncheon several times for it. When he was finally still, he was on his knees. Blood from his mouth dripped from his chin. He glared at me malevolently.

‘Penalty for brawling in a tavern is six silvers. Each. Pay it now and part peacefully, or go to the lock-up, and pay twice as much to get out of there. Tavern keeper. Any damages within?’

I didn’t hear the man’s reply because Hap hissed suddenly by my ear, ‘Tom Badgerlock, how could you?’

I turned to look at my boy. He recoiled from my face. I wasn’t surprised. Even in the cold of the winter day, my cheek burned hot. I could feel it puffing. ‘He started it.’ I meant it by way of an explanation, but it sounded like a boy’s sulky excuse.

The guard who held me gave me a shake. ‘You! Pay attention. Sergeant asked you if you got the six? Do you?’

‘I’ve got it. Give me a hand free to reach for my purse.’ I noted that the tavern keeper had not tallied up any damages against us. Perhaps that was a benefit of being a regular customer there.

The guardsman released both my hands, warning me, ‘No stupid tricks, now.’

‘I’ve already done my stupid trick for the day,’ I muttered, and was rewarded with a grudging chuckle from him. My hands were starting to swell. It hurt to tug my purse strings open and count out the coins for them. Now there was my queen’s largesse well spent. My guard took the coins from me and walked away to hand them to his sergeant, who counted them and then slid them into a town bag at his belt. Rory Hartshorn, still gripped by a guard on either side, shook his head sullenly. ‘I don’t have it,’ he said mushily.

One of the guard snorted. ‘The way you’ve been spending coin on drink the last few days, it’s a wonder you had any money to buy beer today.’

‘To the lock-up,’ the sergeant decreed stonily.

‘I’ve got it,’ Hap said suddenly. I had almost forgotten he was there until I saw him tug at the sergeant’s sleeve.

‘Got what?’ the sergeant asked in surprise.

‘His fine. I’ll pay Hartshorn’s fine for him. Please don’t lock him up.’

‘Don’t want your money! Don’ wan’ nothin’ from him.’ Rory Hartshorn was starting to sag between the men that held him. Bereft of his fury, pain was taking him over. Then, horribly, he began to weep. ‘Ruined my daughter. Ruined our family. Don’ take his dirty money.’

Hap went white. The sergeant looked him up and down coldly. Hap’s voice cracked as he said, ‘Please, don’t lock him up. It’s bad enough, isn’t it?’ The purse he lifted and tugged open was clearly marked with the sigil of his master, Gindast. Hap scooped coins out of it and proffered them to the guard. ‘Please,’ he said again.

The sergeant turned away from him abruptly. ‘Take Harts-horn to his home. Fine suspended.’ He turned coldly away from my boy, who reeled as if he had been struck. Shame burned his face scarlet. The two guardsmen holding Hartshorn hustled him away, but it was now plain that they were aiding him to walk rather than restraining him. The rest of the city patrol moved off on their regular rounds. Suddenly Hap and I were alone in the middle of the cold street. I blinked and my own hurts began clamouring to make themselves known. The worst was my cheekbone where the heavy mug had connected. My vision in that eye was blurred. I felt a moment of selfish gratitude that Hap was there to help me. But when he turned to look at me, he did not seem to see me at all.

‘It’s all ruined now,’ he said helplessly. ‘I’ll never be able to make this right. Never.’ He turned to stare after the retreating Hartshorn. Then he swung his gaze back to me. ‘Tom, why?’ he demanded heartbrokenly. ‘Why did you do this to me? I went to live with Gindast like you told me to. I was getting everything sorted out. Now you’ve ruined it.’ He stared after the departing men. ‘I’ll never make peace with Svanja’s family now.’

‘Hartshorn started the fight,’ I said stupidly, and then cursed my own pathetic excuse.

‘Couldn’t you have walked away?’ he asked self-righteously. ‘You’ve always told me that’s the best choice in a fight. To walk away if you can.’

‘He didn’t give me that opportunity,’ I said. My anger was starting to swell worse than my face. I walked to the edge of the street, and reached up to take a handful of somewhat clean snow from an eave edge. I held it to my face. ‘I don’t see how you can blame me for any of this,’ I added sullenly. ‘You’re the one who set it all in motion. You had to rush her into bed.’

For an instant he looked as if I had struck him. But even before I could feel regret for my words, he shifted into anger. ‘You speak as if I had a choice,’ he said coldly. ‘But that’s to be expected, I suppose, from a man who has never known real love in his life. You think all women are like Starling. They’re not. Svanja is my true love forever, and true love should not be made to wait. You and her father and mother would have us hold back from completing our love, as if tomorrow were a certainty for any of us. But we won’t. Love demands that we grasp it all, today.’

His words enflamed my anger. I was certain that they were not his own, but had been harvested from some tavern minstrel. ‘If you think I’ve never known love, then you don’t know anything about me,’ I retorted. ‘As for you and Svanja, she’s the first girl you’ve ever said more than “hello” to, and you tumble into her bed and proclaim it love. Love is more than bedding, boy. If love doesn’t come first and linger after, if love can’t wait and endure disappointment and separation, then it’s not love. Love doesn’t require bedding to make it true. It doesn’t even demand day to day contact. I know this because I have known love, many kinds of loves, and among them, I’ve known what I felt for you.’

‘Tom!’ he barked in rebuke. He glanced behind his shoulder at a passing couple.

‘You fear they will misunderstand what I say?’ I sneered. At the anger in my voice, the man took the woman’s arm and hurried her past us. I must have looked a madman. I didn’t care. ‘I fear you’ve misunderstood it all along. You came to Buckkeep Town and forgot everything that I ever tried to teach you. I don’t even know how to talk to you any more.’ I went back to the eaves for another scoop of snow. I glanced back at Hap, but he was staring stonily into the distance. In that instant, my heart gave him up. He was gone from me, following his own path, and there was nothing I could do. This arguing with him was as useless as all the words Burrich and Patience had spent on me. He’d go his own way, make his own mistakes, and maybe, when he was my age, learn his own lessons from them. Wasn’t that what I had done? ‘I’ll still finish paying for your apprenticeship,’ I said quietly. I spoke as much to myself as to him, telling myself that there it would end. That it had already ended save keeping that bargain with myself.

I turned and began the long walk back up to Buckkeep Castle. Breathing the cold air made my battered ribs ache. Not much choice about that. My hands were starting to swell, too. There was a sick familiarity to the pain of my puffing knuckles. I wondered dully when was I going to be old enough and wise enough to stop getting into physical fights. And I wondered at the curious disconnection in my chest, the gap where Hap had been in my life but moments before. It felt like a mortal injury.

When I heard running footsteps behind me, I spun to confront them, fearing another attack. Hap skidded to a halt at sight of my battle grimace. For a frozen instant, we just stood and regarded one another. Then he reached out and clutched at my sleeve, saying, ‘Tom, I hate this. I’m trying hard, and I’m doing and saying all the wrong things. Svanja’s parents are angry with her all the time, and when she complained to me about it and I said perhaps I should meet them and promise to go more slowly, she got angry at me. And she’s angry at me for living at Gindast’s and having to stay in most nights. But I did go to Gindast, on my own, and ask to move in. And he made me eat dirt, but I kept my head down and took it, and I’m there now, doing it his way, like you said. I hate how early we get up, and how he rations how many candles we can burn at night, and how I can’t go out at all most nights. But I’m doing it. And today, for the first time, he sent me on an errand, to pick up some brass fittings over on the smiths’ street. And now I’m going to be late getting back with them, and I’ll have to bow my head to that when he scolds me. But I can’t let you walk away and think I’ve forgotten everything you taught me. I haven’t. But I have to find my own life here, and sometimes the things you taught me just don’t seem to fit with how everyone else thinks. Sometimes the things you taught me don’t seem to work here. But I’m trying, Tom. I’m trying.’

The words tumbled out from him in a rush. When they had cascaded away and silence threatened to fill in, I put my arm across his shoulders and hugged him despite the pain in my ribs. ‘Hurry on your errand,’ I said by his ear. I tried to think of other words to add, but couldn’t find any. I couldn’t tell him it would come out right, because I wasn’t sure it would. I couldn’t tell him that I’d trust his judgement, because I didn’t. Then Hap found the words for both of us.

‘I love you, Tom. I’ll keep trying.’

I sighed in relief. ‘Me, too. I love you, and I’ll keep trying. Hurry, now. You’re long-legged and swift. Perhaps you won’t be late if you run.’

He gave me a fleeting smile, and turning, raced off towards the smiths’ street. I envied him the easy movement of his body. I turned back towards Buckkeep Castle.

Halfway up the hill road to the castle, I met Burrich coming down. Swift rode behind him, his hands clutching his father’s waist. Burrich’s game leg stuck out awkwardly. He’d modified the stirrup for it. For one instant, I stared at him. Swift gaped at me, but doubtless my purpling face was a sight. I damped my Wit to an ember, kept my head down and trudged past them without another glance. My heart strained to look back at them after they had passed, but I refused it. I feared too terribly that Burrich would be looking back at me.

The rest of the walk to Buckkeep Castle seemed cold and dreary. I went to the steams. The guardsmen, coming and going, left me alone. I had hoped the moist heat would ease some of my aches, but it didn’t. The long climb up to our chambers hurt, and I knew that if I sat still, I would stiffen, but all I could think of was my bed. The day had been a wretched waste, I told myself. I doubted that even my efforts with Dutiful and Thick would bear fruit.

As I approached the door to our chambers, it opened. The garden maid came out of it. Garetha bore a basket of dried flowers. As I gazed at her, startled, she glanced up and her eyes met mine. She suddenly flushed a scarlet that all but obscured her freckles. Then she looked away from me and rushed off down the hall, but not before I had caught sight of the necklace she wore. It was a single charm on a leather strand. The little carved rose was painted white, with a stem inked black. I knew the Fool’s work when I saw it. Had he taken my ill-conceived advice? Inexplicably, my heart sank in my chest. I tapped cautiously at the door and announced myself before I entered. As I shut the door behind me and looked round, I found a perfectly poised Lord Golden ensconced in the cushioned chair before the hearth. For an instant, his amber eyes widened at the sight of my bruises, but just as swiftly he had control of myself.

‘I thought you were going out for the day, Tom Badgerlock,’ he observed convivially.

‘I did,’ I said, and I thought that was all I was going to say. But I found myself rooted to the spot, regarding him as he sat looking back at me, so carefully contained. ‘I had a conversation with Hap. I told him that loving someone and bedding someone were two different things.’

Lord Golden blinked slowly. Then he asked, ‘And did he believe you?’

I took a breath. ‘I don’t think he completely understood me. But in time, I expect he will.’

‘Many things take time,’ he observed. He swung his gaze back to the fire, and my hopes, that had leapt high but a moment before, moderated themselves. I nodded a silent agreement to his words and went into my room.

I stripped off my clothes and lay down on my narrow bed. I closed my eyes.

The day had taken more from me than I realized. I slept, not just that afternoon, but into the night. Deep and dreamless was my rest, until in the dark of night I found myself nudged from that blissfully empty sleep into that hovering place that is between sleep and waking. What had roused me, I wondered, and then became aware of it. Outside my Skill-walls, Nettle wept. She no longer assaulted those walls or entreated me angrily. She simply stood outside them and mourned. Endlessly.

I lifted my hands and covered my eyes as if that would hold her at bay. Then, I drew a deep breath and let my walls collapse. A single step carried my thoughts to hers. I wrapped her in comfort and told her, You worry needlessly, my dear. Both your father and your brother are on their way home to you. They are safe. I promise you this is true. Now. Stop your fretting and rest.

But … how can you know this?

Because I do. And I offered her my absolute certainty, and my brief glimpse of Burrich and Swift riding double on a horse.

For a moment, she collapsed into formlessness, so great was her relief. I began to withdraw, but she clutched at me suddenly. It has been so horrid here. First Swift disappeared, and we thought something awful had befallen him. Then the smith in town told Papa that he had asked him which roads led to Buckkeep Castle. Then Papa was furious and rode off in a temper, and Mama has done nothing but either weep or rant since then. She says that of all places in the world, Buckkeep is the most dangerous for Swift. But she will not say why. It frightens me when she is like this. Sometimes she looks at me, and her eyes don’t even see me. Then she either shouts at me to make myself useful or she starts weeping and cannot stop. None of it makes sense. We all have been creeping about the house like mice. And Nim feels as if half of himself is missing, and somehow it is his fault.

I interrupted her cascading words. Listen to me. It is going to be all right.

I believe you. But how can I make them know that?

I pondered. Should she tell Molly she had a dream? No. You can’t. I’m afraid they must endure. So, be strong for them, knowing all will be well. Help your mother, care for your little brothers, and wait. If I know your father at all, he will be at your side as soon as his horse can bear them there.

You know my father?

Such a question. Very well indeed. And then I knew I had gone too far, that I had given her words that were dangerous to both of us. So I Skill-suggested to her, more gently than a willow leaf moves in a breeze, that she would sleep now, truly sleep, and wake refreshed in the morning. Her grip on me weakened and I slipped away from her, back behind the safety of my walls. I opened my eyes to the dark of my own chamber. I took a deep breath, rolled over, and shouldered deeper into my bedding. I was hungry, but morning and breakfast would come soon enough.

A fumbling thought intruded, wafting on music. The Skilling was hesitant, not with lack of ability but with a squeamish reluctance to touch his mind to mine. You made her stop crying at last. Now Thick can sleep, too.

His touch vanished from my mind, leaving me to stare restlessly at my ceiling. But even as I re-centred my mind and tried to convince myself that Thick’s Skilling to me should be viewed as a positive step, not an invasion, another mind touched mine. It was distant and immense, and impossibly foreign. There was nothing human to the way her thoughts moved as she observed with bitter amusement, Now perhaps you will learn not to dream so loud. He is not the only one it bothers. Nor is he the only one you reveal yourself to, little man. What are you? What do you mean to me?

Then her thoughts abandoned me as a retreating wave leaves a drowned man on a beach. I rolled to the edge of my bed and retched dryly, more battered by that prodigious mind contact than by the beating I’d taken from Rory. The foreignness of the being which had pressed against my mind disrupted me, gagging my thoughts as if I had tried to breathe oil or drink flame. Panting in the dark, I felt the sweat slide down my brow and back and wondered what my errant Skilling had awakened in the world.

SEVENTEEN

Explosions

‘… And overheard a conversation between Erikska and the captain. He complained that the wind battled the ship, as if El himself begrudged bearing their home-coming. Erikska laughed at him, and mocked him for believing in “such old gods. They have grown feeble of muscle and wit. It is the Pale Lady who commands the winds now. As she is displeased with the Narcheska, she makes all of you suffer”. At her words, the captain turned aside from her. His face was angry, as an Outislander looks angry because he hates to show fear.’

Of the handmaid you bid me especially watch, I have seen no sign. Either she has remained within the Narcheska’s cabin for this entire voyage, or she is not aboard this vessel. I think the second is likelier.

Unsigned report to Chade Fallstar on the Narcheska’s
journey home

Sleep was gone. I ended up rising, dressing, and ascending to my tower. It was cold up there, and dark save for a few coals in the fireplace. I lit candles from the embers on the hearth and restored the fire. I damped a cloth in water and held it to my aching face. For a time I just stared into the fire. Then, in a useless effort to distract myself from all the questions I could not answer, I sat down at the table and tried to study the current set of scrolls that Chade had left out on the tabletop. These were the Outislander dragon legends, but there were two there that were new, the ink clean and black on the pale cream vellum. He would not have left them there if he had not wanted me to see them. One dealt with a report of a silver-blue dragon seen over Bingtown Harbour during a decisive battle between the Bingtown Traders and the Chalcedeans. The other looked like a child’s practice of the alphabet, the letters sprawling and malformed. But long ago he had taught me several ciphers by which we could leave messages for one another, and this parchment rapidly gave way to my efforts to decode it. Indeed, so simple was the secret of it that I scowled, wondering if Chade were losing his grip on our need for secrecy or if the quality of spies he retained had somehow lessened. For that is what it proved to be, an early report from the spy he had sent off to the Outislands. It was mostly an account of gossip, rumours and overheard conversations on the Narcheska’s ship during the voyage to the Outislands. I found little that was immediately useful there, though a reference to a Pale Woman did disturb me. It was as if an old shadow out of my previous life had reached out towards me, with claws instead of insubstantial fingers.

I was making myself tea when Chade arrived. He thrust the scroll-rack door open and staggered in. His cheeks and nose were red, and for a shocked moment, I thought the old man was drunk. He clutched at the table edge and seated himself in my chair and said plaintively, ‘Fitz?’

‘What’s happened?’ I asked him as I went to him.

He stared at me, and then said over-loudly, ‘I can’t hear you.’

‘What’s happened to you?’ I asked again, more loudly.

I don’t think he heard those words either, but he explained, ‘It blew up. I was working on that same mix, the one I showed you at your cottage. This time it worked too well. It blew up!’ He lifted his hands to his face, patting at his cheeks and brow. His face was tragic. I immediately knew what troubled him. I went and got him a looking-glass. He stared into it while I fetched a fresh basin of water and a cloth. I wet it for him, and he held it against his face for a moment. When he took it away, some of the flush had gone from his skin, but most of his eyebrows had, also.

‘It looks as if a great flash of fire hit you. Part of your hair is singed, too.’

‘What?’

I motioned to him to lower his voice.

‘I can’t hear you,’ he repeated plaintively. ‘My ears are ringing as if my stepfather had boxed them for me. Gods, I hated that man!’

That he spoke of him at all was a measure of his distress. Chade had never told me much about his childhood. He lifted his hands and fingered his ears as if to be sure they were still there, and then plugged and unplugged them with his fingers. ‘I can’t hear,’ he repeated yet again. ‘But my face isn’t too bad, is it? I’m not going to be scarred, am I?’

I shook my head at him. ‘Your eyebrows will grow back. This –’ I touched his cheek lightly, ‘seems no worse than a sunburn or wind-scald. It will go away. And I think your deafness will pass, also.’ I had no basis for saying the last, save that I hoped it so devoutly.

‘I can’t hear you,’ he agonized.

I patted his shoulder comfortingly and put my cup of tea in front of him. I touched my mouth to draw his attention to my lips and then said carefully, ‘Is your apprentice all right?’ Well I knew he would not be conducting such experiments alone at such an hour.

He watched my mouth move, and after a moment he seemed to comprehend my words because he said, ‘Don’t worry about that. I took care of her.’ Then, at my shocked look at his use of the feminine pronoun, he exclaimed angrily, ‘Mind your own business, Fitz!’

His irritation was directed more at himself than at me, and if I had not been so worried about him, I would have laughed. Her. So I’d been replaced with a girl. I reined my mind away from considering who she was, or why Chade had chosen her, to giving Chade what comfort I could. After a time, I ascertained that Chade could hear me, but not well. I tried to convey to him that I hoped his hearing would recover. He nodded and waved a hand dismissively, but I could see the haunting worry in his eyes. If his deafness remained, it would severely compromise his ability to counsel the Queen.

Nevertheless, he bravely tried to ignore his injury, asking me loudly if I’d seen the scrolls on the table, and then asking me what on earth I’d done to my face. To keep him from shouting more questions, I wrote down brief answers to his questions. I dismissed my injuries as the result of getting accidentally involved in a random tavern brawl. He was too preoccupied with his own problems to question that. Next he wrote on the scrap of paper we were using, ‘Did you speak with Burrich?’

‘I judged it best not to,’ I inked in reply. He pursed his lips, sighed, and said nothing, but I could tell that there was much he wished to say. He’d save it for later when conversation might be easier. Then we went over the spy-scrolls, pointing out interesting bits to one another even as we agreed that there was nothing there that was immediately useful. Chade wrote that he was hoping to hear soon from a spy that he’d sent out to Aslevjal Isle, to see if there was any scrap of truth to the legend.

I wanted to discuss my progress with Thick and Dutiful, but deferred that not only on account of his dampened hearing but because I was still trying to sort out how well I was doing. I’d already decided that I’d take my efforts with Thick further tomorrow.

It was then that I realized tomorrow was nearly upon us. Chade seemed to realize the same thing. He told me that he would seek his own bed, and plead a stomach affliction when the servant came to wake him.

I had no such luxury of bed rest. Instead, I retreated to my room to put on fresh clothing before I made the trek to Verity’s tower to await my students. I am sure I dreaded the day’s lesson more than either of them, for my head still pounded. I clenched my brow against it as I built a fire in the tower hearth and kindled some candles on the table. Sometimes I could not recall the last time I had been completely free of Skill-pain. I considered going back to my room for elfbark. When I rejected the notion, it was not because I feared it would damage my ability to Skill. It was that I connected the drug too strongly with my stupid quarrel with the Fool. No. No more of that.

I heard Dutiful’s footfall on the stair outside the door, and there was no time to ponder such things any more. He shut the door firmly behind him and came to the table. I sighed silently. His posture plainly said that he had not completely forgiven me. The first words out of his mouth were, ‘I don’t want to learn the Skill with a half-wit as my partner. There must be someone else.’ Then he stared at me. ‘What happened to you?’

‘I got in a fight.’ I made the reply short, to let him know that was as much as I would say. ‘And as far as Thick working with you on the Skill, I know of no other suitable candidates. He’s our only choice.’

‘Oh, he can’t be. Have you made an organized search for ones?’

‘No.’

Then, before I could say anything further, he picked up the little figurine from the table. The chain dangled from it. ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

‘It’s yours. You found it on that beach where we encountered an Other. Don’t you remember it?’

‘No.’ He stared at it with dread. Then, unwillingly, ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’ He swayed in his chair, looking at it. ‘It’s Elliania, isn’t it? What does it mean, Tom? That I found it there, before I’d ever even met her?’

‘What?’ I held out my hand for it, but he didn’t seem to notice. Instead he just sat, staring at it. I got up and walked around the table. When I looked at the small face and the coils of black hair, and bared breasts and the black, black eyes, I suddenly saw he was right. It was Elliania. Not as she was now, but as she would be, when she was a woman grown. The blue ornament carved in the woman’s hair was identical to the one that the Narcheska had worn. I drew a deep breath. ‘I don’t know what it means.’

The Prince spoke as a man does when he dreams. He looked down into the doll’s face. ‘That place where we were, that beach … it was like a vortex. Like a whirlpool that draws magic to itself. All sorts of magic.’ He closed his eyes for an instant. He still clutched the carved figurine in his hand. ‘I nearly died there, didn’t I? The Skill sucked me in and pulled me to pieces. But you came after me and … someone helped you. Someone –’ He groped helplessly for a word. ‘Someone great. Someone bigger than the sky.’

It was not how I would have expressed it, but I knew what he meant. I suddenly recognized how reluctant I had been to discuss the events on the beach or even think about them. There was a nimbus around the hours we had spent there, a light that obscured rather than illuminated. It filled me with dread. It was why I hadn’t shown the feathers to the Fool or discussed them with anyone. They were a vulnerability. They were a door to the unknown. When I picked them up, I had set something larger in motion, something that was beyond anyone’s controlling. Even now, my mind cringed away, as if by refusing to remember, I could undo those events.

‘What was that? Who was it, that we encountered there?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said shortly.

A deep enthusiasm suddenly kindled in the Prince’s eyes. ‘We have to find out.’

‘No. We don’t.’ I took a breath. ‘In fact, I think we should be very careful to avoid finding out.’

He stared at me in consternation. ‘But why? Don’t you remember what it felt like? How wonderful it was?’

I remembered only too well, especially now that we spoke of it together. I shook my head, and suddenly wished I’d kept the figurine hidden. The sight of her was pulling all the memories back into my mind, just as a familiar perfume or the few notes of a song will suddenly recall all of an evening’s foolishness. ‘Yes. It was wonderful. And it was dangerous. I didn’t want to come back from there, Dutiful. Neither did you. She made us.’

‘She? It wasn’t a she. It was like … like a father. Strong and safe. Caring.’

‘I don’t think it was either of those things,’ I said unwillingly. ‘I think that we each shaped it into what we wanted it to be.’

‘You think we each made it up?’

‘No. No, I think we encountered something that was bigger than we could grasp. And we set it into a familiar shape so that we could behold it. So that our minds could encompass it.’

‘What makes you think that? Something you read in the Skill-scrolls?’

I answered reluctantly. ‘No. I’ve found nothing in the Skill-scrolls about anything like that. I just think that because … because I do.’

He stared at me and I shrugged hopelessly, because I had no better explanation for the boy or myself. Only a stirring anticipation at the memory of the creature we had encountered, backed by an ominous dread.

The mantel door scraping open saved me. Thick entered, sneezing. He wore the whistle outside his shirt. The contrast between the shiny paint on the whistle and the ragged, grimy garment suddenly made me see him anew. I was appalled. His lank hair was flat to his head, and the flesh that showed through his rent garments was grimy. Suddenly I perceived him as Dutiful did, and realized that the Prince’s abhorrence went past the man’s physical deformity and mental limits. Dutiful literally drew back as Thick came closer, his nose wrinkling. My years with the wolf had led me to accept that certain things smelled certain ways. But the reek of Thick’s unwashed body was not simply a part of him as intrinsic as the ferret’s musk. It could be changed, and it would have to be changed if I expected the Prince to work with him.

For now, ‘Thick, would you sit here?’ I invited him, and drew out the chair farthest from the Prince. Thick looked at me suspiciously. Then he dragged it out, looked at the seat as if there might be some trick to it, and then plopped down into it. He began to scratch at something behind his left ear. When I glanced at Dutiful, he seemed transfixed with a horrified fascination. ‘Well. Here we all are,’ I announced, and then wondered what I was going to do with them.

Thick’s eyes wandered to me. ‘That girl’s crying again,’ he informed me, as if it were my fault.

‘Well. I’ll attend to that later,’ I told him firmly as my heart gave a lurch.

‘What girl?’ the Prince demanded instantly.

‘It’s nothing to worry about.’ Thick, let’s not talk about the girl just now. We’re here to do lessons.

Slowly, Thick stopped scratching. He dropped his hand to the tabletop and stared at me earnestly. ‘Why you do that? Talk in my head like that?’

‘To see if I could make you hear me.’

He sniffed thoughtfully. ‘I heard you.’ Dogstink.

Don’t do that to me.

‘Are you Skilling to each other?’ the Prince asked with earnest curiosity.

‘Yes.’

‘Then why can’t I hear it?’

‘Because we are selecting only one another to Skill to.’

Dutiful’s brow furrowed. ‘How did he learn to do that when I cannot?’

‘I don’t know,’ I had to admit. ‘Thick seems to have developed his Skill-abilities on his own. I don’t really know all he can and can’t do with them.’

‘Can he stop making that music all the time?’

I unfolded my own Skill-awareness. I hadn’t realized that I had been straining Thick’s thoughts free of the music that surrounded them. I turned to him now. ‘Thick, can you stop making the music? Can you think only the thoughts to me, without the music?’

He looked at me blankly. ‘Music?’

‘Your mother-song. Can you make it be quiet?’

He considered this for a time, chewing on his fat little tongue. ‘No,’ he decided abruptly.

‘Why can’t you stop the music?’ the Prince demanded. He had been sitting quietly. I suspected he had been trying to sort through the music and see if he could pick out Thick and me Skilling to one another. He sounded frustrated. Frustrated, and jealous.

Thick looked at him, a look both dull and uncaring. ‘I don’t want to.’ He looked away from the Prince and went back to scratching behind his ear.

Dutiful looked shocked. He took a breath. ‘And if, as your prince, I command it?’ There was suppressed fury in his voice.

Thick looked at him. Then he swung his gaze to me. His tongue thrust out a bit farther as he pondered something. Then he asked me, ‘Both students here?’

I had not expected that from Thick. I hadn’t expected him to hold tenaciously to that idea, let alone apply it. It gave me both new hopes and new fears. ‘Both students here,’ I confirmed for him. He sagged back in his chair and crossed his stubby arms on his chest.

‘And I am the teacher,’ I continued. ‘And students obey the teacher. Thick. Can you stop your music?’

He looked at me for a time. ‘Don’t want to,’ he said, but in a different tone.

‘Perhaps not. But I am the teacher and you are the student. The student obeys the teacher.’

‘Students obey, like servants?’ He stood up to go.

It was hopeless but I tried anyway. ‘Students obey like students. So that they can learn. So that everyone can learn. If Thick obeys, then Thick is still a student. If Thick won’t obey, then Thick is not a student. Then we send Thick away, to be a servant instead.’

He stood for a time, silent. I could not tell if he was thinking. I could not tell if he had understood what I said at all. Dutiful sat slumped in his chair, chin sunk to his chest and arms crossed, glowering. He plainly hoped that Thick would leave. But after a moment, the little man sat down again. ‘Stop the music,’ he said. He closed his eyes. Then he opened them again and squinting at me, said, ‘There.’

I had not realized how his steady Skilling had been battering my walls. In the stillness that followed, I felt an immense sense of relief. It was like the pause in the storm, when suddenly the winds cease howling and silence flows in. I gave a great sigh of relief and Dutiful suddenly sat up straight. He rubbed at his ears, looking puzzled, then looked at me. ‘All of that was him?’

I nodded slowly, still recovering myself.

A great uncertainty dawned over Dutiful’s face. ‘But I thought … I thought that was the Skill itself. The great river you speak about …’ He looked at Thick again, but his attitude towards the little man had changed. It wasn’t respect, but it was wariness, which often precedes respect.

Then, like a sudden curtain of rain, the music swept to life again around my thoughts, separating me from Dutiful like hunters fogged from one another by mist. I glanced at Thick. His face had fallen back into its normal lax lines. The realization came to me that Skilling was, to him, the natural state. Not Skilling was what required his effort. And where had he learned that?

Did your mother talk to you, like this?

No.

Then how did you learn to do this?

He frowned. She sang to me. We sang together. And she made the bad boys not see me.

Excitement filled me. Thick. Where is your mother? Do you have brothers or –

‘Stop that! It isn’t fair!’ The Prince sounded as petulant as a child.

It startled me from my thoughts. ‘What isn’t fair?’

‘You two Skilling to each other where I can’t hear. It’s rude. It’s like whispering behind someone’s back.’

I heard the jealousy in his voice as well. Thick, the half-wit, was doing something that the Prince of all the Six Duchies could not. And I was obviously enthused about it. I’d have to go carefully here. I suspected that Skillmaster Galen would have created a rivalry between them, to urge each to try harder. But that was not my goal. Instead, these two must be hammered into a unit.

‘I’m sorry. You’re right, that was not courteous. Thick just told me that his mother used the Skill to sing to him, and that they sang together. And that sometimes she used it to make bad boys not see him.’

‘Then his mother has the Skill? Is she a half-wit, also?’

I saw Thick wince at the words, as I had once cowered from the word ‘bastard’. That cut me. I wanted to correct the Prince, sharply, but knew that was hypocrisy. Was not that how I thought of Thick, as ‘the half-wit’? For now, I would let it pass, but I would make sure that Thick never again heard that epithet from our lips.

‘Thick, where is your mother?’

For a time, he just stared at me. Then, with the inflection of a wounded child, he said slowly, ‘She di-ed.’ His voice drew out the word. He looked around himself as if he had lost something.

‘Can you tell me about it?’

He scowled in thought. ‘We come to town with the others. For the crowd time, for the Springfest. Yes.’ He nodded at having recalled the right name for it. ‘Then, one morning, she didn’t wake up. And the others took my stuff and said I didn’t travel with them any more.’ He scratched the side of his face miserably. ‘Then, it was all done, all gone, and I was here. And then … I was here.’

It was not a very satisfactory account, but I doubted I would get more from him. It was Dutiful who asked gently, ‘What did your mother and the others do when they travelled?’

Thick took a deep breath, as if aggrieved. ‘Oh, you know. Find the big crowd. Mother sings and Prokie drums and Jimu dances. And Mother goes “don’t see him, don’t see him” while I go about and get the purses with my little silver scissors. Only Prokie took them, and my tassel hat and my blanket.’

‘You were a cut-purse?’ Dutiful asked incredulously.

What a use for the Skill – to hide your son while he cut purses, I thought silently.

Thick nodded, more to himself than to us. ‘And if I do good, I get my own penny, to buy a sweet. Every day.’

‘Had you any brothers or sisters, Thick?’

He scowled, pondering. ‘Mother was old, too old for babies. So I was born stupid. Prokie said so.’

‘My, Prokie sounds charming,’ the Prince muttered sarcastically. Thick swung a suspicious glare to him.

I clarified it for him. ‘The Prince is saying that he thinks Prokie was cruel to you.’

Thick sucked at his upper lip for a moment, then nodded as he warned us, ‘Don’t call Prokie “Papa”. Not ever.’

‘Not ever,’ Dutiful agreed whole-heartedly. And I think that moment was when Dutiful’s feelings towards Thick changed. He cocked his head as he regarded the grimy, misshapen little man. ‘Thick. Can you Skill to me? So that only I can hear, not Tom?’

‘Why?’ Thick demanded.

‘To be a student here, Thick,’ I intervened. ‘To be a student and not a servant.’

For a time, Thick sat silent. The end of his tongue curled over his upper lip. Then the Prince laughed aloud. ‘Dogstink? Why do you call him dogstink?’

Thick made a face and then rolled one shoulder as if he didn’t know. And in the moment I sensed a secret. It wasn’t that he didn’t know why. He held something back. Did he fear something?

I feigned a laugh I didn’t feel. ‘It’s okay, Thick. Go ahead and tell him, if you want.’

For a moment, it seemed to confuse him. Had someone told him that I must not be told something? Chade? He had a small frown on his brow as he regarded Dutiful. Then he spoke. I expected him to reveal to the Prince that he knew I had the Wit, and that somehow he had sensed that my Wit-beast had been a wolf. Instead, he said words that made me sick with fear. ‘S’what they call him when they ask me about him. The town ones that give me pennies for nuts and sweets. “Stinking dog of a traitor”.’ He turned to me, smirking and I forced my rictus grin wide. I chuckled.

‘They do, do they? Those rascals!’ Smile, Dutiful. Laugh aloud, but do not Skill back to me. I kept the sending as small and tight as I could. Even so, I saw Thick’s gaze flicker from me to the Prince. Dutiful’s face was white, but he laughed aloud, a stark ‘ha-ha-ha’ that sounded more like a man retching than laughter. I took a last chance. ‘That would be the one-armed man that says it most, isn’t it?’

Thick’s smile grew uncertain. I thought I had guessed wrong, but then he said, ‘No. Not him. He’s new. He hardly talks. But when I tell, and they give me pennies, then he says, sometimes, “Watch that bastard. Watch him well”. And I say, I do. I do.’

‘Well. And a fine job you do, Thick. A fine job and you earn your pennies well.’

He rocked back and forth in his chair, pleased with himself. ‘I watch the gold man, too. He’s got a pretty little horse. And a hat, with eye feathers in it.’

‘Yes, he does,’ I admitted, my mouth dry. ‘Like the eye feather you wanted.’

‘I can have it, when he’s gone,’ Thick told me complacently. ‘The town ones said so.’

I felt I could not find air to breathe. Thick sat there, nodding and pleased. Chade’s dim servant, too dim to know a secret if it bit him, had sold us for pennies. What had he seen, and to whom had he told it? And all because I was too dim to see that he who walks unknowingly among one man’s secrets may still carry other secrets of his own. ‘Lessons are over for today,’ I managed to say. I hoped he would just go, but he sat still, musing.

‘I do a fine job. I do. Not my fault the rat died. I didn’t want him anyway. He said, “the rat will be your friend”, and I said no, I got bit by a rat once, but they said “take him anyway, this rat is nice. Bring him food and bring him back to visit us each week”. So I did. Then he died, under the bowl. I think the bowl fell on him.’

‘Probably so, Thick. Probably so. But that’s not your fault. Not at all.’ I wanted to race through the corridors of Buckkeep and find Chade. But the slow, cold truth was rising up around me. Chade hadn’t seen this. Chade hadn’t known about this. Chade could no longer protect his apprentice. It was time I learned to fend for myself. I lifted a finger as if I had suddenly recalled something. ‘Oh, Thick. Today isn’t the day you go to see them, is it?’

Thick looked at me as if I were stupid. ‘No. Not on the bread-making day. On the washing day. When the sheets hang to dry. Then I go, and I get my pennies.’

‘On the washing day. Of course. That’s tomorrow. That’s good, then. Because I didn’t forget about the pink sugar cake. I wanted to give it to you today. Could you wait for me in Chade’s room for a while? I might not be fast, but I want to bring it to you.’

‘A pink sugar cake.’ I watched him search his mind. I don’t think he even recalled that I had promised him one. I tried to remember what else he had asked for. A scarf like Rowdy’s. A red one. Raisins. My mind raced. It was like one of Chade’s old games for me. What else? A knife. And a peacock feather. And pennies for sweets, or the sweets themselves. I’d have to get them all before tomorrow.

‘Yes. A pink sugar cake. Not a burned one. I know you like them.’ I prayed there would be such a thing in the kitchens.

‘Yes!’ His little eyes lit with an expression I’d never seen on his face before. Joyful anticipation. ‘Yes. I’ll wait. You’ll bring it soon.’

‘Well, not very soon. Not very fast. But today. You will wait for me there, and not go anywhere else?’

He had frowned when I said ‘not fast’, but he nodded grudgingly.

‘That’s good, Thick. You’re a very good student. You go there now, and wait for me.’

As soon as the mantel door swung shut behind him, Dutiful opened his mouth to speak. I made a hand motion to silence him. I waited until I was sure that even Thick’s plodding pace would have carried him far out of hearing. Then I sank down onto a chair.

‘Laudwine,’ Dutiful said in a shocked whisper.

I nodded. I wasn’t ready to speak yet. Laudwine had called me ‘bastard’. A bastard or the Bastard? I wondered.

‘What shall we do?’

I lifted my eyes and looked at my prince. His dark eyes were large in his paled face. Chade’s walls and spies had failed us. Suddenly I felt that I alone stood between him and the Piebalds. Perhaps I always had. I was selfishly glad that Laurel was gone, out of Laudwine’s reach. At least I didn’t have to worry about her. ‘You must do nothing. Nothing!’ I emphasized the word as he opened his mouth to protest it. ‘You must not do anything out of the ordinary, anything that would let anyone know that we suspect a plot. Today must be like any other day. But you must stay within the walls of Buckkeep.’

He was silent for a breath. Then, ‘I promised Civil Bresinga that I’d go out riding with him. Just he and I. We were going to slip off on our own, to hunt with his cat this afternoon. He came to my room, very late last night, to ask me.’ He drew a breath and I watched him look at Civil’s invitation in a different light. His voice was lower as he said, ‘He seemed agitated. And he looked as if he had been weeping. When I asked him if he were feeling well, he assured me that the problem he had was one of his own making, and nothing a friend could help with. I assumed it had to do with a girl.’ I absorbed that information and then asked, ‘His cat is here?’

The Prince nodded shamefacedly. ‘He pays an old woman for the use of a shed, at the edge of the woods down near the river landing. She feeds the cat, but lets it come and go as it wishes. And Civil visits with her as often as he can.’ He took a breath and admitted, ‘I’ve been there with him before. Once. Late at night.’

I bit back everything I wanted to say. It was no time for angry rebukes. Most of my anger was for myself. I’d failed there, too. ‘Well. You’re not going today. You’re developing a boil on your arse. That’s why you can’t go with him. Tell him why when you excuse yourself from it.’

‘I don’t want … I won’t say that. That’s embarrassing. I’ll say I have a headache. Tom, I don’t think Civil is a traitor. I don’t think he’d betray me.’

‘You will say that, and exactly that, because it is embarrassing. A headache sounds like a ploy. A boil on your arse doesn’t.’ I took a breath, and hedged around what I suspected. ‘Maybe Civil isn’t a traitor to you. But it could be that someone else is using him to get you out and away from Buckkeep’s walls. Or it could be that someone has threatened him, saying, oh, saying that they’ll expose his mother as Witted if he doesn’t deliver you. So. Whether or not you trust Civil is not the question. Buy me time. Go make your excuses. And take care to walk gingerly, and avoid anything that you would avoid if you really had a boil.’

He scowled but he nodded. It gave me a small measure of relief. But then he added, ‘It’s not going to be easy to beg off. He said he needed to ask a special favour of me today.’

‘What was it?’

‘I’m not sure. Something to do with his cat, I think.’

‘All the more reason to avoid being out with him.’ I tried to think of all the possible ramifications. Another thought intruded. ‘Has Civil brought you any other animals? Has he tried to offer you a Wit-partner?’

‘Do you think I’d be stupid enough to trust him if he did?’ The Prince was both flustered and angered by my question. ‘I’m not an idiot, Tom. No. In fact, Civil has told me that I must not bond with any creature until at least a year has passed. That is the Old Blood custom. There is a set time of mourning. It is to be sure that when the human next takes a partner, it is based on a true attraction between them, not as a replacement for one who has been lost.’

‘It sounds to me as if Civil has been telling you a great deal about the Old Blood ways.’

For a moment, Prince Dutiful was silent. Then he said coldly, ‘You declined to teach me, Tom. Yet I knew, in my guts, that this was something I had to know. Not just to protect myself, but to master my own magic. I will not be ashamed of my Wit, Tom. Conceal it I must, because of the unjust hatred many bear for it. But I will not be ashamed nor walk away from it.’

There seemed very little I could do or say about that. A traitor thought whispered that the boy was right. How much better would it have been for Nighteyes and me if I had been educated in my magic before I took up with him? Eventually, I replied stiffly, ‘I am sure that my prince will do as he thinks best then.’

‘Yes. I will,’ he agreed. And then, as if he had won some point, he shifted his tactic and asked me suddenly, ‘So I will pretend that I know nothing. And what will you do? For I fear you are in as great a danger as I am. No, greater. My name will protect me, to some extent. They would have to prove me Witted before they could move against me. But you, I fear, you could be bludgeoned in an alley in Buckkeep Town and folk might think it just another incident. You have no name to protect you, Tom.’

I nearly smiled. The very fact that my name was unknown was what protected me, and it was that shield I must strive to maintain. ‘I have to go seek Chade. Right away. If you wish to do anything to aid me today, you might let the kitchen know that you’ve a fancy for pink sugar cakes.’

He nodded gravely. ‘Is there no other way I can help?’

The offer was sincere, and that moved me. He was my prince, and yet he offered to serve me. I could have refused him. But I think he valued it more when I said, ‘Actually, yes, you can. Besides the pink sugar cake, I need a large bunch of nice raisins, a red neck scarf, a good sheath knife and a peacock feather.’ As the Prince’s eyes grew round at this odd list, I impetuously added, ‘A bowl of nuts and some sweets would also be a good idea. If you can bring them here with no one noticing, that would be very helpful. From here, I can take them to Chade’s den.’

‘They are all for Thick? You will buy his loyalty?’ He sounded outraged.

‘Yes. They are for Thick. But not to buy him. At least, not exactly. I need to win him to us, Dutiful. We will start with gifts and attentions. I think that the attentions will be more important, eventually, than the gifts. You heard from him what his life has been like. Why should he feel any loyalty to anyone? Let me tell you something from experience, my prince. Anyone, even a king, can begin to buy a man with gifts. And at first it may seem no more than that between them. But eventually, loyalty and even deep regard can spring up. For when we are cared for by someone, or when we care for someone, that is the beginning of the bond.’ My mind wandered for an instant, not just to King Shrewd and myself, but to what Hap and I shared, and on to what had grown between Burrich and me, and then Chade and myself. ‘So. We begin with the simple gifts that might ease a simple heart.’

‘A bath wouldn’t hurt him, either. And some whole clothes.’ Dutiful spoke thoughtfully, not sarcastically.

‘You’re right,’ I said quietly. I doubt that he knew how I meant my words. Let him be the one who puzzled out how to win Thick’s heart. For in the end, the bond I sought to forge must be between these two. I suddenly shared Chade’s conviction that the Prince must have a coterie. There might come a time when ‘Don’t see him, don’t see him’ would keep a rope away from his neck.

We parted to our separate tasks. I hurried through the labyrinth of corridors to emerge in my bedchamber. From thence, I went straight through the Fool’s rooms without even pausing to see if he was awake. A few moments later, I was striding up the stairs to the part of the castle where the Queen’s most favoured councillor had his chambers. I wished there was a more subtle way for me to contact him, but I had resolved that if anyone stopped me, I would simply lie and say I was delivering a message from Lord Golden.

Despite all that had happened, it was still early morning. Most of the folk moving quietly within Buckkeep were servants, busy with the tasks that would make their masters’ mornings go more smoothly. Some hauled buckets of wash water, and others carried breakfast trays. A healer carrying a tray of lint and pots of salve hastened past my long-legged stride. The little woman was trotting doggedly, her cheeks red, as if hurry were of the utmost importance. I surmised she might be going to Chade’s chambers to treat his burns. When she suddenly halted in front of me, I nearly stumbled over her. I caught my balance by clapping a hand to the wall, and then apologized.

‘No need, no need. Just open this door for me, please.’

It wasn’t Chade’s door. I had long ago made certain that I knew where his chamber was. But my curiosity was piqued, so as I set my hand to the door, I earnestly exclaimed, ‘I do hope Lady Modesty is not badly injured. You carry many supplies.’

The healer shook her head irritably. ‘This is not Lady Modesty’s chamber. Lady Rosemary is the one who needs my services. A fall of soot in her chimney last night ignited right in her face, poor thing. She has burned both her hands, and quite scorched her beautiful hair. Open the door, man.’

I gawked as I did so, and then risked a hasty glance inside before I pulled it shut. Lady Rosemary’s cheeks and brow were as red as Chade’s had been. She was garbed in a yellow wrapper and sat in a chair near the window as a maid busily snipped the singed ends from her hair. She held her hands in front of her, draped in wet cloths, as if they pained her. Then the door closed, shutting off my glimpse.

I swayed slightly where I stood as I put it together. I’d uncovered one too many secrets this morning. Lady Rosemary was Chade’s new apprentice. Well, and why not? Regal had given little Rosemary her basic assassin’s training years ago. Why waste a trained spy? Somehow the very practicality of it saddened me. Yet I had heard more than one Farseer say it: the weapon you discard today can be used against you tomorrow. Better to keep Lady Rosemary well in hand than to chance someone else might use her against us.

I walked more slowly as I went on to Chade’s room. What I had discovered did not give my present mission any less urgency, yet I felt my mind was crowded with too many thoughts to follow any of them clearly. I knocked and a lad of about ten opened the door to me. I spoke in a loud and jovial tone. ‘Good morn, young sirruh! Tom Badgerlock, servant to Lord Golden I am, with a message to deliver to Councillor Chade.’

The boy blinked up at me. He had not been awake for long. ‘My master is not well today,’ he said at last. ‘He will see no one.’

I smiled at him affably. ‘Oh, I need not see him, young master. He only needs to hear me for me to pass the message. May I not speak to him?’

‘I’m afraid not. I can take the message from you if you wish.’

‘Oh, he didn’t write it down, young master. He just trusted me to repeat his words.’ I boomed out the message, heedless of the quiet of the corridors behind me and the silence of the dim and shuttered chamber. The boy cast a glance towards a closed door behind him. That would be Chade’s bedroom then. My heart sank. The old man could well have gone back to bed after his injury. And if he slept behind a closed door, his hearing damped by his mishap, I had small chance of him hearing my voice and coming out.

‘And that message would be?’ the young page asked me firmly. He smiled pleasantly but stood solidly in the doorway, barring my access. Obviously I was like many a man-at-arms around Buckkeep: not very bright to begin with, and not improved by a few blows to the head over the years.

I cleared my throat, and bobbed a bow in his direction. ‘Lord Golden of Jamaillia invites Lord Chade of Buckkeep, chief councillor to Queen Kettricken of the Six Duchies, this morning for breakfast and to share a most amusing game of risk. It is a game he has only recently learned, and believes the Councillor will find it most intriguing. “Laudwine” they call it, in its place of origin. Each player receives a single hand of markers, and his entire fate depends on beating the other players at taking chances before the time runs out. There’s been some word of it being played down in Buckkeep Town, though my master has not heard exactly where.’

The little page’s jaw was beginning to hang open. He had been well schooled, I am sure, in relaying verbal messages exactly, but not ones of this length. I kept smiling and pitching my voice to carry through the closed doors. ‘But the most intriguing part of this game is that it was traditionally played only on Wash-days. Fancy that! Now it can be played on almost any day, but the stakes wagered are always the highest on Wash-day.’

‘I’ll tell him,’ the page interrupted. ‘That he is invited to play a game of Laudwine in Lord Golden’s chambers. But I fear he will decline. As I have told you, he is not feeling well today.’

‘Well, that’s not up to you and me, now is it? We’re only the ones who have to be sure the messages are passed on. Thank you now and good morning to you.’

I turned and went off down the hall humming to myself. I tried not to look as if I were in a hurry. I went to the kitchens and loaded a very ample meal onto a tray. To keep up the pretence that Lord Golden would be entertaining Councillor Chade in his chambers, I took extra plates and cups as well, and then carried it up to his chamber. I reached the door of the room just in time to intercept Chade’s page. The lad had come bringing Chade’s apologies that he could not attend, due to a terrible headache. I promised to pass his regrets on to my master. I had scarcely entered the room and latched the door behind me and set the tray down on the table before Chade stepped out of my bedroom. ‘What’s this about Laudwine?’ he demanded.

He looked, if anything, worse. The reddened skin on his brow and cheeks was peeling now, giving him a leprous look. At least he was speaking in closer to normal tones. I tested him, asking, ‘Is your hearing coming back?’ in a low voice.

He scowled at me. ‘It’s somewhat better, but I’ll still need you to speak up for me to hear you clearly. Enough of that. What is this about Laudwine?’

At that moment, Lord Golden emerged from his chamber, still tying the belt of his morning robe. ‘Ah. Good morning, Councillor Chade. This is an unexpected pleasure, but I see that my servant has greeted you and supplied breakfast for both of us. Please, be seated.’

Chade glowered at him, and then transferred the scowl to me. ‘Enough! I don’t care what your grievances with one another are right now. This is a threat to the Farseer throne, and I won’t tolerate any nonsense. Fool, keep quiet. FitzChivalry, report.’

The Fool shrugged and dropped into the chair opposite Chade. Without any ceremony, he began dishing up food for my old mentor. It stung me that he would revert to being his old self for Chade, but not for me. I sat down at table with them. The Fool had left my plate empty. I served myself as I spoke. I reported the morning thoroughly. Chade’s expression grew more alarmed as I progressed, but he did not interrupt. To pay the Fool back in kind, I didn’t even glance at him as I spoke. When I finished at last, I poured tea for Chade and myself and attacked my food, discovering I was ravenous.

After a long moment of silence, Chade asked me, ‘Have you planned an action?’

I shrugged with a casualness I didn’t feel. ‘It seems obvious. Keep Thick close so he can’t give the game away. Keep the Prince safe within doors today and tomorrow. Find out from Thick where he’s been going to report. Investigate the place. Go in and kill as many as possible, making sure that Laudwine dies this time.’ I kept my voice steady, yet I felt a sudden revulsion for my own words. So it begins again, I thought. Not the killing in battle or under attack, but the quietly planned assassinations for the Farseers. Had I said I was not an assassin, would never be one again? I wondered if I had been a liar or an idiot to voice such words.

‘Stop showing off for the Fool. He isn’t impressed,’ Chade responded gruffly.

If he had not hit the mark so neatly, I would not have been so chagrined. Yes. I had been posturing. I didn’t even dare glance at the Fool to see how he had reacted to Chade’s remark. I shovelled another mouthful of food in so that I did not have to say anything.

Chade’s next remark shocked me. ‘No killing, Fitz. And you stay away from all of them. I don’t like their spying, and I’m ashamed at how neat a ruse they used against me. But we cannot risk killing any Witted ones without compromising our queen’s word. You are aware that Kettricken offered to entertain a delegation from the Old Blood community, to work on solving the issue of unjust persecution?’ At my nod, he continued, ‘Well, she has received messages in the last two days taking her up on her proposal. I suspect Laurel has a hand in these arrangements. Don’t you?’

The old man shot the question and his grim look at me simultaneously. But if he had hoped to surprise a secret out of me, he failed. After a moment’s consideration, I nodded. ‘It does seem possible. Then they do this … this is being arranged without your guidance?’ It was the most tactful way I could think of to say it.

Chade nodded, grimmer than ever. ‘Not only without my guidance but against my counsel. We scarcely need another diplomatic worry to deal with now. Nonetheless, I suppose we will have one. The Queen seems to be leaving all the details of the meeting’s time and place up to the Witted to determine. They have specified that to protect themselves, we must maintain secrecy. There will be no announcement of this convocation until they tell us they are ready. I think they fear what our nobles would do if they knew this was planned. As do I!’ He took a breath and recovered his aplomb. ‘An exact date has not been set, but they have promised us “soon”. It may very well be that Laudwine is an emissary for the Witted ones. To kill him in his lodgings before he can meet with the Queen would be … politically unwise.’

‘Not to mention rude,’ the Fool interjected between bites of bread. He wagged a remonstrating finger at Chade.

‘So I’m to do nothing?’ I asked coldly.

‘Not exactly,’ Chade said mildly. ‘You were wise to do what you have done. Keep Thick confined. Don’t let him report back to them. See what other information you can wangle out of him. And you were correct to tell Dutiful not to be alone with Civil Bresinga. It may have been an innocent invitation, but it might also have been a ploy to give them a hostage. I have still not been able to determine how deeply the Bresingas were involved in the last kidnapping. The reports I get back from Galekeep are odd. For a time, I suspected that Lady Bresinga herself was in danger or some sort of hostage. Her movements were so limited and her life so restrained. Then I began to wonder if it were not merely a financial difficulty. Reports are now that she drinks far more than she used to. She retires early to bed and rises late. So.’ He sighed. ‘I’ve made no decision there. And with the Queen’s efforts to befriend the Witted faction, I dared not take action against the Bresingas. I still don’t know if they are threat or ally.’ He fell silent, scowling, and then added, ‘It is damnable bad luck that I have done this to my face just when I most need to get out and about and speak to people. Yet I cannot afford to excite comment. Some might make unwarranted connections.’

The Fool rose quietly from the table and went to his bedchamber. When he returned, he had a small pot of cosmetic. He set it on the table near Chade’s elbow. When the old assassin glanced curiously at it, he spoke quietly. ‘This is most efficacious for the skin peeling. There is a bit of colour in it to lighten the skin, as well. If the colour is too much, let me know. I can change it.’ I noticed that he did not ask Chade what had happened to him, nor did Chade volunteer anything. The Fool added cautiously, ‘If you wish, I can show you how to apply it. We might be able to restore some of your eyebrows as well.’

‘Please,’ Chade said after a moment. And so a place was cleared at the corner of the breakfast table, and the Fool brought out his paints and powders and went to work. It was, in a way, fascinating to watch him at his task. Chade appeared uncomfortable at first, but soon became involved in the task, studying himself in a looking-glass as the Fool restored his appearance. When the Fool was finished, Chade nodded, well pleased, and observed, ‘Would that I had had paint and artifice of this quality when I was playing Lady Thyme. I would not have had to wear so many veils, nor smell so foul to make folk keep their distance.’

The memories that aroused made me grin. At the same time, I knew a moment’s unease. It was unlike Chade to speak so carelessly his secrets, no matter how old they were. Did he assume I had told the Fool all there was to know of us? Or did he trust the man that completely? He raised a hand to pat his cheek, but the Fool made a cautioning gesture. ‘Touch your face as little as possible. Take these pots with you, and make an excuse to be alone with a looking-glass after meals. That will be when you will most likely need to make repairs to it. And if you need my aid, simply send me a note inviting me to visit you. I’ll come to your chambers.’

‘Tell your page you have a question on how the game of Laudwine is played,’ I interjected. Without looking at the Fool directly, I explained, ‘That was my pretext for visiting Chade’s chambers this morning. That you had invited him here for breakfast and to show him a new wagering game.’

‘An invitation I declined, due to poor health,’ Chade added. The Fool nodded gravely. ‘And now, I must go. Carry on as you have been, Fitz. Have Lord Golden pass me a message with the word “horse” in it if you wish me to meet with you. If you can find out from Thick where Laudwine is staying, let me know quickly. I’ll send a man round to snuff about.’

‘I think I could do that myself,’ I said quietly.

‘No, Fitz. He knows your face. He may know from Thick that you are mine. Better you stay well away from him.’ He lifted his napkin to wipe his mouth. At a warning look from the Fool, he just patted his lips instead. He rose to leave, and then suddenly turned back to me. ‘The figurine from the Others’ Beach, Fitz. You said the Prince believes it to be the Narcheska? Do you think such a thing is possible?’

I opened my hands and shrugged. ‘That beach seemed a very odd place to me. When I think back on all that happened there, my memories seem vague and fogged.’

‘That could have been from passing through the Skill-pillars, you said.’

I took a breath. ‘Perhaps. And yet, I think there is more to it. Perhaps the Others or some other being maintain a bewitchment on that place. When I look back, Chade, my decisions make no sense to me. Why didn’t I attempt to follow the path towards the forest? I remember looking at it and thinking that someone must have made it. Yet I had no inclination to even go look at it. No, it was even stronger than that. The woods seemed threatening to me, as no forest had ever seemed unwelcoming before.’ I shook my head. ‘I think that place has its own magic, neither Wit nor Skill. And it is one I would not willingly experience again. The Skill seemed exceptionally enticing there as well. And …’ I let the thought trail away. I was still not ready to speak of whatever-it-was that had plucked both Dutiful and myself from the Skill-current and reassembled us. The experience was both too large and too personal.

‘A magic that could present the Prince with a figurine of his bride-to-be, not as she is but as she will be?’

I shrugged. ‘Once Dutiful said it, it did seem right to me. I know I’ve seen the Narcheska wear a blue ornament like the one the figurine has. But I’ve never seen her dressed that way, nor has she breasts yet.’

‘I seem to recall reading that there is some Outislander ceremony in which a girl presents herself thus to demand recognition of her womanhood.’

It sounded barbaric to me. I said so, and then added, ‘There is a resemblance to the Narcheska, but perhaps it is merely the resemblance that all Outislander women have to one another. I don’t think we should give it great consideration right now.’

Chade sighed. ‘There is too much of the Outislanders that we do not know. Well. I must hasten away. I have much to report to the Queen, and a number of questions that I must ask of other folk. Fitz, as soon as you know anything definite from Thick, get back to me. Send me a message from the Fool with the word “lavender” in it.’

My heart jolted in my chest. ‘I thought you said the word to use was “horse”,’ I said.

Chade paused at the door of my room. I knew I had rattled him, yet he tried to cover it. ‘Did I? But that seems too common a word, you know. Lavender suits me better. You’re far less likely to write that to me by accident. Farewell.’

And he was gone, shutting my bedroom door behind him. I turned back to see if the Fool was as dismayed as I was by the old man’s lapse, but he was gone. He had ghosted out of the room, taking his paints and powders with him. I sighed to myself and went about the task of gathering up the breakfast things. The brief interlude with him in the morning made me more aware than ever of how much I missed him. It cut me deeply that he would be himself to humour Chade, but not me.

If, I reminded myself sourly, the Fool was indeed who he truly was.

EIGHTEEN

Pink Sugar Cake

Have the student lie on his back. He should not be on a comfortable bed nor on a bare surface. Either is a distraction. A blanket folded on the floor suffices. Have the student remove or loosen any clothing that binds. Some students will perform the exercise best if naked and undistracted by clothing touching them. Others will be too distracted by the vulnerability of their nakedness. Let each student decide what is best for him, without comment.

Emphasize that the only movement of the body should be steady breathing. The eyes should be closed. Then, without moving any part of his body, ask the student to be aware of his body. He may need to be guided in this at first. Tell him to seek awareness of his middle toes without touching or moving them. Then have him think of his knees, but not flexing them. Proceed with the skin of his breast, of his forehead, the backs of his hands and continue as long as is necessary to name the boundaries of his flesh, until the student has been invited to truly consider the physical confines of the body he lives within. Thus prepared, ask him then to find the edges of his thoughts. Do they stop at the flesh of his brow? Can he feel them encased in his skull or trapped in his chest?

All but the dullest students will swiftly realize that the body does not confine thoughts. They extend outside our flesh, even as our vision, hearing, touch, smelling and even taste are senses that link us to the outside world while remaining functions of the physical body. So our thoughts reach out, unbound by distance or even time. Ask the student, ‘Cannot you smell the wine that is opened across the room? Hear the shouts of sailors at work across the water? Then do not refuse to believe you can hear the thoughts of the man in the field that waft towards you.’

Treeknee’s translation of Preparing the Students

I went first to Verity’s tower to see what luck the Prince had had in filling Thick’s list. I was surprised to find that not only had Dutiful obtained every item, but that he himself was waiting for me.

‘Won’t your friends remark on your absence?’ I asked as I surveyed the trove on the table.

He shook his head. ‘I made excuses. Sometimes my reputation for being slightly odd serves me well. No one questions that I have sudden needs for solitude.’

I nodded to myself as I sorted the items. I folded the red scarf and set it aside. ‘I’ve seen you wearing this. If I remark it, then others will also. If Thick were seen wearing it, people would assume that he had stolen it. Or that he had some special connection to you. Either would be bad for us. The same goes for this knife. I appreciate your willingness to part with it, but such a well-crafted blade would only raise questions for him.’ I set the knife on the folded scarf.

The little pink frosted cake was still slightly warm from the oven. A rich waft of almond rose from it. The peacock feather was long and nodded gracefully when I picked it up. There was an earthenware bowl full of plump raisins. Shelled nutmeats dipped in syrup and set aside to harden glistened among the raisins. ‘This is wonderful. Thank you.’

‘Thank you, Tom Badgerlock.’ Dutiful took a deeper breath and then asked, ‘Do you think Laudwine has come to kill you?’

‘I think that is possible. But Chade seems to think he might be part of a Witted delegation sent to treat with the Queen. So I’ve been ordered to keep my hands off until I’m given further directions.’

‘So you’ll do nothing for now.’

‘Oh, I’ll do a lot of things,’ I muttered. ‘I just won’t go out and immediately kill Laudwine.’

The Prince laughed aloud, and I suddenly realized how carelessly I had spoken before him. I was fortunate that he had assumed that I was joking. I forced a smile to my face. ‘I’ll take these things up to Thick and see what else he has to tell me. And you must remember to go about your day as normally as possible.’

He did not look pleased at that, but he conceded the necessity of it. I departed by way of the mantel door. As I climbed the uneven stairs and negotiated the narrow passages, I tried to think through for myself the significance of Laudwine’s presence in Buckkeep Town. Kettricken had called for the Witted to negotiate with her. As the head of the Piebald faction, it made sense that he would come forward to present their views. But as a man that had all but kidnapped the Prince, hoping to take over his life, I was amazed that he dared to stand before Kettricken. She might not hang him for being Witted, but he certainly deserved to die for how he had plotted against the Farseers. And yet, there was the rub. She could level no charges against him without revealing that her son was Witted. All the events around Dutiful’s disappearance had been hushed up or explained away. The nobles of his court believed he had simply gone away from them for a time to meditate. I wondered if Laudwine intended to use all those circumstances as a club against the Farseers. I sighed, and hoped there would be other, more moderate Old Blood folk who would also step forward. Laudwine, I felt, represented the worst and most extreme of our kind. His sort had made us hated and feared. If he stepped forward alone, claiming to represent all the Witted, that reputation would live on.

I pushed such thoughts aside as I reached Chade’s chamber. I entered to find Thick sitting disconsolately on the hearthstones before the dwindling fire. He stared into the flames, his tongue protruding from his mouth. ‘Did you think I’d forgotten?’ I asked him as I came in.

He turned to me and as his eyes lifted and he beheld the items I carried, a terrible wave of gratitude rushed out from him and enveloped me. He stood up, literally trembling with excitement. ‘Let’s put these things on the table,’ I suggested. He seemed struck dumb. He wiggled like an eager puppy as I pushed scrolls and inkpots carefully out of my way and set down the items one by one. ‘Prince Dutiful helped me get these things for you,’ I told him. ‘See, here is the pink sugar cake. It’s still warm from the oven. Here is a bowl of raisins for you, and candied nuts. He thought you might like to try the nuts. And the peacock feather, the feather with the eye in it. All for you.’

He didn’t try to touch any of it. He stood, staring, his hands clasping one another on top of his rounded belly. His mouth worked as he thought through what I had said. ‘Prince Dutiful?’ he said at last.

I pulled out a chair for him. ‘Sit down, Thick. Your prince sends you these things for you to enjoy.’

He sank slowly into the chair. His hands crept onto the table, and finally one finger dared to touch the edge of the feather. ‘My prince. Prince Dutiful.’

‘That’s right,’ I said.

I had expected him immediately to stuff his mouth with cake and raisins. Instead, he sat for a time with his one stubby finger just touching the shaft of the feather. Then he picked up the pink sugar cake and turned it over, looking at it from every angle. He set it carefully back on the table. Then he drew the bowl of raisins towards him. He took one raisin, looked at it, sniffed it, and then put it in his mouth. He chewed it very slowly, and swallowed it before he took another. I could feel the focus he put into this activity. It was as if he Skilled each raisin, comprehending completely what it was before he ate it.

I had plenty of time. Even so, the task of hauling water to the Fool’s chambers and then up into Chade’s room was laborious. Before I was done, the scar on my back ached abominably, and I well understood Thick’s distaste for the task. I poured the last bucket into the copper and set it to heat while I set up the washtub. Thick paid no attention to me. He was still consuming the raisins one at a time. The pink sugar cake sat on the table in front of him, untouched. His concentration was absolute. As I idly watched him eat, I realized that his teeth gave him problems. Chewing seemed difficult: as he ate the nuts, it became even more evident. I left him alone as he worked his slow way through them. When he had finished, I thought he would finally eat the sugar cake. Instead, he set it in front of himself and admired it. After some time had passed and the hot water began to steam, I asked him gently, ‘Aren’t you going to eat your cake, Thick?’

He frowned thoughtfully. ‘Eat it, and it’s gone. Like the raisins.’

I nodded slowly. ‘But you could get another one, perhaps. From the Prince.’

His gaze had reverted to a suspicious glare. ‘From the Prince?’

‘Of course. If you do good things that help your prince, he will probably give you good things in return.’ I let him ponder that for a time, and then asked, ‘Thick, do you have any other clothes?’

‘Other clothes?’

‘Different clothes from what you are wearing. Extra shirt and trousers.’

He shook his head. ‘Just these.’

Even I had never been so poorly provided for. I hoped it wasn’t true. ‘What do you wear when those clothes are being washed?’ I poured hot water into the tub.

‘Washed?’

I gave it up. I really didn’t want to know any more. ‘Thick, I brought you water and heated it for a bath.’ I went to a shelf and took down Chade’s sewing supplies. At least I could stitch up some of the worst rents.

‘A bath? Like, wash in the river?’

‘Sort of. But with hot water. And soap.’

He thought about it for a moment. Then, ‘I don’t do that.’ He went back to his contemplation of the sugar cake.

‘You might like to try it. It feels nice to be clean.’ I splashed my hand invitingly in the tub.

For a time he sat still, staring at me. Then he pushed back his chair and came over to the tub. He looked into the water. I splashed my hand in it again. Slowly he knelt down next to the tub. Holding tightly to the edge of the tub with one hand, he splashed with the other. He gave a grunt of amusement, and then said, ‘It’s warm.’

‘It’s nice to sit in it and be warm all over. And to smell nice afterwards.’

He made a sound, neither agreement nor denial. He thrust his hand deeper into the water. It soaked the ragged cuff of his shirt.

I stood up and walked away, leaving him alone by the water. It took him quite a while to investigate the water completely. When his sleeves were both soaking wet, I suggested that he should take his shirt off. The water had cooled substantially before he decided he would risk taking off his shoes and trousers and getting into the tub. He had no smallclothes. He was very suspicious when I tried to add more hot water, but after thinking it over, he allowed it. He played with the soap and washing cloth. As the warm water reached him, he gradually relaxed. Persuading him not only to wash his face, but also to rub soap in his hair and then rinse it out was not an easy task.

In scraps of conversation, I learned he had not washed at all since Springfest. No one told him to after his mother died. It made me realize how recent his bereavement was. When I asked him how he had come to work in the castle, he could not really tell me. I suspected he had wandered in one day, and with the general influx of people for Springfest and the betrothal ceremony, the folk of the keep had simply assumed he had belonged to someone. I would have to ask Chade how he had come to be his personal servant, I decided.

As Thick experimented with the water and soap, I hastily stitched up what I could of his clothing. Where seams had given out, the work was fairly easy despite the grime crusted onto the fabric. He had simply worn through his clothes at the knees and elbows, and with nothing to use for a patch, I had to leave them as they were.

When his fingers began to wrinkle, I found him a towel and told him to stand before the fire. I tossed his clothes into the silty water and gave them a quick scrubbing. When I wrung them out and hung them on the chair backs, they were not clean, but they were better than they had been.

Persuading him to sit down and let me work the knots out of his hair was just as difficult as coaxing him into the bath had been. He was suspicious of the comb, even when I let him hold the looking-glass and watch what I was doing. I had not had such a demanding task since I had first taken Hap in and emphasized that nits and lice were not an ordinary part of one’s hair.

Scrubbed and dried, his hair combed, Thick sat lethargically before the fire wrapped in one of Chade’s quilts. I think the warm bath had worn him out. I turned one of his cracked shoes in my hand. This was something I knew how to do from Burrich’s tutelage. ‘I can make you some new shoes as soon as I go to town and buy some leather,’ I told him. He nodded sleepily, no longer shocked by this largesse. I moved his clothing closer to the hearth to dry. ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do about clothes for you right now. My sewing skills are limited to repair rather than construction. But we’ll think of something.’ He nodded again. I thought for a time, then went to Chade’s old wardrobe in the corner of the chamber. A number of his old wool workrobes were still in it. One was scorched, and almost all the others had blotches and stains of various kinds on them. I doubted that he had worn any of them in recent years. Even so, they were cleaner and in better repair than Thick’s rags. I took one out, held it up to gauge the length of it, marked it, and then ruthlessly sheared it off short. ‘This will give you something to wear until we can get more clothes made for you.’ He barely nodded as he stared, half-dozing, into the fire. As he relaxed, the music of his spilling Skill became more expansive. I started to firm my walls against it. Then, instead of that, I opened myself to it.

I settled myself, robe, needle and thread in the other chair. Thick looked almost asleep. I threaded the needle and began a new hem for the robe as I asked him, very quietly, ‘So. They call me a stinking dog, do they?’

‘Erhm.’ The music changed slightly. Sharper notes. The ringing of a smith’s hammer on hot iron. The slamming of a door. Somewhere a goat bleated and another answered it. I let his music into my mind, and let it carry my thoughts with it as I watched my needle dive into and then surface from the fabric of the robe.

‘Thick. Do you remember the first time you met them? The ones who call me “stinking dog”?’ Please, show me. I let the Skill-request float with my quiet words and the rhythmic motion of my needle. I listened to the quiet rip of the thread as it moved through the fabric, and the soft crackling of the fire, making those small sounds one with my request.

For a time Thick was silent save for the Skill-music that flowed from him. Then, I heard the sounds of my needle and the fire creep into his music.

‘He said, “Put down that bucket and come with me”.’

‘Who said?’ I asked too avidly.

Thick’s music stopped. He spoke aloud. ‘I’m not to talk about him. Or he’ll kill me. Kill me dead with a big knife. Cut open my belly and my guts fall in the dust.’ In his mind he stood and watched his own entrails unwind into the grit of a Buckkeep Town street. ‘Like pig guts.’

‘I won’t let that happen to you,’ I promised.

He shook his head stubbornly. He began to take short breaths through his nose. ‘He said, “No one could stop me. I’d kill you.” If I tell about him, he’ll kill me. If I don’t watch the gold man and the old man and you, he’ll kill me. If I don’t peep at the door and listen and tell him, he’ll kill me. All my guts in the dust.’

And in our joining, I knew that Thick believed this down to his bones. I’d have to leave it alone for now. ‘Very well,’ I said mildly. I leaned back in my chair and once more focused my mind on my work. ‘Don’t think about him,’ I suggested. ‘Only the others. The ones you went to meet.’

He nodded his heavy head ponderously as he stared into the flames. After a time, his music seeped back. I set my breathing to its rhythm, and then my work as well. Gradually, I eased my mind closer and then let it brush Thick’s.

I scarcely dared to breathe. I pushed my needle in and out of the fabric, and drew the long thread rippling after it. Thick was breathing slowly through his nose as he stared into the fire. I asked no questions but let his Skill flow through me. He hadn’t liked that first meeting, not at all, nor the long trot from the castle down to the town, nor the way his companion kept a grip on his sleeve all that long and weary distance. He was taller than Thick, the one who clutched him as they walked and it made Thick walk crooked and too fast. His legs ached and his mouth was dry. In his memory, the man who gripped his sleeve shook him until Thick answered each question that the people in the room asked him.

Thick’s memories were not vague. If anything, they were too detailed. He recalled as much of the blister on his heel as he did of the man’s words. The sounds of a goat bleating somewhere and the creaking of wagons lumbering down the street were weighted as heavily as the voice of his interrogator. Thick was repeatedly shaken to rattle loose an answer, and he well recalled both his fear and his confusion at why he was treated so.

Thick’s answers to the questions were vague as much due to his lack of knowledge as to his odd sense of priorities. He told them about his work in the kitchen. They asked him which nobles he served. Thick wasn’t sure of their names. They were impatient and muttering at first, and one cursed the man who had brought him for wasting their time. Then Thick complained of his extra work, up all the stairs, for the tall old man with the spotted face. ‘Chade, Lord Chade, the Queen’s councillor’ someone hissed. And they all drew closer to him.

Thus they had learned that Chade wanted the firewood stacked with little logs to one side and bigger pieces on the other side, and that Thick had to wipe up any water he spilled on the stairs. Never touch Chade’s scrolls. Don’t spill the ashes on the floor. Don’t open the little door if anyone else can see you. Only the last fact seemed to interest them, but when their other questions yielded them little, Thick recognized the displeasure in their voices. He had cringed from it, but the man who had brought him insisted that this was only the first time, that the dummy could be taught what to watch for. Then someone had given him other targets to watch: ‘A fancy Jamaillian noble, with yellow hair and tanned skin. He rides a white horse. And he keeps a stinking dog of a servant, with a crooked nose and a scar down his face.’

Thick had not known Lord Golden nor me. But the man who gripped Thick’s sleeve had recognized us from that description, and promised to point me out to Thick. That was when they had put gold into the man’s outstretched hand, thick gold that clinked. And a man had given coins to Thick, also, three little silver coins that tinkled as he dropped them on Thick’s flat palm. And he had warned both Thick and the faceless servant who gripped him that they should be wary of ‘that stinking, traitorous dog. He’ll kill you as soon as look at you if he thinks you’re watching him.’

I felt the man’s black eyes boring into mine. Floating in the Skill amongst Thick’s memories, I tried to see his face, but all Thick recalled were those piercing eyes. ‘That stinking dog cut the arm right off a man, last time I saw him. Chop! Like a sausage on the table. And he’ll do worse to you if he finds out you’re watching him. So you be careful, dummy. Don’t let him see you.’ Those words and the bleating goat and the rumbling of the wagons mixed in Thick’s mind with the blustery winter wind from the street outside. Blacksmith hammers rang somewhere, setting a clanging cadence.

And as they walked back up to Buckkeep, the other servant had warned Thick again to be careful not to get caught by ‘that stinking dog he warned you about. You’re to watch him, but not let him see you. You hear me, boy? Give us away, and you won’t only be dead, I’ll be out of a job. So you be careful. Don’t let him see you. Hear me? Hear me?’

And as Thick had cowered from him, muttering that he heard, the servant had demanded the coins that he had been given. ‘You don’t even know what to do with them, dummy. Give them to me.’

‘They’re mine. To buy a sweet, he said. A sugar cake.’

But the other servant had struck Thick and taken his coins.

I floated in the flow of Thick’s Skill, experiencing it again with him. As the servant slapped him, an open-handed blow that left his ear ringing, the Skill-wave leapt and nearly overwhelmed me. Useless to try to see the servant. Thick avoided looking at him, cowering away, squinting his eyes shut before the descending fist.

Look at him, Thick. Please, let me see him, I begged. But Thick’s recalled agitation as much as my surge of hatred for the man blasted us both out of the Skill-reverie we had been sharing. Thick gave a wordless cry and recoiled from the remembered blow, falling from the chair to roll perilously close to the fire. I leapt to my feet, head spinning from the sudden break in our contact. When I seized his blanket-wrapped body to pull him away from the hearth, he must have thought I was attacking him, for he abruptly struck back.

No, Dog-stink man, no! Don’t see me, don’t hurt me, don’t see me, don’t see me!

I went down as if axed. I had been so open to him that for a time I saw absolutely nothing, and I swear that I thought I smelled the clinging scent of a mangy hound.

In a little while, my vision came back to me. Getting my Skill-walls up took every bit of my concentration. A bit more time, and I got to my hands and knees. I ran my hands through my hair, expecting blood, for the pain was so great. Then I shakily sat up and looked around the room. Thick was fighting with his wet pants, making frantic grunts of fear and frustration as he struggled to put them on. I took a deep breath and croaked, ‘Thick. It’s all right. No one is going to hurt you.’

He paid me no mind but kept struggling. I dragged myself up by the chair. I picked up the robe I had been working on. ‘Wait a moment, Thick. I’ll have this finished for you. It’s dry and warm.’ I sat down carefully. Well. Now I knew. I knew why I was the dog-stink man, to be hated and feared, and I knew why he had commanded me not to see him. Even the story of someone hitting him and taking his coins made more sense now. Thick had never tried to hide his secrets from us. We had simply been too foolish to notice them in front of us. Focusing my eyes on the needle was difficult, but I did it. Another dozen looping stitches and I was finished. I knotted the thread, bit it off and held up the robe. ‘Put this on for now. Until your own clothes dry.’

He dropped his wet trousers to the floor but came no closer. ‘You’re angry with me. You’ll hit me. Maybe chop my arm off.’

‘No, Thick. You hurt me, but you were scared. I’m not angry with you and I won’t ever chop your arm off. I don’t want to hit you.’

‘The one-arm man said …’

‘The one-arm man lies. So do his friends. A lot. Think about it. Do I smell like dog poop?’

A grudging moment of silence. Then, ‘No.’

‘Do I hit you or chop your arms off? Here, come take this robe. You look cold.’

He approached me cautiously. ‘No.’ He looked at the robe suspiciously. ‘Why are you giving me this?’

‘Because it’s like a pink cake or raisins or a feather. Your prince wants you to have better clothes. This will keep you warm until your old clothes dry. And soon, the Prince will have new clothes made for Thick.’

Walls up, I took a cautious step towards him. I held the neck-hole of the robe open, looked at him through it, then slipped it over his head. It was still too long. It fell to the floor around him, and even after he had found the sleeves, the cuffs hung past his hands. I helped him fold them back. I used a piece from the cut-off length of robe to make a makeshift tie for the robe. With the robe belted up, he could walk without tripping. He hugged it against himself. ‘It’s soft.’

‘Well. Softer than your old clothes, perhaps. Mainly because it’s cleaner.’ I walked back to my chair and sank down in it. The headache was already abating. Perhaps Chade had been right about Skill-pain. My body was still smarting from my fall to the floor; it had wakened the bruises and lumps that Svanja’s father had dealt me. I sighed heavily. ‘Thick. How many times have you been to see them?’

He stood, tongue out, considering. Then, ‘Washing days.’

‘I know. You go on washing days. But how often? How many times?’

His tongue curled up over his upper lip while he thought. Then he nodded and said emphatically, ‘Every washing day.’

That was as good as I was going to get. ‘Do you go alone to see him?’

That brought a scowl to his face. ‘No. I could, but he don’t let me.’

‘Because he wants the coins they give him. And the coins they give you.’

His scowl darkened. ‘Hit Thick, take the coins. Then one-arm got mad. I told him. Now he takes the coins, but gives me back some pennies. For sweets.’

‘Who does?’

He stood for a while. ‘I’m not to talk about him.’ I caught an echo of his dread as his Skill-music surged, full of goat-bleats and jangling harness. He scratched his head, then pulled his hair around to where he could see it. ‘Are you going to cut my hair? My mother used to cut my hair, sometimes, after I washed.’

‘Actually, yes, that’s a good idea. Let’s cut your hair.’ I stood creakily. I must have hit my knee when I went down. It hurt. I was frustrated, but trying to force information from Thick would only bury it under his fear. ‘Sit at the table, Thick, while I find the scissors. Is there anything you can tell me about them? Can you tell me about the one-arm man? Where does he live?’

Thick didn’t answer. He went back to the table and sat down. Almost immediately, he picked up the pink cake and examined it closely. As he turned it in his hands, he seemed to forget all else. I brought the shears to the table. ‘Thick. What does the one-arm man talk to you about?’

Thick didn’t look at me; he spoke to the cake. ‘Not supposed to talk about him. To anyone. Or they’ll kill me, and my guts will fall in the dirt.’ With both hands he patted his round belly, as if comforting himself that it was still whole.

I found the comb and smoothed his hair flat again. It calmed him and he went back to his contemplation of the cake. ‘I’ll cut your hair to chin-length. That way it will still keep your ears and the back of your neck warm.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed softly, lost in pink sugar musing.

Cutting Thick’s hair again put me in mind of Hap. I suddenly and acutely missed him being a little boy. When Hap had been ten, it had been so much easier to know that I was doing the right things for him. Feed him well, teach him to fish, see that he had clean clothes and slept well at night. That was most of what a boy needed. A young man was a different animal entirely. Perhaps I could get away to check on him this evening. The silver blades snicked and uneven hanks of Thick’s hair fell to the floor around the chair. I thought of another approach. ‘I know you can’t tell me about the one-arm man. I know you are not to talk about that. So we won’t. I won’t even ask him what he asks you. But you can tell me what you told him, can’t you? They never said not to say that, did they?’

‘No-o,’ he said in slow consideration. He sighed deeply, relaxing under my touch. Then, ‘The one-armed man,’ he said softly, and an image of Laudwine rippled into my mind with his music. He was gaunter than I recalled him, but the loss of a limb and the fever that follows will do that to a man. He was looking down at me, and for a moment it disoriented me, and then I accepted Thick’s viewpoint of the towering man. Even so, the image was vague. Thick recalled more sound than sight; what he saw in his mind’s eyes was far more indistinct than what he heard. I listened to Laudwine’s voice rippling through Thick’s memory and cowered with him at the disapproval. ‘This is your source of information? What were you thinking, Padget? Is this how you take charge of my most important concerns? He won’t do at all. He doesn’t have the sense to remember his own name, let alone anything else.’

‘He’ll be fine for you,’ someone said. I suspected it was the one called Padget. ‘He’s told us a lot already, haven’t you, dummy? The old man’s taken a liking to him. Hasn’t he, Thick? Don’t you work for Lord Chade himself now? Tell him about Lord Chade and his special room.’ And then, obviously speaking to Laudwine and not Thick, ‘This was sheer good fortune. When the stableboy first dragged him down here, I thought as you do, that he’d be useless. But up at the keep, they let this moron wander wherever he wishes. He knows things, Laudwine. You just have to know how to drag them out of him.’ I could not see Padget through Thick’s eyes, but I felt him. A large man, wide rather than tall, threatening, who could make pain with his hands without hitting.

Then another voice spoke, a woman’s voice. ‘He’s worked well for us, horseman. Don’t try to change … what is your saying? To change horses in the middle of the stream? Yes. If you wish what we have to offer, then do not disrupt what is working well for us.’

I’d heard her voice before, I thought. I pummelled my memories, trying to place it, but could only decide that she was someone from inside the keep. I kept the thought tiny and to myself, fearful of breaking the unwinding thread of Thick’s memories. He had been confused and frightened that day, overshadowed by the arrival of the tall man with one arm, and intimidated by the way they all spoke over and past him. Yet never once did the man who gripped his arm let him go.

Laudwine’s voice was the hammering of a smith’s blows. ‘I don’t care what is working well for you, woman, nor do I care for your offer. My vengeance belongs to me, and I won’t sell it to you for your foreign gold. I care nothing about this Chade. I want Lord Golden’s head, yes, and the bloody arm of that dog that works for him. Or have you forgotten that, Padget, in your quest to sell the Piebalds out? That Lord Golden owes me a life, and his traitorous servant an arm?’

‘I haven’t forgotten, Laudwine. I was with you, man!’ Padget’s voice was the low rumble of a rolling wagon-wheel, grinding out anger and rebuke. ‘Do you forget it was me who rode double with you that day, to keep you from falling from your saddle? When she made her offer, I only thought, well, what do we care how they die? Let her have them, and let us use her gold for our cause, to bring the Farseer’s false throne down.’ Now his voice rose with self-righteousness, but it merged with the distant bleat of a goat in Thick’s mind.

‘Shut up!’ Laudwine’s voice was hot and heavy, ringing like hammers on red iron. ‘I care how they die! Their deaths belong to me! And my blood vengeance is not for sale. “Our” cause will wait until my cause has been satisfied. I told you what I wanted, Padget. I want to know when they rise and where they eat, when they ride and where they sleep. I want to know when and where I can kill them. That’s what I want to know. Can your half-wit give us that?’ Each word fell like a sledge blow, and they shaped Padget’s anger.

‘Yes. He can. And he’s already given us a lot more than that, if you’d only listen to me. This Lord Chade and what the dummy knows of him, that is important knowledge. But if all you want is revenge, with no thought of what more we can have, well you can have that. If you ask him right. Tell him, dummy. Tell him about the stinking traitor dog who chopped his arm off, and what the old man calls him. Then maybe he’ll realize I’ve done better for the Piebalds while he was healing than he ever did for them when he had two hands.’

And then Thick recalled the sound of a hand striking meaty flesh, and Laudwine’s voice following it, a trifle out of breath at the effort. ‘Remember your place, Padget. Or lose it.’

Thick made a sharp movement, rocking forward, his hands clasped over his head. He made small animal sounds to himself as he rocked briefly, agitated at recalling the witnessed violence. ‘Na, na, na,’ he begged, and for a time I let him be. I held scissors and comb aloft from him and waited for him to calm himself. There was cruelty in what I did, forcing the stubby little man to relive his fear. I had no taste for it, and yet do it I must. So I waited until he quieted and as subtly as I knew, used the Skill to soothe him and take him back again to that room. ‘It’s all right to think about it,’ I suggested. ‘You’re safe now, here. They can’t find you here or hurt you here. You’re safe.’ Through our Skill-link, I felt him scowl. He resisted. I pushed gently, and suddenly his memories flowed again.

Thick took a long breath and sighed it out. I resumed my grooming of him. I think the stroking of the comb and the tickling of the falling hair had half-stupefied him. I doubted that anyone touched him much, and seldom with gentleness. His muscles were loosening like a stroked puppy. He made an affirmative noise.

‘So. After all that. What did you tell him about?’ I kept my voice very soft.

‘Oh, nothing. Only about the old man. How to stack his wood. Not to shake the wine bottles when I bring them to him. To take away the dirty dishes and old food every morning. Not to move his papers, even though he lets you move his papers. That he says I have to do what you say, even though I don’t want to come to you. About you want to talk to me. And they said, “don’t go! Say you forgot!” About how you talk at night sometimes.’

‘Who talks? Chade and I?’ I drew the comb slowly through his hair and trimmed the hair below it. The damp black points fell to the floor as my heart rose hammering in my throat at his next words.

‘Yeah. That you talk about Skill and Old Blood. That he calls you a different name. Fizshovly. That you don’t like me to know about the girl who cries.’

The sharp fear from his mangled naming of me was swallowed in his mention of ‘the girl’. ‘What girl?’ I asked dully, longing for him to say only, ‘that girl’ or ‘I don’t know’. My guts were water inside me.

‘She cries and cries,’ Thick said softly.

‘Who does?’ I asked again with a sinking heart.

‘That girl. That Nettle that whimpers at night and won’t stop.’ He cocked his head, making my scissors take too deep a cut. ‘She cries right now.’

That stretched the bowstring of my fear tighter. ‘Does she?’ I asked. Gingerly, I lowered my walls. I opened myself to Nettle, but felt nothing. ‘No. She’s quiet now,’ I observed.

‘She cries to herself. In a different place.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘In the empty place.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I repeated with a growing sense of alarm.

He frowned intently for a moment, then suddenly his face eased. ‘Never mind. She stopped.’

‘Just like that?’ I asked incredulously. I set my scissors and comb down.

‘Yeah.’ His finger casually investigated his nose. ‘I’m going now,’ he announced suddenly. He stood up and glanced around the room. ‘Don’t eat my cake!’ he warned me abruptly.

‘I won’t. Are you sure you won’t stay and eat it?’ A kind of shock had left me immune to all feeling. Had Laudwine untangled my true name from Thick’s maiming of it? He definitely knew my daughter’s name. Danger yawned below us, and I spoke to a half-wit about sugar cakes.

‘If I eat it, then it would be gone.’

‘There might be another.’

‘There might not,’ he pointed out with incontrovertible logic.

‘I’ve an idea.’ I went to one of Chade’s less cluttered shelves and began to move things. ‘We’ll make a spot for you, here. And we’ll put Thick’s things on this shelf. So they’ll always be where you can find them.’

For some reason, this seemed a difficult idea for him to master. I explained it several ways, and then had him put both the sugar cake and the feather on the shelf. Hesitantly, he picked up the bowl that had held the raisins and nuts. Only a handful of the sugared nuts remained. ‘You can put that there, too,’ I told him. ‘And I will try to put more nice things to eat in it.’ So he did, and then stood and admired it for a time.

‘Going to go now,’ he abruptly announced again.

‘Thick,’ I began carefully. ‘Tomorrow, on washing day. Will a man come to take you to One-arm?’

‘Don’t talk about him.’ He was adamant. Adamant and scared. I could hear the roiling of his Skill-music.

‘Do you want to go, Thick? To see the one-arm man?’

‘I have to go.’

‘No, you don’t. Not any more. Do you want to go?’

This seemed to require a lot of thought. Then, ‘I want the pennies. To buy the sweet.’

‘If you told me where One-arm is, I could go for you. And get the pennies for you, and bring you the sweet.’

He scowled and shook his head. ‘I get my pennies for myself. I like to buy it myself.’ He was suspicious again, edging away from me.

I took a breath and counselled myself to patience. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, for our lessons, then.’

He nodded sombrely and left Chade’s chambers. I went over and picked up his wet trousers from the floor. I hung them on the chair back again. I doubted that anyone would wonder about the robe Thick now wore. It was a style long outdated for Buckkeep Castle, and servants, especially the lowest level of servants, were often dressed in their master’s cast-offs. I sighed and sat down in the chair and stared into the fire. What was I going to do?

I wished I could make Thick tell me where Laudwine was, or at least who took him to the Piebald leader. I couldn’t force the information out of him without frightening him and shattering the fragile trust we’d built today. I could shadow Thick into Buckkeep Town tomorrow, but I was reluctant to do so; I’d be putting the little man into danger if Laudwine or anyone else recognized me following him. If I followed him and he met with Laudwine, what would I do then? Charge in, betraying myself to Laudwine or allow Laudwine to question the little man again, and gain still more knowledge of us? I considered watching Thick until the Buckkeep man came to take him down to town, then capture the go-between. I suspected I could wring Laudwine’s location out of him, but when he didn’t keep the rendezvous, Laudwine would be alerted. I didn’t want to do anything that might startle that bird into flying before my nets were ready. My last available tactic seemed the simplest: find a ploy to keep Thick from going down to Buckkeep tomorrow. Distract him with toys, or simply busy him where no one could take him away without being noticed. Yet that would not put me one step closer to having a line on Laudwine. And I desperately wanted to have that man in my power.

I ached to kill him. No enemy, I knew, is more to be feared than the one you have grievously injured. And I had taken not just Laudwine’s arm, but his sister’s stunted life, and ended their vain grasp for power. Perhaps at one time he had dreamed of building power for his Piebald group; now I suspected he was driven more by hatred of me and a lust for revenge on the Farseers. Would any revenge he could take against me be too cruel to consider? I doubted it.

I crossed my arms on my chest and leaned back, scowling at the fire. Perhaps I had it all wrong. Perhaps Laudwine had come to town only to be an emissary from the Witted to Kettricken. Perhaps his spying was only caution. But I doubted it. I doubted it deeply.

I did not want to discuss it with Chade. Mine was the name Laudwine knew, mine was the child he threatened. What to do about him was my decision now. Later, perhaps, Chade would rant and scold at me. But he could do that later, when Nettle and Dutiful were no longer in any danger.

The more I pondered the situation, the greater my frustration with it. I left Chade’s chambers and went down the stairs and through my room. Neither the Fool nor Lord Golden was there. That did not lessen my exasperation. I needed to think, yet I could not keep still. I went down to the snowy practice courts. I took my old ugly blade. The fine sword that the Fool had given me remained hanging on the wall, a mute and unforgiving reminder of my own foolishness.

Luck favoured me and Wim was there. I did my limbering up with my real blade, soon warming myself despite the chill day. Wim and I switched to dulled practice weapons for our more intent work. Wim seemed to sense that I only wanted to move my weapon and my body, not my tongue, nor engage my mind at all beyond the work of my body. I pushed all my concerns aside and focused only on attempting to kill him. When Wim abruptly stepped back and announced, ‘Enough!’ I thought he intended for us to pause and breathe. Instead, he lowered the tip of his blade to touch the ground and announced, ‘I think that you have come back to what you used to be. Whatever that was, Tom.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I said after a moment of watching him blowing.

He dragged in a deeper breath. ‘When first we began to whet our blades on one another, I felt you were a fighter trying to recall what it was to be a fighter. Now you simply are. You’ve stepped back into your old skin, Tom Badgerlock. I can keep up with you, but only that. And full glad will I be to continue to sharpen my skills against you. But if you want a true challenge to your skills, or someone to teach you something new, you’ll have to look beyond Wim now.’

And then he transferred his blade to his left hand and stepped forward to clasp hands with me. I felt a surge of warmth throughout my whole body. It had been years since I had felt a glow of pride such as that, and yet it was not for myself, but that this veteran fighter saw fit to honour me with such words. I went from the practice courts still bearing every problem that I had brought there with me, but buoyed with the idea that perhaps I possessed the wherewithal to face them.

I went through the steams, still carefully not thinking about what I would do next. I emerged cleansed, my will firmed and my mind clear. I went down to Buckkeep Town.

I had specific errands, I told myself. To see Hap. To buy a knife and a red scarf. And perhaps to discover a busy street where a goat might bleat while blacksmith hammers rang in the distance.

NINETEEN

Laudwine

Now King Shield was a merry man, as all well knew, fond of wine and jest. The Skillmistress of his reign was Solem, and often he made a jest of her name, saying she was as solemn as she was called. For her part, she found him overly given to banter and humour. He came to be King when she was all of seventy summers, and with his crown he inherited the coterie that she had trained for Queen Perceptive. They had served his mother full well before him, but like their Skillmistress, their years far outnumbered the King’s. Oft he complained that both Skillmistress and coterie treated him as a child, and Solem, secure in her years, would disdainfully reply that it was because he so often behaved childishly.

To escape his ageing court and advisors, King Shield would sometimes by stealth leave Buckkeep, to travel the roads in disguise. Dressed as a roving tinker, it pleased him to mix with his common folk in inns and taverns of the ruder sort, where it was his pleasure to tell bawdy stories and sing comical songs for the entertainment of the folk who frequented such places. It was on one such evening when he was well in his cups that he began to tell his stories and ribald riddles. Now there was a youth working in the tavern, a lad of no more than eleven and unschooled in everything save how to draw a mug of ale and wipe a table. Yet as the King posed each riddle, this boy spoke the answers, not only correctly but also in the King’s own well-rehearsed words. At first the King was not pleased to have his acclaim thus stolen. But soon he perceived that his irritation with the lad’s too-swift answers was affording his audiences as much pleasure as the jests themselves. Before he left the inn that evening, he called the boy to his side and asked him, quietly, how it was that he knew the answers to so many riddles. The lad professed surprise. ‘Were not you yourself whispering them to me, even as you told the riddle?’ he asked.

Now the King was as perceptive as he was merry. That very night he took the boy back with him to Buckkeep and delivered him over to the Skillmistress, saying, ‘This merry lad comes to you well started on the Skill-path. Find others like him, and train for me a coterie that can laugh as well as Skill.’ And so the boy became known as Merry and the coterie that formed around him was Merry’s Coterie.

Slek’s Histories

It was a crisp, cold day. Packed snow squeaked under my boots as I strode down to Buckkeep Town. When I heard hoof-beats on the road behind me, I stepped aside to let horse and rider pass. I settled my hand on my sword hilt as I did so. Instead, Starling reined in and paced me with her mount. I glanced up at her and said nothing. She was almost the last person I wished to see today. She spoke to me anyway. ‘Did Chade give you my message?’

I nodded and kept walking.

‘And?’

‘And I don’t think I have anything to say to it.’

She reined in her horse so sharply that he snorted in protest. Then she jumped off him and ran around to stand in front of me. I stopped walking. ‘What is the matter with you? What do you want from me?’ she demanded. ‘What can you possibly expect from me that I haven’t already given you?’ Her voice shook and to my astonishment, tears stood in her eyes.

‘I … nothing. I don’t … What do you want from me?’

‘What we had before. Friendship. Talking to each other. Being someone the other person can count on.’

‘But … Starling, you’re married.’

‘So you can’t even talk to me any more? Can’t even smile when you see me in the Great Hall? You act as if I don’t even exist. Fifteen years, Fitz. We’ve known each other damn near fifteen years, and you discover I’m married and suddenly you can’t even say hello to me?’

I gaped at her. Starling has often had that effect on me, but I’ve never become accustomed to it. My astonishment lasted too long. She attacked again.

‘Last time I saw you … I needed a friend. And you thrust me aside. I was a friend to you when you needed one, for many years. Damn you, Fitz, I shared your bed for seven years! But you couldn’t even be bothered to ask how I had been. And you refused to ride with me, as if I carried some disease you feared to catch!’

‘Starling!’ I shouted at her to break into her tirade. I didn’t mean it as harshness, but she gasped suddenly and then burst into tears. And the reflexes of seven years put my arms around her and pulled her close to my chest. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ I said by her ear. Her silky hair tangled against my chest, and the old familiar scent of her filled my nostrils. And I suddenly felt I had to explain what she already knew. ‘You hurt me, when I discovered that I wasn’t the only man in your life. Perhaps I was foolish ever to imagine that I was. You never told me I was. I know I deceived myself. But it did hurt me.’

She only sobbed harder, clinging to me. Her horse shifted restlessly and stepped on his reins. One arm still around Starling, I managed to step sideways and catch hold of them. Calmness. Wait, I told him, and he lowered his head a trifle.

I held her, thinking she would stop crying soon, but still she wept. I had thought her heartless. Careless was a better word for her, like a child who takes what she wants with no thoughts for the consequences. I knew more than she about consequences, and I should have behaved better. I spoke quietly, and as I had hoped, her sobbing softened so she could hear my words. ‘I want you to know the truth about something. What I said last time, about thinking of Molly when you were in my arms. That wasn’t true. Never. It was an unworthy thing for me to say, belittling to both of you. When you were in my arms, you filled my senses. I’m sorry that I tried to hurt you with a lie.’ Her tears still did not calm. ‘Starling. Talk to me. What’s wrong?’

‘It’s not … it’s not all from you being cruel to me. It’s –’ She took a shuddering breath. ‘I think … I suspect my husband is … That night, he had said he had never realized how much he might want a child. Even though he cannot inherit and needs no heir of his own, he said that. And … and I think he is, or might be …’ Her voice trailed off, unable to form the words of her greatest dread.

‘Has he taken a mistress?’ I asked quietly.

‘I think so!’ she wailed suddenly. ‘When first we were wed, he wanted me every night! Well, I knew that would not last forever, but when his heat cooled, he still … but lately, he hardly seems to notice me. Even when I have been away from him for a few days, he no longer seems full of desire for me. He stays up late gaming with his friends, and comes to bed drunk. Dresses, jewellery, perfume, no matter how I adorn myself, he pays no heed.’ Her words came out in a flood with her tears. Her sleeve smeared her wet face without drying it. I found a handkerchief and offered it to her.

‘Thank you.’ She wiped her face again. She took a sudden deep breath that lifted her shoulders and exhaled it again. ‘I think he is tired of me. That he looks at me and sees an old woman. I stand before my glass, and I look at my breasts and my belly and the lines in my face … Fitz, have I aged that much? Do you think he regrets marrying a woman so many years older than he?’

I had no way of knowing the answers to her questions. I put my arm around her. ‘It’s cold here. Let’s keep walking,’ I said to gain a few moments to think. She kept her arm around my waist as we set off, her horse trailing us. For a time we both walked silently.

Then she said quietly, ‘I married him to be safe, you know. Finally safe. He did not need children, he had wealth, he was comely, and he found me exciting. I overheard him once, telling a friend what a keen pleasure it was that he never needed to introduce me as other than his wife. That my name as the Queen’s minstrel was known to all. He took such satisfaction in my fame that it gave me new pride in it. When he asked me to marry him and always be his, it was … it was like coming into safe harbour, Fitz. After all the years of wondering what would become of me when my voice faded or if I fell out of favour with the Queen. I never thought that to have him I must lose you. Then, when you insisted that was so, well … I was angry with you. I had come to think of our times together as a thing we owned. It shocked me that you could take them away from me, whether I would or not. But even so, I still had my Lord Fisher. And I told myself that losing you was a small price to pay for security when I was old.’

She fell silent for a time and the wind blew between us. I thought she had finished and then she said, ‘But if he takes a mistress and gets her with child, or merely finds her more interesting than me … then I will have lost you for nothing, and still come up with my nets empty.’

‘Starling. How can you imagine that Queen Kettricken and Chade would ever let you lack for anything? You know you will always be provided for.’

She sighed and suddenly looked older. ‘A bed and food and clothes to my back. Those things, I suppose, I shall be sure of. But a time will come when my voice fails and my lungs cannot hold the notes long. A time will come when no one finds me comely or desirable. And then all regard for me will fade and Starling the Minstrel will become Starling the Crone in the Corner. And I will not be important to anyone. No one will hold me high in regard. I will still, in the end, be alone.’

I saw Starling from a new perspective. Perhaps it had always been the only perspective she had. Starling operated solely out of her own needs. She was a good musician, even excellent, but she did not have the brilliance that led to eternal fame. She was also a woman who could not bear children, and thus would always fear losing her man to another woman’s charms and fertility. And as she aged and her beauty began to fade, that fear would only increase. With no children to bind her husband to her, she feared to lose him when the excitement of her bed palled. Perhaps that had been a great part of my charm for her; that I had always found her desirable, that I had never wearied of her body. In addition, I had been something that she had possessed, a powerful secret that she was privy to, as well as a lover and a man who never asked more of her than what she so casually offered. Bereft of my unquestioning enthusiasm for her body, and faced with her husband’s fading ardour, she had begun to wonder if her desirability was fading. Yet I could neither sweep her into an hour of lovemaking to prove to her that she was still womanly, nor assure her that her husband still loved her. I tried to think of something that I could offer her.

I stopped her suddenly, turned and held her at arm’s length. I pretended to appraise both her face and her body, as if making a judgement about her. In truth, I could only see her as Starling, not as another might. But I managed a grin and told her, ‘If your husband does not find you desirable, then he is a fool. I am sure that any number of men at Buckkeep would be very willing to share your bed. Myself among them, were circumstances different.’ I tried to look thoughtful. ‘Shall I tell him so?’

‘No!’ she exclaimed, and then managed to laugh, although it was a fragile thing. I took her hand to keep her at a more appropriate distance from me and we walked a bit farther down the road. ‘Fitz,’ she asked in a small voice some time later. ‘Do you still care for me, at all?’

I knew I could not let that question hang unanswered for long. And, in fact, the truth was right before me. ‘Yes. I do.’ I met her eyes as we walked. ‘You’ve hurt me sometimes. You’ve said some cruel things to me, and acted in ways I don’t approve of. And I’ve done the same to you. But, it’s as you said, Starling: fifteen years. When people have that much history together, they tend to take everything for granted. We accept as given the faults as well as the graces. How many songs have you sung before my hearth, for me alone? How many meals have I cooked for you? Fifteen years of knowing one another goes past likes and dislikes, into simple being. We’ve been careless of one another’s feelings, even as Chade and I are careless of one another. Because we trust that what we are and what we know from all the years are more important than words flung in anger.’

‘I deceived you,’ she said after a time, quietly.

‘Yes. You did.’ I found I could speak without rancour. ‘And I disappointed you. And just as I felt I had the right to decide what I would do with my life, regardless of what you thought about it, so did you. You married. I chose obscurity. Both those decisions came between us. Not just yours. But let me assure you of one thing. No matter how the years may pass for us, even though we never share a bed again, when we are old I will still hold you high in my regard. Always.’

Did I completely believe all I said to her? No. But, despite all, she was a friend, and she needed. The words I gave her eased that need, and cost me nothing. A small smile twisted my mouth. She had bedded me for the very reasons that I now gave her the small lies she needed to hear.

She nodded, and no more tears flowed. After a time of walking, she asked me, ‘What should I do about my husband?’

I shook my head to that. ‘I don’t know, Starling. Do you still love him? Want him?’

She nodded stiffly to both my questions.

‘Well, then. I think you should tell him that.’

‘That’s all?’

I shrugged. ‘I think you are asking the wrong man for advice about this. Someone more successful in love might be able to give you better advice.’

‘Like Chade, perhaps.’

‘Chade?’ I was both appalled and amused, but the temptation was too great. I kept a straight face. ‘Chade’s the ideal man to consult.’ I wished I could be present at that discussion.

‘I think you are right. He always manages to keep his lovers both satisfied and discreet. Even when he chooses to let one go,’ she mused, and then laughed at the shocked look on my face. ‘I see. Not even you know of his affairs. Ah, well, you are right, he is the man to ask. I’ve never heard of a woman turning him out of her bed; it’s always the opposite. And he is not exactly the most youthful of men. Well. I shall discuss it with him when I report to him tonight.’

Her last words sparked a sudden suspicion. I risked it. ‘Then you think you’ll discover where the one-armed man is staying?’

She gave me a sideways look, as if awarding me a point in a game. ‘Sooner than you will. And he asked me, when I overtook you, to let you know that he expects you to stay well away from Laudwine. Not that the man is known by that name in Buckkeep Town, or Chade would have him by now. So. I have passed on his wishes to you. He assures you that in this, he still knows best.’

‘Or at least, he believes he does,’ I returned coolly. I was putting together that this was no chance meeting. Chade had somehow discovered that I had left the castle and had sent Starling to intercept me and deflect me from Laudwine. Providing me with the opportunity to apologize to the ruffled minstrel was likely a part of his plan. How that old man loved pulling the strings! I found a smile and plastered it onto my face. ‘Well, you’d best mount up then and be on your way, if you’re to discover Laudwine before I do.’

She gave me a quizzical look. ‘Are you still going down to Buckkeep Town?’

‘Yes. I have other business down there.’

‘Such as?’

‘Hap.’

‘He’s in Buckkeep Town? I thought he would have stayed at your cabin.’

So Starling did not know everything that Chade knew. That was a small comfort. ‘No. Part of my reason for returning to Buckkeep, a large part of it, was to make it possible for Hap to get a good apprenticeship. He’s apprenticed to Gindast.’

‘Is he? And is he doing well?’

By all the gods, I longed to lie to her and tell her that he was excelling. ‘It hasn’t been easy for him to adapt to city life,’ I hedged. ‘But I think he is beginning to master it now.’

‘I shall have to go and see him. Gindast is a great admirer of mine. My expressing an interest in Hap cannot hurt him there.’ There was an innocence to her assumption of fame and importance that made it impossible for me to take offence at it. Then she paused abruptly, and, as if the thought surprised her, asked, ‘The boy is not still angry with me, is he?’

She gave injury so carelessly; perhaps she expected others to forgive it as easily. Perhaps that was the curse of a minstrel’s tongue; to be gifted at wounding with words. At my hesitation, she filled in, ‘He is still angry, isn’t he?’

‘I really have no idea,’ I said hastily. ‘You did injure his feelings rather deeply. But he’s had so much on his mind, as I have, also. I’ve never discussed it with him.’

‘Well. I suppose I must make amends with him, then. If I get a chance, I’ll steal him for an afternoon. I know Gindast will let me have him. I’ll take him out for a fine meal and show him the parts of Buckkeep Town an apprentice isn’t likely to see. Don’t frown like that. Hap’s just a boy; I’ll soon soothe his ruffled feathers. Now, as you say, I must be hastening along. Fitz, I’m glad things are better between us. I’ve missed you.’

‘I’ve missed you, too,’ I said, abandoning all attempts at honesty. I wondered how Hap would react to her invitation, and if she would even recognize how much he had grown and changed. In truth, I wished she would just leave him alone, but I didn’t know how to ask that without offending her again. Evidently Chade wanted her well-disposed towards me. I’d corner him on the whys of that later. For now, I assisted her into the saddle, and smiled up at her as she looked down on me. When her smile answered me, I discovered that, yes, I had missed her. And that I preferred this to her festering anger at me. Then she nearly ruined it by quirking the smile to a grin and saying, ‘So. Tell me true and take the sting from my last insult to you. Does Lord Golden prefer boys to girls? Is that why the ladies have had so little success with him?’

I managed to hold my smile in place. ‘So far as I know, he prefers to sleep alone. For all the wild flirtations I’ve witnessed, I’ve never had to shake anyone out of his sheets in the morning.’ I paused, then added in a lower voice, hating myself, ‘I suspect the man is extremely discreet. I’m just his bodyguard, Starling. You can’t expect me to know all his secrets.’

‘Oh,’ she replied, clearly disappointed at my lack of gossip. Minstrels are ever hungry for scraps of scandal. She had often told me that the best songs are found at the end of a trail of rumours. I thought she would ride off, but she surprised me again. ‘Well, then. And yourself, these days?’

I sighed heavily. ‘I’ve been emulating my master. I sleep alone, thank you.’

‘You don’t have to,’ she offered, one eyebrow lifting archly.

‘Starling,’ I warned her.

‘Oh, very well,’ she laughed, and I saw that in some strange way my answer had reassured her. She had not been replaced. In refusing her offer, I forced myself to go without. I supposed that pleased her. She blew me a kiss as she rode off. I shook my head as I watched her go and then resumed my trudge down the hill.

A few minutes later, Civil Bresinga passed me, headed towards Buckkeep Town at a good clip despite the steep and snowy road. He did not slow his horse and scarcely gave me a glance. I doubt that he recognized me or would have cared if he did. But he rode gloveless and bareheaded, his cloak fluttering behind him, as if he had left the castle in a very great hurry. Did it have something to do with the Prince refusing to ride out with him this morning? Did he have to notify someone of a failed plan? I muttered a curse to myself and hurried after him through the snow, but he was already out of sight.

I halted, out of breath and panting. Calm, I counselled myself. Calm. I had no way of knowing what was going on with Civil. I would stay with my original idea, and search for Laudwine. In that process, I suspected I might discover where Civil had gone.

My first stop in Buckkeep was the weekly market. I bought a red scarf and a serviceable belt-knife, and all the while I made casual inquiries as to where I might get fresh goat-flesh for a Jamaillian dish my master suddenly desired. I received a number of suggestions, but most were for goatherds who lived in the hills behind Buckkeep. There were only two suggested who lived in Buckkeep Town, and only one of them was near Smithy Row.

The short wintry day was ending as I headed towards Smithy Row. The fading of the light was fine with me. The recommended goat-keeper kept only a few beasts, more for milk than for flesh. I located his home as much from the smell as from my directions. In the dusk, I moved quietly closer to it. Through a window, I glimpsed a family with three young children settling in for the evening. In the shed behind their house were a dozen goats. Cheeses were stored in the rafters. The most nefarious creature around was a sullen old billy with evil yellow eyes. I left as quietly as I had come, wondering if I had tricked myself. Perhaps the sounds I had heard when I Skill-shared memories with Thick had nothing to do with where Laudwine was now. Perhaps it had been a temporary meeting place, not where the Piebald leader stayed.

I ghosted three more cottages nearby, discovering only families retiring for the night. Between a neglected shed and the next cottage, I discovered Civil’s horse. He was tethered there, saddled still and steaming. Had he been put between the house and the shed to be less obvious? I stood very still. If I were approaching Laudwine’s hiding place, then there were certainly Witted on watch, beasts as well as men. It was possible they were already aware of me. That thought broke a sweat on my back. In the next instant, I knew there was nothing I could do about it. I drifted closer, trying to muffle my tread in the unpacked snow between the buildings.

As I crouched there, I heard a horse approach in the street. There are few riding horses in Buckkeep Town. The steep, cobbled streets are unsuited to them, and they are expensive to keep in a town where they are virtually useless. This was a large and heavy beast by the sound of him. There, at the front of the cottage, the sounds of his hoofbeats stilled. Almost immediately, I heard the door open. Someone heavy came out onto the porch and greeted the rider with, ‘It’s not my fault. I don’t know why he came here and he won’t say anything to me. Says he’ll only speak to you.’ I knew the voice from Thick’s Skill-memory. This was the first man he had been taken to see.

‘I’ll take care of it, Padget.’ Laudwine’s voice. His tone cut off the man’s attempt at explanation. I heard him dismount. I crouched down behind Civil’s horse. ‘Hammer, go with him,’ Laudwine told the horse and I saw a passing shadow as a stout man led his chief’s wit-beast past the alley mouth and towards the ramshackle shed. At a glance, I recalled him: I had first seen him riding at Laudwine’s stirrup. Laudwine entered the cottage, shutting the door heavily behind him. A few moments later, Padget returned from tending the horse and followed him in.

The house was well constructed, the gaps in the walls properly chinked, and the windows tightly shuttered against night’s chill. I could not see in, but the sound of raised voices leaked through to me. I could not make out the words. I crouched in the deep shadows between the buildings, pressed my ear tightly to the wall, and listened.

‘Why were you so stupid as to come here? You were told never to come to me, never to seek any contact at all.’ Laudwine’s voice was deep with anger.

‘I came to tell you that our agreement is over!’ I thought I recognized Civil’s voice, but it was shrill with fear.

‘Do you think so?’ This was Laudwine again, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck at the threat in his tone.

Civil made a low-voiced reply. He must have been defiant, for Laudwine laughed and said, ‘Well, you think wrong. I will tell you when our agreement is over. And when our agreement is over, it will be because you have ceased to be useful to me. And you will know when you have ceased to be useful to me, because you will cease to be alive. Do you take my hint, Civil Bresinga? Be useful, boy. For your mother’s sake, if not for your own. What titbits do you have for me?’

‘For my mother’s sake, I have nothing for you. Nor ever will again.’ Civil’s voice shook with both fear and determination.

Laudwine was a direct man, as I well recalled. He seemed to have learned to use his left hand well. I heard Civil’s body hit the wall. Then he asked, pleasantly, ‘And why is that, boy?’

There was no answer. I wondered if the powerful blow had killed the lad. ‘Pick him up,’ Laudwine ordered someone. I heard the sound of a chair dragged across the floor, probably to receive Civil. A moment later, Laudwine continued, ‘I asked you a question, boy. Why are you suddenly turning traitor on me?’

Civil’s voice was muffled. He’d probably been hit in the mouth or jaw. ‘Not a traitor. Don’t owe you anything.’

‘Don’t you?’ Laudwine laughed. ‘Your mother is still alive. Don’t you owe me for that? You are still alive. Doesn’t she owe me for that? Don’t be a fool, lad. Do you believe the Mountain Queen’s false promises? That she wants to listen to us, to make things better for us? Faugh! She wants to lure us in, like rats coming to poisoned grain. You think I’m a threat to you, that I could end your lives by betraying you. And so I could. But only if you betray me first. For now, I hold you in the palm of my hand, and I protect you. I am far more reasonable to deal with than some of the Piebalds that follow me. Be grateful that I keep them reined in. So let’s have no more foolishness. You and I, we share too much to oppose one another.’ His tone changed to one of genial inquiry. ‘What brought this on, anyway?’

Civil hissed out an accusation I could not hear.

Laudwine laughed. ‘So. She is a woman, boy, and one of our own. I know it’s hard for a lad to think of his own mother as a woman, but so she is, and a comely one as well. She should take it as a compliment, and as a reminder. She has lived too long apart from us, denying what she was, consorting with “the nobility” as if they, or she, were better than we are. It’s going to come full circle, Bresinga. Consider yourselves fortunate that we accepted you as part of us again. For when we come to power, those of Old Blood who have denied their magic and turned their backs on their kin and even betrayed us to the Farseer filth … all of them will die. They’ll die in their own King’s Circle, just as that bastard Regal killed so many of us. And for what? Why did so many of our parents and their animal partners die in those circles? For the sake of creating a Witted turncoat, one that would hunt down the Witted Bastard for him. Full time and past due that the Farseers paid for that.’

And, ear pressed against the cold wood, I knew a familiar sickness in my bones as I crouched in the gathering cold and dark of the night. Ah yes. Once again the Farseers’ past had returned to haunt us. For what Laudwine spoke was true. Regal had so hated and feared me that he had decided the only way to bring me down was to find one of the Witted who would help him. Many a man and woman died under Regal’s torture before he found one who would hunt Old Blood for him. The painful scar in the centre of my back came from that man’s arrow. Yet what I had always thought of as Regal’s wrongdoing against the Witted would still be totted up against the Farseer family account.

Civil’s voice was low but clear as he said, ‘She does not take it as a “compliment” but as insult and assault most vile. You have forced me to live in Buckkeep, to spy for you here, leaving her alone and vulnerable. You have driven from her side every trusted servant and true friend she has ever known. And now your folk have dishonoured her, all in the name of taking her back into your “Piebald” legacy. Well, she does not want it, and neither do I. If this is what you mean when you speak of the fellowship of Old Blood, then I’d rather not be one of you.’

Laudwine’s voice was almost lazy as he said, ‘Well, boy, either you are foolish or you do not listen well. Answer me this. What are you if you are not one of us?’

‘Free,’ Civil snarled.

‘Wrong. Dead. Kill him, Padget.’

It was a bluff. I was sure it was a bluff, but I was also certain the Civil would believe it. They would terrorize him back into obedience. Nor did I have any compelling reason to protect him from them, regardless of whether they only beat him or killed him. Save, perhaps, that he was a boy, coerced and cornered by circumstance. So it was that my belly was cold and my teeth gritted against what must next befall him.

Then the Skill-onslaught from Dutiful nearly dropped me to my knees. Find Civil Bresinga. He is in great danger. Please, Tom, go now. I think he’s down in Buckkeep Town. The Prince sent the urgent demand out like a flood. Somewhere, I was dimly aware that Thick’s music stopped in astonishment.

I found my wits and channelled a thought back to him. I am not far from him. He is in danger, but it is not as great as you think. How did you know?

An agonized outpouring of thought trampled my brain. His cat told me. Civil brought him to me tied in a sack and asked me to keep him in my room and not let him out, no matter what. That was the favour he wanted earlier. He said he had to do something where he could not take the cat with him. Tom, don’t wait. The cat says the danger is real, very real. They’ll kill him.

I’ll protect him. I made the promise and then slammed my Skill-walls up to keep him out. Then I was off and running, circling the small house. Odd, how one’s perceptions change in an instant. Civil had gone into this confrontation expecting to die. He had planned it. That was why he had taken his Wit-beast to Dutiful, to save the small cat’s life lest he go down fighting for his partner. My ugly sword was in my hand as I shouldered the cottage door open. A man went down, his entrails spilling out between his fingers. He had not been armed or threatening me, merely in my way. I blocked against the rebounding pain of his injury as I charged into the room.

In a single glance, I knew Civil was right. Laudwine sat at the table, a glass of wine before him, watching Padget strangle the boy. Padget was enjoying it. He was a powerful enough man to have made a quick end of the boy if he had so desired. Instead he gripped Civil’s throat from behind him, and held the boy off the ground, feet kicking, as he slowly squeezed. Civil’s face was bright red, his eyes standing out as his fingernails tore hopelessly at Padget’s leather-bound forearms. A nasty little dog, a shorthaired feist of some kind, was jigging merrily around them, snapping at Civil’s dangling feet. The sight woke the red rage of battle in me. In an instant, I felt my chest swell with it and heard the thunder of my own heart. All other considerations fled. I’d kill them both.

Laudwine was leaning back in his chair, watching the performance, as I made my abrupt entrance. With no panic in his voice, he ordered Padget tersely to ‘Finish him’ and rose, drawing a short sword in one smooth motion to meet my attack. Then he recognized me and his face changed. From the corner of my eye, I saw Padget’s fingers clamp in the flesh of the boy’s throat.

I could have deflected Laudwine’s sword-lunge or saved Civil’s life, but not both. The table was between Civil and me. I took a running stride, pushed off, and landed on top of the table on one knee. I shoved my bloodied blade past Civil and deep into Padget’s chest. Simultaneously, I felt the bite of Laudwine’s sword. It went into the muscles on the right side of my back between my hip and my ribs. I screamed and rolled away from it, tearing my flesh from his blade. I struck back at him, but there was no strength to my blow. I wallowed off the table, my right leg folding under me. It was fortuitous, for it meant that Laudwine’s follow-up thrust was high and missed me. I took breath and shrieked, ‘Run!’ at Civil. The boy had folded bonelessly to the floor when Padget let go of him to clutch at his chest. Civil still sprawled there, clutching at his neck and whistling frantic breaths into his lungs. Padget had gone to his knees, clutching at the flow of bright blood from his chest while his Wit-beast yipped brainlessly around him.

Laudwine towered over me as he stepped around the table, sword in his left hand. I rolled under the table, yelping when my injury hit the floor. On the other side, I scrabbled to my feet. The table was between us, but Laudwine was a tall man and had a long reach even with the short sword. I leaned back to avoid the first pass of his blade. ‘I’m going to kill you, you traitor bastard,’ he promised with savage satisfaction.

The words woke the wolf in me. The pain was not banished; it simply became unimportant. Kill first; lick your wounds later. And make your snarl larger than his. ‘I won’t kill you,’ I promised pleasantly. ‘I’m just going to lop off your other hand and let you live.’ The look of horror that flickered through his eyes told me that my words had bitten to the bone. I caught the edge of the table and flipped it up on its end, then shoved it into him. The tabletop leaned against him and I slammed against it. He stumbled backwards over something, Padget or his yapping Wit-dog. He would have to drop his sword to break his fall. Foolishly, though, he held onto it as he went down. I pressed my advantage, shoving the table onto him so that his legs were trapped under it as he fell.

On his back, with Padget’s body under his, he swung his sword at me, but the cut had no strength behind it. I avoided it and his backslash, then jumped on top of the table and pinned him to the floor with it. With a two-handed grip, I shoved my sword down into his chest. He screamed, and I heard the battle-scream of a war-horse echo him. The sword slipped and then twisted as I leaned my body weight on it, sliding it between his ribs and into his vitals. He was still yelling, so I pulled it out and stabbed him again. This time I put it in his throat.

Outside in the street, I heard people shouting questions and something like distant thunder. A horse neighed furiously. Someone cried out, ‘That horse has gone crazy!’ and someone else yelled, ‘Call the city guard!’ From the sounds, I decided that Laudwine’s horse was kicking the wall out of the shed in an attempt to get loose and reach Laudwine’s side. He was dying on the floor, his heart still pumping his life’s blood out of his throat, his eyes still full of fury and fear. I had a sudden flash of insight. I turned to Civil. ‘No time to help you. Get up and get out, through the back. Avoid the guard and get back to Buckkeep. Tell Dutiful everything. Everything, you understand?’

The boy’s eyes were wide and running tears, but whether from fear, shock, or his recent strangulation, I could not tell. Padget’s feist came after me as I headed towards the door. I steeled my heart, turned, and crushed the little animal with a stamp of my foot. It yelped sharply and was still. Did Padget depart with its death? I wasn’t sure. But as I staggered into the street, I saw Laudwine’s war-horse lunge against the framework of the shed that trapped it. Across the narrow street, the goatherd’s children were clustered in his open doorway, staring. The horse’s huge shod hooves had splintered the planks in his fury to escape. It had weakened the structure of the old shed, so that it was now collapsing sideways around him, actually making it more difficult for the horse to fight his way through the wall.

But he wasn’t just a horse. Not any more. My Wit-sense of him was confusing, a sensation of both man and horse embodied in one. I saw the stallion pull back from the opening he had made and suddenly appraise his situation with a man’s intelligence. I couldn’t give him time to work out an escape. I ignored the people gawking in the street and ran towards the horse, yelling wordlessly. The war-horse tried to rear up and bring his deadly front hooves into use, but the shed was low-roofed, never intended to stable an animal of that size. The action only exposed his chest and I braced the hilt of my weapon against my own chest as I thrust it into him and rammed it as deep as I could make it go.

The animal screamed and a wash of Wit-fury and hatred near breached my walls, repelling me. I was flung backwards, leaving my blade trapped in his chest. He surged forward against the splintered walls, screaming his fury. But for the shed entrapping him, I know he would have killed me before he died. As it was, he collapsed at last, blood coursing from his mouth and nostrils as the city guard arrived. Their torches streamed in the winter night and sent confusing shadows leaping over me like springing wolves.

‘What’s going on here?’ the sergeant demanded, and then as we recognized one another, he snarled, ‘This is the second time you’ve caused trouble in my streets. I don’t like it.’

I tried to think of an explanation, but my right leg abruptly folded under me and I collapsed into the trampled snow. ‘There’s two dead in here!’ someone shouted. I rolled my head to see a white-faced girl in a guard’s uniform emerge from Laudwine’s cottage. I blinked and strained to see through the darkened streets. Civil’s horse had gone. Either it had bolted, or the boy had made his escape. I tried to move, and was suddenly aware of the hot, wet flow of blood down my side. I clutched at my injury.

‘Get up!’ the sergeant barked at me.

‘I can’t,’ I managed to gasp. I lifted my hands and showed him the blood on them. ‘I’m hurt.’

He shook his head in angry frustration, and I knew he longed to add to my injuries. He was a man who took his duties personally. ‘What happened here?’

I gasped for breath, and blessed the goatherd’s son who ran barefoot out of his door, shouting confusedly that the horse went crazy and tried to kick his way out of the shed and then I came out and killed it. The snow grew wet and warm under my back and I felt the night closing in from the edges of my vision.

Tom? The Prince’s frantic Skill trickled through my crumbling walls. Tom, are you hurt?

Go away!

The sergeant leaned over me, demanding, ‘What went on in there?’

I couldn’t think of a lie. I told the truth. ‘The horse went crazy. I had to kill it.’

‘Yes, we know that. But what happened to the men in the house?’

Tom? Are you hurt?

I tried to Skill back to Dutiful, but pain was running over me in pounding waves now. I tried to move away from it, but a great spike of it nailed me down to the snowy street. A crowd was gathering around us. I scanned their faces, looking in vain for someone who would help me. They all just stared, eyes and mouths wide as they pointed and shouted explanations to one another. Then I glimpsed a face I did know. For just an instant, she stepped closer to me, and the look on her face seemed genuinely concerned. Henja, the Narcheska’s servant, scowled down at me. Then, as my eyes met hers, she turned away suddenly from me and melted back into the crowd.

Chade! She’s still here, she’s here in Buckkeep Town. For an instant I knew how important that was. It was essential that Chade know it. Then pain washed all other concerns away from me. I was dying.

Stop. Make it stop. You’re ruining the music. Thick’s distress pounded me like a surf on a beach.

‘Answer me!’

No lies left, no truth left. I looked up at the sergeant and tried to speak. Then I was slipping, sliding away from them all into the dark. Keep watch, Nighteyes, I begged him, but there was no answer and no wolf stood over me.

TWENTY

Coterie

The people of the Six Duchies have always been an independent folk. The very fact that the Kingdom remains divided into six separate duchies, all loyal to the Farseer monarchy but presided over by their own nobles, speaks to that autonomous spirit. Each duchy represents the separate annexation of a piece of territory, usually by warfare. In many instances, the Farseer conqueror was wise enough to leave some of the indigenous nobility in place. This is particularly true of both Farrow and Bearns. An advantage to this system is that laws are adapted to the particular situation of each duchy, as well as to the long-standing custom of the inhabitants. One example of this concession to self-rule is that the larger cities and towns frequently have not only their own city guards to keep order, but finance this militia by a system of taxes on commerce and punitive fines on lawbreakers.

Fedwren’s Six Duchies Governance

Tom.

Tom.

Tom.

At first it didn’t bother me. I was down so deep that the sea itself could not reach me. All was dark and as long as I stayed still, the pain couldn’t find me. Then the word crept slowly into the forefront of my mind. It was like a hammer thudding dully in my skull.

Not Tom, I told it in annoyance. Go away.

Not Tom? And the avid interest in Dutiful’s thought pushed me to the edge of wakefulness. Reflexively I slammed up my walls against the boy’s curiosity. An instant later, extreme discomfort drained away all my will and strength for Skilling. I was lying on my belly on what was supposed to be a straw mattress. There wasn’t enough straw in it to matter. The cold of the stone floor seeped up through it. I was stiff and cold everywhere except on the small of my back. That burned. And when I tried to move, the pain savaged me. I groaned weakly and heard the scuff of footsteps.

‘You awake?’

I moved a hand vaguely and opened my eyes to slits. Even the dim light seemed like an assault. I peered at the man above me. A short man, dressed in scruffy clothes with his hair wild about his face, stared down at me. His nose and cheeks were the red of the perpetual drinker.

‘Healer sewed you up. He said to tell you, don’t move any more than you have to.’ I grunted an assent and the man grinned and said, ‘Hardly needed to tell you that, right?’

I grunted again. Now that I was fully awake, the extent of my pain was making itself known. I wondered what my situation was, but my mouth was too dry to speak. The chatty fellow seemed affable; perhaps he was the healer’s assistant? I moved my mouth and when I could, took a deep breath and croaked out, ‘Water?’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said. He went to the door. I followed him with my eyes. I noticed now that the small window in the stout door was barred. He shouted through it, ‘Hey! The hurt fellow is awake. He wants water!’

If anyone replied, I didn’t hear. He came away from the window and sat down on a stool beside my pallet. I became gradually more aware of my surroundings. Stone walls. A pot in the corner. A scattering of straw on the floor. Aha. My friend was my fellow prisoner. Before I could follow that thought any further, he began talking again. ‘Well. You killed three men and a horse, eh? Pretty good fight, I bet. Wish I could have seen it. Me, I got in a fight last night, too. But I didn’t kill no one. Got in a fight with a tall skinny guy, all scarred like the Pocked Man. Wasn’t no fault of mine. I was talking, perhaps a bit loud, and you know what he said to me? He said, “Shut your mouth and don’t say nothing. That’s always the best advice for a fellow like you. Fellow like you talks and thinks he’s explaining things, but he’s just making a mess of it. He should leave the talking to his friends.” Then he hit me, and I hit him back. And the guards came and arrested me and here I am, in the same predicament as you.’

I managed to nod that I understood his message. He was one of Chade’s little birds. Chade wanted me to keep my mouth shut and wait. I wondered if he knew how badly hurt I was. I wondered if Civil had gone back to Buckkeep Castle. Then it occurred to me that I didn’t need to wonder. I let my eyes sag shut, gathered my pitiful strength and reached out feebly. Dutiful?

Tom! Are you all right? His Skilling wavered through my mind like words inked on wet paper. The thought ran and faded even as I tried to grip it.

I tried to take a deep breath and centre myself. Pain jabbed deep. I breathed more shallowly and reached out hesitantly. No. Laudwine stabbed me in the back, and I’m in jail. I killed him and someone named Padget. And, this is important. Tell Chade I saw Henja in the crowd. She’s still in Buckkeep Town.

Yes, he knows that. I told him. It was the last thing you Skilled out, that Henja was there. Why is that important?

I pushed his question aside. I didn’t know the answer to it, and I had more pressing questions of my own. What is going on? Why am I still here? Did Civil come back to you?

Yes, yes he did. Listen, now, and don’t interrupt me. The boy’s excitement and fear were rattling him. His Skilling clattered at me like hooves on cobblestones. I knew he feared I’d lose consciousness again. Chade says, ‘say nothing’. He’s working out a story for you. The whole town and the castle are buzzing about what happened in Buckkeep Town. There hasn’t been a triple murder in Buckkeep Town in years, if ever, and that is how people are gossiping about it. So many people saw you kill the horse that, well, it’s going to be impossible to say you didn’t kill Laudwine and his man. So, well, Chade’s working on a reason why it wouldn’t be murder. But he can’t just come and get you out of there. You see why, don’t you?

I see why. There must be no connection between Chade and a bodyguard who committed a triple murder, no link between the Queen and the man who killed the Old Blood delegates, no bond between the Prince and the assassin who had done his bidding. I saw. I had always seen. Don’t worry about me. The thought was cold.

I could tell Dutiful was trying to control his fear, but it stained his Skilling with dread. His worries whispered past his guard: what if Chade couldn’t think of a tale, what if I died of a septic wound, sweet Eda, he killed them all, men and beast, who is Tom Badgerlock, really, who was he, to kill like that? To shut off his fears I closed my walls to him. I was too weary to Skill anyway, and he’d told me all I needed to know just now. I felt myself separating, not just from Dutiful, but from all of them. I sealed myself up inside my own skin. I was Tom Badgerlock, a servant at Buckkeep, in jail, guilty of murdering three people and killing a fine horse. That was all I was.

The guard came to the window, warned my fellow prisoner back from the door, and then ventured inside with a bucket and a dipper. He set it down by my pallet. I looked at his boots through my lowered eyelashes. ‘He doesn’t look like he’s awake.’

‘Well, he was for a minute there. Didn’t say much, only “water”.’

‘If he wakes up again, you call out. Sergeant wants to talk to him.’

‘To be sure, I will. But hasn’t my wife come yet to pay my fine? You sent a boy to tell her, didn’t you?’

‘I told you we did. Yesterday. If she comes with the coin, you’ll be out.’

‘Any chance of some food here?’

‘You’ve been fed. This isn’t an inn.’

The guard went out, slamming the door behind him. I heard several bolts shot into place. My friend went to the door and watched the guard depart down the hallway. Then he came back to my side. ‘Think you can drink?’

I didn’t answer but I managed to wobble my head up off the straw. He held the brimming ladle near my mouth and I carefully sucked in a mouthful. He was patient, crouching there and holding the ladle steady as I drank. I had to go slow. I’d never realized that the muscles in my back could be involved in sucking water into my mouth and holding my head up. After a time, I let my head sag back down and he took the water away. I lay panting softly. Blackness hovered at the edges of my vision, then gradually receded. ‘Is it night?’

‘It’s always night in these places,’ he answered mournfully, and for a moment I glimpsed the real man, one who had spent far too much time in situations such as this. I wondered how long he’d been Chade’s, then doubted that he knew anything of who employed him this way. He pulled his stool closer and spoke quietly. ‘It’s afternoon. You’ve been in here two days now. When they first brought me in, the healer was working on you. I thought you were awake then. Don’t you remember it?’

‘No.’ Perhaps I could have, if I had tried, but I was suddenly queasily certain I didn’t want to recall that. Two days. My heart sank. If Chade were going to get me out of here swiftly, he would have done so by now. That two days had already passed could indicate that I should expect to be here for a time. A sudden jab of pain broke that chain of thought. I tried to focus my mind again. ‘No one has come to see me, or offered to pay my fine?’

He goggled at me. ‘Fine? Man, you murdered three people. There’s no fine for that.’ Then he abruptly gentled his voice. I was still absorbing that I could die on a gallows when he added, ‘There was a man who came after the healer got done with you. Some high lord, dressed all fancy and foreign. You were unconscious and they wouldn’t let him come in here. He demanded to know what had become of a purse you were carrying for him. The guards said they didn’t know anything about it. He got really angry then, and told them to think well what they were saying, that if his property was not restored to him intact, he would take extreme measures. He said you had a little red purse, embroidered with a bird, a, um, a pheasant on it. He wouldn’t say what was in it, only that it was very valuable and it was his and he wanted it back.’

‘Lord Golden?’ I asked softly.

‘Yes, that was his name.’

I had no idea what the Fool had been talking about. ‘I don’t remember the purse,’ I said. The pain was rising like an engulfing tide. I tried to hold onto my thoughts but could not. I pushed back my fear and discovered that it cloaked my anger. I didn’t deserve this. Why had they left me here? I could die here.

I could feel Dutiful fumbling at the edges of my mind. ‘I’m so tired,’ I said, meaning to Skill it but saying it instead. The pain from my wound was thudding down my leg, making my hip and knee ache. My right arm had no strength in it. I closed my eyes, centred myself and tried to reach out to the Prince. Instead, I plunged into blackness.

The next several days passed for me like images glimpsed by lightning during a thunderstorm. The few memories I have are starkly and strongly etched, yet they are so momentary as to be nearly meaningless. A man I suspect was a healer looked into a basin of my blood and proclaimed it too dark. My cellmate complained bitterly to someone at the door-grate that the stench was enough to choke a goat. I stared at an odd pattern of straw on the floor and listened to Hap scream obscenities at someone. I desperately wanted him to be quiet, lest they decide to hurt him, too. To be conscious was to be afraid. Sick, hurt and afraid. Alone. They’d left me alone here to die, so I would not embarrass them. Sleep brought Nighteyes’ old nightmares of a filthy cage and a keeper who beat him.

The Skill is a magic which demands physical strength, a clear mental focus, and a strong will to perform. I had none of those. Waves of Skill-sendings from Dutiful struck me and washed through me, leaving no clear residue of thought. I knew only that he tried to reach me, and I wished heartily that he would stop. I wanted silence and stillness so I could hide from my pain. Sometimes I was aware of Nettle, too. I doubt that she sensed she had reached me.

In between those glimpses of waking life and nightmare-plagued sleep, I lived another life. The rounded hillsides were smooth and white with snow under a grey sky. There were no trees, no bushes, and not even an upthrust of stone. Only the snow, the whispering wind and the ever-twilight. The only break in the smoothness of the snow were Nighteyes’ tracks going on before me. I followed them doggedly. I would find him and I would join him. He could not be that far ahead. Once the wind turned to wolves howling in the distance, and I tried to hurry. That effort only woke me to the cold stink of the prison cell. I had moved and something hot and foul was trickling from my wound. I closed my eyes again and sought for the peace of the snowy hills.

It would be weeks before I pieced together the whole sequence of events. Lord Golden’s missing purse of raw gemstones was found in Laudwine’s cottage. Not that he was known as Laudwine in Buckkeep Town. Starling had been correct. To his neighbours, the one-armed man was known as Keppler. A witness attested that he had seen a man who might have been me pursue someone who might have been Padget into Keppler’s cottage. Obviously, I had been robbed of my master’s purse on my way to taking them to a gem-cutter for him. I had followed the thieves, they had fought me, and I’d killed them all, taking a grievous injury myself. Then I had valiantly killed the rabid horse before it could break free of the shed and injure people in the street. From being an accused triple-murderer, I was suddenly elevated to the status of loyal servant willing to risk his life for his master’s property. As no one came forward to contradict this fabrication, or even to claim the bodies of ‘Keppler’ and Padget, it became the acknowledged truth in Buckkeep Town. The goatherd neighbours soon spoke of how it seemed to them that Keppler had many visitors who came and went at odd hours.

And so Lord Golden was allowed to claim what was left of me. He sent two serving-men to fetch me home. Stinking and semi-conscious, I was loaded onto a litter for a cold and jolting trip up to Buckkeep Castle. I did not know the men who came to fetch me, and they cared little for me. I felt each step they took, and would have wept if I had had the strength. The pain was such that it kept jolting me back to wakefulness. The stoutly-muscled men who trudged up the hill commented that they were grateful for the cold, still air, for it made the smell of my pus-running wound less. They delivered me to Lord Golden’s door. He held a scented handkerchief over his mouth and nose as he commanded them to put me on my bed. Then he paid the men generously and thanked them for bringing me home to die. In the blackness of my closed room, I shut my eyes and tried to do just that.

Fragments of speech whirled like falling leaves in my memory. They flowed into my head and filled it up like other people’s furniture moved into a once-familiar room. I could not disengage from them. Something held me there as firmly as the hand that gripped mine.

‘… Can’t move him again, even if you could get a litter up those stairs. You’ll have to do it here.’

‘I don’t know how. I don’t know how. I don’t know how!’ This from Dutiful. ‘Eda and El, Chade, I’m not being stubborn. Don’t you think I’d save him if I could? But I don’t know how; I’m not even sure what you’re asking me to do.’

Stinks worse than dogshit now. Thick was bored and wished he were anywhere else.

Chade, patiently explaining it yet again. ‘It doesn’t matter that you don’t know how. He’s going to die if we don’t do anything. If you try and it kills him, well, at least it will be quicker than what he’s enduring now. Now, I want you to look at these drawings carefully. They are my own work, from years ago. This shows you what those organs should look like, intact …’

I fell away from them. Blessed blackness for a time. Just as I found the snow-rounded hills, they tugged me back. Their hands were on me. My clothing was cut away. Someone retched, and Chade, tight-breathed, told them to get out of the room until called for. Then, harsh rags, water both cold and hot on my wound and close at hand a woman said sadly, ‘It’s hopelessly foul. Can’t we just let him go peacefully?’

‘No!’ I thought the voice was King Shrewd’s. Then I knew it could not be. It must be Chade, sounding so like his brother. ‘Get the Prince back in here. It’s time.’

Then I felt Dutiful’s icy hands on my hot flesh, set to either side of the wound. ‘Just Skill into his body,’ Chade told him. ‘Skill into him, look at what is wrong, and fix it.’

‘I don’t know how,’ Dutiful repeated, but I felt him try. His mind battered against mine like a moth against a lamp’s chimney. He was trying to reach my thoughts, not my body. I pushed feebly at him. That was a mistake.

For a moment, our minds touched and linked. No, I told him. No. Leave me alone.

His hands went away. ‘He doesn’t want us to do this,’ Dutiful reported uncertainly.

‘I don’t care!’ Chade’s voice was furious. ‘He isn’t allowed to die. I won’t permit it.’ Suddenly, the words were louder, shouted right by my ear. ‘Fitz, do you hear me? Do you hear me, boy? I’m not going to let you die, so you might as well co-operate. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and fight to live.’

‘Fitz?’ There was wonder and horror in Dutiful’s voice.

A crack of silence opened. Then, harshly, Chade explained. ‘He was born a bastard, just as I was. It’s long been a joke between us, that the word only stings when it comes from someone who doesn’t wear it also.’

Feeble, Chade. Feeble, I wanted to tell him, and Dutiful knows you too well to be taken in by it.

Someone stroked the hair back from my brow and took my hand. I thought it was the Fool. I tried to tighten my hand on his slender one, to somehow let him know that I would beg his pardon if I could. I suddenly thought of all the persons that I hadn’t bid farewell. Hap. Kettricken. Burrich and Molly. I’d always meant to make everything right with everyone before I died. ‘Patience, mother,’ I said, but no one heard me. Perhaps I didn’t even speak the words aloud.

‘Show me the picture,’ Lord Golden said. He let go of my hand and I swung abruptly into the blackness. I fell until I died. From the pillowed brow of a snowy hill, I glimpsed the summerland. A flash of grey moved in the tall grasses. Nighteyes! I called to him. He turned and looked back at me. He showed his teeth in a snarl, warning me back. I tried to move forward but again I was drawn back up to the surface. I thrashed helplessly, a fish on a line, but my body moved not at all.

‘… done it before. At least, something like it. I was there when he used the Skill to heal his wolf. And years ago, I studied how a man’s body is put together. And I don’t have the Skill, myself, but I know Fi–– Tom. If you can use the Skill through me, I’m willing to allow that.’ The Fool was insistent.

‘I have to use the privy.’

‘Go, then, Thick, but come right back. Understand me? Come right back here when you have.’ I could hear annoyance in Chade’s voice. And uncertainty. ‘Well, what can it hurt? Go ahead. Try.’

Then I felt the Fool’s touch on my back. If Dutiful’s hands had been cold to my fevered skin, then the Fool’s fingers were as icicles. Their jabbing ice probed me. All eternity paused in anticipation of that dreaded, desired touch.

Long ago, the Fool had accompanied me into the Mountains on the quest to find Verity. In helping me tend our exhausted king, he had carelessly let his fingers come into contact with Verity’s Skill-silvered hands. That physical manifestation of the Skill-magic had gleamed like quicksilver. The contact with the pure magic had jolted the Fool and forever marked him. The silvering magic had faded with time, yet enough of it remained on his fingertips that I had seen the Fool use it in his woodcarving. It allowed him to know, intimately, whatever those fingers touched, be it wood or plant or beast. Or me. Long ago, he had left his fingerprints on my wrist. Lord Golden’s gloves always kept his Skill-fingers covered, protected from casual contact. Yet now the hands that touched the skin of my back were bared.

I knew the instant that his Skill-coated fingers made contact with my skin. Like little cold knives his touch plunged into me, cutting more sharply than the sword which had stirred my guts. It was neither pain nor pleasure; it was connection, pure and simple, as if we shared a skin. I lay still under that scrutiny, lacking even the strength to tremble, as I prayed he would go no further. I need not have feared. I felt the Fool’s honour in that touch, an honour that was like armour between us. It was only my body he probed, not my heart or mind. I knew then with terrible guilt how my earlier accusations had wronged my friend. He would never seek anything from me that I did not first offer him. I heard him speak, and the words echoed through me even as they washed against my ears.

‘I can see the damage, Chade. The muscles are like snapped cords that have pulled back on themselves. And where the blade cut him, there is rot and poison leaking from his own guts. His blood carries it through his body. It is not just this wound that is toxic. The wrongness gleams throughout his whole body, like dye spreading through water or decay that has reached up through a tree. It has overwhelmed him, Chade. The trouble is not just here, where the blade went in, but in other places where his own body tries to make it right and instead succumbs to the poison.’

‘Can you repair it? Can you heal his body?’ Chade’s voice seemed choked and weak, but it could have been because the Fool’s thoughts seemed so thunderously loud.

‘No. I can see what is wrong but perceiving damage does not mend it. He is not a chunk of wood, so I cannot simply carve the rot away from what is sound.’ The Fool fell silent, but I felt how he struggled within that silence. Then he spoke in a voice full of despair. ‘We have failed him. He’s dying.’

‘No, oh no. Not my boy, not my Fitz. Please, no.’ Light as leaves, the old man’s hands settled on me. I knew how terribly he desired to make me right. Then his hands seemed to sink inside me and the heat of his touch burned like liquor running through my veins. Someone gasped, and then I felt, I felt the Fool join his mind to Chade’s. They linked in me. It was a feeble thing, this Skilling effort. The old man’s voice cracked as he cried out, ‘Dutiful. Take my hand. Lend me strength.’

Dutiful joined them. It disrupted everything. Light exploded into blackness. ‘Get Thick!’ someone shouted. It didn’t matter. I fell for a long time, getting smaller and smaller as I fell. I heard the howling of wolves. It grew louder.

Then I became aware of a light. The light was not hot, but it was terribly penetrating. I fell into it and became it. It seemed to come from inside my eyes themselves. There was no avoiding it. It was light that seared but did not illuminate. I could see nothing. It was unbearably bright, and then suddenly, the brilliance increased. I screamed, my whole body screamed with the force of the light surging through me. I was a broken limb jerked straight, a dammed river released, snarled hair roughly combed. Rightness tore through me. The cure was worse than the malady. My heart stopped. Voices cried out in dismay. Then my heart slammed into motion again. Air scorched into my lungs.

I passed through an instant of wild wakefulness in which I saw all, knew all, felt all. They surrounded me in a circle. The Fool’s Skilled fingers were pressed to my back. Chade gripped his free hand, and in turn his hand held Dutiful’s. Dutiful clenched Thick’s chubby wrist in his hand and Thick stood, stock-still and stolid, immobile and yet roaring like a bonfire. Chade’s eyes were wide, showing the whites all round and his clenched teeth were bared in a snarl of joy. Dutiful’s face was white with fear, his eyes squeezed shut. And the Fool, the Fool was gold gleaming and joy and a flight of jewelled dragons across a pure blue sky. And the Fool screamed suddenly, shrill as a woman, ‘Stop! Stop! Stop! It’s too much, we’ve gone too far!’

They let me go. I raced on without them. I couldn’t stop now. As a flash flood cuts down a ravine, clearing all debris along with the live trees that it tears up from the banks, so I raced. Healing? It was not a healing. Healing is gentleness and recovery and time. Healing, I suddenly knew, was not a thing that one man did to another. Healing was what a body did for itself, given the rest and time and sustenance to do it. If a man set fire to his feet to warm his hands, that would be like this healing was. My body sloughed rotted flesh and purged poisonous fluids from itself. Yet one cannot tear away from a structure without replacing it, and building bricks must come from somewhere. My body stole from itself and I felt it do it, but could not stop the process. And so I was made whole, but at a cost to the strength of that whole. Like a wall built without sufficient mortar, strength was sacrificed to the paucity of materials. When all was done and the world thundered to stillness around me, I lay looking up at them from the wash of filth and poison that my body had ejected, and I had not even the strength to blink.

They looked down at me, the four who had reconstructed my body. The old man, the golden lord, the prince and the idiot stared down at me, and in their gazes awe mingled with fear and satisfaction vied with regret. Thus was Dutiful’s Coterie formed, and it was as poor a way for any five folk to be joined as I could imagine. Not since Crossfire’s Coterie of cripples had there been such a sadly mismatched assortment of Skill-users. The Fool had no true Skill of his own, only the silver shadows on his fingertips and the thread of Skill-awareness we had shared for so long. Thick possessed it in ample quantity but had neither knowledge nor any ambition to gain knowledge to use it well. I had Skill, but as always it faded and then fountained unpredictably, untrained and unreliable. And Chade, gods help us all, had discovered his own talent in the waning of his years. He flourished it like a boy waving a wooden sword, with no concept of what a true edge could do. He had knowledge, and ambition like a floodtide, and yet he did not have the intrinsic understanding that Thick did. Only in our prince did Skill balance both intellect and ambition, and there it was Wit-tainted. I stared up at what I had wrought merely by virtue of nearly dying, and my courage left me. Catalyst indeed. A coterie should be able to lend its strength to the Farseer monarch in time of need. This one could not function without him. And it should have been built on the camaraderie of mutually-chosen companions. This was more like an accidental meeting of travellers in a tavern.

Some of the woe I felt must have shown in my eyes, for Chade knelt down by my bedside and took my hand. ‘It’s all right, boy,’ he said reassuringly. ‘You’re going to live.’

I knew he meant it well. I closed my eyes to shut out the unholy glee shining in his face.

I slept for four days and four nights. I slept through them bathing my wasted body and clothing me anew. They told me later that I drank broth and wine and gruel in those days. Someone kept me clean. I don’t recall it, and for that, I’m glad. I was later told that Starling checked on me several times, and that Wim came by and delivered a restorative potion from his grandmother’s recipe. None of them were allowed to see me. I remember none of that, I am ashamed to say. Instead, I recalled memories I had not known I held. I ran with a pack of wolves, shadowing them over the hills. I watched their lives and longed to join them. But always, somewhere, a thread tugged at me, reminding me that eventually I would have to come back.

I do recall one interlude. Someone put her arm around my shoulders and hauled me up and held a mug of warm milk to my mouth. I have never cared for warmed milk, and I tried to turn aside from it when I smelled it, but she was determined. It was drink or drown, and most of it went down my throat. It was only when she lowered me back to my pillows that I recognized that strength of will as my queen’s. I opened my eyes to slits. ‘Sorry,’ I croaked as Kettricken wiped the spilled milk from my scruff of beard and nightshirt.

She smiled at me and I saw relief in her eyes. ‘That’s the first time you’ve had the strength to be difficult. Should I take it that you are recovering and will soon be your old self?’ She asked the question teasingly, but for all that relief quivered in her words. She set the cloth aside and gathered my hands in hers. I felt my bones rub together in her gentle grip; all flesh had fallen from my hands, leaving them like talons. I could not bear to look at them, or at the tenderness in her blue gaze. I glanced past her and frowned, not recognizing my surroundings. Her eyes followed my gaze. ‘I changed it,’ she said. ‘I could not abide for you to lie in this cell as it was.’

There was a thick rug of Mountain weave on the floor. I lay on a low couch, while my exalted queen sat cross-legged on a plump cushion on the floor beside me. In the corner, a spiralling rack held tiers of scented candles that warmed and lit the room. A chest of drawers, the front ornamented with carving, supported a graceful ewer and wash bowl. I saw the lacy edge of some piece of weaving beneath the pitcher. A low table beside the bed held the empty mug and a bowl of torn bread softened in broth. The smell made me hungry. Kettricken must have seen my eyes go towards it, for she immediately took it up and lifted a spoonful.

‘I think I can feed myself,’ I said hastily. I tried to sit up and shamed myself by needing her assistance. When I did so, I became aware of the tapestry on the wall facing me. It had been freshly cleaned and mended, but as ever an elongated King Wisdom stared down at me as he made treaty with the Elderlings. My shock must have shown on my face, for Kettricken smiled and said, ‘Chade said you would be astonished and pleased. It seemed a rather dismal tapestry to me but he said it was an old favourite of yours.’

It took up the entire wall. Just as it had when it hung on the wall of my childhood bedroom, it struck me as nightmarish. And the old man knew that full well. Despite how weak I was, his rough jest brought a smile to my face. Still I protested, ‘But this chamber should be kept as the humble room of a serving-man. Except for the size and lack of windows, you have fitted it out as if for a prince.’

Kettricken sighed. ‘Chade, too, rebuked me for that, but I refused to listen. Bad enough that you must be ill in such a small and gloomy chamber. I will not leave it pauperish and cold as well.’

‘But your chamber is simple and sparse, in the Mountain fashion. I don’t –’

‘When you are well enough to have visitors, then you may have it all taken away if you wish. But for now, I will have you comfortable. In the Six Duchies style.’ She spoke with asperity, then sighed. ‘As usual, a lie has explained it away. Lord Golden rewards his serving-man for loyalty. So. Tolerate it.’

And there was no arguing with her tone. She propped me up with pillows and I ate the sodden bread. I could have eaten more, but she took the empty bowl from me and told me to take my recovery slowly. And then I was suddenly tired. I lay back, overcome with weariness yet astounded there was no pain. And I suddenly realized that I was on my back. My face must have changed, for Kettricken anxiously asked me if I were all right.

I rolled to my side and reached a cautious hand to my back. ‘There is no pain,’ I told her.

There were no bandages.

I felt the smooth flesh, and then the knobs of my spine and my ribs that stuck out like a starved dog’s. I started to tremble, and my teeth to chatter. Kettricken pulled blankets closer around me. ‘The wound is completely gone,’ I rattled out the words.

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘The flesh is closed and sound. Of the sword-thrust, there is no sign. It is one reason we have kept visitors away from you. Surely they would wonder at that, and also wonder why you are thin and wasted as from a weeks-long illness.’ She paused then, and I thought she would say more, but she did not. She smiled at me tenderly. ‘Don’t be concerned about anything right now. You need to rest, Fitz, not to worry. Rest, and eat, and soon you’ll be up and about.’ The Queen touched my whiskery cheek and then smoothed back my hair.

A thousand questions suddenly crowded my mind. ‘Does Hap know I’m all right? Has he come to see me; is he worried?’

‘Hush. You are not all right, not yet. He has come here, but we judged it best not to let him see you. Lord Golden has spoken with him, assuring him that you will recover and are receiving the best of care. He told him how grateful he was for how Tom Badgerlock had attempted to defend his treasure at such a cost to himself, and made Hap promise that if he had any need while you are recuperating, he would let Golden know of it. And a woman named Jinna has come to visit, but also been turned aside.’

I understood the wisdom of it. Both Hap and Jinna would have been astounded at my present appearance, but I hoped my boy had not been made too anxious. And then, as if a gate had been opened, all my other questions assaulted me. ‘Were there other Piebalds, beside Laudwine and Padget? I got the impression that Civil’s mother was very nearly living under siege. And there is a spy still, the one who took Thick to see Laudwine, Chade must –’

‘You must rest,’ she said firmly. ‘Others are dealing with all of that.’ She stood fluidly. It took only two steps to cross my tiny room. She blew out all the candles save one, and that one she removed from the holder. I became aware that my queen was in a nightrobe and wrapper. Her hair hung in a thick gold braid down her back.

‘It’s night,’ I said stupidly.

‘Yes. Very late at night. Go to sleep now, Fitz.’

‘What are you doing here so late at night?’

‘Watching you sleep.’

It didn’t make sense. She had deliberately wakened me. ‘But the milk and the bread?’

‘I had my page fetch them for me, telling him I could not sleep. Because, in truth, I could not. And then I brought them here, for you.’ She sounded almost defensive. ‘There is a good amidst all this evil that has befallen you. It has made me recall vividly just how much I owe you, and how much I value you.’ She looked down at me for a moment. ‘If I lost you,’ she said unwillingly, ‘I would lose the only one who knows the whole of my story. The only one who looks at me and knows all I went through with my king.’

‘But Starling was there. And Lord Golden.’

She shook her head. ‘Not for all of it. And neither of them loved him as we did.’ Then, candle in hand, she stooped and kissed my brow. ‘Go to sleep, FitzChivalry.’ And when she kissed my mouth, it was like a long drink of cool water, and I knew the kiss was not for me, but for the man we both had lost. ‘Rest and grow strong again,’ she admonished me, then rose and left by the secret doorway. She took the mug and the bowl with her, leaving behind no trace of herself save her lingering scent in the darkness. I sighed, and sank into a sleep that was deep, but almost normal.

TWENTY-ONE

Convalescence

The Witness Stones have stood on the cliffs near Buckkeep Castle for as long as Buckkeep Castle has existed, and likely for longer. Tall and black, the four Stones thrust up in a quadrangle from the rocky earth. Either time or the hands of men have obscured the markings that once graced each side of each standing Stone. The runes are unreadable now. The stone itself appears very similar to the black blocks of Buckkeep Castle, save for silvery threads that run like flaws through each pillar. No one knows whence came the tradition of calling the Stones to witness either a vow or the truth of what a man was saying. Sometimes combats are fought before the Stones, in the belief that invoking their presence will enable the fighter whose cause is just to prevail. Many superstitions are associated with the space at the centre of the four. Some say that a barren woman can conceive a child there; others, that there a woman can ask the Stones to take away that which grows in her womb.

Lady Clarine’s Customs of Buck Duchy

I rose from my sickbed the next day. In the blackness of my closed chamber, I walked the three steps to my clothing chest. Then I fell and could not find the strength to get up. I lay still, resolving not to call out for help but to wait until I could muster the energy to return to my bed. But almost immediately, the door to my room opened, admitting light and air and Lord Golden. He stood limned in the doorway and looked down on me with aristocratic disapproval. ‘Tom, Tom,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Must you always be so annoyingly stubborn? Back to your bed until Lord Chade says you are free of it.’

As always, the strength in his slender body surprised me. He did not help me to my feet but lifted me bodily and set me back on my bed. I groped for my blanket. He caught up the corner of one and flipped it over me. ‘I can’t just lie here for days and days,’ I complained.

Lord Golden looked amused. ‘I’d like to see you try to do anything else, for obviously you can’t. I’ll leave the door open so you have some light. Do you wish a candle as well?’

I shook my head slowly, chilled by his impersonal yet tolerantly kindly manner. He left me, but the door remained open. I could see the fire burning in his tidily-swept hearth. He resumed his seat at a small writing desk and took up his quill again. It scratched energetically over the paper.

In a short time, there was a tap at the door, and at his invitation to enter, his serving-boy came in bearing a breakfast tray. Char set it down on the table and carefully unloaded it. When he was finished, there remained several bowls and a mug on the tray. He picked it up and started towards my door but Lord Golden, without looking away from his writing, said, ‘Leave it on the table, Char.’ The boy left, and still Lord Golden scribbled. A short time later, there was another knock on the door. This time, the boy carried in buckets of water. A man with him had an armload of firewood. Lord Golden ignored them both as they went about their tasks. When they had both left, he sighed, stood up from his desk and went to the door and latched it. Then he spoke to me again.

‘Will you eat in your room or at the table, Tom?’

For answer, I sat up in my bed. There was a new blue woollen robe across the foot of my bed. I pulled it on over my head, and then stood up. The low bed made this more difficult than it should have been, and for a moment I stood still, my head reeling. Then I began my cautious walk to the table. I paused once in the doorway, clinging to the jamb as I caught my breath, then moved to the table. Lord Golden had already seated himself and was uncovering the dishes the boy had set out for him. After a moment, I lowered myself into the chair opposite him.

They had given me an invalid’s meal of broth and runny porridge and bread in milk. On Lord Golden’s side of the table, there were shirred eggs and sausages, bread and butter and preserves and everything else I desired. I knew a moment of irrational fury at him. Then I ate everything they had given me, and washed it down with a cup of lukewarm chamomile tea. Afterwards, I rose and went back to my bed. We had not exchanged a single word. After a time, boredom lulled me into sleep.

I awoke to low voices. ‘Then he is well enough to rise and eat?’ Chade asked.

‘Barely,’ Lord Golden replied. ‘Better to go slowly. He has no reserves of strength to call upon. Yet if you set tasks before him now, he will still –’

‘I’m awake!’ I called out. It came out as a croak. I cleared my throat and tried again. ‘Chade, I’m awake.’

He came quickly to the door of the room and smiled in at me. His white hair gleamed in shining curls and he seemed vital and energetic. He looked down with disdain at Kettricken’s cushion beside my bed. ‘Let me get a chair, boy, and I’ll sit and we’ll chat a bit. You’re looking much better.’

‘I can get up.’

‘Can you? Ah. Well, take my hand and up you come. No, let me help you, don’t be stubborn. Shall we sit by the fire?’

Thus he spoke to me, as if I were a trifle simple. I accepted it as his concern for me, and allowed him to support me as I walked. I lowered myself into one of the cushioned chairs before the hearth. He took the other with a sigh. I looked about for the Fool, but Lord Golden was busy at his desk again.

Chade smiled at me and stretched his feet out towards the fire. ‘I’m so glad to see you doing so well, Fitz. You gave us quite a scare. It took everything we could muster to pull you back.’

‘And that is something we need to talk about,’ I told him gravely.

‘Yes, but not just now. For now, you are to take things slowly and not tax yourself. Sleep and food are what you chiefly need.’

‘Real food,’ I stipulated firmly. ‘Meat. I won’t gain any strength on that pap they sent up this morning.’

His eyebrows rose. ‘Feeling crotchety, are we? Well, that’s to be expected. I’ll see you get meat at noon. All you had to do was tell us you were ready for it. After all, up until a few moments ago I hadn’t even heard you speak since we brought you home.’

It was unreasonable, but I felt my temper rise. Tears stung my eyes. I turned away from him, trying to master myself. What was wrong with me?

Chade spoke as if in answer to my thought. ‘Fitz. Boy. Don’t expect too much of yourself just yet. I’ve seen you through a number of hard times, and this was the worst yet. Give your mind time to recover, as well as your body.’

I took a breath to tell him I was fine. Instead I said, ‘I expected to die down there. Alone.’ And my discordant memories of my jail cell rushed back to fill me. I recalled both my terror and my despair, and felt anger that I had to bear those memories. They had left me there. Chade, the Fool, Kettricken, Dutiful – all of them.

‘I feared the same,’ Chade said quietly. ‘It was a hard time for all of us, but for you, worst of all. Still, if you had heeded me –’

‘Well, of course, it was all my own fault. It always is.’

Lord Golden spoke over his shoulder to Chade. ‘There’s no talking to him when he’s like this. You will only upset him more. Best to let it go for now.’

‘Be silent!’ I roared at him, but my voice cracked to a squeak on the second word.

Chade looked at me in wordless reproach and concern. I pulled my knees up to my chest so I was sitting in a ball in the chair. My breath was coming in shuddering gasps. I took a breath and wiped my sleeve across my eyes. I would not weep. They expected me to fall apart, but I would not. I had been ill, and I’d had a bad scare. That was all. I dragged in a steadying breath. ‘Just talk to me,’ I begged Chade. I unfolded my shaking legs and planted my feet on the floor again. I hated that such weakness had come over me. ‘Tell me what is happening, without making me ask all the stupid questions. Start with Civil.’

Chade heaved a sigh. ‘I don’t think this is wise.’ I began to protest but he held up his hand. ‘Nevertheless, I’ll let you have your way in this. Very well. Civil. He got to his horse and came back to Buckkeep Castle as swiftly as he could without drawing attention to himself. When he got to Dutiful, he could scarcely croak out a word for how he had been strangled. But he got it across that Lord Golden’s serving-man had rescued him from murderers in Buckkeep Town. That was as much as he told Dutiful, then. It was enough for the Prince to bring to me, and for me to set other feet running.’ He cleared his throat, and then admitted, ‘It took us longer than it should have to find you. I had not expected you to kill nor had I thought you would let the city guard take you alive. But when I knew you had been arrested and charged, I got a man into the cell with you as quickly as we could. Unfortunately, they had already had a healer see you, so I could not send in one of my own. The captain was very stubborn about releasing you. He was sure you’d killed those three men and some brawl you’d previously been involved in had marked you as a troublemaker in his eyes. Lord Golden had to complain of his missing jewels thrice before any of the guards thought to search Laudwine’s cottage and find them there. I’d already provided a witness that you hadn’t started the fight. That was as far along as I could nudge it. By the time the captain put together that you’d been defending your master’s property from thieves and released you to us, it was damn near too late.’

‘As far as you could nudge them,’ I said flatly. Alone and cold and dying. He’d ‘nudged’ them.

‘The Queen wanted to do more. She wanted simply to march her own guard down there and remove you from the cell. I couldn’t allow it, Fitz. For, yes, there were other Piebalds. The day after you killed Laudwine, there were scrolls posted in several places saying that Laudwine and Padget were Witted, and that agents of the Queen had killed both them and their Wit-beasts. And it mocked her avowed intent to end unjust persecution of the Witted. It warned any Old Blood not to be stupid enough to trust her and come to her Old Blood convocation. And it ended by saying that she and her minions would kill anyone who tried to speak the truth: that her own son was Witted.’ He paused a moment. ‘So you see now. I had to leave you there. I didn’t want to, Fitz. And I shouldn’t have to tell you that.’

I put my face down in my hands. Yes. I should have heeded Chade. I had precipitated this. ‘I suppose I should have let them kill Civil. And then run and reported the murder.’

‘That would have been one way,’ Chade agreed. ‘But I think it would have damaged your relationship with Dutiful, even if you had concealed that you could have prevented his friend’s death. And now, I think that is enough for today. Back to bed with you.’

‘No. Finish this, at least. What did you do about the scrolls accusing Dutiful?’

‘Do? Nothing, of course. We ignored them as ridiculous. And we took great care that there was no royal interest in Lord Golden’s serving-man confined in a cell. The city guard had their murderer. Let justice take its course. The posted accusations were ridiculous, a wild attempt by someone to smear the Prince’s good name. It was doubly ridiculous, in that the Prince still bore the deep scratches from his good friend’s hunting cat. Surely a coursing beast would not attack a Witted one. All know the power Witted have over animals. And so on. In time, it was shown that the dead men were no better than common thieves. There was nothing of the Wit in what had happened, and certainly no royal interference. Thieves had been killed by a good servant protecting his master’s property.’

‘So. The Wit accusation was why you had to leave me there to rot.’ I tried to put acceptance into my words. Part of me understood. Part of me hated him.

He winced at my choice of words, but nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Fitz. We had no choice.’

‘I know. And my own actions had brought it upon me.’ I tried to keep bitterness out of my voice and nearly succeeded. I was suddenly horribly tired, but there was more I needed to know. ‘And Civil?’

‘Once I discovered who was dead, I knew I had to question him. I squeezed it all out of him. And what had triggered his action also. His mother killed herself, Fitz. She had sent the lad a message, begging his forgiveness, but saying she could not go on as things were. That she could not live with what he must be doing to buy her safety, even when it was a false sanctuary where men assaulted her at will.’

The ugliness of what he implied sickened me. ‘Then Civil had meant to let them kill him.’

‘His mother was dead. I think he meant to kill them, not caring if he died in the attempt, but he didn’t even know how to begin. He was full of lofty ideals of duels and fair challenges. Laudwine never even gave him a chance to demand his right of combat.’

‘What now for Civil?’

Chade took a breath. ‘It’s complicated. Dutiful insisted on being with him while I questioned him. Civil is Dutiful’s man now, heart and soul. His prince defended him to me. If he must have a Witted one serving him, we have at least pulled that one’s teeth. The Prince is fully convinced, and I almost am, that the Bresingas acted under duress. If the Piebalds ever held any of Civil’s loyalty, his mother’s suicide and their previous treatment of her have purged it from him. He hates them more than we ever could. Lady Bresinga was pressured into presenting the cat to the Prince, under threat that the Piebalds would betray her son and herself as Witted. But once she had done so, she was completely within their power. She was not only Witted; she had committed a treasonous act against the Prince. The Piebalds separated them, mother from son. Civil was sent to Buckkeep. They ordered him to maintain his friendship with Dutiful, to draw him deeper into the Wit, and to spy for them. If he did so, they promised his mother would be safe. His mother’s home, Galekeep, became her prison. The Piebalds swiftly became greedy. First, it was her home, her wine cellar, her wealth. If she did not accommodate them, they threatened her son. Eventually, some of the men evidently availed themselves of the lady herself. She could not live with that. I think they misjudged her strength of will, and that of her son.’

It was an ugly, sobering story. But I did not let my mind dwell on it. I had more immediate concerns. ‘What of Henja? Did the Prince tell you that I saw her?’

His face grew more grave. ‘He did. But … is it possible you were mistaken? For my spies in town have heard not a whisper of her.’

I forced myself to consider the memory of that glimpse. ‘I was hurt and it was dark. But … I do not think I was mistaken. And I believe she was the woman who was there when Thick was. She offered gold to Padget and Laudwine for the Fool and me … I think. It was hard to decide what she was trying to buy from them. Laudwine didn’t like her. She seems to be involved in all of this somehow.’

Chade lifted a hand, palm up. ‘If she is, she has covered her tracks well. There is no sign of her in Buckkeep Town that I can discover.’

That was small comfort. His spies had not found Laudwine either. I kept that complaint to myself.

‘We still have a Piebald spy here in Buckkeep. The man who led Thick to Laudwine.’

Chade’s voice was neutral. ‘Civil’s groom met with a most unfortunate accident. He was found dead in a stud horse’s stall, kicked to death. Why he would have gone into the stall at all is a mystery.’

I nodded. Another thread tied off. ‘And Civil’s mother and his holdings?’

Chade looked away from me. ‘The tragic news reached us the day after you were taken prisoner. Lady Bresinga died of food poisoning. A number of her guests and servants died with her. It was horribly sad, but not the least bit shameful or scandalous. Her body was discovered first, but over the next few days, others sickened and swiftly died. Tainted fish is what I heard. Lady Bresinga’s body was sent to her mother’s home for burial. Civil is attending to that sad duty. Prince Dutiful sent his own honour guard with him as a token of the high esteem he holds him in. Civil understands that when the details have been settled, he will return to Buckkeep, to remain at the castle until he reaches his majority. Galekeep will be shuttered, though our Lady Queen has lent Civil staff and a steward to maintain the place in his absence.’

I nodded slowly. The Prince might call Civil friend, but he would be Chade’s well-kept and pampered prisoner for the next few years. It was an apt solution. He could perceive it as protection or as a cage. All had been neatly managed. I wondered if Lady Rosemary had found a sudden reason to visit her friend at Galekeep, or if the spy that Chade had in place there had done the poisoning. It would have been difficult for Rosemary to travel, burned as she was. Then I suddenly turned to look at Chade. He met my scrutiny with a puzzled expression. I leaned forward suddenly and before he could draw back, touched his cheek. No paint came off on my fingers. Sound, pink flesh. No trace of healing burns.

‘Oh, Chade,’ I rebuked him, and my voice shook with shock. ‘Have a care, man! You charge in blindly and none of us know the cost. None of us.’

He allowed himself a smile. ‘I care little for the cost, when I know the benefit so well already. My burns are healed. For the first time in years, I walk with no pains in my knees and hips. I sleep free of pain at night. I even see more clearly.’

‘You are not doing this alone.’

He looked at me, refusing to answer, and I knew the answer.

‘You’ve been tapping Thick’s strength,’ I accused him in a low voice.

‘He doesn’t mind.’

‘You don’t know the dangers. He doesn’t understand the risks.’

‘And neither do you!’ he replied sharply. ‘Fitz, there are times to be cautious and times to be bold. The time has come for us to take these risks. We need to discover all the Skill can truly do. When the Prince goes on his quest to slay Icefyre, you will go with him. And you must know the Skill’s powers by then, and must be capable of wielding them. This,’ and he slapped his chest soundly, ‘This is a miracle and a wonder. If we had had this at our disposal when Shrewd was ill, he never would have died. Think what that would have meant!’

‘Yes, think,’ I rejoined. ‘Think of Shrewd, alive still and ruling here. Then ask yourself, why isn’t that so? For he was not trained by Galen. Solicity was his Skillmistress. Can not we assume that he knew far more of the Skill than we do? Perhaps even how to prolong his life? So then, let us ask, why did he not do it? Why did not Solicity herself do it? Did they know that there was a price attached to that, a price too high to pay?’

‘Or did he merely lack a coterie to assist him in his efforts?’ Chade countered.

‘He could have used Galen’s Coterie, if that was the case.’

‘Pah! You don’t know that, and neither do I. Why must you be so pessimistic? Why must you always assume the worst?’

‘Maybe I learned caution from a wise old man. One who is now behaving foolishly.’

Chade’s cheeks flushed pink. Anger lit his eyes. ‘You are not yourself. Or, perhaps it is even worse than that. You are yourself. Listen to me, you whelp. I watched my brother die. I watched King Shrewd dwindle, and I was beside him in the days when he did not know that his mind wandered, and I was beside him in the days when he was cognizant of the weakness of his body and his mind, and shamed to tears by it. I do not know which days were worse to witness. If he had had the Skill to change that, he would have done it, no matter the cost. This is Skill-knowledge that was lost to us. I intend to regain it. And to use it.’

I think he expected me to roar back at him. I half-expected myself to, and perhaps I would have if I had not felt such a combination of weakness, despair and fear. Chade had frightened me badly when his health and mind were failing and I feared we might lose his wealth of information and connections. Now, health-filled and bright-eyed, with ambition burning in him, he terrified me. I had known this side of Chade existed, known that he had always hungered to master the Skill. I had never known I’d have to confront that appetite. I took two deep breaths and spoke quietly. ‘Is that decision yours to make?’

A frown furrowed his brows. ‘What do you mean? Who else should make it?’

‘The Skillmaster, perhaps, should say how the Skill is applied at Buckkeep. Especially among inexperienced students.’ I met his gaze sternly. In truth, he was the one who had pushed me into accepting the responsibility of the position. I wondered if he winced now at how his own stubbornness in this had turned to bite him.

He was incredulous. ‘You’re saying you’d forbid me this? And expect me to obey you?’ Hands on his knees, he leaned forward in his chair to confront me.

I did not want to meet him head-on in a clash of wills. I had not the strength just now. I turned the question. ‘There was another Farseer who tried to use the Skill to his own ends. He himself was neither strong nor talented with the Skill, but he used the strength of his coterie to gain his ends. He used them ruthlessly, regardless of what it did to them, how it drained them or twisted their own wills. Will you become another Regal?’

‘I am nothing like Regal!’ Chade spat at me. ‘For one thing, his interest was all for himself. You know that I have spent my entire life labouring tirelessly for the Farseer reign. And for another difference, I will develop my own Skill. I will not long be dependent on another’s strength.’

‘Chade.’ My voice came out in a cracked whisper. I cleared my throat, but still spoke weakly. ‘Perhaps you will develop your own Skill. But not if you go on as you have, experimenting alone, taking chances with yourself, and now risking Thick, who has no concept of the danger you may represent.’ I wasn’t sure he was listening to me. He was staring past me, his green eyes going far. I spoke on anyway, hearing my own voice failing and starting to rasp. ‘You need to learn the dangers of the magic, Chade, before you wade into it and start using it for your own ends. The Skill is not a toy, nor is it something that any user should employ solely for his own benefit.’

‘It wasn’t fair!’ Chade protested suddenly. ‘They denied me the teaching, the teaching that I should have had. I was as much a Farseer as Shrewd. I should have been taught.’

I was tiring rapidly. I had to win this, or at least fight him to a draw before I collapsed back into my bed. ‘No. It wasn’t fair,’ I agreed. ‘But using Thick as your crutch and tool is not fair either. Nor will it replace the proper teaching you should have had. That you must get for yourself. Thick is strong with the Skill, and has no concept of what dangers that may present to him. Nor has he the will to resist you using his magic for your own purposes. He will not warn you when you are taking too much from him, and you will not know you have taken it until it is too late. It is wrong of you to tap his strength as if he were a bullock hitched to your cart. He may be simple, but in Skill at least he is our equal. He’s a member of our coterie. As such you should be brothers, regardless of your varying abilities.’

‘Coterie?’ The slack-jawed look of astonishment on Chade’s face suddenly made me realize that he had not seen what was obvious to me.

‘Coterie,’ I repeated. ‘You. Me. Dutiful. The Fool. And Thick.’ I paused, waiting for him to say something. Instead, I heard the soft sound of the Fool’s chair being pushed back from his desk. And the even quieter sounds of his feet as he crossed the room to stand near us. I wondered what expression he wore, but I didn’t look away from Chade’s gaze. When he continued to bet, I reminded him, ‘Chade. I was there. I was not in full possession of myself, I know, but I would have had to be dead to have been unaware of what happened to me. What you all united to do to me. Didn’t you understand that that was how a coterie functioned? The pooling of strength and abilities to achieve some goal. That was what you did. Thick’s strength. Your knowledge of a man’s internal structure. Dutiful’s control and purpose. And the Fool’s link to me. All were necessary to do what you did. And can do again, if needed. Dutiful has his coterie. Not much of one, in many ways, but a coterie, nonetheless. But only if we function as one. If you lead Thick astray, to use him as your personal reservoir of strength, you’ll destroy us before we find our potential.’

I halted. My mouth was dry, and I’d run out of breath. At any other time, I would have been horrified to discover how weak I was. At the moment, I could not afford to spare it a thought. I felt I had come to a balancing point with the old man. For so many years, he had been my mentor and guide. As his apprentice, I had seldom questioned his wisdom or his ways; I had always been certain that he knew what was best. Yet, since summer, I had seen that his bright mind was failing and his memory not as tightly taloned as once it had been. But worse for both of us, I had begun to consider his decisions and even his thought processes from a man’s perspective. I was no longer willing to concede to him that he knew best in everything. And when I applied the perspective of my thirty-odd years to the decisions he had made for me and for the Farseers in the past, I was not sure that I agreed with them any longer. Now that I could see his wisdom was not absolute, I felt more justified in demanding that he recognize there were areas in which I knew more than he did. It was a strange equality I sought to claim, one that did not assert I knew as much as he did, but rather that, although he was still wiser than I in many things, there were areas in which he must give way to me.

For so long he had been my mentor and above question. Now it was hard for both of us that I saw him as a man. I hated that I had become aware of his flaws. I never wanted to be the one to hold a mirror to him and point them out. I had to admit to myself, difficult as it was, that he had always been ambitious and eager for power. Limited by politics in his quest for his magic, scarred by an accident that doomed him to working unseen, he had still become a powerful force. It was his will that had sustained the Farseer throne in the days when King Shrewd was failing and his two remaining sons vied for his throne. It had been Chade’s network of spies and servants who had assisted Queen Kettricken in retaining her power until her son could come of age. He was close now, so close, to putting another Farseer-born heir on the throne.

Yet I could look at him and see that these successes would not be enough for him. He would not count any achievement a true victory until he had acquired for himself the things he had always hungered for. Power he had now, and the trappings that went with it. He could openly wield it, and folk accepted it as his right as the Queen’s Councillor. Yet within the esteemed advisor there still lurked the deprived bastard, the disinherited child. No triumph would ever be enough for him until he mastered the Skill, yes, and let others know that he had mastered it.

I feared he would undermine all else he had engineered in attaining that one goal. His determination could blind him. And so I watched him as he weighed my words and thought his own thoughts about them. I studied him as I waited. He could not reverse the march of the years. Not even the Skill could make him young again. But perhaps, as Kettle had done, he could halt the progression of ageing, and repair the damage it had done to him. His hair was as white, the lines in his face graven as deep. But the knobbiness of his knuckles had subsided, and his cheeks were flushed with robust health. The whites of his eyes were clear.

As I watched him, I saw him come to a decision. And my heart sank as he rose hastily, for in his rush to leave I saw his desire to end the conversation. ‘You are not well yet, Fitz,’ he said as he stood. ‘It will be days until you are strong enough to continue teaching Dutiful and Thick what you know of the Skill. And those days represent time I am not willing to waste. Therefore, while you are recuperating, I will continue my own explorations of the Skill. I will be circumspect, I promise you. I will risk no one except myself. But having begun this, having felt the first touch of what it can mean to me, I will not draw back. I will not.’

He started towards the door. I drew a ragged breath. I was very nearly at the end of my strength. ‘Don’t you understand, Chade? What you feel is the pull all students of the Skill are warned against! You venture into the Skill-current at your peril. If we lose you, the strength of the whole coterie is diminished. If you take Thick with you, the coterie is destroyed entirely.’

His hand was on the latch. He did not turn to look back at me. ‘You need your rest, Fitz, not to work yourself up like this. When you are feeling better, then we will discuss this again. You know I am a cautious man. Trust me in this.’ And then he was gone, closing the door behind him. He moved swiftly, like a child hurrying out of the room to escape a scolding. Or a man fleeing a truth he did not want to hear.

I sagged back into the chair. My throat and mouth were dry, my head pounding. I lifted my hands to shut out the light from my eyes. Into that small darkness, I asked, ‘Have you ever suddenly realized that there was someone you loved, but presently did not like very much?’

‘Strange you should ask me that,’ the Fool observed dryly from close behind me. Then I heard him walk away.

I must have fallen asleep there. When I awoke, it was afternoon, and I ached from my cramped position in the chair. There was a tray of food on a table beside the chair. Even covered, it had gone cold. Fat was congealed in little floating lumps on top of the broth. There was meat, but it had gone cold. After two bites, the chewing of it wearied me. I forced myself to finish it, but felt that it sat like a lump in my stomach. They had given me watered wine, and bread in milk again as well. I didn’t want it, yet could not have said what I did want. I forced myself to eat it.

The terrible weakness that was on me made me feel childishly weepy. I tottered back to my room. I wanted to wash my face to see if I could rouse myself from my lethargy. There was water in the pitcher, and a cloth to dry on, but my looking-glass was gone, probably tidied away when Kettricken changed my room. I washed, but felt no livelier for it. I went back to bed.

Two more days passed in the same haze of weakness and lassitude. I ate and I slept, but my strength seemed terribly slow to return. Chade did not visit me. I was not surprised at that, but Dutiful did not come either. Had Chade ordered him to stay away from me? Lord Golden had little to say to me, and turned my visitors away with the warning that I was still not well enough to see them. Twice I heard Hap’s anxious tones, and once I heard Starling. I had no energy to move, but the inactivity made me ache. I lay alone in my bed, or sat on the chair near the fireside. I was both worried and bored. I thought about the Skill-scrolls up in Chade’s old chamber, but the challenge of all the stairs daunted me. Nor could I bring myself to ask that favour of the Fool. It was not just that he never ventured forth from Lord Golden’s façade. It was that we were both mired into coolly and correctly ignoring one another. It could only make our quarrel worse, and yet I could not bend enough to try any other way. It seemed to me I had already made enough efforts to mend things and been rebuffed by him. I wanted him to show some sign of wishing to make things right between us. But he did not. So two slow days of misery trickled past.

The next day I arose determined to put myself to rights. Perhaps if I stood and moved about as if I were healthy, I would begin to feel so. I began by washing myself, and then decided I would shave. The accumulation of whiskers was approaching a fair beard. I walked slowly to the door of my chamber and looked round. Lord Golden sat at the table, inspecting a dozen silk kerchiefs in different shades of yellow and orange and trying them against one another. I cleared my throat. He did not move. Very well, then.

‘Lord Golden, pardon me if I disturb you. I seem to have misplaced my shaving mirror. Could I perhaps borrow one?’

He did not look round. ‘Do you think that’s wise?’

‘Borrowing a mirror? Shaving without one strikes me as less wise.’

‘I meant, do you think it’s wise to shave?’

‘I think I’m past due for it.’

‘Very well, then. It’s your choice.’ His tone was neutral and chill, as if I did a risky thing and he wanted no part in it. He went to his room, and returned shortly with his own elaborate silver-framed hand-mirror.

I held it up, dreading what it would show me of my wasted face. The shock of my appearance numbed me; I dropped the mirror. Only good fortune decreed that it did not break when it fell to the rug. I have fainted from pain before, but never, I think, from pure surprise. As it was, I did not lose consciousness completely, but crumpled to sit in a heap on the floor.

‘Tom?’ Lord Golden asked in annoyance and surprise.

I had no attention for him. I slid the mirror across the rug to me and stared down into it. Then I touched my face. The scar I had borne for so long was gone. My nose was not precisely straight, but the long-ago break was far less evident. I thrust my hands inside my robe and felt my back. The sword-wound was gone, yes, but gone also was the ancient, pulling scar the festered arrowhead had left in my back. I inspected the place where my neck met my shoulder. Years ago, a Forged one had bitten a chunk from me there, leaving a puckered scar. The flesh was smooth.

I looked up to find Lord Golden regarding me with consternation.

‘Why?’ I asked him wildly. ‘Why, in Eda’s name, did you do this to me? All will mark this change in me. How will I explain it?’

He came a step closer. There was confusion in his eyes. Lord Golden spoke reluctantly. ‘But Tom Badgerlock, we did nothing to you.’ I do not know what my face looked like at his words but he recoiled from me. In a neutral voice, he continued, ‘Truly, we did not do this to you. We worked to close the wound in your back and to clean your blood of poisons. When I saw your other scar start to pucker and then to expulse bits of flesh, I cried out to them we had to stop. But even after we dropped hands and stepped back from you …’

I tried to remember that moment, and could not. ‘Perhaps what you set in motion, my body and Skill continued. I don’t recall.’

He covered his mouth with a hand as he stood looking down on me. ‘Chade –’ He hesitated, then forced himself to go on. His voice was nearly the Fool’s. ‘I think Lord Chade felt … I should not surmise what he felt. Only I think he believes you knew how to do this, and that you kept it a secret from him.’

‘Eda and El in a tangle,’ I groaned. Chade was right. I never had been good at discerning what people felt unless they told me directly. I had sensed there was some knot between us, but this was the last thing I’d expected. Even if I’d known my body had been cleared of scars, I would not have suspected that Chade would feel slighted over some imagined secret. That was what was behind his huffy retreat; his resolution was that he would continue to discover whatever I’d concealed from him. I gathered my legs under me and stood without assistance. Not that Lord Golden had offered me any. I proffered the mirror to him and turned back to my room.

‘So. Changed your mind about shaving, Badgerlock?’ Lord Golden asked me.

‘For now, yes. I’m going up to Chade’s old chamber. If you could let him know that I’d like to see him there, I’d be appreciative.’ I spoke to him as if he were the Fool. I didn’t expect a reply and I didn’t get one.

I simply had no strength. I stopped to rest so many times on the stairs that I thought my candle would burn out and leave me in darkness. When I did reach the chamber, I had lost all ambition. At the door, the ferret leaped out to challenge me. Gilly did a wild dance, inviting me to battle for the territory. ‘You can have it,’ I told him. ‘You’d probably win anyway.’ Ignoring his rushes at my feet, I went and sat on the edge of the bed, then lay down and almost immediately fell asleep. I think I slept for a long time.

When I awoke, the ferret was sleeping under my chin. The moment I stirred, Gilly fled. It was plain someone had come and gone. It disturbed me that I could sleep through that; when I had been bonded to my wolf, his mind had always kept watch through my senses. He would have wakened me as soon as he perceived I was hearing an intruder. I had grown too dependent on those wild senses, I decided as I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. I had grown too dependent on everything and everyone.

There were dishes and a bottle of wine on the cleared end of the table. A pot of soup had been left warming at the edge of the hearth, and the wood had been replenished for the fire. I got up and went directly to the food. I ate and drank and waited. And while I waited, I perused the scrolls that had been left out for me. There was a report from someone about Icefyre and Outislander dragons. Another spy report on doings in Bingtown and their war with Chalced. An old scroll that showed a sketch of the muscles in a man’s back had been updated. The details and notes were in Chade’s hand. Well, at least my journey through death’s jaws had provided new knowledge. Beside that scroll were three more, bundled together. Tattered and faded they were, and all in the same hand. It was a set of Skill-exercises, designed specifically for the Solo. I scowled at that, wondering what they meant. A few minutes of reading enlightened me. These were exercises for the Skill-practitioner who had no coterie. It had never occurred to me before that there would be such, but when I thought about it, I saw it must be so. I had become one, hadn’t I? There had always been people who had been socially inept, or simply preferred solitude. When coteries were formed, it would be likely there would be some excluded. These exercises were for ones such as those.

In reading it, I found it likely that they had most often been used as spies or healers. The exercises in the first scroll seemed to focus especially on subtle uses of the Skill either to listen in or implant suggestions in someone’s thoughts. The second scroll dealt with repairing another’s body. This fascinated me, not just because I had recently undergone it, but because it confirmed a thing I had suspected. What a man started with the Skill and his will, the body often took over. The body understood healing. Yet it also understood that sometimes hasty repairs were more important than perfect ones, that closing the wound might be more important than smooth skin afterwards. So the scroll put it. The body understood conserving one’s strength and reserves against tomorrow’s needs. The scroll cautioned Skill-users to be wary of ignoring the body’s own tendencies, and to be circumspect with how ardently they pursued a repair. I wondered if Chade had read that part.

The third scroll dealt with maintaining one’s own body. On this last scroll, the clear notes in Chade’s hand contrasted strongly with the faded old inking. It chronicled his early failed efforts as well as his recent successes. This was what he had wanted me to see; these notes were why he had left it out. He wished me to know that ever since the Skill-scrolls had come into his possession, he had been trying and failing to repair his own body. He had been successful only since he had witnessed the healing of mine, and discovered that he could tap Thick’s Skill-talent to supplement his faltering and groping efforts.

I read the diary of his frustration, and knew the fear that had accompanied it. I knew only too well what it was to live within a damaged body. And in witnessing Nighteyes’ decline, I had tasted what it must be to grow old. Chade had resumed a normal life only in the last decade. He had spent his prime sequestered here, in this room, working from the shadows and in disguise. How bitter would it be to emerge into a world of people and music, dancing and conversation and, yes, power and the wealth to enjoy it, only to have one’s declining body threaten to take it all away again? I could not blame him for what he had done, despite the risks he had taken. I understood it only too well. I dreaded the day when I would have to face such a decision, for I feared I would decide the same.

I read carefully, several times, the scroll that had to do with repairs to the body using the Skill. It told me much that was useful, but not all I needed to know. I knew with sad certainty why Chade had held these scrolls back from me. If I had seen them, I would have known that he was pursuing a lone quest to master the Skill. And he had obviously begun it years before I had been enticed to return to Buckkeep.

I leaned back in my chair and tried to put myself in the old man’s place. What had he imagined, what had he dreamed? I pushed myself back through the years. The war with the Red Ships has finally ended. The raiders have been driven back by the Six Duchies dragons. Peace has returned to the land, the Queen is gravid with the Farseer heir, Regal has not only returned the missing library of Skill-scrolls, but has conveniently died after renewing his loyalty to the crown. And Chade, after so many years spent in the shadows, can emerge as the Queen’s trusted councillor. He can move freely about Buckkeep, enjoying food and drink and the companionship of the nobility. What is there left for him to desire? Only that which had been denied to him so many years ago.

The Skill was not taught to royal bastards, even if they had the aptitude for it. Some kings ruthlessly administered elfbark to illegitimate youngsters, to kill the Skill-ability in them. I did not doubt that other Farseer monarchs had saved time and simply killed the bastards. I had only been taught the Skill because both Lady Patience and Chade had pleaded on my behalf. Even then, if the need for a coterie had not been so desperate, I am sure King Shrewd would have refused me.

Chade had never been taught. And in the ways that boys do, I had always simply accepted that piece of knowledge about my master. I had never asked him, ‘Were you ever tested for Skill-ability? Did you ask to be taught and were refused, or did you never even ask?’ I had never asked for the details. Yet I knew that he had longed for that forbidden knowledge. I knew it in how ardently he had pursued it for me, and how badly he had hoped that I would succeed at it. My failure to master the magic had smarted as keenly for him as it had for me.

Yet I had never, until now, considered what these factors might mean when those scrolls came into his hands. Ever since he had come to my cottage, I had known that he had been reading the scrolls. Knowing Chade, I should have known that with or without a teacher, he would try to master what he read there. I should have offered to teach him what I knew. Every time he had brought up the question of Skill-candidates, had he secretly hoped I would look at him? And why hadn’t I ever seriously considered the idea? Oh, yes, once I had thrown it out, as a man throws a bone to a hungry dog to appease it. But I had not truly considered him capable of learning it. Why not?

I had more questions about myself than I did about Chade. While I was pondering them, I heated water and found his looking-glass. In Chade’s assassin’s armoury were any number of knives sharp enough to shave with. I made a credible job of it, taking my time and watching my unscathed face emerge. I was sitting at the table, looking at myself in the mirror when Chade entered. I didn’t wait for him to speak.

‘I didn’t realize that my old scars were gone. I think the coterie started the wheels turning, and after that my healing was like a runaway cart on a steep street. It just kept going on its own. I don’t even really know how it was done.’

He spoke as humbly as I did. ‘So Lord Golden managed to convey to me.’ Then he came closer. When he stood over me, he studied my face, cocking his head to one side. When I looked up at him, he smiled reminiscently. ‘Oh, my boy. You do look like your father. Far too much for our purposes now. You should not have shaved; the beard at least covered some of the changes in your face. Now you must wait until it grows back enough to disguise how much you’ve changed before you can go about the keep again.’

I shook my head. ‘It wouldn’t do, Chade. Not even a heavy beard would be enough.’ I took a long final look at myself as I might have been. Then I laughed and pushed the mirror away. ‘Come sit down. We both know what must be done. I’ve read your scrolls, but they don’t seem to apply. In this effort tonight, we are going to have to feel our way.’

We did not work well together. I think by nature we were both Solos, and yet we would have to learn to function together as part of Dutiful’s Coterie. And so we made a number of false starts, and irritably blamed Galen’s fogging of me and my use of elfbark and those short-sighted folk who had not trained Chade when he was a boy. But at length, the Skill flowed hesitantly between us, and as I so often had before, I trusted myself to his long-fingered hands. I fed him strength and the Skill itself, for his ability was as yet only a sporadic trickling of the magic. Chade’s knowledge of how a man’s body was put together combined with my own body’s awareness of itself to guide what we did. In some ways it was a more difficult task than my healing had been, for each piece had to be done separately, and in defiance of what my body felt was correct. But we prevailed.

And when we had finished, I took up the mirror again. My new scar was less noticeable than the old one, and my nose not quite as crooked. But it would suffice. The marks were there. As were the old bite scar on my neck, the scar from the arrowhead near my spine, and a new web of scarring where the sword-wound should have been. These new scars were easier to tolerate than the old ones, for we involved only the skin and did not anchor them to the muscles underneath. Still, they pulled irritatingly. I knew I’d eventually get used to them. It was Chade who noticed that my ‘badgerlock’ was now growing in dark at the roots. He shook his head over that. ‘I’ve no idea how to change that. Nothing in the scrolls mentions a change in the colour of hair. Dye the whole shock of white hair black is my advice. Let that change be obvious. Folk will think you’ve become vain. Vanity is easy to explain.’

I nodded and set the mirror down. ‘But later. Right now, I’m exhausted,’ I said, and spoke the simple truth.

He looked at me oddly. ‘And your headache?’

I frowned and lifted a hand to my brow. ‘Is no worse than an ordinary headache, despite all the Skilling we’ve done tonight. Perhaps you were right. Perhaps it only took getting used to.’

He shook his head slowly and came around the table to set his hands to my skull. ‘Here,’ he said, tracing the now non-existent scar that had birthed my badgerlock of white hair. ‘And here.’ He prodded an area near my eye-socket.

I winced from habit, then sat still. ‘It doesn’t hurt. My head always hurt, when I combed my hair, and my face always ached if I was long in the cold. I never thought about it before.’

‘I’d date the injury by your eye to when Galen tried to kill you on the tower top. In the Queen’s garden, when you were his student. Burrich said you nearly lost the vision in that eye. Have you forgotten the beating he gave you?’

I shook my head silently.

‘Neither had your body. I’ve seen you from the inside out, Fitz. Seen the damage done to your skull in Regal’s dungeons, and other long-healed fractures in your face and spine. The Skill-healing seems to have put right a lot of old damage. It interests me that you do not have a headache after Skilling. It will interest me even more if you cease having to fear seizures.’

He left my side and went to his scroll-rack. He returned with a copy of that most horrific of books, Man’s Flesh by Verdad the Flayer. It was a beautifully-made thing, layers of paper bound between carved covers of hinkwood, and still smelled of its inks. Obviously this copy had been recently created. That corrupt and ruthless Jamaillian priest had flayed and dismembered bodies for years in a monastery in that distant land, but when his depravity was discovered, his notoriety spread even as far as the Six Duchies. I had heard of this treatise, but never before seen a copy.

‘Where did this come from?’ I asked in surprise.

‘Some years ago, I sent for it. It took me two years to find one. And the text is obviously corrupted. Verdad never referred to himself as “the flayer” as this manuscript does. And I doubt that he rejoiced in the smell of rotting flesh, as this claims he did. No, I sought it out for the copies of his illustrations, not the words others have added.’

Chade opened it reverently and set it before me. As he had bidden me, I ignored the ornate Jamaillian lettering and focused instead on the detailed depictions of the interiors of bodies. As a boy, I had seen the sketches that Chade had made, and those he had from his master before him, but they had been crude things compared to these. Charts that show the most swiftly lethal places to thrust a dagger are not to be compared with a map of a man’s exposed vitals. The colours were very true. It was strange to look at them and find myself reminded of the steaming entrails of a gutted deer. How can I explain how vulnerable I suddenly felt? All these soft structures, deep red and glistening grey, gleaming liver and intricately coiled intestines fit so precisely inside my body. Then Laudwine had thrust a sword blade through my back and into them. Without thinking, I set a hand to the false sword scar on my lower back. No ribs had shielded me there, only overlapping strands of muscle. Chade saw the gesture. ‘Now you see why I feared so for you. From the start, I suspected that only the Skill could restore you to health.’

‘Close it, please,’ I said, and turned away from his treasured book, feeling ill. He ignored me, turning a page to yet another drawing. This was of a hand, skin and muscle pulled aside and pinned to show the bone and hinges.

‘I studied this before I tried to repair my hands. I do not think his drawings are precisely correct, and yet I feel they were helpful to me. Who would have imagined there were so many individual bones in a man’s hands and fingers?’ Then he finally glanced up and, becoming aware of my discomfort, closed the tome. ‘When you are better recovered, I recommend you study this, Fitz. I think perhaps every Skilled one should.’

‘Even Thick?’ I asked wryly.

He surprised me by lifting a shoulder. ‘It would not hurt to show it to him. Sometimes he is capable of very fixed thought, Fitz. Who knows how much he retains in that misshapen skull?’

This brought a new thought to me. ‘Misshapen. Do you think, then, that the Skill might be used on Thick? To repair what is wrong and make him normal?’

Chade shook his head slowly. ‘“Different” is not “wrong”, Fitz. Thick’s body recognizes itself as correct. His differences are no more to him than … well, here I am guessing, but I suspect that just as one man is tall and another is short, so it is with Thick. His body grew to some plan of its own. Thick is what he is. Perhaps we should just be grateful that we have him, even if he is different.’

‘You have been investigating this most thoroughly, then.’ I tried to keep condemnation from my voice.

‘You cannot imagine what this is like for me, Fitz,’ he affirmed quietly. ‘It is as if a cell door has opened and I am allowed to walk free in the world. I am dazzled by all that I see. A blade of grass is as wonderful to such a freed prisoner as is the wide spread of a valley. I resent everything that calls me away from this exploration. I do not want to sleep or pause for meals. It is difficult for me to force my mind to the Queen’s business. What do I care of Bingtown Traders and dragons and Narcheskas? The Skill has seized my imagination and my heart. Exploring it is all I truly want to do.’

My heart sank. I recognized Chade’s obsession for what it was. Often and often had I seen him go through such fevers of fascination. Once his mind seized on an area of study, he would pursue it until he grasped it thoroughly. Or until another frenzy stole his attention away. ‘So.’ I attempted to speak lightly. ‘Does this mean you will set aside your explosive experiments for a time?’

For an instant, he looked puzzled, as if he had completely forgotten. Then, ‘Oh. That. I think I’ve discovered what I was attempting to discern about that. There are ways it may be useful, but it is too difficult to regulate to rely upon it.’ He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. ‘I have set it aside. This is far more important for me to grasp now.’

‘Chade.’ I spoke quietly. ‘You must not venture alone into this. Even more, you must not draw Thick in after you. I hope you can see now that I speak for concern for you, not to hold you back from any selfish secret of mine.’ I took a breath. ‘You need a foundation. When I have my strength back, when Dutiful and Thick and I resume studying together, you must come to the tower with us.’

He was silent for a time, studying me. ‘And Lord Golden?’ He cocked his head at me. ‘You did say before that he, too, was a member of this coterie.’

‘Did I?’ I feigned confusion for a moment. ‘Oh. He was there, at my healing. And I thought I felt … do you think he truly contributed to my healing?’

Chade looked at me oddly. ‘Don’t you think you would be a better judge of that than I? You told me he did, but a day ago.’

I looked at my strange but strong reluctance to bring the Fool into our Skill-lessons. He would not come anyway, I told myself, and then wondered if I were right. ‘I could tell he was there, but I could not tell what he was doing,’ I amended.

Chade’s manner was grave. ‘Guiding us, I thought. He said he had been part of something similar once, when Nighteyes was stricken.’ He paused, then said without inflection, ‘He knows you well. I think that was what he contributed most. He knows you well and he seemed to know … a way into you.’ He sighed. ‘Fitz, you have already admitted as much.’

‘He was there when I used both the Wit and the Skill to heal the wolf. But he did not help with the healing. He helped me recover myself afterwards.’ Then I stopped. After a time, I said, ‘The reticence and secrecy. Does it become a habit? I swear, Chade, I don’t know why … Damn this. Yes. The Fool and I have a Skill-bond. Thin but there, a remnant from when he first got the Skill on his fingers when he touched Verity and then me. And when he used it to pull me back to my body, it grew stronger. I suspect that if I considered it, I would find it stronger still since this healing. I rather doubt that he has any true Skill of his own. Only what is on his fingers, and perhaps his bond can only be with me.’

Chade smiled almost guiltily. ‘Well. A double relief. To hear you speak truth to me, and to let me know that … well. I’ve known the Fool a long time. I value him. But there is still about him a strangeness, even when he masquerades as Lord Golden, that can make me uneasy at times. He knows too much, it sometimes seems, and at other times, I wonder if the things that matter to us concern him at all. Now that I have experienced the Skill a bit, and realized how open it makes us to one another … well. As you say, reticence and secrecy become a habit. A habit we both must preserve if we are to live. I am as reluctant to make the Fool privy to all my secrets as I am to share his.’

His honesty jolted me, and his opinion confounded me. And yet, he was right. It felt good to know there was honesty between us. ‘I will speak to Lord Golden myself about what place he holds in our coterie,’ I said. ‘Much depends on what he is willing to do. No one can be forced to aid us.’

‘Yes. And patch this foolish quarrel between you at the same time. Being in the same room with you two is as comfortable as standing between two snarling dogs. Who knows who will get bitten when they finally decide to rush one another?’

I ignored that. ‘And you will join us in the Skill-tower for our lessons?’

‘I will.’

I waited, then decided that this, too, was a thing that must be spoken openly. ‘And your private Skill-experiments?’

‘They will go on,’ he said quietly. ‘As they must. Fitz, you know me. And you know the pattern of my years. Always I have learned alone and quietly, and always when I discovered a thread of learning that I felt I must possess, I pursued it ardently. Do not ask me to change that now. I cannot.’

And I truly believe he spoke the truth there, also. I sighed heavily, but did not dare try to forbid it to him. ‘Go carefully then, my friend. Go very carefully. The currents are strong and the footing treacherous. If you are ever swept away …’

‘I’ll be careful,’ he said. And then he left me, and I crawled into the bed that was now more mine than his, and dropped into a deep, dreamless sleep.

TWENTY-TWO

Connections

Your estimation of the funds needed for this journey has fallen far short of the reality, nor would I have undertaken this inquiry if I had fully known about the foul weather, foul food and fouler people who inhabit these islands. I shall expect exceptional remuneration when I return.

I succeeded at last in visiting your demon-blasted island. Securing passage to visit that piece of ice and rock took the last of my insufficient funds, plus a day’s labour of my stacking salt cod for a foul-tempered sea-bitch. The boat offered was leaky and unwieldy, of a kind I have never before seen and without proper oars. It was a miracle that I was able to navigate the icy waters to reach Aslevjal. Once there, I landed on a black and rocky shore. The glacier that once covered the entire island right down to the tideline seems to have retreated. An abandoned dock and pilings are visible, but all pieces that were easily scavenged are gone. The beach gives onto a wasteland of black stone. Tiny pockets of soil support little more than moss and scrubby grasses. There may have been crude buildings here at some time, but like the docks, anything usable was taken. Stone quarrying has evidently taken place here in the past but from the look of the place has been abandoned for at least a decade. Immense blocks of stone were cut and lined up end-to-end as for an immense wall, but it is a wall that begins and ends with a single run of blocks. Apparently efforts were made to chisel this run of stone into some sort of a horizontal statue, but the attempt was abandoned before it was even a quarter finished. It was impossible for me to discern what it was meant to be.

I walked as much of the beach as was bared and ventured briefly onto the glacial ice before nightfall caught me there. I saw no dragon, neither alive nor trapped in ice, nor anything even remotely resembling a live creature. I groped my way back to the beach and spent an icy night sheltered behind the stone blocks. Not a scrap of driftwood could I find for a fire. I slept poorly, being troubled by horrendous dreams in which I was one of a mob of Six Duchies folk trapped in a dreadful stone prison. When dawn came, I was thankful to leave. Any others who venture here should take care to bring with them everything to supply their needs, for this island certainly offers nothing to a man.

Report to Chade Fallstar, unsigned

Restoring my scars had delayed the recovery of my strength. For the next three days, I withdrew into myself and focused solely on regaining my health. I slept and ate and slept again. I remained in the workroom. Chade himself brought meals to me. They followed no regular schedule, but he brought ample quantities of food when he did come, and I had the hearth for making tea or heating soup so it mattered little.

There were no windows in the workroom, and time lost all meaning for me. I returned to the wolfish habits I had shared for years. At dawn and at twilight I was most alert, and during those times I studied the scrolls. Then I ate, and dozed in front of the fire, or slept in the bed for the rest of the day’s circle. Not all my waking hours were spent in reading. I amused myself and Gilly by hiding bits of meat when he was not in the room and then watching him ferret them out when he returned. I did simple projects such as suited my fancy. I made a board for playing the Stone game, burning the lines into it, and then carved the markers from a whale tusk that Chade had said I might use. I dyed them red and black, and left an equal quantity unmarked. I hoped for a game with Chade in vain, however. He spoke little to me of his Skill-studies, and when he came and went he seemed always in a hurry. Likely it was for the best. I slept more deeply when I was left alone.

He was very close-mouthed about the other news of the keep. What little I squeezed out of him worried me. The Queen was still in negotiations with the Bingtown Traders, but had graciously given the Dukes of Shoaks and Farrow permission to pressure Chalced along their borders as they wished. There would be no formal declaration of warfare, but the normal harrying and raiding that went on along that boundary would be increased, with her tacit blessings. There was little new in this: the slaves of Chalced had known for generations that they could claim freedom if they could manage to escape to the Six Duchies. Once free, they often turned against their old masters, raiding across the border the flocks and herds that once they had tended. For all that, trade between Chalced and duchies remained lively and prosperous. For the Six Duchies to side openly with Bingtown could put an end to that.

The Bingtown war with Chalced had horribly disrupted Chade’s flow of spy information from that area. He had to rely on second-and third-hand accounts and, as with all such heavily-handled information, there were contradictions. We were both sceptical of the ‘facts’ we received. Yes, the Bingtown Traders had a dragon-breeding plantation far up the Rain Wild River. One, or perhaps two, full-grown dragons had been seen in flight. They were variously described as blue, silver or blue and silver. The Bingtown Traders fed the dragons, and in return, the dragons guarded Bingtown Harbour. But they would not fly out of sight of shore; which was why the Chalcedean ships still were able to menace and plunder Bingtown’s trading fleet. The dragon-breeding farm was tended by a race of changelings, half-dragon and half-human. It was in the midst of a beautiful city, where wondrous gems glowed from the walls at night. The humans who also dwelt there preferred to live in lofty timber castles high in the tops of immense trees.

Such information more frustrated than enlightened us. ‘Do you think they lied to us when they told us about the dragons?’ I asked him.

‘They likely told us their truth,’ Chade replied tersely. ‘That is the whole purpose of spies: to give us the other truths of the story, so that from all of them, we can cobble together our own truth. There is not enough meat here to make a meal from, only enough to torment us. What can we deduce for certain from these rumours? Only that a dragon has been seen, and that something peculiar is going on somewhere on the Rain Wild River.’

And that was as much as he would say on that subject. But I suspected he knew far more than he admitted, and that he had other irons in the fire than the ones he discussed with me. So my days passed in sleep, study and rest. Once, when rustling through Chade’s scrolls for one I recalled on the history of Jamaillia, I found the feathers from the treasure-beach. I stood looking at them in the dimness, and then carried them over to Chade’s worktable and examined them there in a better light. Just touching them was unsettling. They stirred to life memories of my days on that desolate beach, and awoke a hundred questions.

There were five feathers in all, about the size of the curving feathers in a cockerel’s tail. They were carved in extreme detail, so that each separate rib of the feather lay against the next. They seemed to be made from wood, though they weighed oddly heavy in my hands. I tried several blades against them; the sharpest one made only a fine silvery scratch. If this was wood, it was near as hard as metal. Some trick of their carving seemed to catch the light strangely. The feathers were plain and grey and yet, seen from the tail of my eye, colour seemed to run over them. They had no discernible smell. Setting my tongue to one gave me a faint taste of brine followed by bitterness. That was all.

And having tested all of my senses against them, I surrendered to the mystery. I suspected they would fit the Fool’s Rooster Crown. I wondered again whence that strange artefact had originated. He had unwrapped it from a length of fabric so wondrous that it could only have come from Bingtown. Yet the old wooden circlet seemed too humble to have come from a city of marvels and magic. When he had shown the ancient crown to me, I had recognized it immediately, having seen it once before, in a dream. In my vision, it had been colourfully painted and bright feathers had stood up above the circlet to nod in the breeze. A woman had worn it, pale even as the Fool had been pale then, and the folk of some ancient Elderling city had paused in their celebration to listen and laugh at her mocking words. I had interpreted her status as a jester. Now I wonder if I had missed a subtler meaning. I looked at them, spread like a fan, and a sudden shiver ran over me. They linked us, I knew with a sudden chill. They linked the Fool and me, not only to one another, but to another life. Hastily I wrapped them in a cloth and hid them under my pillow.

I could not decide what it meant that the feathers had come to me; but I did not want to discuss them with Chade. The Fool might have the answers, I suspected, and yet I felt a shamed reluctance to take them to him. There was not only the gulf of our present quarrel between us, but the fact that I had had them for so long and hadn’t spoken of them to him. I knew that neither of those things would be improved by waiting longer, yet I truly felt too weak to present them to him. So I slept with them under my pillow each night.

In the deeps of my third night in the workroom, Nettle invaded my sleep. She came as a weeping woman. In my dream, a statue stood in a stream of the tears she had shed. Her tears were a silvery gown that she wore, and her mourning was a fog around her. I stood for a time, watching her cry. Each silver tear that ran down her cheeks splashed into a thread of gossamer that became part of her raiment before it turned into the stream that flowed past her. ‘What is wrong?’ I asked the apparition at last.

But she only continued to weep. I approached her, and finally put my hand on her shoulder, expecting to encounter cold stone. Instead she turned to me with eyes that were grey as fog. Her eyes were made of tears. ‘Please,’ I said. ‘Please talk to me. Tell me why you weep?’

And suddenly she was Nettle. She leaned her brow on my shoulder and wept on. Always before, when I had encountered her in dreams, I had had the feeling she was seeking for me. This time I sensed that I had come to her, drawn by her sorrow into some other place that was usually private to her. I think my coming surprised her. Yet I was not unwelcome, only unlooked for.

What is it? Even in my sleep, I knew I Skilled to her.

‘They quarrel. Even when they do not speak, their quarrel hangs like cobwebs in the room. Every word anyone says gets tangled in the quarrel. They act as if I cannot love them both, as if I must choose between them. And I cannot.’

Who quarrels?

‘My father and my brother. They came home safely, as you said they would. But as soon as they got down from the horse, I felt the storm hanging between them. I don’t know what it is about. My father refuses to speak of it, and he has forbidden my brother to tell me. It is something shameful and dark and horrid. Yet my brother wishes to do it. He desires it with all his heart. I cannot imagine why. Swift has always been such a good boy; quiet and meek and obedient. What can he have discovered that he longs to do and my father so abhors?’

I could almost feel her mind groping towards dark suspicions. She longed to know what had so disgraced her gentle brother in her father’s eyes. Her imagination could not conjure anything sufficiently evil that a boy of his years could possibly do. That led her towards the idea that her father was being irrational. Yet that concept, too, was untenable for her. And so her speculation wobbled between two unacceptable ideas. And all the while the tension in the household grew heavier and heavier.

‘He does not allow my brother to go outside by himself. All day long, he must accompany my father as he goes about his chores. Yet he is not allowed to help him exercise or groom the horses. Instead, he must simply stand and watch. It makes no sense to me, or to my brothers. But if we ask about it, my father becomes very strict and silent. It is making all of us miserable and I do not know how much longer my brother can stand it. I fear he will do something desperate.’

What do you fear he might do?

‘I don’t know. If I knew it, I could prevent it.’

I do not know of any way I can help you with this. I framed the thought very carefully, fencing it off from all I knew. What would she think of Swift if she knew he was Witted? How did Burrich and Molly speak of that magic in their home, if they spoke of it at all? She had not mentioned how her mother had reacted to the situation and I could not find the courage within me to ask.

‘I did not think you could, Shadow Wolf. That was why I did not come to you. But I am grateful you came to me, even if you cannot help me.’ A sigh. ‘When you wall me out, I feel more isolated than I can explain, even to myself. For so long, you were always there, at the edges of my dreams, watching them through me. Then, you took yourself away. And I do not know why. Nor do I know who or what you truly are. Will not you explain yourself to me?’

I cannot. I heard the harshness of my own refusal and felt in a Skill-echo her hurt at my words. Against my will, I felt myself try. I cannot explain. In some ways, I am a danger to you, and so I seek to stay away from you. You do not truly need me. Yet, in all ways that I can, I will watch over you and protect you. And come to you when I think you need me.

‘You contradict yourself. You are a danger that will protect me? I do not need you, yet you will come to me when I need you? You make no sense!’

No. I don’t, I admitted humbly. And hence I cannot explain myself to you, Nettle. All I can offer you is this. What is between your father and brother is between your father and brother. Do not let it stand between you and either of them, difficult as that might be. Do not lose faith in either of them. Or stop loving either of them.

‘As if I could,’ she said bitterly. ‘If I could stop loving them, I could stop grieving for what they do to each other.’

And there we left it as I faded from her dream. There was no comfort for me in such contact with my daughter and very little comfort for her, I am sure. Her worry became mine. Burrich had always been strict, yet fair within his own sense of fairness. He had often been rough with me, but never harsh. An irritated cuff, an impatient shove, he might have given, but he had seldom beaten me. The few thrashings I had suffered at his hands had been intended to teach a lesson, never to harm me. The times he had physically punished me I now saw as justified. Yet I feared that Swift would defy him openly as I had not, and I did not know what effect that would have on the man. He believed that one boy entrusted to his care had died horribly because he had failed to beat the Wit out of him. Would he see it as his duty to protect his own son from a similar fate, no matter how harsh he must be to do it? I feared for them both, and had no outlet for that worry.

At dawn of the fourth day, I awoke feeling stronger and restless. Today, I decided, I was well enough to get out and move around the keep a bit. It was time for me to resume my life. I took the feathers from beneath my pillow and went down to Tom Badgerlock’s chamber to get some fresh clothing. I had scarcely closed the door to the hidden staircase behind me before there was a tap on the connecting door. I reached it in two steps and opened it. Lord Golden took a startled step backwards. ‘Well, I suppose he is awake after all. And dressed, too, I see. So. Are you feeling more yourself, Tom Badgerlock?’

‘A bit,’ I replied, trying to look past him to discover for whom this mummery was played out. I barely had time to take in the shock on his face as he stared at my renewed scars before Hap almost shouldered him aside to get to me. My boy seized me by the shoulders and stared up at me in horror.

‘You look terrible. Go back to bed, Tom.’ Then, almost without drawing breath, he turned to Lord Golden. ‘Sir, I beg your pardon. You were right, I had thought that you were deceiving me as to how ill he was. But you were right to keep all visitors from his door. I see that now. I most humbly beg your pardon for my ill words.’

Lord Golden gave a small harrumph. ‘Well. I scarcely expect court manners from a country boy, and I understand that you have been so worried about your father. So, little as I have enjoyed your rousing me at such ungodly hours, or your churlish manners when I forbade you access, I shall forgive your behaviour. And I’m sure that you will both excuse me while you enjoy your visit.’

He turned away and left us alone in my small chamber. It did not take much urging from Hap to get me to sit down on the low bed. The long trek down Chade’s winding stairs had tired me. Hap kept one hand on my shoulder as he sat down beside me. His gaze wandered over my face, and he squinted in pity at my gauntness. ‘I’m so glad to see you,’ he said tightly. For a moment longer he stared at me, face taut with some emotion. Then his eyes brimmed suddenly and he buried his face in both his hands and rocked back and forth on my bed. ‘Tom, I thought you were going to die,’ he managed to say through his fingers. And then he sat panting, fighting the sobs that threatened to overtake him. I put my arm around his shoulders and hugged him close. Dry sobs broke from him. He was suddenly my boy again, and very frightened he had been. He spoke in gasps. ‘I’ve been here before dawn every day since they brought you here, and every day Lord Golden has told me that you were too weak for visitors. At first, I tried to be patient, but the last few days –’ He gulped suddenly. ‘I’ve been very rude to him, Tom. I was horrid. I hope he won’t take it out on you. It was just –’

I spoke by his ear, calmly and reassuringly. ‘I’ve been very ill, and my recovery is still slow. But I’m not going to die, son. Not this time. I’ll be here for you for some time yet. And Lord Golden has already told you that he forgives you. So. Don’t worry about any of that.’

He reached up to grip my hand tightly in both of his. After a moment, he straightened and turned to face me. Tears tracked his face. ‘I thought you would die and I’d never get the chance to tell you I was s-s-sorry. For how I behaved. I knew you’d nearly given up on me, in that you hardly spoke to me nor came to see me any more. And then you were hurt, and I could not get to you in that jail. Nor afterwards, when they brought you up here. And all I could think was that you would die believing me both stupid and ungrateful for all you had done for me. You were right, you know. I should have listened to you. I wanted so badly to tell you that. You were right. And I’ve learned.’

‘About what?’ I asked, but my heart sank with the answer I already knew.

He sniffed, looking aside from me. ‘About Svanja.’ His voice grew deeper and thicker. ‘She’s cast me off, Tom. Just like that. And I’ve already heard that there is someone else for her – or maybe always was. A sailor on one of those big trading ships.’ He looked down at the floor between his feet. He swallowed. ‘I suppose they had been … close, before his ship last sailed, in the spring. Now he’s back, with silver earrings for her, and fancy cloth and a spice perfume from far away. Gifts for her parents, too. They like him.’ His voice grew softer and softer as he spoke, so that his last words were barely audible. ‘If I’d known,’ he said, and then his voice trailed away.

It was a very good time for me to be silent.

‘I waited for her one night, and she just didn’t come. And I got very worried, frightened for her. I was scared that something bad had happened to her on her way to meet me. And finally I got up the courage and went to her house. Just as I was going to knock on her door, I heard her laughing inside. I didn’t dare to knock because her father hates me so much. Her mother didn’t used to hate me, but then you got into that fight with her father and—Well. Anyway. I thought it was just that she hadn’t been able to get out, well, sneak out to meet me. Because her father had started to be very watchful, you know.’ He halted, face flushing. ‘It’s strange. Looking back at it now it seems shameful and childish. Us sneaking about, hiding from her father, her lying to her mother to get time to spend with me. It didn’t seem like that at the time, not at all. It seemed romantic and, well, fated. That was what Svanja always said. That we were fated to be together, and should let nothing stand between us. That lies and deceit didn’t matter, because together we were a truth that no one could deny.’ He rubbed his brow with the heels of his hands. ‘And I believed it. I believed it all.’

I sighed, yet admitted, ‘If you had not believed it, Hap … well, then it would have been worse than foolish to do as you did.’ And then I halted, wondering if I had just made it worse.

‘I feel such a fool,’ he admitted after a time. ‘And the worst part is, I’d take her back in a breath if she came to me. Faithless as I know she is, first to him and now to me, I’d still take her back. Even if I had to wonder ever after if I could hold her.’ After a time, he asked quietly, ‘Is this how you felt when I told you Starling was married?’

A hard question, but mainly because I didn’t want to tell him that I had never truly loved Starling. So I just said, ‘I don’t think any two pains are ever exactly the same, Hap. But the part about feeling a fool, oh, yes.’

‘I thought I would die from it,’ he declared passionately. ‘The next day I was out on an errand for Master Gindast. He’s come to trust me with making his purchases about town, because I am very exact with what he wants and what he will pay for it. So, I was hurrying, and then I saw a couple coming towards me. And I thought, “she looks so much like Svanja, she could be her sister.” And then I saw it was Svanja, but wearing silver earrings and a shawl dyed such a violet as I had never seen. And the man beside her held her arm and she was looking up at him exactly as she looked up at me. I could not believe it. I stood gawking, and as they went by, she glanced at me. Tom, she blushed red, but pretended not to know me. I … I didn’t know what to do. We have had to sneak about so much that I thought, well, perhaps this is her uncle or a man her father knows, and she must pretend not to know me. But even then, I knew it was not so. And when I went into the Stuck Pig two days later, in the hope of seeing her, the men in the tavern mocked me, asking how it felt to be small fry now that the big fish was biting again. I did not know what they meant, but they soon explained it to me. In detail. Tom, I have never been so humiliated. I all but fled, and I’ve been too ashamed to go back, lest I encounter them. A part of me wants to, a part of me yearns to tell her sailor how faithless she is, and to tell her that I’ve discovered how worthless she is. Yet another part of me longs to fight and best him, to see if that would bring her back to my side. I feel both a fool and a coward.’

‘You are neither,’ I told him, knowing he could not believe me. ‘Walking away from it is the wisest thing to do. Fight him and win her back, and what do you have? A woman no better than a bitch in season that goes with the strongest dog. Confront her and have her disdain you, and you will only have added to your humiliation. Think of it this way, if it comforts you at all. She will always wonder at how easily you seemed to let her go.’

‘A sour comfort. Tom, is there any such thing as a true woman?’ He asked this so wearily that it twisted my heart to see him so soon disillusioned.

‘Yes, there is,’ I asserted. ‘And you are young yet, with as good a chance as any of finding one.’

‘Not really,’ he declared. He stood up abruptly. A tired smile twisted his mouth. ‘For I’ve no time to look for one. Tom, I’m so sorry to come and visit so briefly, but I must run now to be back at the woodshop on time. Old Gindast is a taskmaster. Since I discovered you were hurt, he’s given me time each dawn to come and try to see you, but he insists I make up the work in the evening.’

‘He’s wise. Work is the best cure for worry. And for heartbreak. Throw yourself into your tasks, Hap, and don’t berate yourself for foolishness. Every man makes his share of mistakes in that area.’

He stood looking at me for a time longer. Then he shook his head. ‘Every time I think I’ve grown up a bit more, I look around and see myself acting like a child again. I came here to see you, sick with worry, and the instant that I saw you could stand, all I did was bend your ear with my woes. You’ve told me nothing of all you went through.’

I managed a smile. ‘And that is how I’d like to leave it, son. Nothing there that I care to remember. Let’s put it behind us.’

‘For now, then. I’ll come back and see you again tomorrow.’

‘No, no, don’t do that. If you’ve been coming every day, as I know you have, then I know you must be wearied of it. I’m mending nicely, as you can see. Soon enough I’ll be down to visit with you, and then I’ll ask Gindast to give you an afternoon off and we can sit and talk together.’

‘I’d like that,’ he said, and the sincerity in his voice gave me heart. He hugged me before he left and I feared his youthful strength would snap my weakened bones. Then he left me and I sat staring after him. For the first time in months, I felt I had my Hap back again, I thought as I laboriously took out clean clothing and clambered into them. My relief at regaining him was tinged with guilt. I couldn’t keep him a boy. I shouldn’t expect him to be ‘my Hap’ any more than Chade should hope me to be his ‘boy’. To be relieved that his heartbreak and disappointment had brought him back to me and convinced him of my wisdom was a sort of betrayal on my part. Next time I saw him, I’d have to admit to him that I hadn’t known that Svanja would be false to him, only that she distracted him from his apprenticeship. I didn’t relish the idea.

Dressed, I left my room and went out into Lord Golden’s chamber. I was no longer tottering about, but it was more comfortable to move slowly and carefully. His serving-boy hadn’t brought breakfast up yet. The table was bare. He sat before the fire, looking weary. I nodded to him, and then set the cloth-wrapped feathers on the table. ‘I think these were meant for you,’ I said. I put no inflection in my voice. As I unrolled the cloth, he rose from his chair and came to see what I was doing. He watched, not saying a word as I nudged the feathers into a row.

‘They are extraordinary. How came you by these, Badgerlock?’ he asked at last, and I felt my silence had dragged the question from him. It burned me that he still spoke with Golden’s Jamaillian accent.

‘When Dutiful and I went through the Skill-pillar, it took us to a beach. I picked these up along the tideline there. They were lying amongst the driftwood and seaweed like flotsam. As I walked the beach I found them, one after the other.’

‘Indeed. Never have I heard such a tale.’

There was an unspoken question in his neutral comment. Had I concealed these from him deliberately or dismissed them as unimportant? I answered as best I could. ‘The time spent on that beach still seems strange to me. Disconnected from all else. When I did get back, so much happened all at once: the fight to regain Dutiful, and Nighteyes’ death and then our journey back here, with no privacy to speak to one another. Then, once we got to Buckkeep, there was the betrothal and all.’ Even as I made my excuses, they seemed weak. Why hadn’t I told him about the feathers? ‘I put them away up in Chade’s workroom. And the time never seemed right.’

He was just staring at them. I looked at them again. Set out in a row on the rough cloth, their flat greyness made them even more unremarkable. Yet at the same time they seemed profoundly strange, artefacts too perfect to have been shaped by men’s hands and yet obviously manufactured. I felt oddly reluctant to touch them.

‘I see,’ Lord Golden said at last. ‘Well. Thank you for showing them to me.’ He turned and walked back towards the hearth.

I couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. I tried again. ‘Fool. I think they belong in the Rooster Crown.’

‘Doubtless, you are correct,’ he replied levelly, without interest. He sat down in front of the fire again and stretched his legs out towards it. After a moment, he crossed his arms on his chest and sank his chin down. He stared into the flames.

A flash of anger, cleansing as flame, washed through me. For an instant I wanted to seize him and shake him, to demand that he be the Fool again for me. Then the fury was gone and in its wake I stood trembling and sick. I felt then that I’d killed the Fool somehow, that I had destroyed him when I had demanded answers to the questions that had always floated unasked between us. I should have known that I could never understand him as I understood other people. Explanations had seldom worked between us. Trust had. But I had broken that, like a child who takes something apart to see how it works and ends up with a handful of pieces. Perhaps he could not be the Fool again, any more than I could go back to being Burrich’s stableboy. Perhaps our relationship had changed too profoundly for us to relate as Fitz and the Fool. Perhaps Tom Badgerlock and Lord Golden were all that was left to us.

I felt suddenly weary and weak again. Without a word, I rolled the feathers up in the cloth again. Carrying them in my fist, I went back into my chamber and shut the door behind me. I opened the secret door, closed it behind me, and began the long climb back up to my workroom.

I was shaking with weariness by the time I reached my bed. Without undressing, I crawled back under the covers. After a time, I fell into a deep sleep. When I awoke hours later, I was hungry and the fire had almost burned out. Waking up, eating and feeding the fire: none of it seemed worth the effort. I shouldered deeper into the bed and fled back into unconsciousness.

The next time I awoke, it was because someone was bending over me. I came awake with a yell of alarm and had seized the Prince by the throat before I knew it was he. An instant later, I was sitting back on my bed, panting as my panic subsided. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ I managed.

The Prince stood well away from the bed, rubbing his throat and staring at me. ‘What is the matter with you?’ he croaked, caught between anger and alarm.

I gulped air in a dry throat, feeling sweaty and shaky. My eyes and mouth were sticky. ‘Sorry,’ I managed again. ‘You woke me too suddenly. I was startled.’ I struggled free of my blankets and staggered out of bed. I could not catch my breath. My alarm seemed a continuation of a nightmare I could not recall. I felt bleary and disoriented as I looked about my chamber. Thick was sitting in Chade’s chair, his shoes stretched out towards the fire. His tunic and trousers were servant-blue, but they looked new and as if they had been cut to fit him. How long ago had I intended to get him shoes and better clothing? Chade must have done it. The fire burned merrily on the hearth and there was a tray of food on the table.

‘Did you do this? Thank you.’ I made my way to the table and poured wine into a glass.

The Prince shook his head in confusion. ‘Do what?’

I lowered the glass I had drained. My mouth still felt dry. I poured another glass of wine and drank it down, then drew a breath. ‘The food and the fire,’ I explained. ‘The wine.’

‘No. That was there when we came in.’

My senses were gradually coming back to me and my heart was resuming its normal rhythm. Chade must have come and gone while I was asleep. Then, as it dawned on me, ‘How did you get here?’ I demanded of the Prince.

‘Thick brought me.’

At his name, the simpleton turned his head. He and the Prince exchanged conspiratorial grins. I sensed something pass between them, too swift and controlled for me to follow. Thick chuckled and turned back to the fire with a sigh.

‘You are not supposed to be here,’ I said heavily. I sat down at the table and poured more wine. I put my hand on the covered pot of soup on the tray. It was barely warm. Eating it seemed like too much trouble anyway. I drank the wine.

‘Why shouldn’t I be here? Why shouldn’t I know the secrets of the castle where I shall some day be King? Am I considered too young, too stupid or too untrustworthy?’

That was a sorer point than I had expected to touch. I suddenly realized I had no good answer to his query. I said mildly, ‘I thought Chade didn’t want you up here.’

‘He probably doesn’t.’ He came to sit down beside me at the table as I poured more wine. ‘There are probably a lot more things that Chade would just as soon keep to himself. That man loves secrets. He has stuffed Buckkeep full of secrets like a magpie collecting shiny pebbles. And for the same reason, solely that he loves to have them.’ He regarded me critically. ‘The scars are back. Did the Skill-healing wear off, then?’

‘No. Chade and I put them back. We judged it the most sensible thing to do. Fewer questions, you know.’

He nodded, but continued to stare at me. ‘You look both better and worse than you did. You shouldn’t be drinking all that wine before you’ve eaten.’

‘The food’s cold.’

‘Well, it’s simple enough to heat it.’ He spoke with impatience for my stupidity. I thought he would put Thick to the task. Instead, he took up the pot himself, gave it a stir and covered it again. As if well practised at such things, he attached it to the hook and swung it over the fire again. He tore the small loaf of bread in half, and set it on a plate near the flames to warm. ‘Do you want water for tea? It would do you more good than all that wine you’re slogging down.’

I set my empty glass down on the table but did not fill it again. ‘You amaze me sometimes. The things you know, for a prince, are surprising.’

‘Well, you know how my mother is. Servant of the people. When I was younger, she wished me educated in the way her people educate their Sacrifice, that is, that I should know how to do the most common tasks as well as any peasant boy would. When she had a hard time teaching me all she wished me to know at Buckkeep, she decided to foster me out, away from servants who leapt to my every desire. She wished to send me to the Mountains for a time, but Chade urged her to keep me in the Six Duchies. That left her only one choice, she decided. And so when I was eight, she sent me to Lady Patience, to page for her for a year and a half. Needless to say, I was not treated like a coddled princeling there. For the first two months, she kept forgetting my name. Yet Lady Patience taught me a wonderful array of things.’

‘You didn’t learn cooking skills from Lady Patience,’ I observed before I could guard my tongue.

‘Ah, but I did,’ he replied with a grin. ‘It was by necessity. She would want something heated, late at night in her room, and if left to herself, she burned it and filled the apartments with smoke. I learned a great deal from her, actually, but you are right. Cooking was not her strongest talent. Lacey taught me how to warm a meal at a hearth. And other things, as well. I can crochet better than half the ladies of the court.’

‘Can you?’ I asked in a voice of neutrally friendly interest. His back was to me as he stirred the pot. It suddenly smelled good. My small lapse had passed unnoticed.

‘Yes, I can. I’ll teach you some day, if you like.’ He fished the soup back from the flames, stirred it again, and brought it back to the table with the bread. As he set it before me as if he were my page, he observed, ‘Lacey said that you never learned as a boy. That you were too impatient to sit still that long.’

I had taken up my spoon. I set it down again. He went back to the hearth and checked the teakettle. ‘Not quite hot enough yet,’ he said, and then added, ‘Lacey always told me that the steam should stand out a full handspan from the spout if the tea is to be brewed well. But I’m sure she said as much to you. Both Lady Patience and Lacey told many tales about you. I’d heard little about you here at Buckkeep. You were mentioned as often with a curse here as with regrets. But when I got there, it was as if they couldn’t help themselves, even though it often made Patience break down and weep. That’s the one thing I don’t understand about all this. She thinks you are dead and she mourns you. Every single day. How can you let her do that? Your own mother.’

‘Lady Patience is not my mother,’ I said weakly.

‘She says she is. Was,’ he corrected himself sourly. ‘She was always telling me what I actually wanted to eat or do or wear. And if I protested that my true preference was different, she would declare, “Don’t be ridiculous. I know what you want. I know about boys! I had a son of my own, once.” She meant you,’ he added heavily in case the inference had escaped me.

I sat there, silent. I told myself that I was not a well man yet, that the cold, painful days in the prison and the Skill-healing and the remaking of my scars, and yes, even the Fool’s rejection of my overtures of peace had weakened and drained me. Thus I trembled and my throat closed and I could not think what to do when a secret so well and truly kept was suddenly spoken aloud. A terrible darkness engulfed me, worse than anything elfbark had ever produced. Tears welled in my eyes. Perhaps, I thought, if I do not blink, they will not spill. Perhaps if I sat very still long enough, somehow my eyes would re-absorb the tears.

The kettle began to puff clouds of steam and Dutiful got up to tend to it. Hastily, I blotted my eyes on my sleeve. He brought the grumbling kettle to the table and poured hot water over the herbs in the teapot. As he carried it back to the fire, he spoke over his shoulder. Something in his subdued voice told me that my stillness had not deceived him. I think he sensed how close he had come to breaking me and it distressed him. ‘My mother told me,’ he said, almost defensively. ‘She and Chade were both frantic over you being hurt and in prison. They were angry at one another and could not agree on anything. I was in the room when they had an argument. She told him that she was simply going to go down and take you out of there. He said she must not, that it would only put you and me into greater danger. So then she said she was going to tell me who was dying for me down there; he tried to forbid that. She said it was time I knew what it was to be Sacrifice for one’s people. Then they sent me out of the room while they argued about it.’ He set the kettle back by the hearth and came back to sit at the table with me. I didn’t meet his eyes.

‘Do you know what it means when she names you Sacrifice like that? Do you know how my mother thinks of you?’ He pushed the bread towards me. ‘You should eat. You look awful.’ He took a breath. ‘When she names you Sacrifice, it means that she thinks of you as the rightful king of the Six Duchies. She probably has since my father died. Or went into his dragon.’

That jerked my eyes to him. Truly, she had told him all, and it shocked me to my spine. I glanced over at Thick dozing before the fire. The Prince’s eyes followed mine. He said nothing, but Thick suddenly opened his eyes and turned to face him. ‘This is terrible food,’ the Prince observed to him. ‘Do you think you could get us better in the kitchens? Something sweet, perhaps?’

A wide grin spread over Thick’s face. ‘I can get that. I know what they got down there. Dried berry and apple pie.’ He licked his lips. When he stood, I saw with surprise the Farseer Buck sigil on the breast of his tunic.

‘Go the way we came, and come back the same way, please. It’s important to remember that.’

Thick nodded ponderously. ‘Important. I remember. I know that a long time now. Go through the pretty door, come back through the pretty door. And only when no one else can see.’

‘Good man, Thick. I don’t know how I ever got along without you.’ There was satisfaction in the Prince’s voice, and something else. Not condescension, but … ah. I grasped it. Pride in possession. He spoke to Thick as a man might speak to a prized wolfhound.

As the half-wit left, I asked him, ‘You’ve made Thick your man? Openly?’

‘If my grandfather could have a skinny albino boy as a jester and companion, why should I not have a half-wit as mine?’

I winced. ‘You do not let folk mock him, do you?’

‘Of course not. Did you know he could sing? His voice gives the music an odd tone, but the notes are true. I do not keep him by me always, but often enough that no one remarks him any longer. And it helps that he and I can speak privately, so that he knows when I wish him by me and when I wish him to go.’ He nodded, well pleased with himself. ‘I think he is happier now. He has discovered the pleasures of a hot bath and clean clothes. And I give him simple toys that please him. Only one thing worries me. The woman who helps him take care of himself told me that she has known two others like him in her life. She says they do not live as long as an ordinary man does, that Thick might already be close to the end of his days. Do you know if that is true?’

‘I’ve no idea, my prince.’

I offered the honorific without thinking. It made him grin. ‘And what shall I call you, if you call me that? Honoured cousin? Lord FitzChivalry?’

‘Tom Badgerlock,’ I reminded him flatly.

‘Of course. And Lord Golden. I confess, it is much easier for me to accept you as Lord FitzChivalry than for me to imagine Lord Golden as a jester in motley.’

‘He has travelled a far journey from those days,’ I said, and tried to keep regret from my voice. ‘When did the Queen decide to tell you all the family secrets?’

‘The night after we healed you. She brought me back later through the secret corridors to your chamber, and we spent all night sitting by your bed. After a time, she just started talking. She told me that, with your scars erased, you looked very like my father. That sometimes, when she looked at you, she saw him in your eyes. And then she told me all of it. Not in one evening. I think it was three nights before the tale was told out. And all the while she sat by your bed on a cushion and held your hand. She made me sit on the floor. She allowed no one else in the room.’

‘I did not even know you had been there. Nor she.’

He lifted one shoulder. ‘Your body was healed, but the rest of you was as close to dead as make no difference. I could not reach you with the Skill, and to my Wit you were like the spark at the end of a candlewick. At any moment, you could have winked out. But while she held your hand and spoke, you seemed to burn brighter. I think she sensed that as well. It was as if she tried to anchor you to life.’

I lifted my hands and let them fall helplessly back to the table. ‘I don’t know how to deal with this,’ I confessed abruptly. ‘I don’t know how to react to your knowing all these things.’

‘I should think you’d feel relieved. Even if we must still maintain the charade of Tom Badgerlock about the keep for some time yet. At least here, in private, you can be who you are and not worry so much about guarding your tongue. Which you don’t do very well in any case. Eat your soup. I don’t want to have to warm it again.’

It seemed a good suggestion and bought me time to think without having to speak. Yet he sat watching me so intently that I felt like a mouse under a cat’s eye. When I scowled at him, he laughed aloud and shook his head. ‘You cannot imagine how it feels. I look at you, and wonder, will I be that tall when I am grown? Did my father scowl like that? I wish you had not put the scars back. It makes it harder for me to see myself in your face. You sitting there and me knowing who and what you are … it is as if my father has walked into my life for the first time.’ The lad bounced and wiggled in his chair as he spoke, as if he were a puppy that longed to jump up on me. It was hard to meet his eyes. Something burned there which I was not prepared for. I did not deserve the Prince’s adulation.

‘Your father was a far better man than I am,’ I told him.

He took a deep breath. ‘Tell me something about him,’ he begged. ‘Something that only you and he would know.’

I sensed the importance of this request and could not refuse him. I cast about in my mind. Should I tell him that Verity had not loved Kettricken at first sight, but rather had grown to love her? It sounded too much like a comparison to his lack of feelings for Elliania. Verity had not been a man for secrets, but I didn’t think Dutiful was asking for a secret. ‘He loved good ink and paper,’ I told him. ‘And cutting his pens himself. He was very particular about his pens. And … he was kind to me when I was small. For no reason at all. He gave me toys. A little wooden cart, and some carved soldiers and horses.’

‘He did? That surprises me. I thought that he had to keep his distance from you. I knew he watched over you, but in his letters to your father, he complains that he scarce sees the little Tom-cat save when he is trotting at Burrich’s heels.’

I sat very still. It took a moment for me to recall how to breathe and then I asked, ‘Verity wrote about me? In letters to Chivalry?’

‘Not directly, of course. Patience had to explain to me what it meant. She showed the letters to me when I complained that I knew little of my father. They were very disappointing. Only four of them, and they were short and boring for the most part. He is fine, he hopes Chivalry and Lady Patience are well. Usually he is asking his brother to have a word with one duke or another, to smooth over some political difference. Once he asks him to send him an accounting of how the taxes were apportioned in a previous year. Then there would be a few lines about the harvest or how the hunting has been. But there was always a word or two about you at the end. “The Tom-cat that Burrich adopted seems to be making himself at home.” “Near stepped on Burrich’s Tom-cat as he ran through the courtyard yesterday. He seems to get bigger every day.” That’s how they named you in the letters, against spies and even, at first, against Patience reading them. In the last one, you are just “Tom”. “Tom had crossed Burrich and been walloped for it. He seemed remarkably unrepentant. In truth, Burrich is the one I pitied.” And at the end of each letter, a few lines about looking forward to the new moon or hoping that the full moon tides will be good for clamming. Patience explained that was how they set up a time to Skill to one another, when they could go apart from other people and be undisturbed. Our fathers were very close, you know. It was very difficult for them to be separated when Chivalry moved to Withywoods. They missed one another deeply.’

Tom. And Patience had, I thought, so carelessly hung that name on me. And I had kept it and little known its history. The Prince was right. Buckkeep Castle was stuffed full of secrets, and half of them were not secrets at all. They were only the things we dared not ask one another for fear the answers would be unbearably painful. I had never asked Patience to tell me about my father; never asked her or Verity what Chivalry had thought of me. Reluctance to ask metamorphosed into secrets. Silence had let me assume the worst of my father. He had never come to see me. Had he watched me through his brother’s eyes? Should I blame them for not telling me what they, perhaps, had assumed I knew? Or should I blame myself for never demanding to know?

‘The tea is brewed,’ Dutiful announced, and lifted the teapot. For the first time, I became aware that the boy was serving me, much as I would have served Chade or Shrewd at his age. With respect and deference. ‘Stop,’ I said, and put out a hand to cover his. I forced the teapot back to the table. As I picked it up and poured my own tea, I warned him, ‘Dutiful, my prince. Listen to me. I must be Tom Badgerlock to you, in every way. Today, for now, we will speak of this. But after this, I must revert to my role as Tom Badgerlock. You must see me as him, and you must see Lord Golden only as Lord Golden. You have been handed a blade with no handle. There is no safe way to grip nor wield this secret that you know now. You rejoice in knowing who I am, and in seeing me as a link to your father. I wish, with all my heart, that it was as simple and good as that. But this secret, breathed in the wrong company, brings us all down. We know that our queen would try to protect me. Think what it would do. I am not only a known user of the Wit, but also the supposed murderer of King Shrewd. Not to mention that I killed several of Galen’s Coterie, before a room full of witnesses. Nor am I as dead as many think I should be. For me to be revealed as living would stir the hatred and fear of the Witted to new heights just as our queen is trying to put an end to their persecution.’

‘To our persecution,’ the Prince corrected me mildly. He sat back in his chair and pondered it a bit, as if working out the consequences for himself. He looked uncomfortable as he said, ‘You’ve already accidentally put a crimp in the Queen’s plans. Despite all Chade’s efforts to take no official interest in your fate, there were still rumours that the death of “Keppler”, Padget and that other man went unpunished simply because they were suspected to be Witted.’

‘I know. Chade told me. And that you were accused of having the Wit as well.’

The Prince bowed his head to that. ‘Yes. Well, I do, don’t I? And the Piebalds know that, and perhaps some of those who style themselves Old Blood know it as well. Right now, the Old Blood have an interest in keeping my secret. They want this convocation as much as the Queen does. But the deaths of those three men have made them far more cautious. They talk now of demanding more sureties before they will commit to endangering themselves by coming here.’

‘They want hostages.’ My mind made the leap. ‘They want an exchange of people, some of ours to hold at risk while their folk are in our hands. How many?’

The Prince shook his head. ‘Ask that of Chade. Or my mother. From the way they argue, I suspect that she communicates directly with the Old Bloods, and only tells the old man what she thinks he needs to know. It frustrates him. I think she has managed to calm their fears and reschedule the meeting. Chade swore that it would be impossible without granting them ridiculous demands. Yet she had done it. But she will not tell Chade how, and that agitates him. She has reminded him that she is Mountain-bred, and that granting a demand he would see as “ridiculous”, or accepting a risk that he would declare “unacceptable” are for her a matter of principle. ’

‘I can’t think of anything he would find more upsetting than to see a pie he couldn’t get his fingers into.’ I spoke mildly even as I wondered uneasily where Kettricken’s Mountain ethics on being Sacrifice for her people might lead us.

Dutiful seemed to sense my reservations. ‘I agree. And yet, in this, I will side with my mother. It is time she forced him to cede the upper hand to her. If she does not insist upon it now, it does not bode well for me to have any real power when I come to the throne.’

His words put a chill down my spine. He was right. The only reassuring part was that he could look at it so levelly and coolly. Then a wry thought twisted my perception. The Prince could see Chade’s machinations because he was as much Chade’s student as he was Kettricken’s Mountain son. He spoke on as casually as if we were discussing the weather.

‘But, that is not what we were talking about. You say your true identity cannot become known. I agree that cannot happen right now. There would definitely be a faction interested in ensuring your death. A great many people would hate and fear you. And the Farseers would be accused of sheltering a regicide simply because you were one of the family. Even more interesting might be how it would affect both the Old Bloods and the Piebalds. The Witted Bastard has been a rallying point for them for years, and the rumour of your survival is like a revered legend amongst them. To hear Civil speak of you, you are almost a god.’

‘You haven’t discussed me with Civil?’ Alarm flooded me.

‘Of course not! Well, not you as you. The legend of FitzChivalry, the Witted Bastard, is what we have discussed. And only in passing, I assure you. Though I think your identity would be as safe with Civil as it is with me.’

I sighed, heartsick and weary. ‘Dutiful. Your loyalty is admirable. But I doubt Civil’s. The Bresingas have betrayed you twice. Will you allow them to do it a third time?’

He looked stubborn. ‘They were coerced, Tom … It feels strange to call you that, now.’

I refused to be distracted. ‘Become accustomed to it again. And if Civil is threatened again, and again spies for them, or worse?’

‘He has no one left for them to threaten.’ He halted suddenly and looked at me. ‘You know, I have neither apologized nor thanked you. I sent you to Civil’s aid without considering that it might be a risk to you. And you went, and you saved my friend’s life, even though you yourself don’t like him much. As a result, you nearly died.’ He cocked his head at me. ‘How do I thank you for that?’

‘You don’t need to. You are my prince.’

His face grew very still. Kettricken lurked in his eyes as he said, ‘I don’t much like that. It seems to make us more distant. I would that you and I were only cousins.’

I looked at him closely as I asked, ‘And do you think that would make a difference? That I would have refused to help your friend because you were “only” my cousin?’

He smiled at me, and then gave a sigh of vast satisfaction. ‘I still don’t quite believe it’s real,’ he said quietly. A look somewhat like guilt crossed his face. ‘And Thick and I are not supposed to be coming to visit you yet. Chade forbade it, or any attempts to Skill to you until you were stronger. I didn’t mean to wake you when we came up here. I only wanted to look at you again. And when I saw the scars were back, I leaned too close.’

‘I’m glad you did.’

I sat for a time in silence, uncomfortable and yet basking in his regard. How strange to be loved simply for who I was. It was almost a relief when Thick reappeared, pushing the secret door open with his shoulder. His hands were full and he was puffing with effort from his trot up the stairs. He had helped himself to a whole pie intended to serve a dozen men.

I watched him with satisfaction as he brought his loot to the table. He was grinning broadly, well pleased with himself. I realized I had never seen that expression on his face before. His small, separated teeth and protruding tongue in that round, wide face gave him the look of a cheerful goblin. If I had not known him, I probably would have found the result appalling, but his smirk was answered by a conspiratorial grin from the Prince, and I found myself smiling on both of them.

Thick set the pie down with a clack on the worktable, officiously pushing my dishes to one side to give himself room to work. He hummed as he set to work, and I recognized the refrain of his Skill-song. His surliness seemed to have vanished. I noticed that the knife he used to cut the staggeringly large portions of pie was the one I had bought for him in town on that horrid day. So somehow my purchases had made it up to Buckkeep and to him. The Prince found plates and Thick plopped the servings onto them. He took great care not to soil his new clothes while he did so, and later ate with a caution worthy of a great lady in a new gown. We divided that monstrous pie and left nothing in the pan, and for the first time since I had been injured food tasted good to me.

TWENTY-THREE

Revelations

The unWitted often tell fearsome tales of Witted ones who take on the forms of animals for nefarious reasons. Those of Old Blood will flatly state that no human, no matter how tightly bonded to his animal partner, can take on the shape of that animal. What Old Bloods speak about only reluctantly is that a human can inhabit the body of his beast partner. Usually this happens temporarily and only in extreme circumstances. The body of the human does not vanish; indeed, it remains very vulnerable at such times and may even appear dead. Extreme physical damage to a human’s body or imminent death may make a human consciousness take refuge in his Wit-beast’s body. Old Blood folk disparage this practice and strongly urge against it.

Among Old Blood, it is strictly forbidden that such an arrangement become permanent. An Old Blood human who flees his dying body and takes refuge in that of his Wit-partner becomes an outcast from the Old Blood community. The same is true for a human who takes in the fleeing soul of his animal partner. Such an act is regarded as extreme selfishness as well as being both immoral and unwise. All who grow up in the Old Blood communities are warned that no matter how tempting the circumstance, no happiness will result for either partner. Death is better.

In this significant way, Old Blood practitioners of the magic differ from the so-called Piebalds. Piebalds relegate their Wit-beasts to a lesser status than their human partners, and see nothing wrong with a human choosing to extend his life by sharing the body of his Wit-partner after his own human body has perished. In some cases, the human becomes the dominant spirit in the animal’s body, all but driving it out of its own flesh. Given the long life span of some creatures such as tortoises, geese and certain tropical birds, an unscrupulous human could take such a partner late in life with the deliberate intention of providing himself with a body after his own death. In such a way, a human could extend his life for a century or more.

Badgerlock’s Old Blood Tales

I emerged from my convalescence like a new-hatched thing crawling out into the sunlight for the first time. The world dazzled and overwhelmed me, and I felt amazement at my life. More, Dutiful’s new regard for me was something that I wore like a warm coat. I felt that affirmation the next morning as I stood in the courtyard of Buckkeep Castle and watched the folk of the keep come and go around me at their daily tasks. The day seemed very bright, and to my surprise, I could smell the end of winter in the air. The trodden snow underfoot seemed heavier and denser and the blue of the sky overhead deeper. I drew in a deep breath and then stretched and heard my joints crackle from disuse. Today I’d cure that.

I still didn’t trust my legs to carry me down to Buckkeep Town, so I went to the stables. The stableboy who regularly cared for Myblack took one look at me and told me he’d ready my mare for me. I leaned gratefully on her manger and watched him. He treated her well and she was docile under his touch. When I took the reins from him, I thanked him for caring for the horse I had neglected. He gave me a puzzled look and confided, ‘Well, I can’t say that she’s seemed to miss you. Content with her own company, that’s this one.’

Halfway down the steep hill-path to town, I began regretting my decision to ride. Myblack seemed bent on arguing with the reins and showed me just how little strength had come back to my hands and arms. Despite our little battle of wills, she did carry me to Gindast’s shop. There I was both disappointed and elated to find that Hap had little time to visit. Although he came swiftly to me when he saw me at the door, he explained apologetically that one of the journeymen was allowing him to help with the roughing-in of a carving on a headboard. If he went with me, the man would likely choose one of the other apprentices for the task. I assured him that another day would be soon enough and that I had no news for him other than that I was feeling better. I watched him hurry off, chisel and scribe in hand, and felt only pride in my boy.

As I remounted Myblack, I glimpsed three of the younger apprentices. They were peering at me around the corner of a shed and whispering to one another. Well, I was known in Buckkeep Town now as a man who had killed three other men. Murder or justified slaying, it mattered not. I’d have to expect a certain amount of finger-pointing and gossip. I hoped it would not hurt Hap’s standing among them. I pretended not to notice them and rode off.

I went next to Jinna’s cottage. When she opened her door to me, she first gave a little breathless gasp at sight of me. She stared at me for a moment, then looked past me and up and down the street, as if expecting Hap. ‘I’m alone today,’ I said. ‘May I come in?’

‘Well. Tom. Of course. Come inside.’ She stared at me as if my wasted appearance rattled her. Then she stepped back to allow me into her house. Fennel snaked into the cottage between my feet.

Inside, I sank down into the chair by her fireside gratefully. Fennel immediately settled in my lap. ‘So sure of your welcome, aren’t you, Cat? As if the world was made for you.’ I stroked him and then looked up to find Jinna watching me apprehensively. Her concern touched me. I managed a smile. ‘I’m going to be all right, Jinna. I had both feet in death’s mouth but I managed to step back. I’ll be myself again, with time. Right now, I’m a bit dismayed at how tired I am just from the ride down here.’

‘Well.’ Her hands tangled together as she spoke. Then she gave herself a little shake as if coming back to herself. She cleared her voice and spoke more strongly. ‘It doesn’t surprise me a bit. You’re no more than bones, Tom Badgerlock. Look how your shirt hangs on you! Sit still a bit and I’ll make you a strengthening tisane.’ At the look on my face, she amended that to, ‘Or perhaps just a cup of tea. And some bread and cheese.’

Fish? Fennel asked me.

Jinna says cheese.

Cheese isn’t fish, but it’s better than nothing.

‘Tea and bread and cheese sounds good. I grew very weary of broth and tisanes and mush when I was recovering. In truth, I am most tired of all of being an invalid. I’m determined that I’ll get up and move around a bit every day from now on.’

‘Probably the best thing for you,’ she agreed distractedly. She cocked her head and stared at me. ‘But what’s this? Your Badgerlock is gone!’ and she pointed at my hair.

I managed a blush. ‘I’ve dyed it. In an effort to look more youthful, I’m afraid. My sickness has taken a grave toll on my appearance.’

‘It has, I must agree. But to dye your hair as a remedy … well. Men. Now.’ She gave her head a small shake as if to clear it. I wondered what was troubling her, but an instant later she seemed to have set it aside. ‘Have you heard what has happened between Hap and Svanja?’

‘I have,’ I assured her.

‘Well. I saw it coming.’ And then, as she put water on to heat, she went on to tell me, with many tongue cluckings, what I already knew: that Svanja had forsaken Hap for her returning sailor, and had shown her silver earrings to every other girl in town.

I let her explain it all to me as she sliced bread and cheese for us. When she had finished her say, I observed, ‘Well, it’s likely the best for both of them. Hap is more focused on his apprenticeship, and Svanja has a suitor her parents approve of. His heart is a bit bruised over it, but I think he’ll recover.’

‘Oh, aye, he’ll recover, while Svanja’s sailor boy is in port,’ Jinna observed sourly as she brought a tray to the little table between the chairs. ‘But you mark my words. The moment that lad has a deck under his feet again, Svanja will be after Hap once more.’

‘Oh, I doubt that,’ I observed mildly. ‘And even did she come to him, I think Hap has learned his lesson. Once burnt, twice shy.’

‘Hmph. Once bedded, ever eager, would be a better saying in this case. Tom, you need to warn him and warn him severely. Don’t let him fall to her wiles again. Not that she’s a wicked girl, only one that wants what she wants, when she wants it. She does as much damage to herself as she does to those young men.’

‘Well. I hope my lad has more common sense than that,’ I observed as she took the other chair.

‘So do I,’ she rejoined. ‘But I doubt it.’ Then, as she looked at me, her voice and face lapsed into stillness again. She looked at me as if she saw a stranger. I saw her start to speak twice and then each time still her words.

‘What?’ I asked finally. ‘Is there more to this Svanja-sailor tale that I don’t know? What’s wrong?’

After a heavy silence, she asked quietly, ‘Tom, I—We’ve been friends for a time, now. And we know more than just a bit about each other. I’ve heard … Never mind what I’ve heard. What really happened that afternoon on Falldown Street?’

‘Falldown Street?’

She looked aside from me. ‘You know the place. Three men dead, Tom Badgerlock. And some tale of a stolen purse of gemstones and a serving-man determined to get them back. Another might believe it. But then, half-dead yourself, you stop to kill a horse?’ She got up to take the purring kettle off the fire and poured water into the teapot. In a very soft voice, she said, ‘I’d been warned off you the week before, Tom. Someone told me you were a dangerous man to befriend. That something bad might befall you soon, and it would be better for me if it didn’t happen in my house.’

I gently pushed the cat from my lap and took the kettle of hot water from her shaking hands. ‘Sit down,’ I suggested gently. She sat and folded her hands in her lap. As I put the kettle back on the hearth, I tried to think calmly. ‘Will you tell me who warned you?’ I asked as I turned back to her. I already knew the answer.

She looked down at her hands. Then she shook her head slowly. After a moment, she said, ‘I was born here in Buckkeep Town. I’ve done my fair share of wandering about, but this is home when the snow comes down. The people here are my neighbours. They know me and I know them. I know … I know a great many people in this town, people of all kinds. Some of them I’ve known since I was just a girl. I’ve read the hands of many of them and I know many of their secrets. Now, I like you, Tom, but … you killed three men. Two of them Buckkeep Town men. Is that true?’

‘I killed three men,’ I admitted to her. ‘If it makes a difference to you, they would have killed me first, if I’d let them.’ A cold was creeping through me. Suddenly it seemed that perhaps her hesitations and apprehension today weren’t concern for me at all.

She nodded to that. ‘I don’t doubt that. But it remains that you went to where they were. They didn’t hunt you down. You went to them, and you killed them.’

I tried on the lie Chade had supplied for me. ‘I pursued a thief, Jinna. Once I was there, they gave me no choice. It was kill or be killed. I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t seek it.’

She just sat and looked at me. I sat back down in my chair. Fennel stood, waiting for me to invite him back into my lap, but I didn’t. After a moment, I said, ‘You’d rather that I didn’t come here any more.’

‘I didn’t say that.’ There was an edge of anger in her voice, but I think it was anger that I’d stated it so flatly. ‘I … it’s difficult for me, Tom. Surely you can see that.’ Again, that telling pause. ‘When we first came together, well … I thought that the, that the differences between us would make no difference. I’ve always said that all those things that folk said of Witted ones were mostly lies. I’ve always said that!’

She snatched the teapot up and poured tea defiantly, for both of us, as if to prove she still welcomed me there. She sipped from her cup and then set it down. Then she picked up a piece of bread, put a piece of cheese with it and set it down. She said, ‘I’d known Padget since we were babes. I played with his girl-cousins when we were children. Padget was many things, and a number of them I didn’t like. But he wasn’t a thief.’

‘Padget?’

‘One of the men that you killed! Don’t pretend you don’t know his name! You had to know who he was to find him. And I know that he knew who you were. And his poor cousins were too frightened even to claim his body. For fear of being linked with him. Because it might make people think they were like him. But that is what I don’t understand, Tom.’ She paused, and in a quiet voice said, ‘Because you are like he was. You’re one, too. Why hunt and kill your own kind?’

I had just lifted up my teacup. I set it down carefully and took a breath, thinking I would speak. Then I let it out, waited, and began again. ‘I’m not surprised there is gossip about this. What folk say to the guard and what they say to one another are two different things. And I know there were Piebald scrolls put about town, claiming all sorts of wild things. So. Let us speak bluntly. Padget was Witted. Like me. That isn’t why I killed him, but it is true. It is also true that he was a Piebald. Which I am not.’ At her look of confusion, I asked her, ‘Do you know what a Piebald is, Jinna?’

‘Witted are Piebalds,’ she said. ‘Some of your kind say “Old Blood” instead. It’s all one.’

‘Not quite. Piebalds are Witted who betray other Witted. They are the ones who post the little notices that say, “Jinna is Witted and her beast is a fat yellow cat”.’

‘I am not!’ she exclaimed indignantly.

I perceived she thought that I had threatened her. ‘No,’ I agreed calmly. ‘You are not. But if you were, I could destroy your livelihood and perhaps even take your life by making it public. That is what the Piebalds do to other Witted.’

‘But that makes no sense. Why would they do that?’

‘To make the other Witted do what they want.’

‘What do they want them to do?’

‘The Piebalds are seeking to gather power to themselves. To gain that, they need money and people willing to do what they tell them.’

‘I still don’t understand what they want.’

I sighed. ‘They want the same things most Witted want. They want to exercise their magic openly, without fear of the noose or flame. They want to be accepted, not to have to live with their talents hidden. Suppose you could be killed simply for being a hedge-witch. Would not you want to change that?’

‘But hedge-witches do no harm to anyone.’

I watched her face carefully as I said, ‘Neither do Witted.’

‘Some do,’ she rejoined instantly. ‘Oh, not all of them, no. But when I was but a child my mother kept two milk goats. They both up and died on the same day. And only the week before that she had refused to sell one to a Witted woman. So you see, Witted are like anyone else. Some of them are vengeful and cruel, and use their magic to that end.’

‘The Wit doesn’t work that way, Jinna. That is like me saying a hedge-witch could look in my hand, and put a line there that would make me die sooner. Or blaming you because you looked at my son’s hand, said he had a short lifeline and then he died. Would that be your fault? For saying what you’d seen there?’

‘Well, of course not. But that’s not the same as killing someone’s goats.’

‘That is what I’m trying to tell you. I can’t use the Wit to kill anyone.’

She cocked her head at me. ‘Oh, come, Tom. That great wolf of yours would have killed that man’s pigs if you’d told him to, wouldn’t he?’

I sat a long time silent. Then I had to say, ‘Yes. I suppose he would have. If I were that sort of a man, I might have used the wolf and my Wit that way. But I’m not.’

Her silence lasted even longer than mine did. At last, very unwillingly, she said, ‘Tom. You killed three men. And a horse. Wasn’t that the wolf in you? Wasn’t that your Wit?’

After a time, I stood up. ‘Goodbye, Jinna,’ I said. ‘Thank you for your many kindnesses.’ I walked towards the door.

‘Don’t go like this,’ she begged me.

I halted, miserable. ‘I don’t know any other way to go. Why did you even let me inside your door today?’ I asked bitterly. ‘Why did you try to see me when I was hurt? It would have been a greater kindness simply to turn away from me than to show me what you truly thought of me.’

‘I wanted to give you a chance,’ she said dismally. ‘I wanted … I hoped there was some other reason. Something besides your Wit.’

Hand on the latch, I paused. I detested my last lie, but it had to be told. ‘There was. There was a purse that belonged to Lord Golden.’ I did not look back to see if she believed me. She already had more truth than was safe for her to own.

I closed her door softly behind me. The day had clouded over abruptly and the shadows on the snowy ground were dark grey. All had changed in that sudden way that early spring days can. Somehow Fennel had managed to slip out with me. ‘You should go back inside,’ I told him. ‘It’s getting cold out here.’

Cold isn’t so bad. Cold can only kill you if you stand still. Just keep moving.

Good advice, cat. Good advice. Goodbye, Fennel.

I mounted Myblack and turned her head towards Buckkeep Castle. ‘Let’s go home,’ I told her.

She was willing enough to head for her stall and manger. I let her set her own pace while I sat in the saddle and pondered my life. Yesterday I had felt Dutiful’s worship. Today, Jinna’s fear and rejection. More, today Jinna had shown me how deep and wide the prejudice against the Witted might go. I had thought she had accepted me for who and what I was. But she hadn’t. She had been willing to make an exception for me, but when I killed, I had proved her rule. The Witted were not to be trusted; they used their magic for evil. I felt myself sinking into despair as I realized the depth of it. For there was more than that. I had learned, yet again, that I could not serve the Farseers and still claim a life for myself.

Not this again, Changer. How could the moments of your life belong to anyone but you? You are the Farseers, blood and pack. See the whole of it. It is neither a binding nor a separation. The pack is the whole of you. The wolf’s life is in the pack.

Nighteyes, I breathed. And yet I knew that he was not there. As Black Rolf had told me it would be, it was. There were moments when my dead companion came back to me as more than a memory, yet less than his living part of me. The part of me that I had given to the wolf lived on. I sat up straighter in the saddle and took charge of my horse. She snorted, but accepted it. And then, because I thought it might be good for both of us, I put heels to her and sent her surging up the snowy road to Buckkeep Castle and home.

I stabled Myblack and saw to her myself. It took me twice as long as it should have done. It shamed me to be out of the habit of caring for my own horse, and shamed me more that she should be so wilful that she made it difficult. Then I forced myself to go to the practice courts. I had to borrow a blade. I had gone into Buckkeep Town today unarmed save for the knife at my hip. Foolish, perhaps, but I’d had no alternative. I’d visited my room today, intending to get my ugly sword, only to discover it was missing. Most likely it was lost or adopted by an opportunistic city guardsman. The bright blade the Fool had given me was still hanging on the wall. I’d considered it but I could not bring myself to buckle it on. It was a symbol of an esteem he no longer extended to me. I’d decided I’d no longer wear it save in my role as his bodyguard. For practice, a dummy sword was best anyway. Dulled blade in hand, I went looking for a partner.

Wim was not about but Delleree was. In a very short time, she had killed me so many times I lost count, using either of her weapons at will. I felt it was all I could do to hold my sword up, let alone swing it. Finally, she stopped and said, ‘I can’t do this any more. I feel like I’m fighting a stickman. Each time I hit you, I feel my blade clack against your bones.’

‘So do I,’ I assured her. I managed to laugh and thank her, and then limped away to the steams. The looks of pity I received from the guardsmen there made me wish I had never disrobed. From the steams, I went directly to the kitchens. A cook’s helper named Maisie told me she was glad to see me on my feet again. I am sure it was pity for me that made her cut an outside slice off a joint that was still roasting on the spit. She gave it to me on a slab of bread from the morning’s baking, and then told me that Lord Golden’s serving-boy had been looking for me earlier in the day. I thanked her but did not rush to my lord’s summoning. Instead I stood outside, my back to the courtyard wall, and watched the folk of the keep while I wolfed down the food she had given me. It had been a very long time since I had just stood still and watched the folk of Buckkeep. I thought of all the other things I had not seen or done since I had returned to my childhood home. I had not visited the Queen’s Garden at the top of the tower. Not once had I gone walking in the Women’s Garden. I suddenly hungered to do simple things of that sort. Ride Myblack through the forested hills behind Buckkeep. Sit in the Great Hall of an evening and watch the fletchers work on their arrows and speculate on hunting prospects. To be a part of it all once more rather than a shadow.

My hair was still damp and there was not enough flesh on me to stay warm for long standing still on a wintry afternoon. I heaved a sigh and went inside and up the stairs, both dreading and anticipating an encounter with Lord Golden. It had been days since he had expressed any personal interest in me. His benevolent dismissal of me was worse than if he had maintained a sulky silence. It was as if he truly had ceased caring about the rift between us. As if who we were now, Lord Golden and Tom Badgerlock, was all we had ever been. A tiny flame of anger leapt up in me, and then as swiftly expired. I did not have the energy to maintain it, I realized. And then, with an equanimity I had not known I possessed, I suddenly accepted it. Things had changed. All my roles had shifted, not just with Prince Dutiful and Jinna and Lord Golden. Even Chade saw me differently. I could not force Lord Golden to revert to being the Fool. Perhaps he could not, even if he had wished to. Was it so different for me? I was as much Tom Badgerlock as FitzChivalry Farseer now. Time to let it go.

Lord Golden was not in his chambers. I went into my room and put on a shirt that wasn’t sweated through. I took off the charm necklace Jinna had given me. When Dutiful’s cat had attacked me, his teeth had left nicks in two beads. I hadn’t noticed that before. For a short time I looked at it, and found that I was still grateful to Jinna for this gesture of goodwill. Yet that gratitude was not enough to allow me to continue wearing it. She had given it to me because she liked me, despite my Wit. That thought would always taint it now. I dropped it into the corner of my clothing chest.

As I was leaving my chambers, I encountered Lord Golden entering his. He halted at the sight of me. I had neither seen nor spoken to him since the feather incident. Now he looked me up and down as if he had never seen me before. After a moment, he said stiffly, ‘It is good to see you up and about again, Tom Badgerlock. But from the look of you, I think it will still be some days before you are fit to resume your duties. Take some time to recover yourself.’ There seemed something odd in his diction, as if he could not quite get his breath.

I offered him a servant’s bow. ‘Thank you, my lord and thank you for the additional time. I shall put it to good use. I’ve already been down to the practice courts today. As you observed, it may be some days before I am able to serve effectively as a bodyguard again.’ I paused, then added, ‘I was told in the kitchens that you had sent a boy to seek for me earlier today?’

‘A boy? Oh. Yes. Yes, I did. Actually, I sent him at Lord Chade’s behest. In truth, I near forgot. Lord Chade came here seeking you, and when you were not in your room, I set a boy running to see if you were in the kitchens. I think he wanted you to come to him. I didn’t … in truth, we had some talk that has …’ Lord Golden’s voice tottered to an uncertain halt. A silence fell. Then, in a voice that was almost the Fool’s, he said, ‘Chade came here to talk to me about something that he’d asked you to discuss with … There’s something I want you to look at. Have you a moment to spare?’

‘I am at your service, my lord,’ I reminded him.

I expected some response to that little jab. Instead, looking distracted, he said, ‘Of course you are. A moment, then.’ His Jamaillian accent had faded from his words. He went into his bedchamber, shutting the door behind him.

I waited. I walked over to the fire, poked it up a bit, and added a log. Then I waited some more. I sat down in a chair, noticed that my fingernails had grown and pared them back with my belt-knife. I continued to wait. Finally, I rose and with a sigh of exasperation, went to tap on the door. Perhaps I had misunderstood. ‘Lord Golden. Did you wish me to wait here?’

‘Yes. No.’ Then, in a very uncertain voice, ‘Would you come in here, please? But first make sure the corridor door is well bolted.’

It was. I rattled it to be sure and then opened the door to his room. The room was dim, the windows shuttered. Several candles illuminated Lord Golden standing with his back to me. He wore a sheet from his bed like a cape. He glanced at me over his shoulder and someone I had never met looked out of those golden eyes. When I was three steps into the room, he said quietly, ‘Stand there, please.’

With one hand, he lifted his hair up and out of the way to bare the nape of his neck. The sheet fell away from his naked back, but his free hand continued to clutch it to his chest. I gasped and took an inadvertent step closer. He flinched away but then stood his ground. In a small shaky voice, he asked, ‘The Narcheska’s tattoos. Were they like these?’

‘May I come closer?’ I managed to say. I didn’t really need to. If his tattoos were not identical to hers, then they were at least extremely similar. He nodded jerkily, and I took another step into the room. He did not look at me but stared off into a dim corner. The room was not cold, but he was shivering. The exotic needling began at the nape of his neck and covered every part of his back before vanishing beneath the waistband of his leggings. The twining serpents and wingspread dragons sprawled in exquisite detail over his smooth golden back. The shining colours had a metallic gleam to them, as if gold and silver had been forced under his skin to illuminate them. Every claw and scale, every shining tooth and flashing eye was perfect. ‘They are very alike,’ I managed to say at last. ‘Save that yours lie flat to your skin. One of hers, the largest serpent, stood swollen from her back as if inflamed. And it seemed to cause her great pain.’

He drew in a shuddering breath. His teeth were near to chattering as he observed bitterly, ‘Well. Just when I thought there was no way she could increase her cruelty, she finds one. That poor, poor child.’

‘Do yours hurt?’ I asked cautiously.

He shook his head, still without looking at me. Some of his hair fell free of his grasp to brush across his shoulders. ‘No. Not now. But the application of them was extremely painful. And of great duration. They held me very still, for hours at a time. They apologized and tried to comfort me as they did it. That only made it worse, that people who otherwise treated me with such love and regard could do that to me. They were meticulously careful to needle them in just as she instructed them. It is a horrible thing to do to a child. Hold him still and hurt him. Any child.’ He rocked slightly, his shoulders hunched. His voice was distant.

‘They?’ I asked very softly.

His voice was tight, all melody gone from it. He shuddered out his words. ‘I was at a place rather like a school. Teachers and learned folk. I told you about it before. I ran away from it. My parents sent me there, parting from me with both pride and sorrow, because I was a White. It was a long way from our home. They knew they would probably never see me again, but they knew it was the correct thing to do. I had a destiny to fulfil. But my teachers insisted there already was a White Prophet for this time. She had already studied with them, and already set forth to fulfil her destiny in the far north.’ He turned his head suddenly and met my eyes. ‘Do you guess of whom I speak?’

I nodded stiffly. I felt cold. ‘The Pale Woman. Kebal Rawbread’s advisor during the Red Ship War.’

He returned my nod as stiffly. Again he looked away from me, staring into a darkened corner of the room. ‘So, a White I might be, but I could not be the White Prophet. Therefore, I must be an anomaly. A creature born out of my time and place. They were fascinated by me and listened to my every word and recorded every dream I spoke. They treasured me and treated me very well. They listened to me, but they never heeded what I said. And when she heard of me, she commanded that they keep me there. And they did. Later, she commanded that I be marked this way. And so they did.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. Save, perhaps, that we had both dreamed of these creatures, of sea serpents and dragons. But perhaps it is what you do with an extra White Prophet. Cover him over so he is no longer white.’ His voice tightened until the words were hard as knots. ‘It has shamed me so to be marked like this, at her will. It is worse now, to know that the Narcheska is also decorated with the Pale Woman’s markings. As if she claimed us as her tool, her creatures …’ His words faded away.

‘But why did they obey her? How could anyone do a thing like that?’

He laughed bitterly. ‘She is the White Prophet, come to set time in a better path. She has a vision. You do not question her will. Questioning her command can have severe repercussions. Ask Kebal Rawbread. You do as the Pale Woman tells you.’ His shivering had become a wild shaking.

‘You’re cold.’ I would have put a blanket around him, but to do so I would have had to step closer. I don’t think he could have allowed me to do that.

‘No.’ He gave me a sickly smile. ‘I’m afraid. I’m terrified. Please. Please go out while I get dressed again.’

I withdrew, shutting the door quietly behind myself. Then I waited. It seemed to take him a long time to put a shirt on.

When he emerged, he was meticulously attired, every strand of his hair restored to its rightful place. Still, he did not look at me. ‘There’s brandy by the fire for you,’ I told him.

He crossed the room in short nervous steps and took up the glass but did not drink from it. Instead, arms crossed as if he were cold, he stood very close to the fire, hugging his cup to him. He stared fixedly at the floor.

I went into his room and took one of his thick woollen cloaks from the wardrobe there, then he came back and I put it around him. I pulled his chair closer to the hearth, then took him by the shoulders and sat him down in it. ‘Drink the brandy,’ I told him. My voice sounded harsh. ‘I’ll put on the kettle for tea.’

‘Thank you.’ He whispered the words. Horribly, tears began to track down his face. They cut runnels in his carefully-applied paint, and dripped paleness onto his shirt.

I spilled water and burned myself putting the kettle on the hook. When it was in place, I dragged my chair close to his. ‘Why are you so scared?’ I asked him. ‘What does it mean?’

He sniffled, an incongruous sound from dignified Lord Golden. Worse, he took the corner of the cloak and wiped his eyes with it. It smeared his Jamaillian cosmetics, and I saw his bare skin. ‘Convergence,’ he said hoarsely. He drew a breath. ‘It means convergence. All comes together. I’m on the right path. I feared I had strayed. But this confirms it. Convergence and confrontation. And time set aright.’

‘I thought that was what you wanted. I thought that was what White Prophets do.’

‘Oh, yes. That is what we do.’ An unnatural calm came over him. He looked at me and met my eyes. I looked into a sorrow older and deeper than I wished to know. ‘A White Prophet finds his Catalyst. The one on whom great events may turn. And he uses him, ruthlessly, to turn time out of his track. Once more my tracks will converge with hers. And we will set our wills against one another, to see who prevails.’ His voice suddenly strangled. ‘Again, death will try to take you.’ His tears had stopped but moisture still glistened on his face. He caught up the hem of the cloak and smeared his face with it again. ‘If I don’t succeed, we’ll both just die.’ Hunched miserably in his chair, he looked up at me. ‘Last time was too close. Twice, I felt you die. But I held you and refused to let you go to peace. Because you are the Catalyst, and I win only if I keep you in this world. Alive no matter how. A friend would have let you go. I heard the wolves calling you. I knew you wanted to go to them. But I didn’t let you. I dragged you back. Because I had to use you.’

I tried to speak calmly. ‘That is the part that I have never understood.’

He looked at me sadly. ‘You understand. You simply refuse to accept it.’ He paused for a moment, then stated it simply. ‘In the world that I seek to sculpt, you live. I am the White Prophet and you are my Catalyst. The Farseer line has an heir and he reigns. It is but one factor, but it is a key factor. In the world the Pale Woman seeks to advance, you do not exist. Failing that, you do not survive. There is no Farseer heir. The Farseer line fails completely. There is no renegade White.’ He dropped his head into his hands and spoke through his fingers. ‘She engineers your death, Fitz. Her machinations are subtle. She is older than I am, and far more sophisticated. She plays a horrible game. Henja is her creature. Make no mistake about that. I do not understand her ploy there, nor why she offers the Narcheska to Dutiful. But she is behind it all, I am certain. She sends death for you, and I try to snatch you out of the way. So far, we have always matched her, you and I. But it has been more your luck than my cleverness that has saved you. Your luck and your … dare I say it? Your magics. Both of them. Still, always, always the odds are against your survival. And the deeper we go in this game, the worse the odds become. This last time … This last time was too much. I don’t want to be the White Prophet any more. I don’t want you to be my Catalyst.’ His voice had degraded to a cracked whisper. ‘But there isn’t any way to stop. The only thing that stops this is if you die.’ He suddenly looked about frantically. I found the brandy bottle and set it within his reach. He didn’t even bother to pour. He uncorked it and drank from the bottle. When he set it down, I reached over and took it.

‘That won’t help anything,’ I told him severely.

He gave me a loose-lipped smile. ‘I can’t go through another one of your deaths. I can’t.’

‘You can’t?’

He gave a giggle of despair. ‘You see. We’re trapped. I’ve trapped you, my friend. My beloved.’

I tried to fit my mind around what he was telling me. ‘If we lose, I die,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘If you die, we lose. It’s all the same.’

‘What happens if I live?’

‘Then we win. Not much chance of that, now. Not much chance and getting worse all the time, I’d say. Most likely we lose. You die and the world spirals down into darkness. And ugliness. Despair.’

‘Stop being so cheerful.’ This time I drank out of the bottle. Then I passed it to him. ‘But what if I do live? What if we win? What then?’

He parted the bottle’s mouth from his. ‘What then? Ah.’ He smiled beatifically. ‘Then the world goes on, my friend. Children run down muddy streets. Dogs bark at passing carts. Friends sit and drink brandy together.’

‘Doesn’t sound much different from what we have,’ I observed sourly. ‘To go through all this and make no difference at all.’

‘Yes.’ He agreed beatifically. His eyes filled with tears. ‘Not much different from the wondrous and amazing world that we have now. Boys falling in love with girls that aren’t right for them. Wolves hunting on the snowy plains. And time. Endless time unwinding for all of us. And the dragons, of course. Dragons sliding across the sky like beautiful jewelled ships.’

‘Dragons. That sounds different.’

‘Does it?’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Does it really? I think not. Remember with your heart. Go back, go back, and go back. The skies of this world were always meant to have dragons. When they are not there, humans miss them. Some never think of them, of course. But some children, from the time they are small, they look up at a blue summer sky and watch for something that never comes. Because they know. Something that was supposed to be there faded and vanished. Something that we must bring back, you and I.’

I put my face in my hand and rubbed my brow. ‘I thought we had to save the world. What has that got to do with dragons?’

‘It’s all connected. When you save any part of the world, you’ve saved the whole world. In fact, that’s the only way it can be done.’

I hated his riddles. Hated them passionately. ‘I don’t know what you want from me.’

He was silent. When I lifted my face to regard him, he was watching me calmly. ‘It’s safe for me to tell you. You won’t believe me.’ He drew a steadying breath. He had the brandy bottle cradled in one arm as if it were his babe. ‘We have to go on the Prince’s quest with him. To Aslevjal. To find Icefyre. Then we must prevent the Prince from slaying him. Instead we must free the black dragon trapped beneath the ice so he can rise, to become Tintaglia’s consort. So that they can mate and there can be real dragons in the world again.’

‘But … I can’t do that! Dutiful must cut off the dragon’s head and bring it to the hearth of Elliania’s motherhouse. Otherwise, she will not wed him. All these negotiations and hopes will have been for naught.’

He looked at me and I think he knew how torn I was. He spoke quietly. ‘Fitz. Set it out of your mind. Don’t think of it for now. The convergence and the confrontation await us. We need not rush towards them. When the time comes, I promise, you alone will be the one to choose. Do you keep your vowed loyalty to the Farseers or do you save the world for me?’ He paused. ‘One other thing I shall tell you. I should not, but I will. So you do not think that it is your fault when the time comes. Because, I promise you, it will not be. I prophesied it long ago, not understanding what I spoke of until this business of the tattoos was made clear to me. I dreamed it long ago, a child’s wild nightmare. Soon I will live it. So when it happens, you must promise me not to torment yourself with it.’

His shivering had returned as he spoke. His words came out between chattering teeth.

‘What is it?’ I asked with dread, already knowing.

‘This time, on Aslevjal.’ A terrified smile trembled at the corners of his mouth. ‘It is my turn to die.’

TWENTY-FOUR

Connections

The legend of the White Prophet and his Catalyst might be better described as a religion from the far south, only echoes of which have reached Jamaillia. Like many philosophies from the south, it is riddled with superstitions and contradictions, so that no thinking man could subscribe to such foolishness. At the core of the White Prophet heresy is the concept that for ‘every age’ (and this space of time is never defined) there is born a White Prophet. The White Prophet comes to set the world on a better course. He or she (and in this duality of gender we may see some borrowing from the true faith of Sa) does this by means of his or her Catalyst. The Catalyst is a person chosen by the White Prophet because he stands at a juncture of choices. By changing what happens to the Catalyst in his lifetime, the White Prophet enables the world to follow a truer, better course of history. Any thinking man can see that, as there is no way to compare what has happened to what might have happened, White Prophets can always claim to have bettered the world. Nor can any of the adherents of this heresy explain the idea that the world and time roll in a circular track, endlessly repeating itself. A perusal of the history that we have recorded shows quite clearly that this is not so, yet adherents of this false belief will still cling to it.

Delnar, the wise old priest of Sa, has written in his Opinions that not only the followers of this heresy are to be pitied, but also the ‘White Prophets’ themselves. He proves conclusively that such self-deluded fanatics are actually suffering from a rare disorder that drains all pigment from their flesh, at the same time inducing hallucinations of prophetic dreams sent by gods.

Wiflen, priest of Sa, Jorepin Monastery
Cults and Heresies of the Southlands

CHADE! I need you, I need you now! Come to me in the workroom. CHADE! Please hear me, please come!

I Skilled the summons wildly as I staggered up the stairs to my workroom. I do not even recall what urgent errand I had invented for my departure. I’d left him, the Fool and yet no longer the Fool, sitting by his fire with the brandy bottle. Now, heart hammering, I cursed my wasted body as I forced my legs to bend and push me along. I could not tell if Chade could hear me. Then I cursed myself and shifted my attention to Dutiful and Thick. I need to see Lord Chade immediately. With the greatest urgency. Find him and send him to me in my workroom.

Why? This from Dutiful.

Just do it!

Then, when I did stagger, sweating and puffing, into the workroom, I found Chade sitting impatiently by the hearth. He turned to glare at me. ‘What has kept you? I heard you’d come back into the castle, and I know Lord Golden would pass on my message. I don’t have all day to wait on you, boy. Important things are afoot, things that require your presence.’

‘No,’ I gasped. And then, ‘I talk first.’

‘Sit down,’ he growled at me. ‘Breathe. I’ll get you some water.’

I made it to the chair by the fire before I collapsed. I’d tried to force my body too much today. The ride and the practice bout by itself were enough to exhaust me. Now I was shaking as badly as the Fool had been.

I drank the water Chade brought me. Before he could begin to speak, I told him everything that the Fool had told me. When I had finished, I was still panting. He sat thinking while my breathing gradually slowed.

‘Tattoos,’ he muttered in disgust. ‘The Pale Woman.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t believe him. And I don’t dare disbelieve him.’ He scowled as he pondered my tale. Then, ‘You saw my spy’s report? He found no trace of a dragon on Aslevjal.’

‘I don’t think he made a very thorough search.’

‘Perhaps not. That is the trouble with hired men. When the money trickles away, their loyalty goes with it.’

‘Chade. What are we going to do?’

He gave me an odd look. ‘The obvious. Really, Fitz, you do need to recover your health. You are so easily rattled these days. Though I confess that the Fool’s tattoos are as great a surprise to me as to you. As is the connection he makes of them. When I spoke to him earlier today, to ask if he knew anything of such tattoos as an Outisland custom, he said he did not and calmly changed the subject. I can scarcely believe he would so dissemble to me, but …’ I watched Chade reorder to himself all that he knew of both the Fool and Lord Golden. Then he sighed heavily and admitted, ‘We do know there was a Pale Woman advising Kebal Rawbread for much of the Red Ship Wars. But we assumed that she perished alongside him. What could she have to do with Elliania? And even if she had lived, why should she attempt to be a part of our matchmaking, let alone have an interest in you or Lord Golden? It is all too far-fetched.’

I swallowed. ‘The maid, Henja. Elliania’s servant. She spoke of a “she”, as did Elliania and Blackwater. Those two spoke of her with dread. Perhaps this “she” is the Pale Woman, and perhaps she is the Fool’s “other White Prophet”. Then she could have plans of her own, plans that cross our own in ways we cannot foresee.’

I watched the old assassin mentally work through all the permutations of such a situation. Then he shrugged. ‘Regardless,’ Chade replied ruthlessly. ‘Our solution remains the same.’ He held up two fingers. ‘One. The Fool promised you that it would be your decision, to keep your oath to the Farseers or try to save this frozen dragon for him. So. You’ll keep your oath. I don’t doubt your loyalty.’

It did not seem that simple to me at all. I kept silent.

He touched his second finger. ‘Two. Lord Golden does not go to Aslevjal with us. Therefore, if we discover a dragon in the ice, which I very much doubt, he doesn’t try to interfere with Dutiful killing the dragon. Or at least chopping the frozen head off some ancient carcass, which I consider far more likely. Then, even if this “Pale Woman” does still exist and is a threat to him, he never comes near her. Hence, Lord Golden doesn’t die.’

‘What if he comes to Aslevjal anyway, with or without us?’

Chade gave me a look. ‘Fitz. Think, lad. Aslevjal is not an easy island to visit, even from the other Outislands. Not that he’ll get that far. Don’t you think I can issue an order that forbids Lord Golden to take passage on any ship outbound from Buckkeep Town? I’ll do it subtly, of course. But it will be done.’

‘What if he changes his appearance?’

He raised a white eyebrow at me. ‘Do you wish me to have him locked in a dungeon while we are gone? I suppose I could arrange that, if it would put your mind at rest. A comfortable dungeon, of course. All the amenities.’ His tone plainly said that he thought I was worrying unnecessarily. Confronted with his calm scepticism, I found it difficult to support the frantic fear the Fool had raised in me.

‘No. Of course I don’t want that,’ I muttered.

‘Then trust me. Trust me as you used to. Have a little confidence in your old mentor. If I don’t want Lord Golden to take ship from Buckkeep, then he won’t.’

I CAN’T FIND HIM. WHAT SHOULD I DO? Dutiful sounded panicked.

Chade cocked his head. ‘Did you hear something?’

‘A moment.’ I held up a finger to Chade. Never mind, Dutiful. He’s with me; it will be all right now.

What’s it all about?

Never mind, I tell you. Never mind. I shifted my attention from Dutiful to Chade. ‘That which you “heard” was Dutiful shouting at me that he couldn’t find you. A widespread Skilling, such as he still does when he’s anxious.’

A slow smile dawned over Chade’s features, even as he said, ‘Oh, you must be mistaken. I was sure I heard a shout in the distance.’

‘So the Skill can seem at first. Until your mind learns to interpret what it senses.’

‘Oh, my,’ Chade said quietly. He looked afar, smiling pensively. Then he came back to me with a jolt. ‘I’d nearly forgotten why I’d summoned you. The Queen’s convocation of the Witted. It is actually going to happen, much to my surprise. We’ve had word to expect them in six days. It’s taken them time to gather themselves, and they ask that the Queen send her own guard to bring them in under a safe passage flag. They asked for an exchange of hostages too, of course, but I told her that was nonsense! Six days from now, they will send us a bird telling us where to meet them. They promise it will be within a day’s ride of Buckkeep. When we get to the rendezvous, they will come to us. They will be cloaked and hooded to protect their identities. I’d like you to go with them when they ride out.’

‘Wouldn’t that seem very odd? Lord Golden’s personal bodyguard riding out with the Queen’s Guard on such a delicate mission?’

‘It would, but for one thing. By then, you will have left Lord Golden’s service, and taken a position with the Queen’s Guard.’

‘Won’t that be a rather abrupt change? How do we explain that? And when did you decide that, you old fox?’

‘Easily enough. Captain Fairgood will be anxious to secure your services, as he was so impressed with your ability to slay three men merely for attempting to steal your master’s pouch. A man that good with a blade would always be a welcome addition to the Queen’s Guard. If anyone asks, you can say that they offered you excellent wages, and that Lord Golden was only too willing to gain favour with the Queen by allowing her to hire his man away from him. Perhaps he is now comfortable enough at our court to see that he never needed a bodyguard at all.’

Chade stacked his logic nicely. I suspected he had a stronger motive than simply to have more access to me as a spy. I wondered if he wanted to separate me from Lord Golden lest he make any inroads on my loyalty to the Farseers. I edged around the question, asking him, ‘Why is it so essential to you that I ride with the Queen’s Guard now?’

‘Well, for one thing, it will make it much easier to explain why you are chosen to accompany the Prince to the Outislands in spring. You’ll be one of the lucky ones whose lot is chosen for the honour. But mostly because the Witted have asked that, as a token that we mean them no harm, Prince Dutiful ride out as part of their escort.’

I was instantly distracted. ‘Do you think that’s safe? It could be a trap to lure him into danger.’

He smiled grimly. ‘Why do you think I want you riding at his heels? Of course, it’s possible it’s a trap. But the Witted must fear the same thing, must they not? So they ask for him, knowing that we would not risk the sole Farseer heir if there were any chance of a skirmish.’

‘Old Blood,’ I told him. ‘You must learn to say “Old Blood” not “Witted”. Then you’ll send him out to escort them in?’

Chade scowled and admitted, ‘He has little choice in that, as little as I do. The Queen has already promised it to them.’

‘In spite of your disapproval.’

Chade gave a snort of disdain. ‘My approval or disapproval means little to the Queen these days. She thinks, perhaps, that she has outgrown her need for me as a councillor. Well. We shall see.’

I could think of nothing to say to that. Truth to tell, and though it cost me a pang of disloyalty, I secretly rejoiced in my queen’s assertion of her strength.

The days to come were so full that the tensions of them almost crowded from my mind my concerns for the Fool. Despite the fragility of my health, Chade, Thick, Dutiful and I began to meet every morning in the Seawatch Tower. The Fool was not included in our meetings. Chade made no comment on this; given what I had told him, perhaps he viewed it as more desirable that the Fool not be a part of our coterie. I never brought the topic up. Only we four gathered, and there we pursued the Skill with an avidity that frightened me and enthused the rest of them. We made progress, careful and controlled progress that satisfied no one except me. Thick learned to confine his music, though it seemed to distress him in a way he could not explain. Dutiful became better at directing his Skill-messages to individuals. Chade, as was to be expected, lagged behind the other two pupils. If we were physically touching, he could reach my mind faintly, and I his. Thick could direct an onslaught at him that would catch his attention but convey nothing. Dutiful could not seem to find him. Or Chade couldn’t be aware of him. I could not tell which problem it was so we worked on both. The mornings were exhausting and nerve-racking. I still got headaches, though they did not compare to the ones that had previously afflicted me.

Under Chade’s strict directions, I ate a nourishing meal of bland and healthful food every noon. I might have taken control of his Skill-magic, but he still remained my mentor and believed he knew best where my physical health was concerned. It was at this time that he confronted me about the elfbark and carryme that he had found and removed from my room when I was recovering from my ‘healing’. It was a sharp quarrel between us, and uncomfortable for us both. He maintained that I had a duty not to do anything that might injure or inhibit my Skill, especially now that I was Skillmaster to the Prince and his coterie. I maintained that I had a right to the privacy of my possessions. Neither of us either conceded or apologized. It simply became an area we avoided discussing.

Lord Golden had dismissed me from his service shortly after Chade had suggested he might. I was offered employment with the Queen’s Guard and accepted it with alacrity. They accepted me into their midst with an equanimity that surprised me. Evidently I was not the first odd man that Chade had slipped into their ranks. I wondered how many of them were more than what they seemed. They asked me few questions, but measured me instead with their routine drills and practices. Early afternoons I spent with the Queen’s Guard on the practice grounds. I was often found lacking, and wore the bruises to show for it

Ostensibly, I had a bunk in the barracks with the rest of the guards but as often I slept in my workroom. If anyone wondered at my oddly loose attachment to the Queen’s Guard, no one commented on it to me. When I encountered Wim at the practice court, he congratulated me on ‘being an honest fighter again’. In dress, I went back to the plain blue of a Buck guardsman, with a purple and white tunic for the times when I must show myself as belonging to the Queen. I derived an inordinate amount of pleasure from openly wearing her fox badge on my breast. It matched the fox pin I wore within my shirt and above my heart.

I seemed to weary more swiftly and heal much more slowly than I ever had before, but despite Chade’s suggestions I did not attempt to use the Skill to speed that process. Late afternoons, while Chade was busy with diplomacy, Thick raided the kitchens for me. Together we gorged ourselves on sweets and rich pastries and fat meat. We discovered that Gilly loved raisins as much as Thick did. The ferret’s pleading dance for them could reduce Thick to tears of laughter. We all began to put on flesh, Thick probably more than was good for him. He became as round and his hair as glossy as a noble lady’s fat little lapdog. Blessed now with food, care and acceptance, a placid and sweet nature sometimes showed in the little man. I enjoyed those simple hours with him.

I even managed several evenings with Hap. We did not go to the Stuck Pig, but to a quiet alehouse, relatively new, called the Wrecked Red Ship. There we ate cheap and greasy tavern food and talked like the old friends we were becoming. It reminded me of my days with Burrich in the time just before Regal killed me. We recognized one another as men now. On our best evening, he regaled me with a long account of how Starling had swept into the woodshop, dazzled Master Gindast with her charm and fame, and carried him off for a day in Buckkeep Town. ‘It was so strange, Tom,’ he told me in a sort of wonder. ‘She behaved as if there had never been any quarrel nor hard words between us. And so what could I do, save do the same? Do you think she has actually forgotten what she said to me?’

‘I doubt she has forgotten,’ I told him thoughtfully. ‘A forgetful minstrel soon starves to death. No. With Starling, I think she believes that if she pretends hard enough that something is so, it becomes so. And, as you have seen, sometimes it works for her. Have you forgiven her, then?’

He looked nonplussed for a moment. Then, with a wry grin, he asked, ‘Would she notice if I hadn’t? She was so adept at persuading Gindast that she was all but a mother to me that I was half-convinced myself.’

I had to laugh and shrug to that. Starling had taken him to an inn frequented by travelling minstrels and there introduced him to a number of musical young ladies. They had fed him mincemeat pastries and filled him up with ale and their songs, vying for his attention. I warned him facetiously about the soft and easy ways of minstrels and their stony hearts. It was a mistake. ‘I’ve no heart left to give to any girl,’ he informed me soberly. Nonetheless, from his descriptions of several of them, it seemed to me that even if he did not have the heart, he still had an eye for them. And so I silently blessed Starling and prayed for a swift healing for my lad.

Both the Fool and Lord Golden assiduously avoided me. On several evenings when I quietly descended from the workroom to enter Lord Golden’s apartments through my old bedroom, I found him not at home. Dutiful told me that he gamed more frequently now, in Buckkeep Town where such amusements were gaining popularity as well as at private parties in the keep. I missed him, but also dreaded confronting him eventually. I did not want him to read in my eyes that I had betrayed him to Chade. It was for his own good, I excused myself. Dragons be damned. If simply keeping him away from Aslevjal would keep him alive, then his displeasure would be a small cost. That was what I told myself at the times when I found myself believing his wild prophecies. At other times, I was sure there was no frozen dragon and no Pale Woman and hence no reason for him to go to Aslevjal at all. And thus I justified it that I plotted with Chade against him. As for why he avoided me, I suspected he harboured some odd sense of shame about the tattoos that I now knew he bore. I knew I could not demand his company, nor force mine upon him. I could only hope that as days passed, the healing rift between us would further close.

And so the days ticked by.

I would not have admitted it to anyone, but my newfound dread of the Prince’s quest to Aslevjal Island was behind my renewed dedication to teaching him to Skill. No matter how I counted the days to our spring sailing, there were never enough of them. I now concurred with Chade that the Prince must have a coterie, one with at least a basic working knowledge of their magic. And so I applied myself to developing our Skill-talents, with varying degrees of success. Chade’s Skill-level slowly increased at our morning lessons. He was very dissatisfied with his progress, and that made it more difficult for him to focus. I could not get him to relax, no matter how I tried to force him into a calm and empty state. Dutiful seemed to find my arguments with my elderly student amusing while Thick was elaborately bored by them. Neither attitude helped Chade to be less irascible with me. My kindly and patient teacher, I discovered, was a terrible student, headstrong and insubordinate. Finally I succeeded in opening him to the Skill after four days of unrelenting effort. At his first awareness of the Skill-current, he rushed headlong into it. I had no choice but to go after him. Sternly forbidding Dutiful and Thick to follow, I plunged into the Skill.

I do not like to recall that mishap. It was not just that Chade was unfurling in the Skill. It was that there was so much of him to unfurl. Every moment of all his years of life streamed away from him. After struggling for a time to gather him in, I realized that the Skill was not shredding him. Rather, the old man was sending seeking threads of himself. Like the roots of a thirsty plant, he spread himself in every direction, heedless of the way the Skill-current tore and scattered his filaments. Even as I gathered the bits of him, he was glorying in the wild rush of connection. At length I tore him from the cataract of the Skill, powered as much by my great anger as by any magic. When at last we came back to our bodies, I found mine under the great table, trembling and twitching at the edge of a convulsion.

‘You stupid, stubborn old bastard!’ I gasped at him. I had not the strength to shout. Chade himself was sprawled in his chair. As his eyelids fluttered and he came to awareness of himself, he muttered only, ‘Magnificent. Magnificent.’ And then he dropped his head down onto the table and sank into a deathly sound sleep from which there was no rousing him.

Dutiful and Thick hauled me out from under the table and back into my chair. Dutiful poured me a brimming glass of wine with shaking hands while Thick stood regarding me with his round little eyes very wide. When I had drunk half the wine, Dutiful said in an abashed voice, ‘That was the most frightening thing I’ve ever witnessed. Was that what it was like when you came in after me?’

I was too shaken and angry with both Chade and myself to admit to the Prince that I didn’t know. ‘Let it be a lesson to the both of you as well,’ I scolded. ‘Any one of us who commits such a foolish act risks all of us. Well do I understand now why the Skillmasters of old might put a pain barrier between the Skill and a wilful student.’

The Prince looked shocked. ‘You would not do such a thing to Lord Chade?’ His tone was as if I had proposed clapping the Queen in irons for her own good.

‘No,’ I admitted grudgingly. I rose shakily and circled the table. I nudged the snoring old man, and then prodded him. His eyes opened to slits. He smiled at me, head still on the table. ‘Ah. There you are, my boy.’ His smile grew fatuously wider. ‘Did you see me? Did you see me fly?’ And then, I was not sure if his eyes rolled up or his lids closed, but he was gone again, as exhausted as a child after a day at a fair. I despaired that he seemed to have carried away no sensation at all of tragedy narrowly averted. It was an hour before he awoke, and then, for all his apologies, there was a gleam in his eye that filled me with trepidation. Even after he promised me to make no wild experiments on his own, I privately impressed on Thick that if he sensed Chade Skilling, he must contact me at once. Thick’s earnest assent was a bare comfort to me; such promises did not usually stay long in his mind.

The next morning was to bring me no greater serenity. Exhorting Chade to do nothing this time, save witness as best he could, I attempted to guide Dutiful in borrowing Thick’s strength to increase his own use of the Skill. Although they all had experienced in my healing what their joined strength could do, none of the three could really explain how they had tapped it or what had happened. It seemed to me that Dutiful at least needed to be able to reliably draw on Thick’s power. So I set them a simple exercise, or so I thought.

Alone, Dutiful could reach Chade’s mind only as the barest whisper. He could make Chade aware of his efforts, but not of the message he sought to convey. I was not sure if this indicated that Chade was still too closed to the Skill, or if Dutiful could not sufficiently target him. I wanted to see if by tapping Thick’s strength, Dutiful could make Chade hear him. ‘Prince Verity told me that a coterie member or solo used in such a fashion was referred to as a King’s Man. So. Thick will be serving as King’s Man to Dutiful. Shall we try this?’ I asked them.

‘He’s the Prince. Not a king,’ Thick interrupted anxiously.

‘Yes. And?’

‘Can’t be a King’s Man then. It won’t work.’

I found my patience. ‘It’s all right, Thick. It will work. You will be serving as a Prince’s Man.’

‘Serving. Like a servant?’ He was instantly affronted.

‘No. Helping. Like a friend. Thick will be helping Dutiful as a Prince’s Man. Shall we try this?’

Dutiful was grinning, but it did not mock his man. Thick turned to him, caught the grin from him and settled himself next to the Prince. ‘It should be easy for both of you,’ I suggested. I didn’t know if I lied or not. ‘Thick must simply be open to the Skill, but not making any effort. Dutiful should draw strength from him and use the Skill to try to reach Chade. Dutiful. Go slowly. And if I tell you to stop, you must break the contact immediately. Now. Begin.’

I thought I had planned for every possibility. I had sweet foods such as Thick loved and brandy if we needed a restorative. Both waited on the table. I wondered now if that had been a bad idea. Thick’s eyes kept wandering to some currant buns. Would they distract him too much from his Skilling? I had wanted to have elfbark and hot water ready as well, but Chade had sternly over-ruled me. ‘Far better if the Prince’s coterie is never exposed to such a destructive drug,’ he opined righteously. I didn’t remind him that he had taught me the use of it.

I hovered anxiously behind the Prince as he set his hand upon Thick’s shoulder. If it appeared he were draining the little man, I was prepared to physically break the link between them. Well did I know that a Skill-user could deliberately kill that way. I wanted no tragic accidents.

We waited. After a time, I gave Chade a significant look. He raised his eyebrows.

‘Begin,’ I suggested to the two of them.

‘I’m trying,’ said Dutiful in exasperation. ‘I can Skill to Thick. But I don’t know how to draw his strength off and use it.’

‘Hmm. Thick, can you help him?’ I suggested.

Thick opened his eyes and looked at me. ‘How?’ he asked.

I didn’t know. ‘Just be open to him. Think of sending him your strength.’

Again, they settled. I watched Chade’s face, hoping for some sign that Dutiful had touched minds with him. But after a short time, Dutiful lifted his eyes to mine. His mouth twisted in a small smile. ‘He’s Skilling “strength, strength, strength” to me,’ he confided.

‘You said to!’ Thick protested angrily.

‘Yes. So I did,’ I assured him. ‘Calm down, Thick. No one is mocking you.’

He glared at me, breathing through his nose. Dogstink.

Dutiful flinched. Chade’s lips twitched but he managed not to smile. ‘Dog stink. Is that the message you wished to convey to me?’

‘I believe Thick intended that comment for me,’ I said carefully.

‘But it went through me to Chade, my target. I felt it,’ Dutiful said excitedly.

‘Well. At least we make progress,’ I said.

‘Can I have a bun now?’

‘No, Thick. Not yet. We all need to work on this.’ I pondered a moment. Dutiful had directed Thick’s Skill. Did that mean he had actually taken strength from Thick to break through to Chade, or that he had simply diverted Thick’s message intended for me to Chade?

I didn’t know. I didn’t think there was any way I could be absolutely certain of what had happened. ‘Try it together,’ I suggested. ‘Both of you attempt to send the same message to Chade, and only Chade. Try to make a concerted effort.’

‘Concerted?’

‘Do it together,’ Dutiful supplied to Thick. There was a moment of silent conference between the two. I suspected they chose a message. ‘Now,’ I suggested and watched Chade’s face.

He furrowed his brow. ‘Something about a bun.’

Dutiful gave a sigh of exasperation. ‘Yes, but that wasn’t what we were supposed to be conveying. Thick is having a bit of difficulty concentrating.’

‘I’m hungry.’

‘No, you aren’t. You just want to eat,’ Dutiful told him. Which put Thick into a sulk. No amount of prodding or persuasion would induce him to try again. We eventually allowed him the food and resolved to take a lesson from it on the morrow.

Yet the next morning we seemed doomed to have as little luck as before. Spring was in the air. I had thrown the window shutters open wide to the dawn. As yet, the sun was only a promise on the horizon, but the wind off the ocean had a lively and freshened air to it that spoke of life and change in the seasons. I stood breathing it in for a long time while I waited for the others to arrive.

I was no more at ease in conscience over what I had planned against Lord Golden. I had begun to wish I had not divulged that conversation to Chade, nor told him of the Fool’s tattoos. Surely if he had wished Chade to know of them, he would have told him during the course of their conversation about the Narcheska’s tattoos. I had a deep and profound sense of having made a wrong choice. There was no way to undo it, and confessing it to the Fool seemed unimaginable. The only thing more unimaginable was to allow him to go to Aslevjal if he believed he would die there. So, childish though it felt, I had decided that I would simply hold my tongue and leave the matter in Chade’s hands. He would be the one who would not allow Lord Golden to accompany us. I drew another deep breath of spring air, hoping it would make me feel rejuvenated. Instead, I only felt more deeply anxious.

Civil Bresinga had returned to Buckkeep. The guard that had accompanied him on his journey was nominally to express Farseer sympathy at the loss of his mother. Yet he still knew, even if others did not, that he could look forward to years of being monitored at Buckkeep. He would remain at the castle until he reached his majority, with the crown benevolently managing his lands. Galekeep was closed save for a skeleton staff provided by the Queen. It seemed to me a mild rebuke compared to his treasonous conduct. His Wit had been kept confidential; I supposed that the revelation of it could be used as a threat to discourage him from further wrongdoing. He had not been connected at all to the deaths of three men in Buckkeep Town. I seethed that he had got off so lightly for exposing my prince to so much danger. From what Chade had told me, Dutiful had insisted that Civil had passed on very little information about the Prince to the Piebalds, and most of it was knowledge that even the humblest serving-boy in the keep would have. It did not comfort me. Even more unsettling was that not only Laudwine but Padget had expressed an avid interest in whatever information Civil could discover about both me and Lord Golden. He knew little, so he had told them little. Still, Civil had confessed to the Prince that their interest made him very curious about us.

I’d spied on Civil in his rooms shortly after his return. He had looked like a forlorn and devastated young man. A single family servant remained with him at Buckkeep. He was a lad stripped of family and home, whittled down to his barest possessions, and his Wit-beast consigned to the stables. The simplicity of the chamber and furnishings offered to him was appropriate to a minor noble, but doubtless he had enjoyed far better at home. He had spent a good portion of his evening sitting and staring at the fire. I suspected he communed with his cat, but had not detected a flow of Wit between them. Instead, I had felt his misery as an almost tangible weight in his chamber.

I still didn’t trust him.

I was still staring out the window when I heard the Prince’s footfalls on the stairs. A moment later, he entered, shutting the door firmly behind him. Chade and Thick would be coming soon, by the secret passage, but for now I had a moment or two alone with him. I didn’t look at him as I asked him, ‘Does Civil’s cat speak to you?’

‘Pard? No. He’s a cat, so he could, of course, if he wished. But it would be regarded as … rude, I suppose.’ He made a considering noise. ‘It’s an odd thing to think of. Among the Old Blood who prefer cats, there are a number of shared customs. I would never attempt to initiate speech with someone else’s cat partner. It would be like, well, like flirting with someone’s intended. In all the time I’ve known Pard, he has never shown any interest in communicating with me. Of course, he did convey to me, that one time, that Civil was in danger. But that was more in the nature of a threat. Civil had brought him to me in a great canvas sack. I gathered from what Civil told me that he’d tricked the cat into getting into the sack in the course of some rough game they were playing. Only then Civil tied the sack shut and dragged him up the stairs to my chamber. And I do mean dragged. Pard’s a big cat.’

He heaved a sudden sigh. ‘I should have known, from that alone. If Civil had not been distraught, he never would have treated Pard so disrespectfully. But Civil seemed so distressed and in such a hurry that I agreed to keep the cat in my chamber until he returned for it and asked few questions. But then, after he’d gone, I couldn’t stand to hear Pard snarling and doing that singsong whine. He was trying to gut his way out of the sack with the claws on his hind feet, but Civil had chosen a very heavy canvas. After a while, he just lay there, panting, and I began to fear that he would suffocate. He sounded as if he were in distress. But the moment I opened the mouth of the bag, he came out clawing and knocked me down. He grabbed me here,’ and Dutiful’s hand measured the side of his throat, ‘and dug his hind claws into my belly. He swore he’d kill me if I didn’t let him out of the room. Then, before I could take any action, he yowled and raked his claws down me. That was when Civil was attacked. He said it was my fault and he’d kill me for it unless I saved him. So I Skilled to you.’

He had joined me at the window, looking out over the water’s wrinkling face as the sunrise coaxed colour out of the black waves. He stared for a time in silence.

‘Then what happened?’ I nudged him.

‘Oh. I suppose I was thinking of what must have been happening to you then. Why didn’t you Skill to me? Don’t you think I would have sent you aid?’

His question startled me. I took a moment to find the answer within myself. I laughed. ‘I suppose you would have, if I’d thought of it. But, for so many years, it was just the wolf and me. And when I lost Nighteyes … I never thought that I could call out to you for help. Or even let you know where I was. It just never occurred to me.’

‘I tried to reach you. When they were … strangling Civil, his cat went wild. Pard leapt off me and went racing around the room, killing everything within reach. I had no idea of the damage his claws could do. The bed curtains, clothing … There’s still a tapestry rolled up under my bed that I haven’t had the courage to tell anyone about. I think it’s ruined. And I suspect it was priceless.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ve got one you can have.’ He looked puzzled at my lop-sided smile.

‘I tried to Skill to you. Even as Pard was shredding my room. But I couldn’t get through to you.’

I recalled something that I hadn’t in a long time. ‘Your father had the same complaint about me. That, when I went into battle, I could not sustain a Skill-link to him. Nor could he establish one with me at such times.’ I shrugged. ‘I’d near forgotten that.’ Without thinking, I fingered the bite-scar at the angle of my neck. Then I realized Dutiful was staring at me with that look of boyish admiration and I snatched my hand down.

‘And that is the only time that Pard has ever spoken to you?’

He shrugged. ‘Almost. Abruptly he stopped tearing up my things. Then he thanked me. Very stiffly. I think it must be difficult for a cat to thank anyone. After that, he got up into the middle of my bed and ignored me. He stayed there until Civil came for him. My room reeks of cat still. I think Pard sprays when he fights.’

From the little I knew of cats, it seemed likely. I said as much. Then, delicately, because this was a topic that was tender between us, I asked him, ‘Dutiful? Why do you trust Civil? I can’t understand why you allow him in your life after what he’s done.’

He gave me a puzzled glance. ‘He trusts me. I don’t think anyone could trust a man as he does me, and not be worthy of my trust in return. Besides. I need him if I am to understand the Old Blood people of my kingdom. My mother pointed that out to me. That I must know at least one, very well, if we are to treat with them at all.’

I hadn’t thought of that, but I knew what he meant. The Old Blood lifestyle was a culture hidden within our own Six Duchies culture. I’d had a glimpse of it, but I could not explain it to Dutiful, as could someone born and raised in it. Still, ‘There must be someone else who could serve you that way. I still do not see what Civil has ever done to deserve your regard of him.’

Dutiful gave a small sigh. ‘FitzChivalry. He entrusted his cat to me. If you knew you were going forth to die, and you did not want Nighteyes to die alongside you, where would you leave him? Who would you entrust him to? A man you had willingly betrayed? Or a friend whom you trusted to see past all shams?’

‘Oh,’ I said, when his question had sunk in to my mind. ‘I see. You are right.’

No man would entrust half his soul to a man he cared nothing for.

In a short time Chade and Thick emerged from the mantelpiece. The old man was scowling and shaking cobwebs from his elaborate sleeves. Thick was humming to himself, odd notes that filled in the gaps in a song that he Skilled to the morning. He seemed to be taking a great deal of pleasure in it. If I listened only with my ears, he seemed to be merely making annoying random sounds. What a difference access to another’s mind could make in my understanding of him.

Thick’s eyes went immediately to the table and I sensed his disappointment that no pastries awaited him. With a sigh, I hoped that his dashed expectations would not interfere with today’s efforts. I seated my students as I had the day before, with Chade on one side of the table and Dutiful and Thick close beside each other on the other side. As before, I stood behind Dutiful and Thick, ready to fall on them and physically separate them if necessary. I knew Dutiful regarded this as somewhat dramatic, and even Chade seemed to think me overly anxious. But neither of them had ever been near drained of life by another Skill-user.

As before, Dutiful set his hand to Thick’s shoulder. As before, they tried to reach Chade with a simple message and could not. Dutiful could reach my mind, as could Thick, but even in the familiar task of reaching me, they could not unite. I was beginning to think it was hopeless. One of the most basic tasks of a coterie was to be able to join their Skill and make it available to their king. We could not even do that. And the repeated failures were beginning to make us fractious with one another.

‘Thick. Stop your music. How can I concentrate with your music running continually in the back of my mind?’ Dutiful demanded after our latest effort had yielded naught.

Thick flinched to his prince’s rebuke. As his eyes filled with tears, I realized suddenly how deep and powerful a bond he had formed with Dutiful. I think the Prince realized his error also, for an instant later he shook his head at himself and commented, ‘It’s the loveliness of the music that distracts me, Thick. I don’t wonder that you always want to share it with the world. But for now, we must focus on our lessons. Do you see?’

Chade’s eyes suddenly kindled to green sparks. ‘No!’ he exclaimed. ‘Thick, do not stop your music. For I have never heard it, though I have often heard from Dutiful and Tom how lovely it is. Let me hear your music, Thick, just this once. Put your hand on Dutiful’s shoulder and send your music to me. Please.’

Dutiful and I gawked at Chade, but Thick beamed. He did not hesitate for an instant. Almost before Dutiful had dropped his hand from Thick’s shoulder, the little man had seized Dutiful’s in a firm grip. Eyes fixed on Chade, mouth wide open with delight, he gave Dutiful no time to focus. Music filled us all like a flood. Vaguely, I saw Chade reel with the impact of it. His eyes widened, and even though triumph dawned on his features, I also saw a shadow of fear.

I had not underestimated Thick’s strength. Never had I witnessed such an outpouring of Skill. Up to now, Thick’s music had been always in the undercurrent of his thoughts, as unconscious as his breathing or the beating of his heart. Now he flung himself out wide to the world, rejoicing in his mother-song.

As a muddy river in flood time can colour the whole bay it drains into, so did Thick’s song dye the great Skill-current. His song entered the flow and changed it. I had never imagined anything like it. Gripped by it as I was myself, I found myself powerless to take command of my body. The overwhelming fascination of Thick’s music drew me into it and wrapped me in his rhythm and melody. Somewhere, I sensed that Dutiful and Chade were with me, but I could not discern them for the curtain of beckoning music. Nor was I the only one so drawn. I sensed others in the Skill-curtain. Some were single threads, a trailing tendril of magic from those barely Skilled at all. Perhaps somewhere a fisherman wondered at the odd tune running in the back of his mind, or a mother changed the lullaby she hummed. Others were more engaged. I sensed folk who halted in the midst of what they were doing and looked round blindly, trying to locate the source of the whispering music.

There were not many, but some were there, their awareness of the Skill a constant in their lives, a background hush of muted voices that they had schooled themselves to ignore. But this rush of music broke through all such habitual barriers, and I sensed them turn towards us. Some likely shouted aloud in shock; others may have fallen to the ground. Only one voice did I hear, clear and unencumbered by fear: What is this? Nettle demanded. Whence comes this waking dream?

From Buckkeep, Chade answered joyously. From Buckkeep comes this call, oh ye Skilled ones! Awake and come to Buckkeep, so that your magic may be awakened and you may serve your prince!

To Buckkeep? Nettle echoed.

And then, like a trumpet call from the distance, a far voice: I know you now. I see you now.

Perhaps nothing else could have broken me from those shackles of Skill-fascination. I parted Dutiful from Thick with a force that astonished all three of us. With a crash, the music halted. For a second I was blinded and deafened by the absence of the Skill. My heart went yearning after it. It was a far purer connection to the world than my feeble senses. But I soon came back to myself. I offered Dutiful my hand, for my shove had sent him sprawling to the floor. Dazedly he gripped my hand and came to his feet, asking as he did so, ‘Did you hear that girl? Who was she?’

‘Oh, just that girl that cries all the time,’ Thick dismissed her and I felt gratitude that his answer filled the gap. Then, ‘Did you hear my music? Did you like it?’ he was demanding of Chade.

Chade didn’t answer immediately. I turned to see him slumped in his chair. He wore a foolish smile yet his brow was furrowed. ‘Oh, yes, Thick,’ he managed. ‘I heard it. And I liked it very much.’ He put his elbows on the table and propped his head in them. ‘We did it,’ he breathed. He lifted his eyes to me. ‘Does it always feel like that? The exuberance, the sense of completeness, of joining oneself to the world?’

‘It’s a thing to be wary of,’ I warned him immediately. ‘If you go into the Skill seeking that sense of connection, it may sweep you away entirely. A Skill-user must always keep his purpose in the forefront of his mind. Otherwise you can be swept away and lost –’

‘Yes, yes,’ Chade interrupted me impatiently. ‘I haven’t forgotten what happened to me last time. But I do think that this is an event that deserves a celebration.’

The others seemed to share his sentiments. I am sure they thought me curmudgeonly and grumpy for my silence. Still, I brought forth the covered basket I had concealed beneath the table, and within it even Thick found enough to be satisfied. We had brandy all round, though I think Chade was the only one who truly needed restoring. The old man’s hands shook as he lifted the glass to his mouth, but nonetheless he smiled and offered a toast before he drank: ‘To those who may come, to form a true coterie for Prince Dutiful!’ He gave me no sly glances and I joined with the others in drinking, even as I hoped Burrich would firmly keep Nettle at home.

Then I asked warily, ‘What do you think that other voice was? The one that said, “I know you now”.’

Thick ignored me and went on nibbling raisins with his front teeth. Dutiful gave me a puzzled glance. ‘Another voice?’

‘Do you mean the girl who Skilled so clearly?’ Chade asked, plainly shocked that I would call her to their attention. I think he had already deduced that she was Nettle.

‘No,’ I said. ‘That other voice, so foreign and strange. So … different.’ I could not find words to express the wariness it had roused in me. It was like a dark premonition.

A moment of silence followed my words. Then Dutiful said, ‘I only heard the girl who said “To Buckkeep?”’

‘And I the same,’ Chade assured me. ‘There was no coherent thought after hers. I thought she was why you broke our linking.’

‘Why would he do that?’ Dutiful demanded.

‘No,’ I insisted, ignoring the Prince’s question. ‘Something else spoke. I tell you, I heard … something. Some kind of a being. Not human.’

This was an extraordinary enough statement to distract Dutiful from prying for Nettle’s identity. But as the other three all vowed they had sensed nothing, my claims were not taken seriously, and by the end of the session, I had begun to wonder if I had deceived myself.

TWENTY-FIVE

Convocation

… and nothing would do but that the Princess would have the dancing bear for her very own. Such a begging has not been heard for many a year, but at last she prevailed and her father gave the bear’s keeper a whole handful of gold coins for the beast. And the Princess herself took hold of the chain that went to the bear’s ring, and led the great, hulking creature up to her own bedchamber. But in the depth of the night, while all else in the keep slept, the boy rose up and threw off his bearskin. And when he showed himself to the Princess, she found him as comely a youth as she had ever seen. And it was not so much that he had his way with her, as that she had hers with him.

The Bear-boy and the Princess

One afternoon, the birches flushed pink and the packed snow of the courtyard turned to slush. Spring came that quickly to Buckkeep that year. By the time the sun went down, there were bare patches of earth showing on some of the best-trodden tracks. It was cold that night, and winter stilled everything with its touch, but the next morning the land awoke to the sound of trickling water and a warm sweeping wind.

I had slept in the barracks and slept well despite the snoring and night-shifting of two dozen other men. I rose with the others, ate a hearty breakfast in the guardroom and then returned to the barracks to don the purple and white of the Queen’s Guard. We buckled on our swords, collected our horses, and gathered in the courtyard.

Then there was the inevitable wait for the Prince to emerge. When he did come out, Councillor Chade and Queen Kettricken accompanied him. The Prince looked both polished and uncomfortable. Perhaps a dozen lesser nobles were there to see him off. Amongst the well-wishers were the six representatives the Six Duchies had originally sent to the Queen for her discussion of the Witted problem. I could tell by their faces that they had never expected to be involved in a face-to-face confrontation with the Witted, and they did not look forward to it. Lord Civil Bresinga was among those who stood in the slushing snow to bid the Prince farewell. From the back rank of the Queen’s Guard, I watched his still face and wondered how he felt about what was happening. By the Queen’s express command, no one would leave Buckkeep save the guard and the Prince. She would take no chances of frightening away the already-cautious Old Blood delegation.

The Queen gave brief instructions to her commander. I could not hear her words to Marshcroft, our leader, but I saw his face change. He made a sincere bow but disapproval was in every line of his face. And I was shocked to the core when a woman on horseback suddenly joined us leading the Queen’s mount. It took me a moment to recognize Laurel. She had cropped her hair short and dyed it black. Chade stepped forward, remonstrating, but the Queen looked adamant. She spoke briefly to him. I could not hear her words, but I saw the set line of Kettricken’s jaw and Chade’s rising colour. With a final curt nod to her councillor she mounted, and signalled her readiness to Marshcroft. At his command, we all mounted, and then we followed our prince and Marshcroft as they led us out of the gates of Buckkeep. I glanced back to find Chade staring after us in horror. Why is she going with us? I Skilled frantically to Chade, but if he received my thought, he made no response.

I asked the same question of the Prince.

I do not know. She merely told Chade there had been a change in plans, and that she left it up to him to be certain that no one followed us. I do not like this.

Nor do I.

I watched as Dutiful said something to his mother. She merely shook her head at him. Her lips were firmly closed. Laurel rode looking straight ahead. My brief glimpse of her had shown me that there were new lines in her brow, and less flesh to her face. So, she had been the Queen’s emissary to the Witted. Was that how she fought the Piebalds? Trying to win more political power for a more temperate group? It made sense, but it could not have been an easy task for her, or a safe one. I wondered when she had last slept soundly.

The melting slush gave way unevenly beneath our horses’ hooves. We left by the west gate. Ostensibly, only the Prince and Marshcroft knew our destination. The bird with the message had arrived yesterday. In reality, I shared that knowledge. There had been mutterings and discontent about the Queen consenting to meet with emissaries of Old Blood. It had been judged wiser to keep our rendezvous location a secret lest any of the more intractable nobles sabotage our plans.

The wind promised either rain or wet snow to come. Sap had flushed the leafless trees to life. We did not take the fork of the road that led down to the river but instead took the branch that led into the forested hills behind Buckkeep Castle. A lone hawk patrolled the sky, perhaps in search of venturesome mice. Or perhaps not, I thought to myself. As the trees drew closer to the road, Marshcroft gave us the order to reform so that the Prince and the Queen rode now in our midst instead of before us. My dread grew. Not by any word or sign had Dutiful indicated that he was aware that I rode at his back, but I was glad of the tight Skill-awareness that hung between us.

We rode on through the morning, and at each fork in the road we took the less trafficked one. I was not pleased that the narrowing passage through the trees forced us into a long and straggling line. Myblack detested keeping a steady pace following the horse in front of her and I had a constant battle to keep her from moving up on him. Her wilfulness was an unwelcome distraction as I tried to expand my Wit-awareness of the forest around us. Given the men and horses around me, it was a near-impossible task to be aware of anything beyond them, much like trying to listen for the squeaking of a mouse while surrounded by barking dogs. Nonetheless, I cursed myself and sent a sharp Skill-warning to the Prince when I first became aware of the outriders flanking us. They had done a wonderful job. I was suddenly aware of two of them, and before I could draw breath, noticed three more ghosting alongside us through the trees. They were on foot, their faces hooded against recognition. They carried bows.

This is not where we were told they’d await us, Dutiful Skilled anxiously as Marshcroft called an abrupt halt. We formed up as well as we could around the Prince. The Witted I could see had arrows nocked, but the bows were not drawn.

Then, ‘Old Blood greets you!’ a voice rang through the forest.

‘Dutiful Farseer returns greeting,’ Dutiful replied clearly when the Queen kept silent. He sounded very calm, but I could almost feel the hammering of his heart.

A short, dark woman came striding through her archers to stand before us. Unlike the others, she was unarmed and her face uncovered. She looked up at the Prince. Then she turned her gaze to the Queen. Her eyes widened and a tenuous smile came to her face. Then, ‘FitzChivalry’ she said clearly. I stiffened, but Dutiful relaxed.

He nodded to Marshcroft as he said, ‘That was the agreed password. These are the folk we promised to meet and escort.’ He turned back to the woman. ‘But why are you here rather than at our arranged rendezvous?’

She laughed lightly, but bitterly. ‘We have learned a measure of caution in the past, my lord, in dealing with Farseers. You will forgive us if we still employ it. It has saved many a life here.’

‘You have not always been fairly dealt with, so I will excuse your suspicion. I am here, as you requested, to assure you that we offer the emissaries safe passage to Buckkeep Castle.’

The woman nodded. ‘And have you brought for us a hostage, one nobly born, as we requested?’

For the first time, the Queen spoke. ‘He is here. I give you my son.’

Dutiful went white. Marshcroft burst out, ‘My Queen, I beg you, no!’ He turned back to the Old Blood woman. ‘Lady, if it please you, I was told nothing of a hostage. Do not take my prince from my protection. Take me instead!’

Did you know of this? I demanded of Dutiful.

No. But I understand her reasoning. His response was oddly calm. He spoke his next words aloud, but they were for me as much as for the guard. ‘Peace, Marshcroft. This is my mother’s decision, and I will obey it. No one will fault you for following your queen’s will. For in this, I am Sacrifice for my people.’ He turned to look at his mother. His face was still pale, but his voice was firm. He was proud of this moment, I knew suddenly. Proud to serve in this way, proud that she had thought him mature enough to face this challenge. ‘If it is my mother’s will, then I put my life in your hands. And if any of your folk are harmed, then I am willing to forfeit.’

‘And I, too, will remain as surety for my queen’s word.’ Laurel’s soft voice rang clear in the shocked silence that followed. The Old Blood woman nodded gravely. Laurel was obviously well known to her.

My thoughts raced as I tried to put it all together. Of course the Old Blood folk would have asked for a hostage. Safe passage and hidden identities would not protect their chosen leaders once they were inside Buckkeep’s walls. Despite Chade’s dismissal of their request, I should have known that someone would have to serve. But why did it have to be the Prince? And why could not the Queen have chosen me to remain at his side instead of Laurel? I looked at Kettricken with new eyes. The subterfuge surprised me, as did her circumvention of Chade. Well I knew he would never have agreed to this. How had she arranged it all? Through Laurel? Marshcroft flung himself from his horse and knelt at her feet in the sogging snow, begging her not to do this, to let him be hostage instead, or at least to let him and five chosen men remain with the Prince. But she was adamant. Dutiful stepped down from his mount and drew Marshcroft to his feet. ‘No one will ever fault you for this, even if it goes awry,’ he sought to assure him. ‘My lady mother is here to give me over; that was why she came. All will know it was her will, not yours, that this be done. I beg you, good man, remount and take our queen safely home.’ He raised his voice, ‘Yes, and all who ride back with you, hear me. Guard these folk as if my life depended on it, for I assure you that it does. That is how you can best serve me.’

The Old Blood woman spoke then to Marshcroft, saying, ‘I promise both you and his mother that he will be treated well, so long as our own are treated similarly. On this you have my word.’

Marshcroft looked little comforted by it.

I was in a quandary as I sat and watched the exchange happen. I will double back and follow, I promised the Prince.

No. My mother has given her word that we will treat fairly with them, and so we shall. If I have need of you, I shall let you know. This I promise you. But for now, let me do this thing she has entrusted to me.

By then our emissaries were trickling in from the forest in twos and threes. Some brought their Wit-beasts. I heard the high cry of a hawk overhead, and knew that I had guessed correctly earlier that day. Another man rode with a spotted dog at his stirrup. One woman came towards us leading a milk-cow heavy with calf. But of the dozen folk, faces swathed and variously mounted, who came to join us, most were alone. I wondered if they had left their animals behind or were currently unpaired.

One man immediately caught my attention. He was probably about fifty, but he wore his years well as some active men do. He walked with a sailor’s roll, leading a horse that he obviously mistrusted. Both the hair of his head and his short-trimmed beard were steely grey, and his eyes the same but with a hint of blue. Other than the woman who had first greeted us, he was the only Old Blood who went unmasked. Yet it was not his appearance that struck me so much as the deference the other Old Bloods accorded him. They stepped back for him as if he were either holy or mad. The Old Blood woman who had first greeted us indicated him with a flourish.

‘You have entrusted us with Prince Dutiful. This we little expected you would do, despite the word that was sent to us. Yet I was determined that if you gave us a hostage that indicated you had true respect for us, we would do the same. We give you Web. He is of the oldest Old Blood, an unmingled bloodline and the last of that heritage. We have no nobility amongst ourselves, no kings nor queens. But from time to time we do have one such as Web. He does not rule us, but he does listen to us, and we listen to him. Mind that you treat all my people well, but Web treat as if he were your prince.’

It seemed a very strange introduction to me. I knew little more about the man than I had when she started speaking, and yet all the Old Blood behaved as if she had bestowed a gift upon us. I saved it up to expound on to Chade.

I thought of Skilling ahead to Thick to ask him to tell Chade what the Queen had done, but I decided against it. The little man often scrambled messages, and I did not want Chade spurred into rash action. I’d seen enough of that for one day. As our two groups parted, leaving the Prince and Laurel sitting their horses and surrounded by armed Witted, the rain suddenly came pelting down. The woman who had spoken called after us, ‘Three days! Return my people unharmed in three days!’

The Queen turned back and nodded to her gravely. The reminder had scarcely been needed. It already seemed far too long a time to entrust the well-being of our prince to them.

Marshcroft did his best to form up his troops protectively about the Old Bloods, but they were more than we had expected and his guard was spread thin. I was towards the end of the procession, riding behind the woman who led her Wit-cow. I had thought the bearded man would insist on some sort of honoured place in the formation, perhaps riding alongside the Queen. Instead, Web rode towards the rear, right in front of me. I glanced back for a final glimpse of my prince sitting his horse in the freezing rain. When I looked forward again, I found the man watching me.

‘Braver than I thought a boy of his years would be. Tougher than I thought a prince would be,’ Web observed to me. The guardsman to my right scowled, but I nodded gravely. Web held my eyes for a time before he looked away. I felt uneasy that he had singled me out for his words.

Before we reached Buckkeep, I was soaked through. The rain turned to a sloppy snow, making the trail treacherous and slowing our progress. The guards at the gate admitted us without question or delay, but as we rode past, I saw one’s eyes widen and read his lips as he whispered to his fellow, ‘The Prince is gone!’ So the rumour fled before us into Buckkeep.

In the courtyard, Marshcroft assisted the Queen’s dismount. Chade was there to meet us. He lost control for an instant when he realized the Prince had not returned. His sharp green gaze sought me immediately. I avoided meeting it, as much because I had no information for him as because I did not want folks to connect us. It was not difficult. The courtyard had become a place of trampled snow and mud, full of milling folk and animals. The milk-cow’s distressed intermittent mooing mingled with the general discord of voices. There were folk from our stables waiting to take our beasts and those of our guests, but they had not been prepared for the pregnant cow, nor for a soaking and masked woman who would not leave her animal but feared to enter our stables alone.

At length both Web and I volunteered to accompany her. I found an empty stall and made her weary cow as comfortable as she could be made in an unfamiliar place. The woman, Sally, said little to either of us, instead seeming completely concerned for the cow’s welfare. But Web was affable and talkative, not just to me, but to the horses in their stalls and the stableboys that I sent running for water and fresh hay. I introduced myself as Tom Badgerlock of the Queen’s Guard.

‘Ah,’ he said, and nodded as if confirming something he had already suspected. ‘You would be Laurel’s friend, then. She spoke well of you, and commended you to my attention.’

On that unnerving note, he turned back to his exploration of the stables. He seemed interested in all that was going on around him, asking questions not just about how many animals were stabled here, but what sort of a horse was that and had I been a guardsman long and did I look forward to a set of dry clothes and something hot to drink as much as he did?

I was taciturn in my response without being rude, but it was still a relief to escort them into the keep and up to the east wing where the Queen had decided to quarter all her Old Blood guests. Those quarters offered them privacy from the rest of the keep folk. There was a large room where they could dine together unmasked, once the food was set out and the serving folk were banished. They all seemed very concerned that their identities remain hidden. All save Web. I escorted him and the cow-woman up to the floor where the bedchambers were. There a maid greeted them and asked them to follow her. Sally left without a backwards glance, but Web clasped wrists with me heartily and told me that he expected we’d have a chance to talk again soon. He wasn’t three steps away from me before he was asking the chambermaid if she enjoyed her work and had she lived at the castle long and wasn’t it a shame the spring day had ended in such a downpour.

My duties discharged, this wet and weary guardsman went immediately to the guardroom. There, all was in an uproar as the Queen’s decision was discreetly discussed at the top of our lungs. The hall was packed, not only with the guards who had just come in but with all who wanted to hear the tale at first hand. It was too late for that, however. Amongst guardsmen, tales multiply faster than rabbits. As I wolfed down stew and bread and cheese, I heard how we had been surrounded by a force of three score Witted ones with bows, swords and at least one wild boar, tusking and snorting and eyeing us all the while. I had to admire the last addition to the tale. At least the man shouting out his account most loudly told how brave and cool our prince had been.

Still dripping and cold, I left the guardroom and headed down a corridor that led past the kitchens and towards the pantries. In a quiet moment, I slipped inside Thick’s small room, and from thence into the hidden corridors of the keep. I fled to my workroom as swiftly as I could and changed into dry clothes, spreading my wet ones to drip over the tables and chairs. The tiny note from Chade said merely, ‘Queen’s private council room’. From the splattered ink, I deduced he had been in high temper when he penned it.

And so I made another hurried dash through the twisting labyrinth. I cursed its construction, wondering if the men who had built it had been as short as the ceilings seemed to indicate, even as I knew that no one had ever planned this whole maze. Rather it utilized not only gaps between walls but abandoned servants’ stairs as well as bits added deliberately in the course of repairing the old keep. I was out of breath when I reached the secret entrance to the Queen’s private chambers. I halted to catch my breath before knocking, and became aware of the fierce argument on the other side of the concealed door.

‘And I am the Queen!’ Kettricken stated in fierce reply to whatever Chade had said. ‘As well as his mother. In either capacity, do you think I would risk heir or son if I had not thought it of the highest importance?’

I didn’t hear Chade’s reply. But Kettricken’s was clear and almost strident. ‘No, it has nothing to do with my “damnable Mountain upbringing”. It has to do with me forcing my nobles to treat with the Old Bloods as if they had something to lose. You witnessed how they trivialized my efforts before. Why? Because it cost them nothing to leave things as they were. The injustice did not bother them. None of their sons or wives were at stake. They had never lain awake at night, fearing that someone they cared about would be found out as Witted and murdered for it. But I have. I will tell you something, Chade. My son is in no more danger as hostage to the Witted than he was yesterday, here in the keep, where proof of his Wit could have turned his own dukes against him.’

In the silence that followed her words, I rapped overly-loud on the door. In a moment, I heard, ‘Enter,’ and did so, to find them both pink-cheeked but composed. I felt as if I were a child who had walked in on his parents’ secret quarrel. But in an instant, Chade endeavoured to make it mine.

‘How could you allow this to happen?’ he demanded of me. ‘Why didn’t you keep me informed? Is the Prince well? Has he been harmed?’

‘He is fine –’ I began, but Kettricken cut in suddenly with, ‘How could he allow this to happen? Councillor, you go too far. For many years you have advised me, and you have advised me well. But if you forget your place again, we will part company. You are to counsel, not to make decisions and certainly not to circumvent my will! Do you think I have not considered well every aspect of this? Follow my thoughts, then, you who taught me to plot this way. Fitz is here, and through him I shall know if my son suffers even an indignity. At my son’s side is a woman familiar with Old Blood ways, a woman loyal to me, and capable of handling a weapon if she must. In my possession are a dozen folk, all at risk if anything befalls Dutiful, plus one man who seems of great significance to them. You dismissed their request for a hostage, saying that if we failed to offer one, they might protest but in the end would still vouchsafe their people to us. Laurel counselled me otherwise; she knows well the distrust they have for the Farseers, and the generations of abuse it is founded on. She said we must offer a hostage, one of good standing. Who, then, could I offer? Myself? That was my first thought. But then, who remains here to treat with them? My son, seen by many as an untried lad? No. I had to remain here. I pondered my other choices. A noble, fearful and disdainful of them, over the protests of my other dukes? You? Then I would be bereft of your counsel. FitzChivalry? To make him valuable enough, his identity would have to be revealed. And so I settled on my son. He is valuable to both sides, and most valuable alive. They have made no secret to me in these negotiations of the fact they know he is Witted. Hence, in some ways, he is one of their own as much as he is ours. He is sympathetic to their situation, for he shares it. I doubt not that while he is with them, he will learn more than he would if he had stayed here by my side during these formal negotiations. And what he learns will make him, ultimately, a better king for all his people.’ She halted. A bit breathlessly, she added, ‘Well, Councillor. Show me my error.’

Chade sat looking at her, mouth ajar. I did not bother to conceal my admiration. Then Kettricken grinned at me, and I saw green sparks ignite in Chade’s eyes.

He shut his mouth with a snap. ‘You might have told me first,’ he said bitterly. ‘I do not relish being made to look like a fool.’

‘Then choose to look merely surprised, like the rest,’ Kettricken advised him tartly. More gently, she added, ‘Old friend, I know that I have made you concerned for my son’s safety and hurt your feelings. But if I had taken you into my confidence on this, you would have prevented me from doing it. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Perhaps. But that still …’

‘Peace,’ she hushed him. ‘It is done, Chade. Now accept it. And I beg you, do not let it hinder you from being just and resourceful as we enter into this negotiation.’ As quickly as that, she silenced him. She turned to me. ‘You I shall want behind the wall, FitzChivalry, witness to everything. And of course, it is also your function to monitor my son’s well-being. He may be able to convey to you information that can put us at an advantage.’ She pretended calmness as she asked, ‘Are you aware of him right now?’

‘Not in a direct way,’ I admitted. ‘Not riding with him as once Verity rode with me. That is an aspect of the Skill that he has not yet fully acquired. But … a moment.’ I took a breath and reached for him. Dutiful? I am with Chade and the Queen. All is well with you?

We are fine. Is Chade very angry with her?

Don’t be concerned with that. She deals well with him. They merely wanted to be sure we could reach one another.

That we can. I am in a conversation with Fleria, their leader. Let me pay attention to it now, or she will think I am more half-wit than Witted.

When I brought my attention back to Chade and Kettricken, the old man was scowling at me. ‘And what makes you smile?’ he demanded, as prickly as if I had mocked him.

‘My prince made a jest with me. He is well. And as the Queen surmised, he is conversing with their leader. Fleria.’

The Queen turned to Chade triumphantly. ‘There. Do you see? Already he has her name, a bit of information long denied us.’

‘You mean, she has told him some name to call her by,’ Chade rejoined irritably. Then, to me, ‘Why cannot I hear him? What must I do, to perfect my talent to work as I need it to?’

‘The fault may not be with you. Dutiful has finally mastered directing his thoughts only to me. Not even Thick would have been aware of his Skilling to me, I think. It could be that, as you and the Prince work together, you will establish a stronger link of your own. And you may become more receptive to the magic as you work with it more often. But, until then –’

‘Until then, you must wait to discuss this later. Even the most laggardly of our guests should be warm and clad in dry garb by now. Come, Chade. We are to meet them in the east gathering hall. And you, Fitz, off to your post. If we hear anything that will affect my son’s safety, I wish him to know of it immediately.’

Another woman might have waited for Chade, or have gone to a looking-glass briefly. Not Kettricken. She rose and swept from the room, completely confident that her councillor would be on her heels and that I would scuttle off to my spy-post. The look Chade shot me as he left mingled pride and chagrin. ‘I may have taught her too well,’ he observed to me in a whisper.

I re-entered the rat-warren of corridors. In the workroom, I provided myself with sufficient candles and a cushion for my comfort. As I made my roundabout way to my listening-post, Gilly joined me. He was disappointed to discover I had no raisins with me today, but contented himself with the adventure instead.

All the negotiations I have ever witnessed begin with at least a day of boredom. This was no exception. Despite the mystery of the masked Old Bloods, that first long afternoon was a morass of manoeuvring and suspicion cloaked behind extreme courtesy and reserve. The delegates did not wish to reveal where in the Six Duchies each came from, let alone their names. That was nearly all that was resolved by the end of that first session: that they must at least name the duchy each came from, and that complaints of treatment in that duchy must be documented with the name of the person who was wronged as well as dates and specific details.

Web remained the exception to every rule in this. He furnished the only moment that was interesting to me that entire first day. He introduced himself as coming from Buck, from a small coastal town on our border with Bearns. He was a fisherman by trade, and the last scion of what had once been a large Old Blood family. Most of his immediate family had perished during the Red Ship Wars, with his aged grandmother surrendering to her years only last spring. He was unmarried and childless, but did not count himself alone as he was bonded to a sea-bird, one that was even now riding the winds over Buckkeep Castle. Her name was Risk, and if the Queen was interested in meeting her, he would be happy to call her down to one of the tower tops.

He alone lacked the reserve and the suspicion that the rest of the Old Blood shared. His loquaciousness more than made up for the silence of many of the others. He seemed to take Queen Kettricken at her word that she wished to put an end to Old Blood persecution. He not only took some moments to publicly thank her for that, but also for making this gathering possible. He said she had brought together Old Blood people in a way that had not happened for generations, not since they had been forced to hide their magic and no longer live together in communities. From there, he launched into the importance of Old Blood children being able to acknowledge openly their magic so that they might learn it completely. He included Prince Dutiful amongst them, and said he shared her sorrow that her son’s magic must remain both hidden and uneducated.

He paused then. I wondered what he expected. That the Queen would thank him for his sympathy and concern? I saw Chade’s tension. Despite what the Old Blood claimed to ‘know’, Chade had counselled Kettricken not to admit to them that her son was Witted. The Queen skirted the issue nicely, telling her that she shared his concern for children that must grow up in an atmosphere of secrecy, their talents uneducated.

And so it went for that long evening. Web was the only one who seemed not only willing but insistent to share information about himself and his Wit. I began to recognize the distance that the Old Blood folks kept from him. It was as much confusion as awe. Like many a man labelled either god-touched or mad, folk were unsure what to make of him. He made them uneasy; they were not sure if they should emulate him or drive him from their midst. I swiftly deduced that alone of the folk there, he had come on his own. No community had selected him to represent them; he had simply heard of the Queen’s summoning and answered it. The woman in the forest had seemed to set great store by him, but I was not at all sure that every Witted person in the room shared her high regard. And then he won my queen.

‘A man with nothing to lose,’ he said at one point, ‘is often in the best position to sacrifice himself for the gain of others.’

That set Kettricken’s eyes to shining at him, and I knew that both Chade and I wished that he had chosen any other word but ‘sacrifice’.

The talk lasted until the evening meal. Chade and the Queen left them to eat in privacy, but I did not scruple to watch them remove their hoods and masks. I saw no one I recognized either from my contacts with Rolf’s Old Bloods or from the Piebalds I had hunted. They ate well, commenting freely on how good the food was. One small Wit-beast that had passed by me unnoticed now emerged. A woman had a squirrel that came out and scampered about on the table, foraging amongst the serving dishes without remonstrance from anyone. This meal and the casual conversation were what the Queen and Chade truly wished me to witness. I was not surprised when Chade soon joined me at my post.

Silently we listened to our guests discuss the direction of the conversation and if they thought the Queen was truly listening to them. There were two Old Bloods, a man calling himself Boyo and a woman using the name Silvereye, who were particularly vocal. I sensed that they knew one another well, and perceived themselves as the leaders of this group. They attempted to rally the others into taking a firm stance with the Queen. Boyo recited a list of demands they should make, with Silvereye enthusiastically nodding to each one. Several were unrealistic and others raised difficult questions. Boyo claimed descent from a noble family which had been stripped of title and estates during the time of the Piebald Prince frenzy. He wanted all restored to him, with the promise that those who helped him insist on it would be made welcome as dwellers and workers on his family lands. Surely all could see that a noble of acknowledged Old Blood could improve conditions for all of them. I myself did not see that clear connection, but some of them nodded at his words.

Silvereye had more vengeance then restitution in mind. She proposed that those who had executed Witted ones should themselves receive the same treatment. Both were adamant that the Queen must offer reparations for old wrongs before any discussion of how Witted and unWitted could live peaceably alongside one another.

My heart sank at these words. In the dim light of our hooded candle, Chade looked weary. I knew the Queen had hoped to take the opposite approach and attempt to solve today’s problems and eliminate tomorrow’s rather than go back scores of years and try to render justice. Chade leaned over close to me to whisper in my ear, ‘If they hold that line, then all of this will have been for naught. Three days will not suffice even to discuss such things. And even a presentation of such demands will drive the dukes to equally stringent demands of their own.’

I nodded. I set my hand upon his wrist. Let us hope they are but two, and that calmer heads will prevail. That Web, for instance. He did not seem bent on revenge.

Chade’s brow had furrowed when I began my Skill-attempt. After I had finished, he nodded his head slowly. I got the gist of his returned thought Where … Web?

In the far corner. Just watching them all.

And indeed he was. It appeared almost as if he were dozing, but I suspected that he was watching and listening as carefully as we were. For a time longer, Chade and I crouched there together. Then he suggested to me quietly, ‘Go and eat. I’ll keep watch while you’re gone. We shall want you to remain at this post as long as you can this evening.’

And so I did. When I returned, I brought more cushions and a blanket, a bottle of wine and a handful of raisins for the ferret who accompanied me. Chade gave a sniff, plainly indicating that he thought I indulged myself, and then vanished. The Old Bloods re-masked themselves before they allowed the servants into the room to clear away. Musicians and jugglers followed, and the Queen and Chade joined them for this entertainment. Also included were the dukes’ representatives. These were all fairly young men and they did not make a good showing. They clustered together, plainly uneasy at the thought of spending the evening in the company of Witted folk, and spoke mostly amongst themselves. They were supposed to join the Queen and Chade in a discussion tomorrow with the Old Bloods. I foresaw that little progress would be made and felt some concern for my prince.

I reached for him, and in a moment felt his acknowledgement. Where are you and what are you doing?

I’m sitting and listening to an Old Blood minstrel sing songs from olden days. We’re at a sort of shelter at the head end of a valley. From the look of it, I would say it was thrown together especially for this purpose. I guess they did not want to take us to any of their real homes for fear of later reprisals.

Are you comfortable?

A bit cold, and the food is very basic. But it’s no worse than an overnight hunt would be. They are treating us well. Let my mother know I am safe.

I shall.

And how goes it at Buckkeep?

Slowly. I’m sitting behind a wall watching Old Bloods watch a juggler. Dutiful, I doubt that any real progress will be made in the next three days.

I suspect you are right. I think we should take the attitude of one old man here. He keeps telling everyone it will be a triumph if we have these talks at all without bloodshed. And that will be more than any Farseer has offered Old Blood in his lifetime.

Hmm. Perhaps he has something there.

The Old Bloods I watched made an early night of it. Doubtless they were weary both from the journey and from the tension. I was glad to seek my own bed but first decided on a trip down to the guardroom to see what gossip might be offered. The guardroom, I had long ago discovered, was the best place to hear rumour and innuendo, and to judge the temper of the folk at large.

On my way there, I was shocked to encounter Web wandering about in the quiet night halls of the castle. He greeted me warmly by name. ‘Are you lost?’ I asked him courteously.

‘No. Only curious. And my head too full of thoughts to sleep. Where are you going?’

‘To find a late meal,’ I told him, and he suddenly decided that was the very thing he needed himself. I was reluctant to take one of our Old Blood emissaries into the guardroom, but he refused the suggestion that he find a quiet hearth in the Great Hall and wait there for me. As he walked beside me, dread rose in me that we might face some sort of encounter there, but he seemed immune to such fears, asking me endless questions about the tapestries, banners and portraits we passed.

When we entered the guardroom, all talk died for a moment. My heart sank at the hostile glances we received, and sank still more when I saw Blade Havershawk at the end of the table nearest the hearth. I averted my face as I observed, ‘Our queen’s guest would like a slice off the joint, fellows, and a mug of ale.’ I made this heavy-handed reminder of the hospitality we owed in the hopes it would warm the room. It didn’t.

‘Rather we was sharing it with our prince,’ someone said portentously.

‘As would I,’ Web agreed heartily. ‘For I scarce got the chance to say two words to him before he rode off with my comrades. But as he dines with them tonight and listens to their tales, so I would break bread with you and hear the stories of Buckkeep Castle.’

‘Don’t know as we feed Witted at the table round here,’ someone observed snidely.

I took breath, knowing I must make some reply and find some way to get Web out of the room uninjured, but Blade spoke before me. ‘Once we did,’ he said slowly. ‘And he was one of our own and we loved him well, until we were stupid enough to let Regal take him from us.’

‘Oh, not that old tale!’ someone groaned, and another chimed in with, ‘Even after he killed our king, Blade Havershawk? Did you love him well then?’

‘FitzChivalry didn’t kill King Shrewd, you young knot-head. I was there and I know what happened. I don’t care what a drove of snake-tongued minstrels have sung since. Fitz didn’t kill the King he loved. He did kill those Skill-users, and I warrant it was as he claimed. They killed Shrewd.’

‘Aye. That’s how I always heard the tale, too,’ Web sounded enthused. As I watched in horror, he squeezed past men who pointedly did not step out of his way until he reached Blade’s side. ‘Is there room beside you on that bench, old warrior?’ he asked amiably. ‘For I would hear it told again, from the lips of a man who was there.’

There followed for me the longest evening I’d ever spent in the guardroom. Web was full of curiosity, and stopped Blade a hundred times in his telling of that fateful night to pose piercing questions that soon had the men around the table asking questions of their own. Had the torches truly burned blue and the Pocked Man been seen on that night when Regal claimed the throne was rightfully his? And the Queen had fled that night of blood, had she not? And when she returned to Buckkeep, had she shed no light on those events?

Full strange it was to hear that debate, and know that speculation still raged after all the years. The Queen had always asserted FitzChivalry had murdered in justified rage the true killers of the King, but no proof had ever been offered that was so. Still, the men agreed, their queen was no fool, nor had she reason to lie on that topic. As if one Mountain bred as she was would ever lie! And from there they clambered on to the hoary tale of how I had clawed my way out of the grave, leaving an empty coffin behind. The empty coffin at least had been shown, though no man could say if my body had been spirited away or if I had truly transformed into a wolf and escaped it. The gathered guards were sceptical of Web’s claim that no Witted one could transform in that way. From there, the talk went to his own beast, a gull of some sort. Again, he extended the invitation that any who wished might meet his bird on the morrow. A few shook their heads in superstitious fear, but others were plainly intrigued and said they would come.

‘Fer what’s a birdie agonna do t’you?’ one drunkenly demanded of a less courageous fellow. ‘Shittapon you, praps? You oughta be ’customed to that, Reddy. That woman of yers does it oft enou’.’

And that made for a brief and very cramped fistfight at that end of the table. When the combatants had been ejected by their fellows into the chilly night, Web declared that he’d had all the ale and stories he could hold for one evening, but he’d be pleased to join them again tomorrow, if he were welcome. To my dismay, Blade and several others heartily decided he was welcome, Witted or not, yes, and his bird, too.

‘Well, my Risk’s not one for coming within walls, nor for flight by dark. But I’ll see you get a chance to meet her tomorrow, if you’ve a mind.’

As we parted from them and crossed the castle to the east apartments, it gradually came to me that Web had probably done more to further the cause of the Witted tonight than all the talk of the earlier day had. Perhaps he truly was a gift to us.

TWENTY-SIX

Negotiations

One man armed with the right word may do what an army of swordsmen cannot.

Mountain proverb

I reported on Web to Chade, of course, and in turn he reported to the Queen. And thus at the next day’s meeting, in front of the Six Duchies representatives, she made certain that Web had the first opportunity to speak. I crouched behind the wall, my eye to the crack and listened to him. She introduced him to the delegates before he spoke, saying that he represented the oldest of the Old Blood lines, and that she desired that he be treated with all courtesy. Yet when she yielded her audience to him, he assured them all that he was only a humble fisherman who happened to be descended of parents far wiser than he would ever be. Then, with an abruptness that left me gasping, he introduced his proposals for ending the unjust persecution of the Witted. He spoke as much to the Witted as he did to our queen as he suggested that perhaps her best method to begin to bring the two groups together would be to admit some Witted into her own household.

As he spoke, he sounded more like a Jhaampe wise-man settling a dispute than a spokesman for the Old Blood. My queen’s eyes shone as she listened to him. I caught not just Chade, but at least two of the Six Duchies men, nodding thoughtfully at what he proposed. Step by step, he revealed the reasoning behind his suggestion. He attributed much of the unjust persecution to fear, and much of the fear to ignorance. The ignorance he blamed on the Witted’s need to remain hidden for their own safety. Where better to begin an end to ignorance than in the Queen’s own household? Let an Old Blood woman with birding-skills assist in the mews, and a Witted dog-boy come to help her Huntswoman. Let her have a Witted page or maid, for no other reason than to let folk discover that they were no different from unWitted pages and maids. Let other nobles see that these folk did no harm to her household or to others, but rather prospered them. The Queen would, of course, commit to their protection from persecution until others had been won firmly to the cause. The Old Blood thus placed would take oath to initiate no strife.

Then, with a smoothness which left me gasping, he offered his own services to the Queen. This he did as courteously and correctly as any court-trained noble’s son, so that I wondered uneasily if he had truly come of a fishing family. Down on one knee he sank before her, and begged to be allowed to remain at Buckkeep when the others departed. Let him live in the keep, and both learn and teach. Carefully keeping the secret of the Prince’s Wit when speaking before her Six Duchies councillors, he nonetheless offered himself as ‘a rough tutor, admittedly but one who would love to educate the Prince in how our folk live and in our customs, that he might know this group of his subjects more thoroughly’.

Chade objected. ‘But if you do not return to your folk as we promised, will not some say we kept you hostage against your will?’ I suspected my old mentor did not desire an Old Blood man counselling the Prince.

Web chuckled at his concern. ‘All in the room have witnessed that I offer myself. If after they leave me here, you choose to chop and burn me, well, then let it be said that it was due to my own wooden-headedness, that I trusted wrong. But I do not think that will be so. Will it, my lady?’

‘Of a certainty, not!’ Queen Kettricken declared. ‘And whatever else may come of these meetings, I will count it a benefit that I have added such a clear-minded fellow to my household men.’

His careful pondering of the situation and his suggestions had taken all the morning. When it was time for the noon meal, Web declared that he would eat with his new friends in the guardroom and then introduce them to his bird. Before Chade could suggest that would not be wise, the Queen announced that indeed she and Chade and her Six Duchies councillors would join him there, for she too wished see his Risk.

How I longed to be present for that, not just to witness it, but also to see the reaction of the guards when they found themselves honoured with the Queen at their table. It could not damage Web’s standing with them that he had brought about such a thing. And I did not doubt that more would come to meet his bird if the Queen herself did not fear his Wit-beast.

But I was trapped in my watching-place, being Chade’s eyes when he was not in the room. I saw the Old Bloods unmask after their food had been brought in. As before, Boyo and Silvereye spoke loudly of injustices done and the need for retribution, but theirs were not the only voices raised. Some spoke of Web’s performance with amazement. I heard at least one woman say to another that, having met Kettricken, she would not mind entrusting a son to her to be her page, for she had heard that all children in the Keep were given a chance to learn both numbers and writing. And a young man, clearly a minstrel from his voice, wondered aloud what it would be like to sing the Old Blood songs at the Queen’s own hearth, and if such a thing would not truly be the best way to teach the unWitted that his people were neither fearsome nor monstrous.

A crack had been opened. Tomorrow’s possibilities were gaining strength, growing in the light of Web’s optimism. I wondered if they could grow enough to cast their shadows over the weeds of yesterday’s wrongs.

The afternoon, however, was a disappointment, long and tedious. When the Queen and her councillors returned with Web, Boyo rose to claim his turn to speak. Forewarned about him by Chade and myself, Kettricken listened calmly as he detailed first all the generalized wrongs the Farseers had ever done to the Old Bloods, and then the specifics of his case. There, at least, my queen was able to muffle him. Firmly but courteously, she told him that now was not the time for her to settle personal wrongs. If lands and wealth had been unjustly taken from his family, then that was a matter to be settled before her on a judging day rather than at this time. Chade would help him to make an appropriate appointment, and would also tell him what documentation he would need. Most of it would likely relate to the need for him to define a clear line of succession from his dispossessed ancestor to himself, including a minstrel that could attest to his being of the line of the eldest child of an eldest child for the intervening generations.

Very neatly she made it seem that he was putting his own interests ahead of the others at the meeting, as indeed he was. She did not refuse to find justice for him, but relegated his seeking of it to the path which any Six Duchies citizen would have to follow. She reminded them all that this convocation was intended to allow all to join their thoughts as to how unjust persecution of the Old Bloods might be ended.

Silvereye stirred a muck more difficult to settle. She spoke of those who had murdered her family. As she spoke, her voice rose in anger and hatred and pain, and I saw those emotions echoed in many faces around her. Web looked sick and sorrowful, and my queen’s face grew very still. Chade’s features were graven in stone. But anger most often begets anger, and the faces of Queen Kettricken’s Six Duchies representatives became set in surly expressions. The vengeance and punishment she demanded were far too steep for anyone to consider granting.

It was as if she set a jump that no negotiator could clear and then declared that she could be satisfied with nothing less. This, she declared, was the only way to end persecution of the Old Blood. Make it a crime so hideously punished that none would consider committing it again. Further, search out and eliminate all who had ever committed or tolerated such treatment of Old Bloods. Out of her personal sorrow Silvereye expanded her grievance to include all Witted executed in the last century. She demanded both punishment and restitution, with the punishment to mirror exactly what had befallen their victims. Kettricken had the wisdom to allow her to keep speaking until she had run out of words. Surely I could not have been the only one to hear the edge of madness in her demands. And yet if grief powered that madness, then who was I to criticize it?

By the time Silvereye had finished, there were many other Old Bloods anxious to take up the tally of all that had been lost to the persecution. Names were called out of folk who deserved death, and the anger in the room swirled like a gathering storm. But my queen held up a hand and asked them quietly, ‘Then where should it end?’

‘When every last one has been punished!’ Silvereye declared passionately. ‘Let the gallows sway with their weight, and the smoke of their burning blacken the skies all summer. Let me hear their families wail aloud in a sorrow like the sorrows that we have been forced to conceal, lest others know us for Old Bloods. Let the punishment be apportioned exactly. For every father killed, let a father die. For every mother, a mother. For every child, a child.’

The Queen sighed. ‘And when those who have suffered your vengeance come seeking from me a vengeance of their own? How then could I turn them aside? You propose that if a man has killed the children of an Old Blood family, then the children of his family should die alongside him. But what of the cousins of those children and the grandparents? Should not they then come before me and ask of me what you now demand? Would not they be just as right in saying that innocents had died in mad persecution? No. This cannot be. You ask what I cannot give you, and well you know it.’

I saw hatred and fury leap into Silvereye’s gaze. ‘So I knew it would be,’ she declared bitterly. ‘Empty promises are what you offer us.’

‘I offer you the same justice that anyone in the Six Duchies may seek,’ the Queen said wearily. ‘Come before me on a judging day, with witnesses to the wrongs done to you. If murder has been done, then the murderer will be punished. But not his children. There is no justice in what you seek, only revenge.’

‘You offer us nothing!’ Silvereye declared. ‘Well you know that we do not dare come before you seeking justice. Too many would stand between us and Buckkeep Castle, anxious to silence us with death.’ She paused. Queen Kettricken remained still in the face of her wrath, and Silvereye made the mistake of pressing what she thought was her advantage. ‘Or has that always been your intention, Farseer Queen?’ Silvereye swept the gathering with a righteous glance. ‘Does she lure us out into the open with empty promises so that she can do away with all of us?’

A brief silence followed her words. Then Kettricken spoke quietly. ‘You throw words that you do not yourself believe. Your intention is to wound. Yet, if your accusations had any basis in fact, I would not be wounded by them, but would rather feel justified in hating Old Bloods.’

‘Then you admit that you hate Old Bloods?’ Silvereye demanded with satisfaction.

‘That is not what I said!’ Kettricken responded both in horror and anger.

Tempers were rising, and not just among the Old Bloods. Kettricken’s Six Duchies councillors looked both insulted and uneasy at the brewing storm in the room. I do not know what would have become of the negotiation if fate had not intervened in the person of Sally, the cow-woman. She stood abruptly, saying, ‘I must go to the stables. It is Wisenose’s time, and she wishes me to be there.’

Someone in the back of the room laughed resignedly, and someone else cursed at her. ‘You knew she was due to calve. Why did you bring her?’

‘Would you have me leave her alone at home, then? Or that I stay away entirely, Briggan? Well do I know that you think me scatter-brained, but I’ve as good a right to be here as you.’

‘Peace,’ Web said suddenly. He croaked the word, then cleared his voice and tried again. ‘Peace. It is as good a time as any to let tempers and hearts cool, and if Wisenose has need of her partner, then surely no one here will argue that she must go. And I will accompany her, if she wishes it. And perhaps by the time we return, all here will recall that we seek a solution to our present problems, not a way to change what is past, however grievous it may be.’

It struck me then that Web had a firmer control over this meeting than the Queen herself, but I doubt that any within the room noticed it. That is the advantage to watching from the outside, as Chade had often told me. Then it all becomes a show, and one scrutinizes the players equally. I observed them now as the Six Duchies delegation filed out behind the Queen and Chade, and then Web accompanied Sally down to the stables. I remained at my post, for I judged that what would follow might be most revealing of all.

And it was. Some, including the minstrel and the woman who had earlier spoken of her son paging for the Queen, asked Silvereye if she would destroy their future for the sake of a past that could not be remedied. Even Boyo seemed inclined to think Silvereye had taken their argument too far. ‘If this Farseer queen holds to her word, then perhaps our grievances could be brought before her at a judging. I have heard it said she is fair in her decisions. Perhaps we should accept her offer.’

Silvereye all but hissed. ‘Cowards, all of you. Cowards and boot-lickers! She offers you bribes, safety for one or two of your children, and in return you are ready to let the whole past be forgotten. Do you forget the screams of your cousins, do you forget coming to visit friends and finding only a scorched patch by a stream? How can you be so false to your own blood? How can you forget?’

‘How can we forget? It isn’t a matter of forgetting. It is a matter of remembering.’ This from an Old Blood I had not particularly noted before. He was a man of middle years and slight build, a man with the look of a town about him. He was not a good speaker; he gulped his words and looked nervously about, but folk still listened to him. ‘I will tell you what I remember. I remember that when my parents were taken from their cottage, it was because Piebalds betrayed them. Yes, and a Piebald rode with those who hanged and quartered them. Laudwine’s cult dared to call my parents traitors to Old Blood and threatened to punish them because they would not offer haven to those who stir the hatred against us. Well, who was the true traitor that day? My parents who wished only to live in what peace they could find, or the Piebald betrayer who carried the torch that burned their bodies? We have worse enemies than this Farseer queen to fear. And what I intend to ask of her when she comes back is justice against those who terrorize and betray us. Justice against the Piebalds.’

A silence thick as congealing blood filled up the room. The minstrel came and set a hand on the slight man’s sleeve. ‘Bosk. She cannot help us with that. That is for us to deal with. All you would do is put yourself at greater risk; yes, and your wife and daughters, too.’ The minstrel glanced about the room, almost fearfully. And my heart sank at what I realized. The Old Bloods feared their own. There might be Piebald informers in that very room. The thought spread silently, chilling all of them. Soon some of them made excuses to visit their own chambers, and in a short time the room was nearly empty. Silvereye sat staring silently into the fire. The minstrel wandered aimlessly about the room. There was little talk among the few that remained.

I heard a scuffling noise down the passage behind me, and in a moment Chade crept up to join me. ‘Anything important?’ he whispered.

I set my hand to his wrist and conveyed all I had seen. His face grew thoughtful. After a moment he said softly, ‘Well. That sets my thoughts in a new track. It would not be the first time I had turned an error to an advantage. Keep your watch here, Fitz.’ Then, almost as an afterthought, ‘Are you getting hungry?’

‘A bit. But I’ll be fine.’

‘And our prince?’

‘I’ve no reason to think he is otherwise.’

‘Ah, but you do. If there may be Piebald informers in that room, then there may be Piebalds amongst those who hold him hostage. Warn him, lad. And keep watch.’

And then he was gone, shuffling along bent almost double in the passage. I watched him go and wondered what he had in mind. Then I reached for Dutiful.

All was well with him. He was cold, he was bored, but no one had offered him insult let alone injury. Most of the talk today had been about what might be happening at Buckkeep. Evidently a bird, perhaps Risk or the hawk, had been ferrying notes back and forth. So far, all tidings had been reassuring. But Dutiful said that the air was one of waiting and worry.

The cow had an easy labour and dropped a fine bull calf. Sally was just as glad that she’d had the benefit of a tight stable and a warm stall, for the calf was born unseasonably early. By the time she and Web returned to the east gathering hall, it was time for another meal. I watched the Old Bloods congregate again as their meal was brought in, and watched them as they unmasked after the servants had left. I studied every face more carefully, but if there were any who had been in Laudwine’s band, I did not recognize them.

The meal was almost finished when there was a tap at the door. Several of the Old Bloods cried out to the supposed servants that they had not yet finished eating. Then a voice at the door said quietly, ‘Let me in. Old Blood greets Old Blood.’

Web was the one who rose and went to the door. He unlatched it and opened it to admit both Civil Bresinga and his cat. The squirrel on the table chittered in panic and then ran up his partner to hide under her hair. Pard didn’t bat an eye, but strolled into the room, glanced about, and then went over to the hearth where he made himself comfortable. No one could have watched the cat’s entrance and doubted that he was Wit-partnered to the boy who closed the door quietly behind himself and then turned to face the assembly.

The gazes he met would have daunted anyone. But again Web rose to the challenge, setting a friendly hand to Civil’s shoulder and loudly exclaiming, ‘Old Blood welcomes Old Blood. Come in and join us, lad. And you might be?’

He took a breath and squared his shoulders. ‘I am Civil Bresinga. Lord Civil Bresinga, now, of Galekeep. I am a loyal subject of Queen Kettricken, and friend and companion to Prince Dutiful Farseer. I am Old Blood. And both my queen and my prince know that I am.’ He let them have a moment to consider that they looked at a Witted noble of the Farseer court. ‘I have come, at Councillor Chade’s behest, to tell you of how I am treated here. And to tell you, too, of my dealings with the Piebalds. And how I would have died at their hands, were it not for Farseer intervention.’

I watched in a sort of awe. The boy’s story was obviously unrehearsed. He wandered through it, often having to go back and explain earlier events. When he spoke of what his mother had endured and how she had died, he choked and could not go on. Web sat him down then and gave him a glass of wine and patted his back soothingly as if he were no more than a child. And I blinked and saw myself at fifteen, plunged into intrigue far beyond my ability to manage. Civil was little more than a child, I saw suddenly. Witted and constantly at risk, manoeuvred into spying in a desperate bid to save his mother and his family fortune. He’d failed. Now he was deprived of parent and home; adrift: a very minor noble in a very political court. And the only reason he was alive, truly, was that he possessed the friendship of a Farseer. One that he had betrayed not once, but twice, and yet each time, he had been forgiven.

‘They have extended asylum to me,’ he finished his tale. ‘The Queen and the Prince and Councillor Chade are all full aware that I am Old Blood. And they know how I was used against them. And what it cost me.’ He paused and shook his head. ‘I am not skilled with words. I cannot draw all the parallels that I would like you to see. Only … they have not judged me by what I did in the past. They have not judged the Old Bloods by what the Piebalds attempted against the Prince. The Queen has not flinched from her Witted son. Cannot we do as much for them? Deal with the Farseers for who they are now, without looking too deeply into the past?’

Silvereye gave a contemptuous snort. But Boyo, perhaps seeing a kinship in this Witted noble and the title he hoped to reclaim, nodded thoughtfully. Civil suddenly looked at Web, and I sensed that something had just come into his mind, some idea of his own. As if in answer to my fervent wish, I heard the scuff of Chade’s tread again. I motioned to him frantically to join me at the spy-post, even as I signalled silence to him. The boy was speaking to Web. His words barely carried to us.

‘Councillor Chade told me what you suggested. That if Old Bloods could come to Buckkeep and live openly here alongside these ungifted folk, they might discover that we are not monsters to be feared. He also told me what you said. “A man with nothing to lose is often in the best position to sacrifice himself for the gain of others.” I have not had much time to ponder that, but I do not think I need much time to see that I am truly a man with nothing to lose. The only threat that remains is to me alone. I have no family left to suffer consequences for what I do.’ He glanced around the room. ‘I know that many of you fear that if you venture out of hiding your neighbours will kill you. For long and long, it has been a valid fear. And one I have shared, as did my mother.’ His words died suddenly. Then he forced himself to go on, his voice cracking. ‘And so we stayed in hiding. And by doing so, we made it possible for our “friends” to kill us instead. I see no point in hiding any more.’ I could not decide if emotion choked him or if he paused to consider what he would say next. He glanced at Web again and then nodded as if to himself.

‘All in the keep have heard now of Web the Witted, who walks amongst us unafraid and unthreatening. I feel almost shamed that he, a stranger here, has stepped out into the light while I, who know Prince Dutiful best, have crept along in the shadows at the edge of the room. Tomorrow, I will change that. I will proudly declare my Old Blood and vow that I will demonstrate that such a one as I can be completely devoted to my prince, as he well deserves of me.

‘I have taught him of our ways, and willingly has Prince Dutiful learned. He has said that when he goes in the spring to the Outislands, to slay a dragon and claim a bride, that I may go with him. When I do, I shall go as his Witted companion. There is no Skillmaster at Buckkeep, and my prince will go alone, with no Skill-coterie such as Farseer kings of old had to aid them. Bereft of that magic, I will instead put ours at his service, and prove it every bit as able, I warrant. I will put my Old Blood magic before them all, proudly.’

Chade’s tight grip on my wrist told me that all of this was new to him, not just that Civil planned to reveal himself but also that Dutiful had said his friend might accompany him on his quest. His Skilling was erratic, but it reached me. Did I say I would turn an error to an advantage? I may have succeeded too well, and our advantage overshot into yet another error. I merely wanted the boy to say the Queen had treated him well and fairly, not make himself the ambassador for Old Blood at court.

I joined my thoughts to his. He does not perceive it is a risk for the Prince to admit to an Old Blood friend. He sees only the danger to himself, and that he would gladly risk it for Dutiful. Do you think you can talk him out of it?

I’m not sure I’d be wise to, Chade conveyed to me. His spirit has captured their imagination. Look.

It was not an overwhelming outpouring of support. Web was the only one who was grinning wildly and proclaiming how proud he was of young Lord Bresinga. The others, with the notable exception of the scowling Silvereye, were more reserved in their approval, and it varied over a wide spectrum of levels. Both the minstrel and Boyo looked enthused. Sally, partly won over already by how her beast had been treated, was smiling gently. Others were discussing it more pragmatically. The Queen couldn’t very well let him be put to death, not when he’d already claimed asylum and she had promised that no Witted ones would be killed solely because of their magic. Likely he was as safe as he could possibly be. And well it might be that a young man both noble and handsome might win some hearts over to the Old Blood side. His declaration could not hurt their cause.

Then the town man, Bosk, came to stand before Civil. He was twisting his fingers together as if he might unscrew them from his hands. Then, in an uncertain voice, he asked, ‘Farseers killed Piebalds. Are you sure?’

‘I’m very sure,’ Civil said softly. His hand went up and touched his throat. ‘Very sure indeed.’

‘Their names,’ the man whispered. ‘Do you know their names?’

Civil stood still and silent for a moment. Then, ‘Keppler. Padget. And Swoskin. Those were the names I knew them by. But Prince Dutiful called Keppler by another name, from his time amongst the Piebalds. He called him Laudwine.’

Bosk shook his head, plainly disappointed. But someone else in the room asked loudly, ‘Laudwine?’ She pushed to the front and I recognized Silvereye. ‘That can’t be so! He was the leader of the Piebalds. If he’d been killed, I’d have heard of it.’

‘Oh, would you?’ the minstrel asked curiously. The look on his face was not pleasant.

‘I would,’ she snapped. ‘Make of that what you will. I know folk who know Laudwine, and yes, some of them are Piebalds. I am not one, myself, though my recent conversations here have made me see what drove them to such extreme acts.’ She turned a shoulder to the minstrel, excluding him as she demanded of Civil, ‘How long ago did this happen? And what proof do you have that what you say is true?’

The lad took a step back from her, but he answered. ‘Well over a month ago. As for proof … what proof can you expect me to give? I saw what I saw, but I fled as soon as I could. It shames me to admit it, but it is so. Still, I doubt what is common talk in Buckkeep Town is false. A one-armed man and his horse were killed, as well as a small dog. And the other two men in the house.’

‘His horse, too!’ Silvereye exclaimed, and I saw her take it as a double loss.

‘If this is so, it is a major blow to the Piebalds,’ Bosk declared. ‘It might well mean the end of them.’

‘No. It will not!’ Silvereye was adamant. ‘The Piebalds are stronger than a single man. They will not give up this fight until we have had justice. Justice and revenge.’

Bosk stood up and walked towards her slowly, his fists knotted. His threat would have been pathetic if it had not been so sincere. ‘Maybe I should take my revenge where I can get it,’ he suggested breathlessly. His voice nearly broke on the next words. ‘If I posted your name as Witted, and you were hanged and burned, would it scald your Piebald friends? Perhaps I should take your advice. Do to them exactly what was done to me.’

‘You are so stupid! Can’t you see they are fighting for all of us, and deserve our support? I had heard rumours that Laudwine had discovered something, something that could topple the Farseers from power. Perhaps that secret died with him, but perhaps it did not.’

‘Now you are the one being stupid,’ Civil broke in determinedly. ‘Topple the Farseers? Now there is a plan! Bring down the only queen who has ever tried to halt the hanging and burning. And what will that gain us? Only widespread persecution, with no fear of reprisals or guardsmen coming to intervene. If Old Blood attempts to overthrow the monarchy, it will be seen as proof that we are as evil and untrustworthy as our enemies have claimed. Are you mad?’

‘She is,’ Web said quietly. ‘And for that we should pity her, not condemn her.’

‘I don’t want your pity!’ Silvereye spat out. ‘I need no one’s pity. Nor do I need your help. Grovel to this Farseer Queen. Forgive all that has been done to you, and let them use you as their servants. I do NOT forgive, and in my time I will have my revenge. I will.’

‘We’ve done it,’ Chade whispered by my ear. ‘Or perhaps I should say that Silvereye has done it for us. She has driven into our fold any who do not dream of blood and burning. And that is most of them, I think. See if I am not right.’

And with that he left me, scuttling off like a grey spider through the tunnels. It wasn’t until late that night that I finally left my post to go and find food and then to take some sleep. But it went as he had said it would. Civil remained with the Old Bloods, and when the Queen, Chade and the Six Duchies delegates returned, he stood before them and greeted them as a Witted noble. I saw the discomfort on the faces of the delegates as he assured them that in every duchy there were Witted nobility, forced for generations to keep their magic small and silent. Several of the young men he spoke to now knew him well. They had ridden with him, drunk with him and gamed at table with him. They exchanged glances with one another, and their plain message was, ‘if he is Witted, who else might be also?’ But Civil either did not see or ignored their reservations as he pushed on with his proclamation. He intended now to let his magic burn bright for the good of Prince Dutiful and the Farseer reign. He pledged himself to this, and I thought I saw grudging admiration on three of the delegates’ faces. Perhaps this Old Blood youth could act as a proof against their prejudice.

The last day of Kettricken’s Witted convocation showed solid progress. The minstrel appeared unmasked, and asked her permission to remain at court. The Queen presented to her Six Duchies delegates a proclamation that from this date henceforward, executions could only be carried out legally under the aegis of each of her ducal houses, with the head of each house liable for any injustices which occurred in his own duchy. Each duchy was to have only one gallows, and that was to be under the control of the ruling house. Not only was each duchy to prevent local officials from executing prisoners, but dukes and duchesses must review individually every such execution. Killings carried out otherwise would be seen as murders, and the Queen’s judgement would be available against such killers. It did not solve the problem of how Old Bloods could safely bring such charges without fear of reprisals, but at least it established consequences formally for them.

Of such tiny steps, Chade assured me, would our progress be made. When I rode forth with the Queen’s guard to escort our Old Blood delegates back to their friends and receive our prince and Laurel in return, I marked a solid change in the folk. There was talk and laughter amongst themselves as they rode, and some interchanges even with the guard. Sally, her cow and her calf trailing her, rode alongside Lord Civil Bresinga, and seemed to feel great honour at this fine young lord’s conversation with her. On his other side rode Boyo. His evident efforts to claim equality with Lord Bresinga were rather undermined by that young man’s egalitarian attitude towards Sally. Civil’s cat rode on his saddle behind him.

All around us in the forest, the snow had melted down to thin, icy fingers clawing at the soil in the shadows. New green things were beginning to brave the sunlit world, and the breeze that flowed past us indeed seemed the wind of change. Amongst all this, Silvereye rode alone in our midst. Web rode alongside me and made conversation about everything, for both the Queen and Chade had insisted that he must make the journey so that all Old Bloods might witness that he returned to Buckkeep Castle of his own free will.

When we made our rendezvous, Civil and Pard seemed equally glad to see their prince. Dutiful professed himself surprised and pleased to have them come to meet him. His warm welcome of his friend and his Wit-beast impressed the Old Bloods, both those who had been to Buckkeep Castle and those who awaited them. He had, of course, known of Civil’s coming through my Skill.

When we returned to Buckkeep Castle, not only the Prince and Laurel returned with us, but also Web and the minstrel, whose name was Cockle. He sang as he rode with us, and I gritted my teeth at his rendition of ‘Antler Island Tower’. That stirring and maudlin lay told the tale of the Antler Island defence against the Red Ship raiders, with much emphasis placed on the role that Chivalry’s bastard son had played. It was true that I had been there, but I doubted half the exploits attributed to my axe. Web laughed aloud at my pained expression. ‘Don’t sneer so, Tom Badgerlock. Surely the Witted Bastard is a hero both our folk can share, being both a Buckkeep man and Old Blood.’ And his bass joined the minstrel on the next refrain about ‘Chivalry’s son, with eyes of flame, who shared his blood if not his name’.

Didn’t Starling write that ballad? Dutiful asked with false concern. She considers it her property. She may not take kindly to Cockle singing it at Buckkeep.

She wouldn’t be alone in that. I may strangle him myself to save her the time.

Yet on the next refrain, not only Civil and Dutiful lifted their voices, but half the guardsmen as well. That, I told myself, is the effect a spring day can have on people. I hoped it would wear out soon.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Spring Sailing

In the beginning of the world, there were the Old Blood folk and the beasts of the fields, the fish in the water and the birds of the sky. All lived together in balance if not in harmony. Among the Old Blood folk, there were but two tribes. One was comprised of the blood-takers, who were the people who bonded to creatures who ate the flesh of other creatures. And the other folk were the blood-givers, and they bonded to those who ate only plants. The two tribes had nothing to do with each other, no more than a wolf has to do with a sheep; that is, they met only in death. Yet each respected the other as an element of the land, just as a man respects both a tree and a fish.

Now, the laws that separated them were stern laws and just. But there are always people who think they know better than the law, or think that in their special situation, an exception should be made for them. So it was when the daughter of a blood-taker, bonded to a fox, fell in love with the son of a blood-giver, bonded to an ox. What harm, they thought, could come of their love? They would do no injury to one another, neither woman to man nor fox to ox. And so they both went apart from their own peoples, lived in their love and in time brought forth children of their own. But of their children, the first son was a blood-taker and the first daughter was a blood-giver. And the third was a poor witless child, deaf to every animal of every kind and doomed always to walk only in his own skin. Great was the sorrow of the family when their eldest son bonded to a wolf and their eldest daughter to a deer. For his wolf killed her deer, and she took the life of her brother in recompense. Then they knew the wisdom of the oldest ways, for a predator cannot bond with prey. But worse was to come, for their witless child sired only witless children, and thus were born the folk who are deaf to all the beasts of the world.

Badgerlock’s Old Blood Tales

Spring overwhelmed the land. Pale green hazed the trees on the hills behind the castle. Over the next two days, the leaves unfurled and grew, and the forest cloaked the hills again. The grasses rushed up from the earth, displacing the dry brown stalks of last year. The startling white of new lambs appeared amongst the grazing flocks. Folk began to talk of Springfest. It shocked me that only a year had passed since I had allowed Starling to take Hap off to Buckkeep from our quiet cottage. Too much had happened. Far too much had changed.

Within the keep, all was bustle and excitement. It was far more than the ordinary preparations for Springfest. During that auspicious time, the Prince would take ship to the Outislands, and all must be prepared for that. The captain and crew of the Maiden’s Chance were pleased that their ship had been chosen as the transport vessel. There was much vying amongst the guardsmen to be among those chosen for the Prince’s own guard. In the end, too many volunteered, myself amongst them, and the Prince was reduced to having the guardsmen draw lots to see who would be among the fortunate few. I was not surprised to be chosen; after all, Chade had given me the lot I would ‘draw’ the night before.

Civil Bresinga would indeed be going with us. Chade was also part of the company, as was Thick, much to the surprise of the Prince’s court. Web, rapidly on his way to becoming a favourite with the Queen, had begged her permission to accompany her son and been granted it. He promised that his sea-bird would range far ahead of the vessel and keep a watch on the weather.

Civil was not the only noble hoping to accompany the Prince. Quite a number of his lords and ladies expressed the intent of going along. It quickly put me in mind of the immense expedition that had set out for the Mountains so many years ago when Kettricken was Verity’s bride-to-be. Now, as then, every noble brought with them an entourage of servants and beasts. Secondary ships were rapidly hired. Nobles who could not afford the time or money to accompany the Prince would still make their presence felt. Gifts were also amassing at Buckkeep Castle, not just for the Narcheska but for her mother’s house and her father’s clan.

In Verity’s tower, the Skill-lessons continued, but all my pupils were distracted and difficult. Thick sensed too well Dutiful’s anxiety and anticipation and responded to it with excitability that made it well-nigh impossible to get him to concentrate on anything. Prince Dutiful arrived and left with a harried air. He seemed constantly to have a clothing fitting that he must go to, or a lesson in Outislander courtesy or language to attend.

I pitied him, but pitied myself more as I struggled to learn all I could from scrolls in the evening. Even Chade was distracted. He puppeteered far too many situations within Buckkeep to be able to leave the castle easily. Despite his keen interest in pursuing the Skill, much of his attention was given over to selecting folk to handle his responsibilities while he was gone. I was relieved that Rosemary would not be accompanying us, yet felt unhappy with the idea that she would be left in charge of much of Chade’s spy network. I suspected that Chade was also burning some night oil with further experiments on his explosive powder, but the less I knew of that, the more contented I was.

Our imminent departure was more than enough to fill my mind, and yet life never allows a man to focus on one task at a time. Dutiful and Civil also had nightly lessons with Web in the history and customs of the Old Blood folk. These were held before a hearth in the Great Hall, and Web had made it plain that any who were interested were welcome to attend. The Queen herself had been present on several occasions. At first, his ‘lessons’ were sparsely attended, and many of the faces were set in disapproving lines. But Web was a masterful storyteller and many of his tales were new to the folk of Buckkeep. He rapidly gained an audience, especially amongst the children of the keep. And soon those who were ostensibly busy carding wool or fletching arrows or mending garments began to set up those tasks within earshot of Web’s voice. I do not know that many became convinced the Old Blood were not to be feared, but at least they learned more of how such people lived and thought.

Web had one other student at those sessions, one I had never thought to see again at Buckkeep. Swift, Burrich’s son, often sat silently on the outskirts of Web’s circle.

Word that Queen Kettricken would welcome Witted folk had gone out. Few had responded. The difficulty was plain. How could one offer his son or daughter as page without revealing that the Wit was in the family bloodline? Here at court, the Queen might be able to protect such a child, but what of his kin at home? Lord Brant, a lesser noble of Buck, had brought his ten-year-old son and sole heir. He had presented him to the Queen as Old Blood, but claimed that the magic came from his mother, dead these six years and with few surviving kin. The Queen had accepted him at his word. I also suspected one seamstress who had recently come to Buckkeep, but if she did not wish to openly declare her Wit, I would not ask.

The Queen’s other new page was none other than Swift. He had come, alone and on foot, wearing new boots and a new jacket and bearing a letter from Burrich. I had witnessed him presenting it to the Queen from my usual vantage point. The letter ceded the boy to the Farseers, admitting that Burrich had done his best with the lad but failed to shake him from his course. If he would not leave that base magic, then let him embrace it, and his father was done with him. He could not afford to have the boy around his younger brothers. It also directed that the lad not be known as Burrich’s son at the court. When Queen Kettricken gently asked of him how he wished to be known then, Swift had lifted his pale face and answered quietly but firmly, ‘Witted. It is what I am and will not deny.’

‘Swift Witted it shall be then,’ she had replied with a smile. ‘And I think it a name that will fit you well. I turn you over to my councillor, Chade, now. He will find appropriate duties for you, and lessons as well.’

The boy had given a small sigh, and then bowed deeply, obviously relieved that the ordeal of his royal audience was over. He had walked very stiff and straight as he left the audience chamber.

That Burrich would discard the boy shocked me to the depths of my soul, but I was also relieved. While Swift remained in Burrich’s household and the Wit was a point of contention between them, it could lead only to strife and misery. I suspected the decision had been both difficult and bitter for Burrich, and I lay awake nearly all of one night wondering what Molly thought of it and if she had wept at her son’s departure. I was sorely tempted to reach out to Nettle but had refrained from doing so since the day of Thick and Dutiful’s wild Skilling. It was not only that I did not wish to connect what we shared with that Skill-summons. I still feared the echoing memory of that alien voice. I would not chance a strong sending that would draw its attention to myself or to my daughter.

Yet on that night, as if my heart betrayed my mind, Nettle’s mind touched mine. It seemed almost a chance encounter, as if we had happened to dream of one another at the same moment. I wondered again at how effortlessly our minds could unite with the Skill, and wondered if Chade were correct. Perhaps this was something I had taught her from the time she was small. I dreamed of her sitting on the grass beneath a spreading tree. She held something in her cupped hands, something secret and small, and stared at it sorrowfully.

What troubles you? I asked her. Even as I spoke to her and she focused on me, I felt my dream self assume the shape she always gave me. I sat down and curled my tail around my forefeet. I grinned at her wolfishly. I do not look like this, you know.

How would I know what you look like? she asked me peevishly. You tell me nothing about yourself. Abruptly, there were daisies growing at her feet. A tiny blue bird alighted in a branch over her head and sat fanning its delicate wings.

I asked her curiously.

Her hands closed around the treasure she clasped. She pressed it to her chest, concealing it within her heart. Had she fallen in love, then?

Let me see if I can guess yours, I offered playfully. It pleased me unreasonably to think of my daughter in love and treasuring that first secret realization. I hoped the young man was worthy of her.

She looked alarmed. No. Stay away from it. It isn’t even mine. It was only entrusted to me.

Has a young man, perhaps, spoken his heart to you? I hazarded merrily.

Her eyes widened in dismay. Go away! Don’t guess. A wind stirred the tree branches above her head. We both looked up just as the blue bird changed into a bright blue lizard. Its silver eyes sparkled and whirled as it scuttled closer, coming down the trunk almost to her hair. ‘Tell me,’ it chirruped. ‘I love secrets!’

She looked at me disdainfully. Your ruse does not deceive me. She flapped a hand at the lizard. Go away, pest.

Instead the creature leapt into her hair. It dug its claws in, tangling itself in her tresses. It grew suddenly larger, the size of a cat, and wings sprouted from its shoulders. Nettle shrieked and swatted at it, but it clung there. It lifted its head, suddenly at the end of a long neck and regarded me with spinning silver eyes. Small but perfect, a blue dragon sneered at me. Its voice changed terribly. Alien and freezing, it rasped against my soul. ‘Tell me your secret, Dream Wolf!’ it demanded. ‘Tell me of a black dragon and an island! Tell me now or I tear her head from her shoulders.’

The voice tried to set hooks in me. It endeavoured to seize me and know me exactly as I was. I sprang to my feet and shook myself. I willed the wolf to fly free of me so that I could escape the dream, but it held me. I felt the creature’s regard, the prying of another mind at mine, as it demanded silently that I give up my true name.

Suddenly, Nettle stood up. Reaching out, she seized the hissing creature in both hands and glared at me. It’s only a dream. This is only a dream. You will not trick any secrets from me this way. This is only a dream and I break it and I awake. NOW!

I do not know what she did. It was not so much that she shifted her shape out of the dream as that she trapped the dragon. It became blue glass in her hands, and then she flung it from her. It struck the soil at my feet and exploded in a storm of sharp fragments. The pain of the cuts it dealt me jabbed me back into wakefulness. I sat up with a gasp, throttling Chade’s old blanket between my hands, then sprang from the bed and brushed my hands down my chest, expecting to sweep away shards of glass and feel the sting of bloody cuts. But there was only sweat. I shivered suddenly, and then shook as with an ague and spent the rest of the night sitting up before the fire wrapped in a blanket and staring into the flames. Try as I might, I could make no sense of what I had experienced. What parts were a dream, what parts a Skill-sharing with Nettle? I could not draw any lines, and I feared. I feared not only that something from the Skill-current had found us both, but also I feared the Skill-talent I had sensed in Nettle as she had saved us both from its deadly regard.

I told no one of that dream. I knew what Chade’s answer would be to my concerns. ‘Bring the girl to Buckkeep where we can protect her. Teach her to Skill.’ I would not. It had just been the bizarre ending to a dream in which my worst fears mingled. With all the strength I possessed, I believed that, as if my belief could make it the truth.

By daylight, it was easier to shelve those fears. I had many other concerns to occupy me, and much to arrange before my departure. I went down to Gindast and paid far ahead on Hap’s education. My lad seemed to be prospering at his apprenticeship. Gindast himself told me that the boy surprised him almost daily. ‘Now that he has put his mind to his learning,’ he added heavily, and I heard there the master’s rebuke of my slovenly parenting. But it was Hap who had applied the discipline to himself, and I gave him full credit for it. Every third or fourth day, I would make time in my schedule to visit him at least briefly. We did not speak of Svanja, only of how his work progressed and the approaching Springfest and the like. I had not yet told him that I would be leaving Buckkeep with the Prince. If I had, I was sure he would tell the other apprentices and perhaps pass it on to Jinna as well, for he was still occasionally a guest in her home. Habit made me wish to keep my travelling plans quiet until close to my departure date. Just as well not to connect me with the Prince, I told myself. I did not want to admit that part of that was my own dread at being parted from my foster son for that long, especially as I expected to be going into danger.

I had taken the Fool’s warning to heart. In addition to raiding Chade’s armoury for an impressive array of small and deadly items, I had undertaken modifying my clothing to accommodate them. It was a lengthy and frustrating process and I often missed the Fool’s deft suggestions and defter hands. I saw little of him in those days. I might glimpse Lord Golden about the halls and courtyards of the keep, but other young and dashing nobles of the court always accompanied him. The halls of Buckkeep seemed to be swarming with such youngsters. The Prince’s quest seemed to have a fascination for a certain type of young man, one eager both to prove himself and to spend his ancestral fortune on amusing himself at the same time. They were attracted to Lord Golden as moths are to a lamp. Then I heard a rumour that Lord Golden was completely enraged that Chalcedean vessels were disrupting trade and delaying the arrival of the Jamaillian cloaks that he had specially commissioned for the Outislander expedition wardrobe. They were, according to gossip, to have been patterned with dragons in black, blue and silver thread.

I asked Chade about it. He had come up to the tower that evening to help me work on speaking basic Outislander. The language shared many words with the common tongue of the Six Duchies, but the Outislanders twisted them and spoke gutturally. My throat was sore from my attempts. ‘Did you know that Lord Golden still plans to accompany us?’ I asked him.

‘Well, I’ve given him no reason to think otherwise. Use your head, Fitz. He’s a very resourceful man. As long as he thinks he will simply take ship with the Prince, he will make no alternate arrangements. And the less time we give that one to think of alternate arrangements, the less chance that he can circumvent our will.’

‘I thought you said you could prevent him from taking ship from Buckkeep.’

‘I did. I can. But he seems to have a goodly supply of coin at his command, Fitz, and that can make many things possible. Why give him any extra time to plan?’ He glanced away from me. ‘When the time comes to board, he will simply be told that there has been a miscalculation. There is no room for him. Perhaps he can follow on a later vessel. But I will be sure that there are no such vessels with available space.’

I was silent for a time. I tried to imagine that scene, and winced. Then I said softly, ‘It seems a hard way to treat a friend.’

‘We treat him thus precisely because he is your friend. You were the one who wished him stopped. He told you he had foreseen his death on Aslevjal, and that you must somehow prevent the Prince from slaying the black dragon. As I told you then, I put little weight on either event happening. If Lord Golden does not accompany us, he cannot die there. Nor can he provoke you into interfering with Dutiful’s mission. I doubt it will be much of an adventure, anyway. He will have missed only some cold and difficult work. I think that the Prince’s “slaying” may be no more than chopping free the head of something that was buried in the ice ages ago. How are you two getting along lately?’

He added the final question so adroitly that I answered it without thinking. ‘Not well and not poorly. Mostly I don’t see much of him.’ I looked down at my fingers and scraped at a hanging nail. ‘It’s as if he has become someone else, someone I don’t know very well. And would have no reason to know, in this life we live now.’

‘And I the same. I’ve the feeling that he has been very busy of late, and yet I am not sure with what. The common gossip tells me only that he has begun to gamble heavily on games of chance. He spends his money lavishly, on dinners and gifts of wine and fine garments for his friends, but even more on gambling with them. No fortune will withstand that for long.’

I scowled. ‘That does not sound like the man I know. He so seldom does anything without a purpose, yet I see no reason for that.’

Chade laughed without humour. ‘Well, so many say when they see a friend fall to a weakness. He would not be the first intelligent man I’ve known to succumb to an unreasoning appetite for games of chance. And in a way, you may blame yourself. Since Dutiful introduced the Stone game, it has roared into popularity. The young men call it, “the Prince’s Stones”. As with all such caprices, what started out as simple has become terribly expensive. Not only do opponents wager against each other, but now men back favourite players, and the wagers on a single game may mount to a small fortune. Even the game-cloths and stones have increased in value. Instead of a cloth, Lord Valsop has created a board of polished walnut set with lines of ivory, and his playing pieces are of jade, ivory and amber. One of the better taverns in town has refitted its upper room exclusively for Stones players. It is expensive even to enter it. Only the finest wine and foods are served there, by only the comeliest servants.’

I was appalled. ‘All this from a simple game supposed to help Dutiful focus his mind on the Skill.’

Chade laughed. ‘One never knows where such things will lead.’

It recalled another question to my mind. ‘Speaking of something that led to something else: of those we felt stir when Dutiful and Thick Skilled out, have any come to Buckkeep?’

‘Not yet,’ Chade replied, and tried to keep disappointment from his voice. ‘I had hoped they would hasten here, but I suppose that summons was both too strange and too abrupt. We should make a time when we can all sit down and intentionally reach forth in that way again. Last time, it only occurred to me in that instant that we could summon those we had wakened. My thoughts to them were rushed and unclear. And now we have so little time before we sail that there is no point in calling them here now. Nonetheless, it should be one of the first things we attend to when we return. How I wish that our prince were setting out with a traditional coterie of six trained Skill-users at his beck and call. Instead we are five, and one is the Prince himself.’

‘Four, for we leave Lord Golden behind,’ I pointed out.

‘Four,’ Chade agreed sourly. He looked at me and Nettle’s name hung, unuttered, between us. Then, as if to himself, he said, ‘And there is no time now to train any others. In truth, there is scarcely time enough to train those we have.’

I cut him off before he could voice his frustration with himself. ‘It will come with time, Chade. I am convinced you cannot force it, any more than a swordsman can use will alone to make himself better. It must be coupled with endless practice and with drills that seemingly have nothing to do with his goals. Patience, Chade. Patience with yourself, and with us.’

He still could not hear any individual of the coterie Skill to him, unless there was physical contact as well. He was aware of Thick’s Skilling but it was like the humming of a gnat by his ear; it conveyed nothing. I did not know why we could not break through to him, and I did not know why he could not reach out to us. He had the Skill. Both my healing and my scarring had proven that he possessed great talent with it in that specialized area. But Chade was a man consumed by his ambition, and he would not rest until he had mastered the full spectrum of his magic.

But my efforts to reassure Chade had only turned his thoughts into a different channel. ‘Would you rather have an axe?’ he asked me abruptly.

I goggled at him for a moment, and then grasped his thought. ‘I haven’t fought with an axe in years,’ I told him. ‘I suppose I could try to get some practice in before we sailed. But I thought you just told me that this would probably be more drudgery than battle. After all, what enemy do we expect to fight?’

‘Even so. Still, an axe might prove more useful against the ice around the dragon than a sword. Request one from the Weaponsmaster tomorrow. And begin some drill with it to refresh your skills.’ He cocked his head at me and smiled. I knew that smile. I was already braced when he added, ‘You’ll be teaching weapons to Swift, along with reading and numbers. He is not doing well in the hearth classes with the other children. Burrich has taught him ahead of his years, so he is bored when put with the lads his own age and uncomfortable with the older boys. Kettricken has decided he would do best with an individual tutor. The Queen chose you.’

‘Why me?’ I demanded. What I had seen of the boy at Web’s lessons did not make me anxious to take him on as a student of anything. He was a dark and moody child, who sat solemn through stories that had other children rolling with laughter. He spoke little and looked much with Burrich’s black eyes. He carried himself as stiffly as a guardsman who had just taken a lashing, and had as much cheerfulness, also. ‘I am not suited to be a tutor. Besides, I think the less I have to do with the boy, the better for both of us. What if Burrich came to visit him and the boy wished him to meet his teacher? It would cause great difficulties.’

Chade shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Would that there was a chance of that happening. In the ten days the boy has been here, there has not been one word from his father to say he regretted sending him. I think Burrich has well and truly disowned him. That is one reason why Kettricken thinks it so important that one man take him over. He needs such a man in his life. Give him a sense of belonging, Fitz.’

‘Why me?’ I asked again sourly.

Chade smiled even wider. ‘I think the symmetry of it pleases Kettricken. And I confess to seeing a certain rough justice there, as well.’ Then he took a breath and spoke more seriously. ‘Where else would you have us put him? With someone who despises the Wit? With someone who finds him a burden but has no sense of obligation to him? No. He’s yours, now, Fitz. Make something of him. And teach him the axe. The lad should have Burrich’s build when he is grown. Right now, he’s just skin over bone. Take him to the practice courts each day and put some muscle on his frame.’

‘In my spare time,’ I promised him sourly. I wondered if Burrich had regarded me with as much dread as I did his son. I considered it probable. Yet no matter how much I dreaded it, Chade’s words had made it inevitable. The moment he had asked me ‘where else should I put the boy?’ I had known dread of what might befall Swift in someone else’s hands. It was not that I wanted an extra responsibility, least of all now. It was that I could not bear the thought of someone else taking him and being cruel or ignoring him. Such is the conceit all men have once they have been parents. One becomes convinced that no one else is better suited to the task.

I thought with dread of taking up the axe again. That was going to hurt. Yet Chade was right. It had always been my best weapon. Fine blades were wasted on me. I thought with regret of the beautiful sword that the Fool had given me. It had remained with him, along with my extravagant wardrobe, when I had left his service. I had not been comfortable masquerading as his servant, but now I found that I missed it. At least it had given me an opportunity to spend time with him. Our last conversation had healed some of the rift between us, but in another way it had created a distance of its own. I had come face to face with the fact that the Fool was but one aspect of the man I had thought I’d known. It was, I reflected sourly, like being friends with a puppeteer’s puppet and trying to ignore the man that gave it speech and made it dance.

Yet, late that same night, I went to his chamber door and tapped lightly. Dim light seeped from beneath it, but I stood long in the hall before a voice within asked irritably, ‘Who is there?’

‘Tom Badgerlock, Lord Golden. Might I come in?’

After a pause, I heard the latch lifted. I entered a room that I scarcely recognized. Reserved elegance had become sprawling opulence. Rich carpets overlapped one another on the floor. The candlesticks on the table were gold, and the perfume that the burning tapers gave off breathed as expensively as if he burned coins. The man who stood before me was robed in lavish silk and adorned with jewels. Even the hangings of the walls had been changed. The simple hunting scenes common to so many Buckkeep tapestries had been replaced with ornate depictions of Jamaillian gardens and temples.

‘Will you come in and close the door, or did you merely wish to stand there and gawp?’ he demanded peevishly. ‘It is late at night, Tom Badgerlock. Scarcely the hour for casual visitors.’

I shut the door behind me. ‘I know. I apologize for that, but when I’ve come round at more reasonable times, you haven’t been here.’

‘Did you forget something when you left my service and moved out of your chambers? That hideous tapestry, perhaps?’

‘No.’ I sighed and decided that I would not let him force me back into that role. ‘I missed you. And I’ve regretted, over and over, that stupid argument I began with you when Jek was here. It is as you warned me. I’ve been doomed to remember it every day, and every day wished I could unsay those words.’ I walked over to his hearth and dropped into one of the chairs by the dwindling fire. There was a decanter of brandy on a small table beside it and a glass with a drop or two left in the bottom.

‘I’ve no idea what you are talking about. And I was just about to seek my bed. So. Your business here, Badgerlock?’

‘Be angry with me if you wish. I suppose I deserve it. Be whatever you have to be with me. But stop this charade and be yourself. That’s all I ask.’

He stood silent for a moment, looking at me with haughty disapproval. And then he came to take the other chair. He poured himself more brandy without offering me any. I could smell that it was the apricot one that we had shared in my cabin less than a year ago. He sipped it and then observed, ‘Be myself. And who would that be?’ He set down the glass, leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms on his chest.

‘I don’t know. I wish you were the Fool,’ I said quietly. ‘But I think we have come too far to go back to that pretence. Yet, if we could, I would. Willingly.’ I looked away from him. I kicked at the end of a hearth log, pushing it further into the fire and waking new flames in a gust of sparks. ‘When I think of you now, I do not even know how to name you to myself. You are not Lord Golden to me. You never truly were. Yet you are not the Fool any more either.’ I steeled myself as the words came to me, unplanned but obvious. How could the truth be so difficult to say?

For a teetering instant, I feared he would misunderstand my words. Then I knew that he would know exactly what I meant by them. For years, he had shown that he understood my feelings, in the silences he kept. Before we parted company, I had to repair, somehow, the rift between us. The words were the only tool I had. They echoed of the old magic, of the power one gained when one knew someone’s true name. I was determined. And yet, the utterance still came awkward to my tongue.

‘You said once that I might call you Beloved, if I no longer wished to call you Fool.’ I took a breath. ‘Beloved, I have missed your company.’

He lifted a hand and covered his mouth. Then he disguised the gesture by rubbing his chin as if he thought something through carefully. I do not know what expression he hid behind his palm. When he dropped his hand from his face, he was smiling wryly. ‘Don’t you think that might cause some talk about the keep?’

I let his comment pass for I had no answer to it. He had spoken to me in the Fool’s mocking voice. Even as it soothed my heart, I had to wonder if it was a sham for my benefit. Did he show me what I wished to see, or what he was?

‘Well,’ he sighed, ‘I suppose that if you were going to have an appropriate name for me, it would still be Fool. So let us leave it at that, Fitzy. To you, I am the Fool.’ He looked into the fire and laughed softly. ‘It balances, I suppose. Whatever is to come for us, I will always have these words to recall now.’ He looked at me and nodded gravely, as if thanking me for returning something precious to him.

There were so many things I wanted to discuss with him. I wanted to review the Prince’s mission and talk about Web and ask him why he now gambled so much and what his wild extravagances meant. But I suddenly wanted to add no more words to what we had said tonight. As he had said, it balanced now. It was a hovering scale between us; I would chance no word that might tip it awry again. I nodded to him and rose slowly. When I reached the door, I said quietly, ‘Then, good night, Fool.’ I opened the door and went out into the corridor.

‘Good night, beloved,’ he said from his fireside chair. I shut the door softly behind myself.

EPILOGUE

The hand that once wielded both sword and axe now aches after an evening of the quill. When I wipe the tip of one clean, I often wonder how many buckets of ink I have used in a lifetime? How many words have I set down on paper or vellum, thinking to trap the truth thereby? And of those words, how many have I myself consigned to the flames as worthless and wrong? I do as I have done so many times. I write, I sand the wet ink, I consider my own words. Then I burn them. Perhaps when I do so, the truth goes up the chimney as smoke. Is it destroyed, or set free in the world? I do not know.

I used to doubt the Fool when he told me that all of time was a great circuit, and that we are ever doomed to repeat what has been done before. But the older I get, the more I see it is so. I thought then that he meant one great circle entrapped all of us. Instead, I think we are born into our circuits. Like a colt on the end of a training line, we trot in the circular path ordained for us. We go faster, we slow down, we halt on command and we begin again. And each time we think the circle is something new.

My father’s raising was given over, all those many years ago, to my grandfather’s half-brother, Chade. In his turn, my father gave me over to his right-hand man to rear. And when I became a father, I entrusted that the same hand could best raise my daughter in safety. Instead, I took in another man’s son and made Hap mine. Prince Dutiful, my son and yet not mine, also came to be my student. And in time, Burrich’s own son came to me, to learn from me that which his own father would not teach him.

Each circle spins off a circle of its own. Each one seems a new thing but in truth it is not. It is just our most recent attempts to correct old errors, to undo old wrongs done to us and to make up for things we have neglected. In each cycle, we may correct old errors, but I think we make as many new ones. Yet what is our alternative? To commit the same old errors again? Perhaps having the courage to find a better path is having the courage to risk making new mistakes.

COPYRIGHT

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First published in Great Britain by Voyager 2002

Copyright © Robin Hobb 2002

Robin Hobb asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780006486022

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Fool’s Fate

Book Three of The Tawny Man

Robin Hobb

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Prologue: Battling Fate

ONE : Lizards

TWO : Sons

THREE : Trepidation

FOUR : An Exchange of Weapons

FIVE : Departures

SIX : Voyage of Dreams

SEVEN : Voyage

EIGHT : The Hetgurd

NINE : Mothershouse

TEN : The Narcheska

ELEVEN : Wuislington

TWELVE : Cousins

THIRTEEN : Aslevjal

FOURTEEN : The Black Man

FIFTEEN : Civil

SIXTEEN : Elfbark

SEVENTEEN : Icefyre

EIGHTEEN : Ice

NINETEEN : Below the Ice

TWENTY : Corridors

TWENTY-ONE : In the Realm of the Pale Woman

TWENTY-TWO : Reunion

TWENTY-THREE : Mind of a Dragon

TWENTY-FOUR : Tintaglia’s Command

TWENTY-FIVE : Dragons

TWENTY-SIX : Healings

TWENTY-SEVEN : Doors

TWENTY-EIGHT : Catalyst

TWENTY-NINE : Feathers in a Fool’s Cap

THIRTY : Whole

THIRTY-ONE : Dragon’s Head

THIRTY-TWO : Through Stones

THIRTY-THREE : Family

THIRTY-FOUR : Commitments

THIRTY-FIVE : Resumption

THIRTY-SIX : Harvest Fest

THIRTY-SEVEN : Ever After

Epilogue

Copyright

PROLOGUE

Battling Fate

The White Prophet’s premise seems simple. He wished to set the world in a different path than the one it had rolled on through so many circuits of time. According to him, time always repeats itself, and in every repetition, people make most of the same foolish mistakes they’ve always made. They live from day to day, giving in to appetites and desires, convinced that what they do does not matter in the larger scheme of things.

According to the White Prophet, nothing could be further from the truth. Every small, unselfish action nudges the world into a better path. An accumulation of small acts can change the world. The fate of the world can pivot on one man’s death. Or turn a different way because of his survival. And who was I to the White Prophet? I was his Catalyst. The Changer. I was the stone he would set to bump time’s wheel out of its rut. A small pebble can turn a wheel out of its path, he told me, but warned me that it was seldom a pleasant experience for the pebble.

The White Prophet claimed that he had seen, not just the future, but many possible futures, and most of them were drearily similar. But in a very few cases, there was a difference, and that difference led to a shining realm of new possibilities.

The first difference was the existence of a Farseer heir, one who survived. That was me. Forcing me to survive, dragging me away from the deaths that constantly tried to eliminate me so that time’s wheels could jolt back into their comfortable ruts, became his life’s work. Death and near-death swallowed me, time after time, and each time he dragged me, battered and bruised, back from the brink to follow him again. He used me relentlessly, but not without regret.

And he succeeded in diverting fate from its pre-ordained path into one that would better the world. So he said. But there were people who did not share his opinion, people who envisioned a future without a Farseer heir and without dragons. One of them decided to ensure that future by ridding herself of the fool who stood in her way.

ONE

Lizards

Sometimes it seems unfair that events so old can reach forward through the years, sinking claws into one’s life and twisting all that follows it. Yet perhaps that is the ultimate justice: we are the sum of all we have done added to the sum of all that has been done to us. There is no escaping that, not for any of us.

So it was that everything that the Fool had ever said to me and all the things he’d left unsaid combined. And the sum was that I betrayed him. Yet I believed that I acted in his best interests, and mine. He had foretold that if we went to Aslevjal Island, he would die and Death might make another snap of his jaws at me. He promised to do all in his power to see that I survived, for his grand scheme to change the future required it. But with my latest brush with death still fresh in my memory, I found his promises more threatening than reassuring. He had also blithely informed me that once we were on the island, I would have to choose between our friendship and my loyalty to Prince Dutiful.

Perhaps I could have faced one of those things and stood strong before it, but I doubt it. Any one of those things was enough to unman me, and facing the sum of them was simply beyond my strength.

So I went to Chade. I told him what the Fool had said. And my old mentor arranged that when we sailed for the Out Islands, the Fool would not go with us.

Spring had come to Buckkeep Castle. The grim black stone edifice still crouched suspiciously on the steep cliffs above Buckkeep Town, but on the rolling hills behind the keep, new green grass was pushing optimistically up through the standing brown straw of last year’s growth. The bare-limbed forests were hazed with tiny green leaves unfurling on every tree branch. The wintry mounds of dead kelp on the black beaches at the foot of the cliffs had been swept away by the tides. Migratory birds had returned, and their songs rang challenges in the forested hills and along the beaches where sea birds battled for choice nesting nooks in the cliffs. Spring had even invaded the dim halls and high-ceilinged chambers of the keep, for blossoming branches and early blooming flowers graced every alcove and framed the entries of the gathering rooms.

The warmer winds seemed to sweep my gloom away. None of my problems and concerns had vanished, but spring can dismiss a multitude of worries. My physical state had improved; I felt more youthful than I had in my twenties. Not only was I building flesh and muscle again, but I suddenly possessed the body that a fit man of my years should have. The harsh healing I had undergone at the inexperienced hands of the coterie had inadvertently undone old damage as well. Abuse I had suffered at Galen’s hands in the course of his teaching me the Skill, injuries I had taken as a warrior, and the deep scars from my torture in Regal’s dungeons had been erased. My headaches had nearly ceased, my vision no longer blurred when I was weary, and I did not ache in the chill of early morning. I lived now in the body of a strong and healthy animal. Few things are so exhilarating as good health on a clear spring morning.

I stood on the top of a tower and looked out over the wrinkling sea. Behind me, tubs of earth, freshly manured, held small fruit trees arrayed in blossoms of white and pale pink. Smaller pots held vines with swelling leaf buds. The long green leaves of bulb-flowers thrust up like scouts sent to test the air. In some pots, only bare brown stalks showed, but the promise was there, each plant awaiting the return of warmer days. Interspersed with the pots were artfully arranged statuary and beckoning benches. Shielded candles awaited mellow summer nights to send their glow into the darkness. Queen Kettricken had restored the Queen’s Garden to its former glory. This high retreat was her private territory. Its present simplicity reflected her Mountain roots, but its existence was a much older Buckkeep tradition. I paced a restless turn around its perimeter path, and then forced myself to stand still. The boy was not late. I was early. That the minutes dragged was not his fault. Anticipation warred with reluctance as I awaited my first private meeting with Swift, Burrich’s son. My queen had given me responsibility for Swift’s instruction in both letters and weaponry. I dreaded the task. Not only was the boy Witted, but he was undeniably headstrong. Those two things, coupled with his intelligence, could carry him quickly into trouble. The Queen had decreed that the Witted must be treated with respect, but many still believed that the best cure for beast-magic was a noose, a knife and a fire.

I understood the Queen’s motive in entrusting Swift to me. His father, Burrich, had turned him out of his home when the boy would not give up the Wit. Yet the same Burrich had devoted years to raising me when I was a lad and abandoned by my royal father as a bastard that he dared not claim. It was fitting that I now do the same for Burrich’s son, even if I could never let the boy know that I had once been FitzChivalry and his father’s ward. So it was that I awaited Swift, a skinny lad of ten summers, as nervously as if I faced the boy’s father. I took a deep breath of the cool morning air. The scent of the fruit tree blossoms balmed it. I reminded myself that my task would not last long. Very soon, I would accompany the Prince on his quest to Aslevjal in the Out Islands. Surely I could endure being the lad’s instructor until then.

The Wit-magic makes one aware of other life, and so I turned even before Swift pushed open the heavy door. He shut it quietly behind him. Despite his long climb up the steep stone stairs, he was not breathing hard. I remained partially concealed by screening blossoms and studied him. He was dressed in Buckkeep blue, in simple garments befitting a page. Chade was right. He would make a fine axe-man. The boy was thin, in the way of active boys of that age, but the knobs of shoulders under his jerkin promised his father’s brawn. I doubted he would be tall, but he would be wide enough to make up for it. Swift had his father’s black eyes and dark curling hair, but there was something of Molly in the line of his jaw and the set of his eyes. Molly, my lost love and Burrich’s wife. I took a long, deep breath. This might be more difficult than I had imagined.

I saw him become aware of me. I stood still, letting his eyes seek me out. For a time we both stood, unspeaking. Then he threaded his way through the meandering paths until he stood before me. His bow was too carefully practised to be graceful.

‘My lord, I am Swift Witted. I was told to report to you, and so I present myself.’

I could see he had made an effort to learn his court courtesies. Yet his blatant inclusion of his beast-magic in how he named himself seemed almost a rude challenge, as if he tested whether the Queen’s protection of the Witted would hold here, alone with me. He met my gaze in a forthright way that most nobles would have found presumptuous. Then again, I reminded myself, I was not a noble. I told him so. ‘I am not “my lord” to anyone, lad. I’m Tom Badgerlock, a man-at-arms in the Queen’s Guard. You may call me Master Badgerlock, and I shall call you Swift. Is that agreed?’

He blinked twice and then nodded. Abruptly, he recalled that that was not correct. ‘It is, sir. Master Badgerlock.’

‘Very well. Swift, do you know why you were sent to me?’

He bit his upper lip twice, swift successive nibbles, then took a deep breath and spoke, eyes lowered. ‘I suppose I’ve displeased someone.’ Then he flashed his gaze up to mine again. ‘But I don’t know what I did, or to whom.’ Almost defiantly, he added, ‘I cannot help what I am. If it is because I am Witted, well, then, it isn’t fair. Our queen has said that my magic should not make any difference in how I am treated.’

My breath caught in my throat. His father looked at me from those dark eyes. The uncompromising honesty and the determination to speak the truth was all Burrich’s. And yet, in his intemperate haste, I heard Molly’s quick temper. For a moment, I was at a loss for words.

The boy interpreted my silence as displeasure and lowered his eyes. But the set of his shoulders was still square; he did not know of any fault he had committed, and he would not show any repentance until he did.

‘You did not displease anyone, Swift. And you will find that to some at Buckkeep, your Wit matters not at all. That is not why we separated you from the other children. Rather, this change is for your benefit. Your knowledge of letters surpasses the other children of your age. We did not wish to thrust you into a group of youths much older than you. It was also decided that you could benefit from instruction in the use of a battle-axe. That, I believe, is why I was chosen to mentor you.’

His head jerked and he looked up at me in confusion and dismay. ‘A battle-axe?’

I nodded, both to him and to myself. Chade was up to his old tricks again. Plainly the boy had not been asked if he had any interest in learning to wield such a weapon. I put a smile on my face. ‘Certainly a battle-axe. Buckkeep’s men-at-arms recall that your father fought excellently with the axe. As you inherit his build as well as his looks, it seems natural that his weapon of choice should be yours.’

‘I’m nothing like my father. Sir.’

I nearly laughed aloud, not from joy, but because the boy had never looked more like Burrich than he did at that moment. It felt odd to look down at someone giving me his black scowl. But such an attitude was not appropriate to a boy of his years, so I coldly said, ‘You’re like enough, in the Queen’s and Councillor Chade’s opinions. Do you dispute what they have decided for you?’

It all hovered in the balance. I saw the instant when he made his decision, and almost read the workings of his mind. He could refuse. Then he might be seen as ungrateful and sent back home to his father. Better to bow his head to a distasteful task and stay. And so he said, voice lowered, ‘No, sir. I accept what they have decided.’

‘That’s good,’ I said with false heartiness.

But before I could continue, he informed me, ‘But I have a skill with a weapon already. The bow, sir. I had not spoken of it before, because I did not think it would be of interest to anyone. But if I’m to train as a fighter as well as a page, I already have a weapon of choice.’

Interesting. I regarded him in silence for a moment. I’d seen enough of Burrich in him to suspect he would not idly boast of a skill he didn’t possess. ‘Very well, then. You may show me your skills with a bow. But this time is set aside for other lessons. To that end, we’ve been given permission to use scrolls from the Buckkeep library. That’s quite an honour for both of us.’ I waited for a response.

He bobbed a nod, and then recalling his manners, ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good. Then meet me here tomorrow. We’ll have an hour of scrolls and writing, and then we’ll go down to the weapons court.’ Again I awaited his reply.

‘Yes, sir. Sir?’

‘What is it?’

‘I’m a good horseman, sir. I’m a bit rusty now. My father refused to let me be around his horses for the last year. But I’m a good horseman, as well.’

‘That’s good to know, Swift.’ I knew what he had hoped. I watched his face, and saw the light in it dim at my neutral response. I had reacted almost reflexively. A boy of his age shouldn’t be considering bonding with an animal. Yet as he lowered his head in disappointment, I felt my old loneliness echo down the years. So, too, had Burrich done all he could to protect me from bonding with a beast. Knowing the wisdom of it now didn’t still the memory of my thrumming isolation. I cleared my throat and tried to keep my voice smoothly assured when I spoke. ‘Very well, then, Swift. Report to me here tomorrow. Oh, and wear your old clothes tomorrow. We’ll be getting dirty and sweaty.’

He looked stricken.

‘Well? What is it, lad?’

‘I … sir, I can’t. I, that is, I don’t have my old clothes any more. Only the two sets the Queen gave me.’

‘What happened to them?’

‘I … I burned them, sir.’ He suddenly sounded defiant. He met my eyes, jaw jutting.

I thought of asking him why. I didn’t need to. It was obvious from his stance. He had made a show for himself of destroying all things that bound him to his past. I wondered if I should make him admit that aloud, then decided that nothing would be gained by it. Surely such a waste of useful garments was something that should shame him. I wondered how bitterly his differences with his father had run. Suddenly the day seemed a little less brightly blue. I shrugged, dismissing the matter. ‘Wear what you have, then,’ I said abruptly, and hoped I did not sound too harsh.

He stood there, staring at me, and I realized that I hadn’t dismissed him. ‘You can go now, Swift. I will see you tomorrow.’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, Master Badgerlock.’ He bowed, jerkily correct, and then hesitated again. ‘Sir? May I ask you a last question?’

‘Certainly.’

He looked all around us, almost suspiciously. ‘Why do we meet up here?’

‘It’s quiet. It’s pleasant. When I was your age, I hated to be kept indoors on a spring day.’

That brought a hesitant smile to his face. ‘So do I, sir. Nor do I like to be kept so isolated from animals. That is my magic calling me, I suppose.’

I wished he had let it rest. ‘Perhaps it is. And perhaps you should think well before you answer it.’ This time I intended that he hear the rebuke in my voice.

He flinched, then looked indignant. ‘The Queen said that my magic was not to make a difference to anyone. That no one can treat me poorly because of it.’

‘That’s true. But neither will people treat you well because of it. I counsel you to keep your magic a private matter, Swift. Do not parade it before people until you know them. If you wish to know how to best handle your Wit, I suggest you spend time with Web the Witted, when he tells his tales before the hearth in the evenings.’

He was scowling before I was finished. I dismissed him curtly and he went. I thought I had read him well enough. His possession of the Wit had been the battle line drawn between him and his father. He had successfully defied Burrich and fled to Buckkeep, determined to live openly as a Witted one in Queen Kettricken’s tolerant court. But if the boy thought that being Witted was all he needed to earn his place, well, I’d soon clear that cobweb from his mind. I’d not try to deprive him of his magic. But his flaunting of it, as one might shake a rag at a terrier to see what reaction he would win, distressed me. Sooner or later, he’d encounter a young noble happy to challenge him over the despised beast-magic. The tolerance was a mandated thing, grudgingly given by many who still adhered to the old distaste for our gift. Swift’s attitude made me doubly determined that he should not discover I was Witted. Bad enough that he cockily flaunted his own magic; I wouldn’t have him betraying mine.

I gazed out once more over the wide spectacle of sea and sky. It was an exhilarating view, at once breathtaking and yet reassuringly familiar. And then I forced myself to stare down, over the low wall that stood between me and a plummet to my sure death below. Once, battered both physically and mentally by Galen the Skillmaster, I had tried to make that plunge from this very parapet. It had been Burrich’s hand that had drawn me back. He had carried me down to his own rooms, treated my injuries, and then avenged them upon the Skillmaster. I still owed him for that. Perhaps teaching his son and keeping him safe at court would be the only repayment I could ever offer him. I fixed that thought in my heart to prop up my sagging enthusiasm for the task and left the tower top. I had another meeting to hasten to, and the sun told me that I was already nearly late for it.

Chade had let it be known that he was now instructing the young prince in his heritage Skill-magic. I was both grateful and chagrined at this turn of events. The announcement meant that Prince Dutiful and Chade no longer had to meet secretly for that purpose. That the Prince took his half-wit servant with him to those lessons was regarded as a sort of eccentricity. No one in the court would have guessed that Thick was the Prince’s fellow student, and far stronger in the Farseer’s ancestral magic than any currently living Farseer. The chagrin came from the fact that I, the true Skill-instructor, was the only one who still had to conceal his comings and goings from those meetings. Tom Badgerlock was who I was now, and that humble guardsman had no business knowing anything of the Farseer’s magic.

So it was that I descended the steps from the Queen’s Garden, and then hastened through the keep. From the servants’ areas there were six possible entry points to the hidden spy labyrinth that meandered through the entrails of Buckkeep Castle. I took care that every day I used a different entry from the day before. Today I selected the one near the cook’s larder. I waited until there was no one in the corridor before I entered the storeroom. I pushed my way through three racks of dangling sausages before dragging the panel open and stepping through into now familiar darkness.

I didn’t waste time waiting for my eyes to adjust. This part of the maze had no illumination of any kind. The first few times I’d explored it, I carried a candle. Today I judged that I knew it well enough to traverse it in the dark. I counted my steps, then groped my way into a narrow staircase. At the top of it, I made a sharp right and saw thin fingers of spring sunlight filtering into the dusty corridor. Stooped, I hastened along it and soon reached a more familiar part of the warren. In a short time, I emerged from the side of the hearth in the Seawatch Tower. I pushed the panel back into place, then froze as I heard someone lifting the door-latch. I barely had time to seek flimsy shelter in the long curtains that draped the tower windows before someone entered.

I held my breath, but it was only Chade, Dutiful and Thick arriving for their lessons. I waited until the door was firmly closed behind them before stepping out into the room. I startled Thick, but Chade only observed, ‘You’ve cobwebs down your left cheek. Did you know?’

I wiped away the clinging stuff. ‘I’m surprised that it’s only on my left cheek. Spring seems to have wakened a legion of spiders.’

Chade nodded gravely to my observation. ‘I used to carry a feather duster with me, waving it before me as I went. It helped. Somewhat. Of course, in those days, it little mattered what I looked like when I arrived at my destination. I just didn’t care for the sensation of little legs down the back of my neck.’

Prince Dutiful smirked at the idea of the immaculately attired and coiffed Queen’s councillor scuttling through the corridors. There had been a time when Lord Chade was a hidden resident of Buckkeep Castle, the royal assassin only, a man who concealed his pocked face and carried out the King’s justice in the shadows. No longer. Now he strode majestically through the hallways, openly lauded as both diplomat and trusted advisor to the Queen. His elegant garb in shades of blue and green reflected that status, as did the gems that graced his throat and earlobes. His snowy hair and piercing green eyes seemed like carefully chosen accoutrements to his wardrobe. The scars that had so distressed him had faded with his years. I neither envied nor begrudged him his finery. Let the old man make up now for the deprivations of his youth. It harmed no one, and those who were dazzled by it often overlooked the rapier mind that was his real weapon.

In contrast, the Prince was garbed nearly as simply as I was. I attributed it to Queen Kettricken’s austere Mountain Kingdom traditions and her innate thrift. At fifteen, Dutiful was shooting up. What sense was there in creating fine garments for everyday wear when he either outgrew them or tore out the shoulders while practising on the weapons court? I studied the young man who stood grinning before me. His dark eyes and curling black hair mirrored his father’s, but both his height and his developing jawline reminded me more of my father Chivalry’s portrait.

The squat man accompanying him was a complete contrast. I estimated Thick to be in his late twenties. He had the small tight ears and protruding tongue of a simpleton. The Prince had garbed him in a blue tunic and leggings which matched his own, right down to the buck crest on the breast, but the tunic strained across the little man’s pot belly and the hose sagged comically at his knees and ankles. He cut an odd figure, both amusing and slightly repulsive, to those who could not sense, as I did, the Skill-magic that burned in him like a smith’s forge-fire. He was learning to control the Skill-music that served him in place of an ordinary man’s thoughts. It was less pervasive and hence less annoying than it had once been, yet the strength of his magic meant that he shared it with all of us, constantly. I could block it, but that meant also blocking my sensitivity to most of the Skill, including Chade’s and Dutiful’s weaker sendings. I could not block him and still teach them, so for now I endured Thick’s music.

Today it was made from the snickings of scissors and the clack of a loom, with the high-pitched giggle of a woman winding through it. ‘So. Had another fitting this morning, did you?’ I asked the Prince.

He was not dazzled. He knew how I had deduced it. He nodded with weary tolerance. ‘Both Thick and I. It was a long morning.’

Thick nodded emphatically. ‘Stand on the stool. Don’t scratch. Don’t move. While they poke Thick with pins.’ He added the last severely, with a rebuking look at the Prince.

Dutiful sighed. ‘That was an accident, Thick. She told you to stand still.’

‘She’s mean,’ Thick ventured in an undertone, and I suspected he was close to the truth. Many of his nobles found it difficult to accept the Prince’s friendship with Thick. For some reason, it affronted some servants even more. Some of them found small ways to vent that displeasure.

‘It’s all done now, Thick,’ Dutiful consoled him.

We took our customary places around the immense table. Since Chade had announced that he and the Prince were beginning Skill-lessons together, this room of the Seawatch Tower had been furnished well. Long curtains framed the tall windows, now unshuttered to admit a pleasant breeze. The stone walls and floor of the chamber had been well scrubbed and the table and chairs oiled and polished. There were proper scroll-racks to hold Chade’s small library as well as a stoutly locked cabinet for those he regarded as highly valuable or dangerous. A large writing desk offered inkpots and freshly cut pens and a generous supply of both paper and vellum. There was also a sideboard with bottles of wine, glasses and other necessities for the Prince’s comfort. It had become a comfortable, even an indulgent room which reflected Chade’s taste more than Prince Dutiful’s.

I enjoyed the change.

I surveyed the faces around me. Dutiful was looking at me alertly. Thick was pursuing something inside his left nostril. Chade was sitting bolt upright, fairly shivering with energy. Whatever he had taken to bring him back to alertness had done nothing for the threads of blood in his eyes. The contrast with his green gaze was unsettling.

‘What I’d like to do today … Thick. Please stop that.’

He looked at me blankly, his finger still wedged in his nose. ‘Can’t. It’s poking me in there.’

Chade rubbed his brow, looking aside. ‘Give him a handkerchief,’ he suggested to no one in particular.

Prince Dutiful was closest. ‘Here, blow your nose. Maybe it will come out.’

He handed Thick a square of embroidered linen. Thick regarded it doubtfully for several seconds, and then took it. Over the deafening sounds of his attempts to clear his nose, I asked, ‘Last night, each of us was to try Skill-walking in our dreams.’ I had been nervous about suggesting this, but I had felt both Dutiful and Chade were ready to attempt it. Thick routinely forgot what he was to do in the evenings, so I’d had small concern for him. When one Skill-walked, one could leave one’s own body and for a short time experience life through someone else. I had managed it several times, most often by accident. The Skill-scrolls had suggested that it was not only a good way to gather information but also to locate those who were open enough to be used as King’s Men, sources of strength to a Skill-user. Those sufficiently open sometimes proved to possess the Skill themselves. Chade had been enthused yesterday, but a glance at him today showed none of the triumph he would have displayed if he had managed the feat. Dutiful likewise looked gloomy. ‘So. No success?’

‘I did it!’ Thick exulted.

‘You Skill-walked?’ I was astounded.

‘No-o-o. I got it out. See?’ He displayed his greenish trophy trapped in the middle of the Prince’s handkerchief. Chade turned aside with an exclamation of disgust.

Dutiful, being fifteen, laughed aloud. ‘Impressive, Thick. That’s a big one. Looks like an old green salamander.’

‘Yah,’ Thick agreed with satisfaction. His mouth sagged wide with pleasure. ‘I dreamed a big blue lizard last night. Bigger than this!’ His laughter, like a dog’s huffy panting, joined the Prince’s.

‘My prince and future monarch,’ I reminded Dutiful sternly. ‘We have work to do.’ In reality, I was struggling to keep a straight face. It was good to see Dutiful laugh freely, even over something puerile. Since I had first met the boy, he had always seemed weighted by his station and his perpetual duties. This was the first time I had seen him acting like a youngster in springtime; I regretted my rebuke when the smile faded so abruptly from his face. With a gravity that far exceeded my own, he turned to Thick, seized the handkerchief and balled it up.

‘No, Thick. Stop. Listen to me. You dreamed a big blue lizard? How big?’

The intensity of the Prince’s question drew Chade’s glance. But Thick was confused and offended by how quickly Dutiful’s tone and attitude towards him had changed. His brow furrowed and both bottom lip and tongue jutted as a sulk settled onto his face. ‘That wasn’t nice.’

I recognized the phrase. We’d been working on Thick’s table manners. If he was to accompany us on the trip to Aslevjal, he had to learn at least a modicum of courtesy. Unfortunately, he seemed to recall the rules only when he could rebuke someone else with them.

‘I’m sorry, Thick. You’re right. Grabbing isn’t nice. Now tell me about the big lizard you dreamed.’

The Prince was smiling earnestly at Thick, but the change of topic was too fast for the little man. Thick shook his heavy head and turned away. He folded his stubby arms on his chest. ‘Na,’ he declined gruffly.

‘Please, Thick,’ Dutiful began, but Chade interrupted. ‘Can’t this wait, Dutiful? We’ve not that many days before we sail, and we still have so much ground to cover if we are to function as a Skill-coterie.’ I knew the old man’s anxiety. I shared it. The Skill might be essential to the Prince’s success. Neither of us put much weight on him truly slaying some buried ice-dragon. The true value of the Skill would be that Chade and I could gather information and convey it to Dutiful to smooth the path for his wedding negotiations.

‘No. This is important, Chade. I think. Well, it might be. Because I dreamed a big blue lizard last night, too. Actually, the creature I dreamed was a dragon.’

A moment of silence held as we considered this. Then Chade hesitantly attempted, ‘Well, it should not surprise us if you and Thick share the same dream. You are so often Skill-linked throughout the day, why shouldn’t it bleed over into the night?’

‘Because I don’t think I was asleep when it happened. I was trying to do the Skill-walking. Fi—Tom says it was easiest for him to bridge over to it from a light sleep. So I was in my bed, trying to be asleep but not too asleep, while reaching out with the Skill. And then I felt it.’

‘What?’ Chade asked.

‘I felt it looking for me. With its great big whirly silver eyes.’ Thick was the one who answered.

‘Yes,’ the Prince confirmed slowly.

My heart sank.

‘I don’t understand,’ Chade said irritably. ‘Start at the beginning and report it properly.’ This was addressed to Dutiful. I understood the double prong of Chade’s anger. Once again, the three of them had attempted an exercise, and both Thick and Dutiful had experienced some success while Chade had failed. Underscoring that was the mention of a dragon. There had been too many mentions of dragons lately: a frozen dragon for Dutiful to unearth and behead, the dragons the Bingtown contingent had bragged about (supposedly at the beck and call of the Bingtown Traders) and now a dragon intruding into our Skill-exercise. We knew far too little about any of them. We dared not dismiss them as legends and lies; too well we recalled the stone dragons that had rallied to the Six Duchies’ defence sixteen years ago, yet we knew little about any of them.

‘There’s scarcely enough to report it,’ Dutiful replied. He took a breath, and despite his own words, began in the orderly way in which Chade had schooled both of us. ‘I had retired to my chambers, exactly as if I were going to sleep for the night. I was in my bed. There was a low fire in the hearth, and I was watching it, unfocusing my mind in a way that I hoped would both invite sleep and yet leave me aware enough to reach out with the Skill. Twice I dozed off. Each time, I roused myself and tried to approach the exercise again. The third time, I tried reversing the process. I reached out with the Skill, held myself in readiness and then tried to sink down into sleep.’ He cleared his throat and looked around at us. ‘Then I felt something big. Really big.’ He looked at me. ‘Like that time on the beach.’

Thick was following the tale with his jaw ajar and his small round eyes bunched with thought. ‘A big fat blue lizard,’ he hazarded.

‘No, Thick,’ Dutiful patiently kept his voice soft. ‘Not at first. At first, there was just this immense … presence. And I longed to go towards it, and yet I feared to go towards it. Not because of any deliberate threat from it. On the contrary, it seemed … infinitely benign. Restful and safe. I was afraid to touch it for fear that … I’d lose any desire to come back. It seemed like the end of something. An edge, or a place where something different begins. No. Like something that lives in a place where something different begins.’ The Prince’s voice trickled away.

‘I don’t understand. Talk sense,’ Chade demanded.

‘It’s as much sense as you can apply to it,’ I interceded quietly. ‘I know the sort of being, or feeling, or place that the Prince is speaking about. I’ve encountered such, a time or two. Once, one helped us. But I had the feeling that one was an exception. Perhaps another one of them might have absorbed us and not even noticed. It’s an incredibly attractive force, Chade. Warm and accepting, gentle as a mother’s love.’

The Prince frowned slightly and shook his head. ‘This one was strong. Protective and wise. Like a father,’ said Dutiful.

I held my tongue. I had long ago decided that those forces presented to us whatever it was that we most hungered for. My mother had given me up when I was very small. Dutiful had never known his father. Such things leave large gaps in a man.

‘Why haven’t you spoken of this before?’ Chade asked testily.

Why, indeed? Because that encounter had seemed too personal to share. But now I excused myself, saying, ‘Because you would only have said to me what you just said. Talk sense. It’s a phenomenon I can’t explain. Perhaps even what I’ve said is just my rationalization of what I experienced. Recounting a dream; that’s what it is like. Trying to make a story out of a series of events that defy logic.’

Chade subsided, but he did not look content. I resigned myself to being wrung for more facts, thoughts and impressions later.

‘I want to tell about the big lizard,’ Thick observed sullenly to no one at all. He had reached a point at which he sometimes enjoyed being the centre of attention. Obviously he felt that the Prince’s tale had stolen his stage.

‘Go ahead, Thick. You tell what you dreamed, and then I’ll tell what I did.’ The Prince ceded him all attention.

Chade sat back in his chair with a noisy sigh. I turned my attention to Thick and watched his face brighten. He gave a wiggle like a stroked puppy, squinted thoughtfully, and then in a painstaking imitation of how he had frequently heard Dutiful and me report to Chade, began his account. ‘I went to bed last night. And I had my red blanket. Then, Thick was being almost asleep, going into the music. Then, I knew Dutiful was there. Sometimes Thick follows him to dreams. He has lots of good dreams, girl dreams …’

Thick’s voice trailed off for a moment as he breathed through his open mouth, pondering.

The Prince looked acutely uncomfortable, but both Chade and I managed to retain blandly interested expressions.

Thick abruptly resumed his tale. ‘Then, I thought, where is he? Maybe it’s a game. He’s hiding from Thick. So I go, “Prince” and he goes, “be quiet”. So I am and Thick is small, and the music goes around and around me. Like hiding in the curtains. Then I peep, just a tiny peep. And it’s a big fat lizard, blue, blue like my shirt, but shiny when she moves, like the knives in the kitchen. Then she says, “come out, come out. We can play a game.” But Prince says, “sh, no, don’t” so I don’t, and then she gets mad and gets bigger. Her eyes go shiny and whirl round and round like that saucer I dropped. And then Thick thinks, “but she’s on the dream side. I’ll go on the other side.” So I made the music get bigger and I woke up. And there wasn’t a lizard but my red blanket was on the floor.’

He finished his telling with a great gasp, having run out of breath and looked from one of us to the other. I found myself giving Chade the tiniest of Skill-pokes. He glanced at me, but contrived to make it seem a chance thing. I felt tremendous pride in the old man when he said, ‘An excellent report, Thick. You’ve given me much to consider. Let us hear the Prince now and then I’ll see if I have any questions for you.’

Thick sat taller in his chair and his chest swelled with such pride that the fabric of his shirt strained across his round belly. His tongue still stuck out of his wide froggy grin, but his little eyes danced as he looked from Dutiful to me to be sure we had noticed his triumph. I wondered when impressing Chade had become so important to him, and then realized that this, too, was an imitation of his prince.

Dutiful wisely allowed Thick a moment or two to bask in our attention. ‘Thick has told you most of the story, but let me add a bit. I told you of a great presence. I was – well, not watching – I was experiencing her, or it I suppose, and being slowly drawn closer and closer. It wasn’t frightening. I knew it was dangerous, but it was hard to care that I might be absorbed and lost forever. It just didn’t seem to matter. Then the presence began to recede. I wanted to pursue it, but at that moment I became aware of something else watching me. And it did not feel so benign. My sensation was that while I’d been contemplating that presence, this other being had crept up on me.

‘I looked around and saw that I was at the edge of a milky river, on a very small clay beach. A great forest of immense trees stood at my back. They were taller than towers and shaded the day to dusk. I didn’t see anything else at first. Then I noticed a tiny creature, like a lizard, only plumper. It was on the wide leaf of a tree, watching me. Yet once I saw it, it began to grow. Or perhaps I shrank. I’m not sure. The forest grew bigger as well, until when the animal stepped down onto the clay, it was a dragon. Blue and silver, immense and beautiful. And she spoke to me, saying, “So. You’ve seen me. Well, I don’t care. But you will. You’re one of his. Tell me. What do you know of a black dragon?” Then, and this part was very odd, I couldn’t find myself. It was as if I had looked at her too hard and forgotten to remember that I existed. And then I decided I would be behind a tree, and I was.’

‘This doesn’t sound like the Skill,’ Chade interrupted irritably. ‘It sounds like a dream.’

‘Exactly. And so I dismissed it when I awoke. I knew I had Skilled briefly, but I thought that then sleep had crept upon me, and all that followed was a dream. So, in this dream, in the odd way that dreams have, Thick was suddenly with me. I didn’t know if he had seen the dragon, so I reached for him and told him to be quiet and hide from her. So we were hiding, and she became very angry, I think because she knew we were still there but hiding. Then suddenly Thick was gone. And it startled me so much that I opened my eyes.’ The Prince shrugged. ‘I was in my bedroom. I thought it had just been a very vivid dream.’

‘So it could have been, one that you and Thick shared,’ Chade replied. ‘I think we can leave this now and settle to our real business here.’

‘I think not,’ I said. Something in Chade’s easy dismissal warned me that the old man did not want us to speak of this but I was willing to sacrifice part of my secret to discover his. ‘I think the dragon is real. Moreover, I think we have heard of her before. Tintaglia, the Bingtown dragon. The one that masked boy spoke of.’

‘Selden Vestrit.’ Dutiful supplied his name quietly. ‘Can dragons Skill, then? Why would she demand to know what we knew of a black dragon? Does she mean Icefyre?’

‘Almost certainly she does. But that is the only one of your questions that I can answer.’ I turned reluctantly to face Chade’s scowl. ‘She has touched my dreams before. With the same demand, that I tell her what I knew of a black dragon and an island. She knows of our quest, most likely from the Bingtown contingent that came to invite us so cordially to their war with Chalced. But I think that she only knows as much as they did. That there is a dragon trapped in ice, and that Dutiful goes to slay him.’

Chade made a sound almost like a growl. ‘Then she’ll know the name of the island as well. Aslevjal. It is only a matter of time before she discovers where that is. The Bingtown Traders are famous for doing just that: trading. If they want a chart that shows the way to Aslevjal, they’ll obtain one.’

I spread my hands, displaying a calm I didn’t feel. ‘There is nothing we can do about that, Chade. We’ll have to deal with whatever develops.’

He pushed back his chair. ‘Well, I could deal with it better if I knew enough to expect it,’ he said. His voice rose as he did. He stalked to the window and stared out over the sea. Then he turned his head to glare at me over his shoulder. ‘What else have you not told me?’

Had we been alone then, I might have told him about how the dragon had threatened Nettle and how she had dismissed the creature. But I did not wish to speak of my daughter in Dutiful’s presence, so I only shook my head. He turned back to gaze out over the sea.

‘So we may have another enemy to face, besides the cold and ice of Aslevjal. Well. At least tell me how big is this creature? How strong?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve only seen her in dreams, and in my dreams, she shifted her size. I don’t think we can be sure of anything she has shown us in dreams.’

‘Oh, well that’s useful,’ Chade replied, discouraged. He came back to the table and dropped into his chair. ‘Did you sense anything of this dragon last night?’ he suddenly asked me.

‘No. I didn’t.’

‘But you did Skill-walk.’

‘Briefly.’ I’d visited Nettle. I wasn’t going to discuss that here. He didn’t seem to notice my reticence.

‘I did neither. Despite my best efforts.’ His voice was as anguished as an injured child’s. I met his eyes and saw, not just frustration there, but pain. He looked at me as if I had excluded him from some precious secret or wonderful adventure.

‘Chade. It will come in time. Sometimes I think you try too hard.’ I spoke the words, but I wasn’t sure of them. Yet I could not bring myself to say what I secretly suspected: that he had come to these lessons too late, and would never master the magic so long denied him.

‘So you keep saying,’ he said hollowly.

And there seemed nothing to reply to that. For the remainder of our session, we worked through several exercises from one of the scrolls, but with limited success. Chade’s discouragement seemed to have damped all his ability that day. With hands linked, he could receive the images and words I sent him, but when we separated and moved to different parts of the room, I could not reach him, nor could he touch minds with Dutiful or Thick. His growing frustration disrupted all of us. When Dutiful and Thick departed to their day’s tasks, we had not only made no progress, but had failed to equal the previous day’s level of Skill.

‘Another day spent, and we are no closer to having a working coterie,’ Chade observed bitterly to me when we were alone in the room. He walked over to the sideboard and poured brandy for himself. When he gestured questioningly at me, I shook my head.

‘No, thank you. I’ve not even broken my fast yet.’

‘Nor I.’

‘Chade, you look exhausted. I think an hour or two of rest and a solid meal would do you better than brandy.’

‘Find me two empty hours in my day, and I’ll be happy to sleep,’ he offered without rancour. Chade walked to the window with his cup and gazed out over the water. ‘It all closes in on me, Fitz. We must have this alliance with the Out Islands. With Chalced and Bingtown warring, our trade to the south has dwindled to a trickle. If Chalced defeats Bingtown, as it well may, it will next turn its swords against us. We must ally with the Out Islands before Chalced does.

‘Yet it isn’t just the preparations for the journey. It’s all the safeguards I must put in place to be sure Buckkeep runs smoothly while I am gone.’ He sipped from his cup then added, ‘In twelve days we depart for Aslevjal. Twelve days, when six weeks would scarcely be enough time for all I must arrange so that things will run smoothly in my absence.’

I knew he was not speaking of things like Buckkeep’s provisions and taxes and the training of the guard. There were others who routinely administered all such systems and reported directly to the Queen. Chade worried about his network of spies and informants. No one was certain how long our diplomatic mission to the Out Islands would take; let alone how much time would be consumed by the Prince’s quest to Aslevjal. I still harboured a fading hope that his ‘slaying of the dragon’ would be some strange Outislander ritual, but Chade was convinced there was an actual dragon carcass encased in glacial ice and that Dutiful would have to uncover it enough to sever the head and publicly present it to the Narcheska.

‘Surely your apprentice can handle those matters in your absence.’ I kept my voice level. I had never confronted Chade over his choice of apprentice. I was still not ready to trust Lady Rosemary as a member of the Queen’s court, let alone as an apprentice assassin. As a child, she had been Regal’s tool, and the Pretender had used her ruthlessly against us. But now would be a poor time to reveal to Chade that I had discovered who his new apprentice was. His spirits were already low.

He shook his head irritably. ‘Some of my contacts trust only me. They will report to no one else. And the truth is that half of my knack is that I know when to ask more questions and which rumours to follow. No, Fitz, I must resign myself that though my apprentice will attempt to handle my affairs, there will be gaps in my knowledge-gathering when I return.’

‘You left Buckkeep Castle once before, during the Red Ship War. How did you manage then?’

‘Ah, that was a very different situation. Then, I followed the threat, pursuing the intrigues to their hearts. This time, in truth, I will be present for a very critical negotiation. But there is still much happening here at Buckkeep that needs to be watched.’

‘The Piebalds,’ I filled in.

‘Exactly. Among others. But they are still the ones I fear most, though they have been quiescent of late.’

I knew what he meant. The absence of Piebald activity was not reassuring. I had killed the head of their organization, but I feared another would rise to take Laudwine’s place. We had gone far to gain the respect and co-operation of the Witted community. Perhaps that mellowing would leech away the anger and hatred that the extremist Piebalds throve on. Our strategy had been that by offering amnesty to the Witted, we might steal the force that drove the Piebalds. If the Witted were welcomed by the Farseer Queen into common society, welcomed and even encouraged to declare their magic openly, then they would have less interest in overthrowing the Farseer reign. So we had hoped, and so it seemed to be working. But if it did not, then they might still move against the Prince, and attempt to discredit him with his own nobles by showing that he was Witted. A royal proclamation that the Wit-magic was no longer to be considered a taint could not undo generations of prejudice and mistrust. That, we hoped, would fall before the benign presence of Witted ones in the Queen’s own court. Not just boys such as Swift, but men such as Web the Witted.

Chade still gazed out over the water, his eyes troubled.

I winced as I said them, but could not keep the words back. ‘Is there anything I could do to help?’

He swung his gaze to meet mine. ‘Do you offer that sincerely?’

His tone warned me. ‘I think I do. Why? What would you ask of me?’

‘Let me send for Nettle. You needn’t acknowledge her as your daughter. Just let me approach Burrich again about bringing her to court, and teaching her the Skill. I think there is still enough of his old oath to the Farseers left in his heart that if I told him she was needed by her prince, he’d let her come. And surely it would be a comfort to Swift, to have his sister close by.’

‘Oh, Chade.’ I shook my head. ‘Ask me anything else. Only leave my child in peace.’

He shook his head and held his silence. For a time longer I stood by his side, but finally I accepted that silence as a dismissal. I left him standing there, staring out over the water, looking east and north, to the Out Islands.

TWO

Sons

Taker was the first man to call himself a king at Buckkeep Castle. He came to these shores from the Out Islands, a raider and looter, as so many others had come before him. He saw in the timbered fort upon the cliffs that overlooked the river an ideal location to establish a permanent foothold in the land. So some say. Others tell it that he was a cold, wet, and queasy sailor, anxious to be off the ocean’s heaving belly and onto shore again. Whatever his initial motivation might have been, he successfully attacked and seized the wooden castle on its ancient stone foundation and became the first Farseer king at Buckkeep. He burned his way in; henceforth, he built all his further fortifications of Buckkeep from the black stone so plentiful there. Thus, from the earliest days, the Six Duchies ruling family has roots that reach back to the Out Islands. They are not, of course, alone in this. Six Duchies and Outislander folk have mingled blood as often as they have shed one another’s.

Venturn’s Histories

With only five days remaining until our departure date, the journey began to seem real to me. Up to that point, I had been able to push it out of my mind and consider it an abstract thing. I had prepared for it, but only as an eventuality. I had studied their writing symbols, and spent many of my evenings in a tavern frequented by Outislander traders and sailors. There I had worked on learning as much of the language as I could. Listening was my best technique for that. Outislander shared many roots with our own tongue, and after a number of evenings, it no longer rang so strange against my ears. I could not speak it well, but I could make myself understood, and more importantly, understand most of what I heard. I hoped that would be enough.

My lessons with Swift had progressed well. In some ways, I would miss the boy when we sailed. In others, I’d be just as glad to be free of him. True to his word, he was a superb bowman, for a boy of ten. Once I’d alerted Cresswell to this, the Weaponsmaster had been very glad to take him in hand. ‘He’s got a feel for it. He isn’t one to stand and take a long and careful aim. With this lad, the arrow flies from his eye as much as from his bow. He’d be wasted on the axe. Let’s build his strength instead, and move him into a longer and more powerful bow as he grows.’ So Cresswell evaluated him, and when I passed on his words to Chade, the old assassin agreed in part.

‘We’ll start him on the axe as well,’ Chade directed me. ‘It cannot hurt him.’

Less time with the boy was more of a relief than I cared to admit. He was a bright lad, and pleasant to deal with in all ways save two: he reminded me far too much of both Molly and Burrich, and he could not leave the topic of his magic alone. No matter what lesson I began with, he found a way to transform it to a discussion of the Wit. The depth of his ignorance appalled me, and yet I was not comfortable correcting his misconceptions. I decided to consult with Web about him.

Finding Web alone was the initial difficulty. Since he had first arrived at the Buckkeep court as a speaker and advocate for his people and their maligned magic, he had gained the respect of many who had once despised the Wit and those who practised it. He was often referred to now as ‘the Witmaster’. The title that had once been a mockery of the Queen’s acceptance of the outlawed magic was rapidly becoming an accepted honorific. Many sought his advice now, and not just on matters relating to his magic or his Old Blood people. Web was an affable man, interested in everyone and able to converse animatedly on almost any topic; but for all that he was not so much garrulous as an active listener. Folk react well to a man who hangs on their words. Even if he had not been our unofficial ambassador from the Witted folk of the realm, I think he would have become a court favourite. But this odd connection put him even more in regard, for if one wished to demonstrate to the Queen that one shared her politics about the Witted, how better than to invite Web to dine or partake of other amusement? Many nobles sought to curry the Queen’s favour this way. I am sure that nothing in Web’s previous experience had prepared him to be such a social novelty, and yet he took it in stride, as he seemed to do all things. Nor did it change him that I could tell. He was still as enraptured by the chatter of a serving girl as by the sophisticated discussions of the most elevated noble. I seldom saw him alone.

But there are still a few places where polite society does not follow a man. I was waiting for Web when he emerged from a backhouse. I greeted him and added, ‘I’d like to ask your advice on something. Have you time for a word or two, and a quiet stroll about the Women’s Gardens?’

He raised one greying eyebrow in curiosity, then nodded. Without a word, he followed me as I led the way, easily matching his rolling sailor’s gait to my stride. I’d always enjoyed the Women’s Gardens, ever since I was a boy. They supply much of the herbs and fresh greens for Buckkeep’s kitchens in summer, but are arranged to be a pleasure to stroll in as well as yielding a practical bounty. They are called the Women’s Gardens for no other reason than that they are mostly tended by women; no one would look askance at our being there. I plucked several leafy new fronds of copper fennel as we passed and offered one to Web. Above us, a birch tree was uncurling its leaves. There were beds of rhubarb around the bench that we chose. Fat red nubs thrust through the earth. On a few plants, the crinkling leaves were opening to the light. The plants would need boxing soon, if the stems were to grow long enough to be useful. I mentioned this to Web.

He scratched his trimmed grey beard thoughtfully. There was a touch of merriment in his pale eyes as he asked me, ‘And rhubarb was what you wished to consult me about?’ He put the end of the fennel stem between his teeth and nibbled at it as he waited for me to answer.

‘No, of course not. And I know you are a busy man, so I will not keep you any longer than I must. I’m concerned about a boy who has been placed in my care for lessons and weapons training. His name is Swift, and he is the son of a man who was once the Stablemaster here at Buckkeep, Burrich. But he has parted ways with his father in a dispute over Swift’s use of the Wit, and so calls himself Swift Witted now.’

‘Ah!’ Web gave a great nod. ‘Yes, I know the lad. He often comes to the edge of the circle when I am telling tales at night, yet I do not recall that he has ever spoken to me.’

‘I see. Well, I have urged him, not just to listen to you, but to talk with you as well. I am troubled over how he sees his magic. And how he speaks of it. He is untrained in it, as his father did not approve of the Wit at all. Yet his ignorance does not make him cautious, but reckless. He reveals his Wit to all he meets, thrusting it under their noses and insisting they acknowledge it. I have warned him that, Queen’s decree or no, there are many folk in Buckkeep who still find the Wit distasteful. He does not seem to grasp that a change in a law cannot force a change in people’s hearts. He flaunts his Wit in a way that may be a danger to him. And soon I must leave him on his own, when I depart with the Prince. I have five days left in which to instil some caution in him.’

I ran out of breath and Web commiserated, ‘I can see where that would make you very uncomfortable.’

It was not the comment I would have expected, and for a moment I was taken aback. ‘It isn’t just that I feel he endangers himself when he reveals his magic,’ I excused myself. ‘There is more to it. He speaks openly of choosing an animal to bond with, and soon. He has sought my aid in this, asking if I would take him through the stables. I’ve told him I don’t think that is the proper way of doing it, that there must be more to such a bond than that, but he does not listen. He brushes me off, telling me that if I had the Wit-magic, I’d understand better his need to end his isolation.’ I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice as I added this last.

Web gave a small cough and a wry smile. ‘And I can see why that would be very galling to you as well.’

His words sent a shivering across my back. They were freighted with a weight of unspoken knowledge. I tried to ignore it. ‘That’s why I’ve come to you, Web. Will you speak to him? I think you could best teach him how to accept his magic without letting it overwhelm him. You could speak to him about why he should wait to bond, and why he should be more conservative in how swiftly he shares the information that he is Witted. In short, you could teach him to carry his magic as a man would, with dignity and privacy.’

Web leaned back on the bench. The fronds of his fennel danced as he chewed the stem thoughtfully. Then he said quietly, ‘All of those things, FitzChivalry, you could teach him as well as I, if you have a mind to.’ He regarded me steadily, and on this bright spring day, blue seemed to predominate over the grey in his eyes. His look was not cold and yet I felt pierced by ice. I took a slow and steadying breath. I kept still, hoping not to betray myself as I pondered how he could know. Who had told him? Chade? Kettricken? Dutiful?

His logic was relentless as he added, ‘Of course, your words would only carry weight with him if you told him that you, too, are Witted. And they would have the most effect if you told him your true name, as well, and your relationship to his father. Yet he might be a bit young to share that secret fully.’

For two breaths longer, he regarded me, and then looked aside. I thought it was a mercy until he added, ‘Your wolf still looks out of your eyes. You think that if you stand perfectly still, no one will see you. That won’t work with me, young man.’

I rose. I longed to deny my name, yet his certainty was such that I knew I’d only look a fool in his eyes if I did so. And I did not want Master Web to consider me foolish. ‘I scarcely think myself a young man,’ I rebuked him. ‘And perhaps you are right. I shall speak to Swift myself.’

‘You’re younger than I am,’ Web said to my retreating back. ‘And in more ways than years, Master Badgerlock.’ I paused and glanced back at him. ‘Swift is not the only one who needs to be instructed in his magic,’ he said in a voice pitched for my ears alone. ‘But I will not teach anyone who does not come to me and ask for it. Tell that to the lad, too. That he must come to me and ask. I will not impose learning on him.’

I knew I was dismissed and again I walked away from him. Then I heard his voice lifted again, as if in casual observation. ‘Holly would love a day such as this. Clear skies and a light wind. How her hawk would soar!’

And there was the answer given to my unasked question, and I surmised that was a true show of mercy. He would not let me wonder who at Buckkeep had betrayed my secret, but told me plain that my true name had come to him from another source. Holly, widow to Black Rolf, who had tried to teach me the Wit so many years ago. I continued walking as if his words were no more than a pleasantry, but now I had to wonder a more unsettling thing. Had Holly passed her knowledge directly to Web, or had it travelled from tongue to tongue to reach him? How many Witted also knew who I really was? How pointed a piece of knowledge was that? How could it be used against the Farseer throne?

I went about my tasks that day with a distracted air. I had weapons drill with my guard company, and my preoccupation meant that I came away from it with more bruises than usual. There was also a final fitting for the new uniform we all would wear. I had recently become a member of the newly created Prince’s Guard. Chade had arranged that not only was I accepted to this elite group, but that my lot had been drawn to accompany the Prince on his quest. The uniform of the Prince’s Guard was blue on blue, with the Farseer buck insignia on the breast. I hoped that mine would be finished in time for me to privately add the small extra pockets I would require. I had declared that I was no longer an assassin for the Farseer reign. That did not mean I had surrendered the tools of that trade.

I was fortunate that I had no meetings with Chade or Dutiful in the afternoon, for either one of them would have immediately sensed that something was amiss. I knew that I would tell Chade; it was information he definitely needed to have. But I did not wish to divulge it to him just yet. First, I would try to work it through in my mind, and see how it unfolded.

And the best way for me to do that, I knew, was to put my thoughts on other matters. When I went down to Buckkeep Town that evening, I decided to give myself a reprieve from the Outislander tavern and spend some time with Hap. I needed to tell my adopted son that I’d been ‘chosen’ to accompany the Prince, and to make an early farewell to him in case there was no time for a later one. I hadn’t seen the lad in some time, and there were few enough days left before I sailed that I decided I would be justified in begging a full evening of Hap’s company from Master Gindast. I had been very pleased with his progress on his training since he had settled into the apprentices’ quarters and earnestly devoted himself to his schooling. Master Gindast was one of the finest woodworkers in Buckkeep Town. I still counted myself fortunate that, with a nudge from Chade, he had agreed to apprentice Hap. If the boy acquitted himself well there, he had a bright future in any part of the Six Duchies where he chose to settle.

I arrived just as the apprentices were preparing for their evening meal. Master Gindast was not present, but one of the senior journeymen released Hap to me. I wondered at his surly granting of the wish, but put it down to some personal problem of his own. Yet Hap did not seem as delighted to see me as he might have. It took him a long time to fetch his cloak, and as we left, he walked silently beside me.

‘Hap, is all well?’ I asked him at last.

‘I think it is,’ he replied in a low voice. ‘But doubtless you will disagree. I have given Master Gindast my word that I would regulate myself in this matter. It insults me that he still thought he needed to send word for you to come and rebuke me as well.’

‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ I told him, striving to keep my voice level even as my heart sank into my boots. I could not help but think that I had to sail in only a few days. Was whatever-this-was something I could mend in such a short space? Disturbed, I blurted my news. ‘My name was chosen from among the guards. Soon I leave with the Prince, to accompany him on his mission to the Out Islands. I came to tell you that, and to spend an evening with you before I had to leave.’

He gave a snort of disgust, but I think it was aimed at himself. He had betrayed his problem to me, whereas if he had been a bit more circumspect, he could have kept it private. I think that outweighed any initial reaction to my news. I walked on beside him, waiting for him to speak. The streets of Buckkeep Town were fairly quiet tonight. The light had begun to linger longer at the end of the bright spring days, but folk were also rising earlier and putting in more hours, and hence more like to seek sleep while light was still in the sky. When Hap kept his silence, I finally offered, ‘The Dog and Whistle is down this way. It’s a pleasant place for food and good beer. Shall we go?’

His eyes didn’t meet mine as he countered me with, ‘I’d rather go to the Stuck Pig, if it’s all the same to you.’

‘It isn’t,’ I said in a determinedly pleasant voice. ‘It’s too close to Jinna’s house, and you know she goes there some evenings. You also know that she and I have come to a parting of the ways. I’d rather not encounter her tonight, if I can avoid it.’ The Stuck Pig, I had also belatedly discovered, was considered a gathering place for Witted folk, though no one made that accusation openly. It accounted for some of the tavern’s shoddy reputation; the rest of it was because it was, in truth, a rather dirty and poorly kept place.

‘Isn’t your objection actually that you know Svanja lives close by there?’ he asked me pointedly.

I suppressed a sigh. I turned my steps in the direction of the Stuck Pig. ‘I thought she had thrown you over for her sailor boy with his pretty gifts.’

He flinched, but kept his voice level when he replied. ‘So it seemed to me, also. But after Reften went back to sea, she was free to seek me out and speak the truth of it. Her parents arranged and approve of that match. That arrangement is why they so disliked me.’

‘Then they thought you knew she was promised, and continued to see her anyway?’

‘I suppose so.’ Again, that neutral voice.

‘A shame she never thought to tell her parents she was deceiving you. Or to tell you of this Reften.’

‘It wasn’t like that, Tom.’ A low growl of anger crept into his voice. ‘She didn’t set out to deceive anyone. She thought, at first, that we would be only friends, and so there was no reason to tell me she was spoken for. After we began to have feelings for one another, she was afraid to speak, for fear I might think her faithless to him. But in reality, she had never given her heart to him; all he had received was her parents’ word.’

‘And when he came back?’

He took a deep breath and refused to lose his temper. ‘It’s complicated, Tom. Her mother’s health is not good, and her heart is set on the match. Reften is the son of her childhood friend. And her father does not want to have to take back his word after he agreed to the marriage. He’s a proud man. So, when Reften came back to town, she thought it best to pretend that all was well for the brief time he was here.’

‘And now that he is gone, she’s come back to you.’

‘Yes.’ He bit the word off as if there were no more to say.

I set my hand to his shoulder as we walked. The muscles there were bunched, hard as stone. I asked the question that I had to ask. ‘And what will happen when he comes back to port again, with gifts and fond notions that she is his sweetheart?’

‘Then she’ll tell him that she loves me and is mine now,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Or I will.’ For a time we walked in silence. He did not relax under my hand but at least he did not shrug it off. ‘You think I’m foolish,’ he said at last as we turned down the street that went past the Stuck Pig. ‘You think she is toying with me, and that when Reften comes home, she will again throw me aside.’

I tried to make my voice say the hard words softly. ‘That does seem possible to me.’

He sighed and his shoulder slouched under my hand. ‘To me, also. But what am I to do, Tom? I love her. Svanja and no other. She is the other half of me, and when we are together, we make a whole that I cannot doubt. Walking with you now and telling you of it, I sound gullible, even to myself. So I voice doubts, like your own. But when I am with her and she looks into my eyes, I know she is telling me the truth.’

We tramped a bit farther in silence. Around us, the town was changing its pace, relaxing from the day’s labours into a time for shared meals and family companionship. Tradesmen were closing their shutters for the evening. Smells of cooking wafted out of homes. Taverns beckoned to such as Hap and me. I wished vainly that we were simply going to sit down to a hearty meal together. I had thought him in safe waters, and had comforted myself with that whenever I thought of leaving Buckkeep. I asked a question both inevitable and foolish. ‘Is there any chance that you could stop seeing her for a time?’

‘No.’ He answered without even drawing breath. He looked ahead as he spoke. ‘I can’t, Tom. I can no more put her aside than I could give up breath or water or food.’

Then I spoke my fear honestly. ‘I worry that while I am gone, you will get into trouble with this, Hap. Not just a fist-fight with Reften over the girl, though that would be bad enough. Master Hartshorn has no fondness for either of us. If he believes you have compromised his daughter, he may seek revenge on you.’

‘I can deal with her father,’ he said gruffly, and I felt his shoulders stiffen again.

‘How? Take a beating from him? Or beat him insensible? Remember, I’ve fought him, Hap. He’ll neither cry for mercy, nor grant it. If the City Guard had not intervened, our fight would have continued until one of us was unconscious, or dead. Yet even if it doesn’t come to that, there are other things he could do. He could go to Gindast and complain that his apprentice lacks morality. Gindast would take that seriously, would he not? From what you have said, your master is not well pleased with you just now. He could turn you out. Or Hartshorn could simply turn his own daughter out into the streets. Then what?’

‘Then I take her in,’ Hap replied grimly. ‘And I care for her.’

‘How?’

‘Somehow. I don’t know how, I just know that I would!’ The anger in his furious reply was not for me, but for himself, that he could not think of a way to refute the question. I judged that it was a good time to hold silence. My boy could not be dissuaded from his path. If I sought to do so, he’d only turn away from me to pursue her. We walked on, and as we drew closer to the Stuck Pig, I had to ask, ‘You don’t meet her openly, do you?’

‘No,’ he answered reluctantly. ‘I walk past her house. She watches for me, but we pretend not to notice one another. But if she sees me, she makes an excuse of some kind and slips out later in the evening to meet me.’

‘At the Stuck Pig?’

‘No, of course not. There’s a place we discovered, where we can be alone.’

And so I felt a part of their deception as I walked with Hap past Svanja’s house. I hadn’t known where she lived until now. As we passed the cottage, Svanja was sitting on the step with a small boy. I hadn’t realized that she had siblings. She immediately rose and went inside with the child, as if snubbing Hap and me. We walked on to the Stuck Pig.

I was reluctant to enter, but Hap went ahead of me and so I followed. The innkeeper gave us a brusque nod. I was surprised he didn’t order me out. The last time I’d been there, I’d brawled with Hartshorn and the City Guard had been called. Perhaps that was not so unusual an event there. From the way the inn-boy greeted Hap, he’d become a regular. He took a corner table as if it were his accustomed place. I set out coin on the table, and in response we soon had two mugs of beer and two plates of indifferent fish stew. The bread that came with it was hard. Hap didn’t appear to notice. We spoke little as we ate, and I sensed him tracking time, estimating how long it would take Svanja to make an excuse and then slip off to their meeting place.

‘I was minded to give Gindast some money to hold for you, so that you’d have funds of your own as you needed them while I’m gone.’

Hap shook his head, mouth full. A moment later he said quietly, ‘That wouldn’t work. Because if he was displeased with me for any reason, he’d withhold it.’

‘And you expect your master to be displeased with you?’

For a time he didn’t answer. Then he said, ‘He thinks he needs to regulate me as if I were ten years old. My evenings should be my own, to do as I please. You’ve paid for my apprenticeship, and I do my work during the day. That should be all that concerns him. But no, he would have me sit about with the other apprentices, mending socks until his wife shouts at us to stop wasting candles and go to sleep. I don’t need that sort of supervision, and I won’t tolerate it.’

‘I see.’ We ate more insipid food in silence. I struggled with a decision. Hap was too proud to ask me to give the money to him directly. I could refuse him to express my disapproval. Certainly I didn’t like what he was doing. I foresaw it would lead him to trouble … and if that trouble came while I was gone, he might need money to extricate himself. Certainly I’d seen enough of the Buckkeep Town gaol to know I didn’t want my boy to spend time there, unable to pay a fine. Yet if I left him money, would I not perhaps be giving him enough rope to hang himself? Would it all go for gifts to impress his sweetheart and tavern meals and drink? It was possible.

It came down to this: did I trust this boy that I’d raised for the last seven years? He had already set aside much of what I had taught him. Yet so Burrich would have said of me at that age, if he had known how much I used the Wit. So would Chade have said, if he’d known of my private excursions into town. Yet here I sat, very much still the man they had made me. So much so that I would not show a purse of coins in a tavern so ill-reputed as this one. ‘Then I shall simply give you the money and trust you to be wise with it,’ I said quietly.

Hap’s face lit up, and I knew it was for the trust I offered him, not the coins. ‘Thank you, Tom. I’ll be careful with it.’

After that, our meal went more pleasantly. We spoke of my upcoming trip. He asked how long I would be gone. I told him I didn’t know. Hap asked if my journey would be dangerous. All had heard that the Prince was setting forth to kill a dragon in the Narcheska’s honour. I mildly ridiculed the idea that we would find any such beast in the ice of the Out Islands. And I told him, truthfully, that I expected to be bored and uncomfortable for much of the journey, but not at risk. I was, after all, only a minor guardsman, honoured to be chosen to accompany the Prince. Doubtless I would spend most of my time waiting for someone to tell me what to do. We laughed together over that, and I hoped he had taken my point; that obeying one’s superior was not a childish limit, but a duty that any man could expect in his life. But if he saw it in that light, he made no mention of it.

We did not linger over our meal. The food didn’t warrant it and I sensed that Hap was anticipating his assignation with Svanja. Whenever I thought of it, my heart sank, but I knew there was no turning him aside from it. So when our hasty meal was finished, we pushed away our greasy plates and left the Stuck Pig. We walked together for a short time, watching evening creep up on Buckkeep Town. When I was a boy, the streets would have been near empty at this hour. But Buckkeep Town had grown and the duskier trades of the city had increased. At a well-traversed crossroad women lingered on the streets, walking slowly. They eyed the passing men, speaking desultorily to one another as they waited to be approached. There Hap halted. ‘I have to go now,’ he said quietly.

I nodded, forbearing to make any comment. I took the purse I’d prepared out of my jerkin and slipped it to him. ‘Don’t carry it all about with you, but only what you think you’d need that day. Do you have a safe place to put the rest?’

‘Thank you, Tom.’ He took it gravely, tucking it inside his shirt. ‘I do. At least, Svanja does. I’ll have her keep it for me.’

It took every bit of control and deception that I’d ever learned to keep my misgivings from showing in my eyes or on my face. I nodded as if I had no doubt all would be well. Then I embraced him briefly as he bid me to be careful on my journey, and we parted.

I found I did not want to return to Buckkeep Castle yet. It had been an unsettling day, between Web’s words and Hap’s news. And the food I had eaten at the Stuck Pig had more dismayed than satisfied my belly. I suspected it would not stay with me long. So I turned a different way from Hap lest he think I followed him and wandered for a time through the streets of Buckkeep. Restlessness vied with loneliness. I found myself passing the tailor shop that had once been a chandlery where Molly had worked. I shook my head at myself and deliberately set out for the docks. I wandered up and down them for a time, tallying to myself how many Out Island ships, how many from Bingtown or Jamaillia and beyond, and how many were our own vessels. The docks were longer and more crowded than my boyhood recollection of them, and the number of foreign ships was equal to our own. As I passed a vessel, I heard an Outislander shout a gruff jest to his fellows, and their raucous replies. I was pleased with myself that I could follow their words.

The ships that would bear us to the Out Islands were tied up at the main docks. I slowed to stare up at their bare rigging. The loading of them had ceased for the night, but men kept watch on their decks by lantern light. The ships looked large now; I knew how small they would become after a few days at sea. In addition to the ship that would carry the Prince and his selected entourage, there were three ships that would carry lesser nobles and their baggage, and a cargo of gifts and trade items. The ship Prince Dutiful would sail on was called the Maiden’s Chance. She was an older ship, proven swift and seaworthy. Now that she had been scrubbed and her paint and canvas completely renewed, she looked like a new creation. As a merchant vessel, built for carrying cargo, speed had been traded for capacity and stability: her hull was as rounded as the belly of a pregnant sow. Her forecastle had been enlarged to provide adequate housing for her noble guests. She looked top heavy to me and I wondered if her master approved of the changes that had been made for Dutiful’s comfort. I would travel aboard her, along with the rest of the Prince’s Guard. I wondered idly if Chade would wrangle quarters for me, or if I would have to make do with whatever space I could claim for myself as guardsmen usually did. Useless to wonder, I told myself. Whatever would be would be, and I’d have to deal with it as it came. I sourly wished there was no journey to make.

I could recall a time when a journey anywhere was something I anticipated eagerly. I’d awake on the day of departure at dawn, full of enthusiasm for the adventure to come. I’d be ready to depart when others were still crawling sleepily from their blankets.

I didn’t know when I had lost that ebullience for travel, but it was definitely gone. I felt, not excitement, but a growing dread. Just the thought of the sea voyage to come, the days spent in cramped quarters as we sailed east and north, was enough to make me wish I could back out of the expedition. I did not even allow my mind to stray beyond it, into the doubtful welcome of the Outislanders and our extended stay in their cold and rocky region. Finding a dragon trapped in ice and chopping its head off was beyond my imagining. Near nightly, I muttered to myself over the Narcheska’s strange choice of this task for the Prince to prove himself worthy of her hand. Over and over, I had tried to find a motive that would make it comprehensible. None came to me.

Now, as I walked the windy streets of Buckkeep, I prodded again at my greatest dread. Most of all, I feared that moment when the Fool would discover I had divulged his plans to Chade. Although I had done my best to mend my quarrel with the Fool, I had spent little time with him since then. In part, I avoided him lest some look or gesture of mine betray my treachery. Yet most of it was the Fool’s doing.

Lord Golden, as he now styled himself, had recently changed his demeanour considerably. Previously, his wealth had allowed him to indulge himself in an extravagant wardrobe and exquisite possessions. Now, he flaunted it in ways more vulgar. He disposed of coin like a servant shaking dirt from a duster. In addition to his chambers in the keep, he now rented the entire upper floor of the Silver Key, a town inn much favoured by the well-to-do. This fashionable establishment clung like a limpet to a steep site that would have been considered a poor building location in my boyhood days. Yet from that lofty perch, one could gaze far out over both the town and the water beyond.

Within that establishment, Lord Golden kept his own cook and staff. Rumours of the rare wines and exotic dishes he served made his table clearly superior to the Queen’s own. While he dined with his chosen friends, the finest of Six Duchies minstrels and entertainers vied for his attention. It was not unusual to hear that he had invited a minstrel, a tumbler and a juggler to perform simultaneously, in different corners of the dining chamber. Such meals were invariably preceded and followed by games of chance, with the stakes set sufficiently high that only the wealthiest and most spendthrift of young nobles could keep pace with him. He began his days late and his nights finished with the dawn.

It was also rumoured that his palate was not the only sense he indulged. Whenever a ship that had stopped in Bingtown or Jamaillia or the Pirate Isles docked, it was certain to bring him a visitor. Tattooed courtesans, former Jamaillian slaves, slender boys with painted eyes, women who wore battle-dress and hard-eyed sailors came to his door, stayed closeted within his chambers for a night or three, and then departed on the ships again. Some said they brought him the finest Smoke herbs, as well as cindin, a Jamaillian vice recently come to Buckkeep. Others said they came to provide indulgence for his other ‘Jamaillian tastes’. Those who dared to ask about his guests received only an arch look or a coy refusal to answer.

Strange to say, his excesses seemed only to increase his popularity with a certain segment of the Six Duchies aristocracy. Many a noble youth was sternly called home from Buckkeep, or received a visit from a parent suddenly concerned about the amount of coin it was taking to keep a youngster at court. Amongst the more conservative, there was grumbling that the foreigner was leading Buckkeep’s youth astray. But what I sensed more than disapproval was a salacious fascination with Lord Golden’s excesses and immorality. One could trace the embroidery of the tales about him as they moved from tongue to tongue. Yet, at the base of each gossip tree was a root that could not be denied. Golden had moved into a realm of excess that no other had approached since Prince Regal had been alive.

I could not comprehend it and that troubled me greatly. In my lowly role of Tom Badgerlock, I could not call openly on such a lofty creature as Lord Golden, and he did not seek me out. Even when he spent the night in his Buckkeep Castle chambers, he filled them with guests and entertainers until the sky was greying. Some said he had shifted his dwelling to Buckkeep Town to be closer to those places that featured games of chance and depraved entertainment but I suspected he had moved his lair to be away from Chade’s observations, and that his foreign overnight guests were not for his physical amusement but rather spies and messengers from his friends to the south. What tidings did they bring him, I wondered, and why was he so intent on debasing his reputation and spending his fortune? What news did he give them to bear back to Bingtown and Jamaillia?

But those questions were like my ponderings on the Narcheska’s motivation for setting Prince Dutiful to slay the dragon Icefyre. There were no clear answers, and they only kept my thoughts spinning wearily during hours that would have been better spent in sleep. I looked up at the latticed windows of the Silver Key. My feet had brought me here with no guidance from my head. The upper chambers were well lit this night, and I could glimpse passing guests within the opulent chambers. On the sole balcony, a woman and a young man conversed animatedly. I could hear the wine in their voices. They spoke quietly at first, but then their tones rose in altercation. I knelt down as if fastening my shoe and listened.

‘I’ve a wonderful opportunity to empty Lord Verdant’s purse, but only if I have the money to set on the table to wager. Give me what you owe me, now!’ the young man demanded of her.

‘I can’t.’ The woman spoke in the careful diction of one who refuses to be drunk. ‘I don’t have it, laddie. But I soon will. When Lord Golden pays me what he owes me from his gaming yesterday, I’ll get your coin to you. Had I known you were going to be so usurious about it, I never would have borrowed it from you.’

The young man gave a low cry between dismay and outrage. ‘When Lord Golden pays you his wager? That’s as well as to say, “never”. All know he’s fallen behind in his debts. Had I known you were borrowing from me to wager against him, I’d never have loaned it.’

‘You flaunt your ignorance,’ she rebuked him after a moment of shocked silence. ‘All know his wealth is bottomless. When the next ship comes in from Jamaillia, he will have coin enough to pay us all.’

From the shadows at the corner of the inn, I watched and listened intently.

‘If the next ship comes in from Jamaillia … which I doubt, from the way the war is going for them … it would have to be the size of a mountain to bring enough coin to pay all he owes now! Haven’t you heard that he is even behind on his rent, and that the landlord only lets him stay on because of the other business he brings here?’

At his words, the woman turned from him angrily, but he reached out to seize her wrist. ‘Listen, you stupid wench! I warn you, I won’t wait long for what is owed me. You’d best find a way to pay me, and tonight.’ He looked her up and down and added huskily, ‘Not all of it need be in coin.’

‘Ah, Lady Heliotrope. There you are. I’ve been looking for you, you little minx! Have you been avoiding me?’

The leisurely tones of Lord Golden wafted down to me as he emerged onto the balcony. The light from behind him glanced off his gleaming hair and limned his slender form. He stepped to the edge of the balcony. Leaning lightly on the rail, he gazed out over the town below him. The man immediately released the woman’s wrist and she stepped back from him with a toss of her head and went to join Lord Golden at his vantage point. She cocked her head at him and sounded like a tattling child as she complained, ‘Dear Lord Golden, Lord Capable has just told me that there is little chance you will pay me our wager. Do tell him how wrong he is!’

Lord Golden lifted one elegant shoulder. ‘How rumours do fly, if one is but a day or so late in honouring a friendly wager. Surely one should never bet more than one can afford to lose … or afford to do without until paid. Don’t you agree, Lord Capable?’

‘Or, perhaps, that one should not wager more than one can immediately afford to pay,’ Lord Capable suggested snidely.

‘Dear, dear. Would not that limit our gaming to whatever a man could carry in his pockets? Small stakes, those. In any case, sweet lady, why do you think I was seeking you, if not to make good our bet? Here, I think, you will find a good part of what I owe you. I do hope you won’t mind if it is in pearls rather than coin.’

She tossed her head, dismissing the surly Lord Capable. ‘I don’t mind at all. And if there are those that do, well, then they should simply be content to wait for crass coin. Gaming should not be about money, dear Lord Golden.’

‘Of course not. The risk is the relish, as I say, and the winning is the pleasure. Don’t you agree, Capable?’

‘And if I did not, would it do me any good?’ Capable asked sourly. He and I had both noticed that the woman made no immediate effort to pay him his due.

Lord Golden laughed aloud, the melodic sound cutting the cool air of the spring night. ‘Of course not, dear fellow. Of course not! Now, I hope both of you will step within and sample a new wine with me. Standing out here in this chill wind, a man could catch his death of cold. Surely friends can find a warmer place to speak privately?’

The others had already turned to re-enter the well-lit chamber. Yet Lord Golden paused a moment longer and gazed pensively at the spot where I had thought myself so well concealed. Then he inclined his head slightly to me before he turned and departed.

I waited a few moments longer, then stepped from the shadows. I felt annoyed with him because he had noticed me so effortlessly and because his offer to meet me somewhere else had been too vague for me to comprehend. Yet as much as I longed to sit down and talk with him, greater was my dread that he would uncover my treachery. Better, I decided, to avoid my friend than have to confront that in his eyes. I strode sullenly through the dark streets, alone. The night wind on the back of my neck chilled me as it pushed me back toward Buckkeep Castle.

THREE

Trepidation

Then Hoquin was enraged with those who questioned his treatment of his catalyst, and he resolved to make a show of his authority over her. ‘Child she may be,’ he declared. ‘And yet the burden is hers and it must be borne. And nothing must make her question her role, or sway her to save herself at the expense of condemning the world.’

And then he required of her that she go to her parents, and deny them both, saying, ‘I have no mother, I have no father. I am only the Catalyst of the White Prophet Hoquin.’ And further she must say, ‘I give you back the name you gave me. I am Redda no longer, but Wild-eye, as Hoquin has made me.’ For he had named her thus for her one eye that always peered to one side.

This she did not wish to do. She wept as she went, she wept as she spoke the words and she wept as she returned. For two days and two nights, the tears did not cease to flow from her eyes, and he allowed her this mourning. Then Hoquin said to her, ‘Wild-eye, cease your tears.’

And she did. Because she must.

Scribe Cateren, of the White Prophet Hoquin

When a journey is twelve days away, that can seem plenty of time to put all in readiness. Even at seven days away, it seems possible that all preparations will be completed on time. But as the days dwindle to five and four and then three, the passing hours burst like bubbles, and tasks that seemed simple suddenly become complex. I needed to pack all I would require to be assassin, spy and Skillmaster, while appearing to carry only the ordinary gear of a guardsman. I had farewells to make, some simple and some difficult.

The only part of the trip that I could look forward to with pleasure was our eventual return to Buckkeep. Dread can weary a man more than honest labour, and mine built with each passing day. Three nights before we were to sail, I felt exhausted and half-sick with it. That tension woke me long before dawn and denied me any more sleep. I sat up. The embers in the tower room’s fireplace illuminated little more than the shovel and poker leaning to one side of the hearth’s mouth. Then my eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom of the windowless chamber. It was a place familiar to me from my days as the assassin’s apprentice. Little had I thought that I would ever make it my own. I rose from Chade’s old bed, leaving behind the nightmare-rucked blankets and the warmth of sleep.

I padded over to the fireplace and added a small log. I hung a pot of water from the hook and swung it over the low flames. I thought of putting on a kettle for tea but felt too weary still. I was too worried to sleep and too tired to admit that I was now awake for the day. It was a miserable place, one that had become achingly familiar as our departure date grew closer. I kindled a taper from the fire’s dancing flames. I lit the waiting candles in the branched candelabrum on the scarred old worktable. The chair was cold beneath me as I sat down with a groan.

I sat at the worktable in my nightshirt and stared at the various charts I had assembled last night. They were all of Outislander origin, but so varied in size and composition that it was difficult to see their relationship to one another. It is their peculiar custom that charts of the sea can only be made on sea-mammal or fish skin. I suspected these charts had been cured in urine, for they had a peculiar and clinging odour. Out Island custom also decrees that each island must be presented as one of their gods’ runes, on its own chart. This means that there were curious flourishes and fillips on the representations that had nothing to do with the island’s physical characteristics. These additions had great significance to an Outislander, denoting what anchorage or currents might be present, and if the ‘luck’ of an island were good, bad or neutral. To me, the embellishments were only confusing. The four scrolls I had obtained were drawn by different hands and to different scales. I had spread them out on the table in their approximate relation to each other yet they still gave me only a hazy idea of the distance we would cross. I traced our route from chart to chart, with the burns and circles on the old table’s top representing the unknown dangers and seas that lay between them.

We would sail first from Buckkeep Town to Skyrene. It was not the largest of the Out Islands, but it boasted the best port and the most arable land of the isles, and hence the largest population. Peottre, mother-brother to the Narcheska, had spoken of Zylig with disdain. He had explained to Chade and Kettricken that Zylig, the busiest Out Island port, had become a haven for all sorts of folk. Foreigners came there to visit and trade, and in Peottre’s opinion, far too many stayed, bringing their crude customs with them. It was also a supply port for the vessels that came north to hunt sea mammals for hides and oil, and those rough crews had corrupted many an Outislander youth and maiden. He made Zylig sound like a dingy and dangerous port town with the flotsam and jetsam of humanity making up a good part of its population.

There we would dock first. Arkon Bloodblade’s mothershouse was on the other side of Skyrene, but they had a stronghouse in Zylig for when they visited there. Here we would meet with the Hetgurd, a loose alliance of Outislander headmen, for a discussion of our quest. Chade and I were both leery of that event. Chade anticipated resistance to the marriage alliance, and perhaps to our quest. To some Outislanders, Icefyre was a guardian spirit to those islands. Our quest to chop off his head might not be well received.

When our meeting at Zylig was complete, we would transfer from our Six Duchies vessel to an Outislander ship, one more suited to the shallow waters we must next negotiate, with a captain and crew that knew the channels. They would take us to Wuislington on Mayle, the home island for Elliania and Peottre’s Narwhal Clan. Dutiful would be presented to her family and welcomed to her mothershouse. There would be celebrations of the betrothal, and advice for the Prince on the task that lay before him. After our visits to their home village, we would return to Zylig and there take ship for Aslevjal and the dragon trapped in a glacier.

Impulsively, I swept the charts aside. Folding my arms, I put my brow down on my crossed wrists and stared into the darkness trapped there. My guts were cramped with dread. It wasn’t just the voyage ahead. There were other hazards to be negotiated before we even set foot on the ship. The Skill-coterie had still not mastered their magic. I suspected that despite my warnings Dutiful and his friend Lord Civil were using the Wit-magic, and that the Prince would be caught. Too often, the openly Witted were his companions these days. Even if the Queen had decreed there was no shame to possessing such magic, the common folk and her nobles still despised practitioners of the beast-magic. He risked himself, and perhaps the betrothal negotiations. I had no idea how the Outislanders felt about the Wit-magic.

Around and around, my thoughts chased themselves with no escape from worry. Hap was still dangling after Svanja, and I dreaded leaving him to his own devices. The few times my dreams had brushed Nettle’s, she had seemed both secretive and anxious. Swift seemed to become more intractable by the day. I’d be relieved to leave that responsibility, but worried what would become of him in my absence. I still hadn’t told Chade that Web knew who I was, or discussed that information with Web. My desperate longing for someone to confide in only made me more aware of how isolated I had become. I missed my wolf Nighteyes as I would miss my heart’s beating.

When my forehead thumped solidly against the table, I came back to wakefulness abruptly. The sleep that had evaded me in my bed had captured me sitting at the worktable. With a sigh, I sat up straight, rolled my shoulders and resigned myself to the day. There were tasks to accomplish, and little time to do them in. Once we were on the ship, I’d have plenty of time to sleep, and even more time for fruitless worrying. Few things were as boring to me as an extended journey at sea.

I rose and stretched. It would soon be dawn. Time to get dressed and go to the Queen’s Garden for the morning’s lesson with Swift. The water in the pot had almost boiled away while I dozed. I mixed it with cold in the washbasin, made my ablutions and dressed for the day. A plain leather tunic went on over my shirt and trousers of Buck blue. I pulled on soft boots and forced my cropped hair into a stubby warrior’s tail.

After my session with Swift, I’d be meeting the Skill-coterie for another shared lesson. I wasn’t anticipating it with pleasure. As each day passed, we made improvement, but it was not sufficient to satisfy Chade. He saw his slow progress as failure. His frustration had become a palpable and discordant force whenever we came together. Yesterday, I had noticed that Thick feared to meet the old man’s eyes and that Dutiful’s pleasant expression had a fixed desperation to it. I had spoken privately to Chade, asking him to be more self-forgiving and more tolerant of the rest of the coterie’s vulnerabilities. He had taken my request as a rebuke and only become more grimly self-contained in his fury. It had not lessened any of the tension.

‘Fitz,’ someone said softly, and I spun, startled. The Fool stood framed in the doorway that was usually concealed by the wine rack. He could move more silently than anyone else I had ever known. Coupled with that, he was undetectable to my Wit-sense. Sensitive as I was to the presence of other living beings, he alone had the ability to take me completely by surprise. He knew it, and I think he enjoyed it. He smiled apologetically as he advanced into the room. His tawny hair was bound sleekly back and his face was innocent of Lord Golden’s paint. Bared, his face was more bronzed than I had ever seen it. He wore Golden’s foppish dressing gown but it seemed a bizarre costume when he dropped the lord’s elaborate mannerisms.

Never before had I known him to venture here without an invitation. ‘What are you doing here?’ I blurted out, and then added more courteously, ‘Though I am glad to see you.’

‘Ah. I had wondered if you would be. When I saw you lurking beneath my window, I thought you wanted to meet. I sent Chade an oblique message for you the next day, but heard no response. So I decided to make it easy for you.’

‘Yes. Well. Do come in.’ His sudden appearance, coupled with the disclosure that Chade had not relayed his message to me rattled me. ‘It’s not the best time for me; I’m supposed to be meeting Swift soon, in the Queen’s Garden. But I’ve a few moments to spare. Err, should I put on the kettle for tea?’

‘Yes, please. If you’ve the time. I don’t wish to intrude. I know we’ve all much to do in these last few days.’ Then his words stopped abruptly and he stared at me, the smile fading from his face. ‘Listen to how awkward we’ve become. So polite and so careful not to give offence.’ He drew a long breath, then spoke with uncharacteristic bluntness. ‘After I sent a message and heard nothing back, the silence began to trouble me. I know we’ve had our differences lately. I thought we had mended them, but I began to have doubts. This morning, I decided I’d confront them. So here I am. Did you want to see me, Fitz? Why didn’t you answer my message?’

His sudden change in tone further unbalanced me. ‘I didn’t receive your message. Perhaps Chade misunderstood or forgot; he has had many concerns lately.’

‘And the other night, when you came to my window?’ He walked over to the hearth, dippered fresh water into the kettle from the bucket and put it back over the flame. As he knelt to poke up the fire and add a bit of wood, I felt grateful I didn’t have to meet his eyes.

‘I was just strolling about Buckkeep Town, chewing over my own problems. I hadn’t really planned to try to see you. My feet just carried me that way.’

It sounded awkward and stupid, but he nodded quietly. The awareness of our mutual discomfort was a wall between us. I had done my best to patch our quarrel, but the memory of that rift was still fresh with both of us. Would he think I avoided his eyes to hide some hidden anger from him? Or would he guess at the guilt I tried to conceal?

‘Your own problems?’ he asked quietly as he rose, dusting his hands together, and I was glad to seize on the topic. Telling him of my woes with Hap seemed by far the safest thing we could discuss.

And so I confided my worries about my son to him, and in that telling, regained our familiarity. I found tea herbs for the bubbling water, and toasted some bread that was left over from my last night’s repast. He listened well, as he bundled my charts and notes to one end of the table. By the time my words had run out, he was pouring steaming tea from a pot into two cups that I had set out. The ritual of putting out food reminded me of how easily we had always worked together. Yet somehow that hollowed me even more when I thought of how I deceived him. I wished to keep him away from Aslevjal because he believed he would die there; Chade aided me because he did not want the Fool interfering in the Prince’s quest. Yet the result was the same. When the day came for us to sail, the Fool would suddenly discover that he was not to be one of the party. And it was my doing.

Thus my thoughts wrapped me, and silence fell as we took our places. He lifted his cup, sipped from it, and then said, ‘It isn’t your fault, Fitz. He has made a decision and no words or acts of yours will change it now.’ For one brief instant, he seemed to be replying to my thoughts, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck because he knew me so well. Then he added, ‘Sometimes all a father can do is stand by and witness the disaster, and then pick up the pieces.’

I found my tongue and replied, ‘My worry, Fool, is that I won’t be here to witness it, or to pick up the pieces. What if he gets into real trouble, and there’s no one to step in on his behalf?’

He held his teacup in both hands and looked at me over it. ‘Is there no one staying behind that you can ask to watch over him?’

I suppressed an impulsive urge to say, ‘How about you?’ I shook my head. ‘No one that I know well enough. Kettricken will be here, of course, but it would hardly be appropriate to ask the Queen to play such a role to a guardsman’s son. Even if Jinna and I were still on good terms, I no longer trust her judgment.’ In dismay, I added, ‘Sometimes it’s a bit daunting to realize how few people I really trust. Or even know well, as Tom Badgerlock, I mean.’ I fell silent for a moment, considering that. Tom Badgerlock was a façade, a mask I wore daily, and yet I’d never been truly comfortable being him. I felt awkward deceiving good people such as Wim or Laurel. It made a barrier to any real friendship. ‘How do you do it?’ I asked the Fool suddenly. ‘You shift who you are from year to year and place to place. Don’t you ever feel regret that no one truly knows you as the person you were born?’

He shook his head slowly. ‘I am not the person I was born. Neither are you. I know no one who is. Truly, Fitz, all we ever know are facets of one another. Perhaps we feel as if we know one another well when we know several facets of that person. Father, son, brother, friend, lover, husband … a man can be all of those things, yet no one person knows him in all those roles. I watch you being Hap’s father, and yet I do not know you as I knew my father, any more than I knew my father as his brother did. So. When I show myself in a different light, I do not make a pretence. Rather I bare a different aspect to the world than they have seen before. Truly, there is a place in my heart where I am forever the Fool and your playfellow. And within me there is a genuine Lord Golden, fond of good drink and well-prepared food and elegant clothing and witty speech. And so, when I show myself as him, I am deceiving no one, but only sharing a different part of myself.’

‘And Amber?’ I asked quietly. Then I wondered that I dared venture the question.

He met my gaze levelly. ‘She is a facet of me. No more than that. And no less.’

I wished I had not brought it up. I levered the conversation back into its old direction. ‘Well. That solves nothing for me, as far as finding someone to watch over Hap for me.’

He nodded, and again there was a stiff little silence. I hated that we had become so self-conscious with one another but could not think how to change it. The Fool was still my old friend from my boyhood days. And he wasn’t. Knowing that he had other ‘facets’ reordered all my ideas of him. I felt trapped, wanting to stay and ease our friendship back into its old channel, yet also wanting to flee. He sensed it and excused me.

‘Well, I regret that I came at a bad time. I know you have to meet Swift soon. Perhaps we shall have a chance to speak again before we sail.’

‘He can wait for me,’ I heard myself say suddenly. ‘It won’t hurt him a bit.’

‘Thank you,’ he said.

And then again our conversation lapsed. He saved it by picking up one of the furled charts. ‘Is this Aslevjal?’ he asked as he unrolled it on the table.

‘No. That’s Skyrene. Our first port of call is at Zylig.’

‘What’s this over here?’ He pointed to a curling bit of scrollwork on one shore of the island.

‘Outislander ornamentation. I think. Or maybe it means a whirlpool, or a switching current or seaweed beds. I don’t know. I think they see things differently from us.’

‘Undoubtedly so. Have you a chart of Aslevjal?’

‘The smaller one, with the brown stain at one end.’

He unrolled it next to the first, and glanced from one to the other. ‘I see what you mean,’ he murmured, tracing an impossibly lacy edge on the shoreline. ‘What do you think that is?’

‘Melting glacier. At least, that is what Chade thinks.’

‘I wonder why he didn’t give you my message.’

I feigned ignorance. ‘As I said, perhaps he forgot. When I see him today, I’ll ask him.’

‘Actually, I’d like to speak to him as well. Privately. Perhaps I could come with you to your Skill-lesson today.’

I felt extremely uncomfortable yet I could think of no way to wriggle out of inviting him. ‘That’s not until afternoon today, after Swift’s lessons and weapon practice.’

He nodded, unconcerned. ‘That would be fine. I’ve things to tidy up in my chamber below.’ As if inviting me to ask why, he added, ‘I’ve nearly moved out of those rooms completely. There won’t be much left for anyone to trouble about.’

‘So you intend to move to the Silver Key permanently?’ I asked.

For a moment, his face went blank. I had surprised him. Then he shook his head slowly at me, smiling gently. ‘You never believe a thing I tell you, do you, Fitz? Ah, well, perhaps that has sheltered us both through many a storm. No, my friend. I will leave my Buckkeep chambers empty when I go. And most of the wonderful possessions and furnishings in the Silver Key belong to others already, accepted as collateral for my debts. Which I don’t intend to pay, of course. Once I leave Buckkeep Town, my creditors will descend like crows and pick those quarters bare. And that will be the end of Lord Golden. I won’t be returning to Buckkeep. I won’t be returning anywhere.’

His voice did not quaver or shake. He spoke calmly and his eyes met mine. Yet his words left me feeling as if a horse had kicked me. He spoke like a man who knew he was going to die, a man tidying up all the loose ends of his life. I experienced a shift in perception. My awkwardness with him was because of our recent quarrel, and because I knew I deceived him. I did not fear his death, because I knew I had already prevented it. But his discomfort had a different root. He spoke to me as a man who knew he faced death would speak to an old friend who seemed indifferent to that fact. How callous I must have seemed to him, avoiding him all those days. Perhaps he had thought I was carefully severing the contact between us before his death could do it suddenly and painfully. The words burst from me, the only completely true thing I’d said to him that day. ‘Don’t be stupid! I’m not going to let you die, Fool!’ My throat suddenly closed. I picked up my cooling cup of tea and gulped from it hastily.

He caught his breath and then laughed, a sound like glass breaking. Tears stood in his eyes. ‘You believe that so thoroughly, don’t you? Ah, Beloved. Of all the things I must bid farewell to, you are the one most difficult to lose. Forgive me that I have avoided you. Better, perhaps, that we make a space between us and become accustomed to it before fate forces that upon us.’

I slammed my cup down. Tea splattered the table between us. ‘Stop talking like that! Eda and El in a tangle, Fool! Is that why you’ve been squandering your fortune and living like some degenerate Jamaillian? Please tell me that you haven’t spent all your windfall, that there is something left for … for you to come back to.’ And there my words halted, as I teetered at the edge of betraying myself.

He smiled strangely. ‘It’s gone, Fitz. It’s all gone, or else arranged to be bestowed. And getting rid of that much wealth has not only been a challenge, but a far greater pleasure than possessing it ever was. I’ve left papers that Malta is to go to Burrich. Can you imagine his face when someone hands her reins to him? I know he will value her and care for her. And for Patience, oh, you should have seen it before I sent it on its way! A cartload of scrolls and books on every imaginable topic. She’ll never imagine where they came from. And I’ve provided for Garetha, my garden maid. I’ve bought her a cottage and a plot of earth to call her own, as well as left her the coin to keep herself well. That should cause a mild scandal; folks will wonder why Lord Golden left a garden girl so well endowed. But let them. She will understand and she won’t care. And for Jofron, my Jhaampe friend? I’ve sent her a selection of fine woods and all of my carving tools. She’ll value them, and recall me fondly, regardless of how abruptly I left her. She’s made her reputation as a toy-maker. Did you know that?’

As he divulged his generous mischief to me, he smiled and the shadow of imminent death nearly left his eyes. ‘Please stop talking like that,’ I begged him. ‘I promise you, I won’t let you die.’

‘Make me no promises that can break us both, Fitz. Besides,’ he took a breath. ‘Even if you manage against all the fore-ordained grinding of fate to keep me alive, well, Lord Golden still must vanish. He’s lived to the end of his usefulness. Once I leave here, I shall not be him again.’

As he spoke on of how he’d dismantled his fortune and how his name would fade to obscurity, I felt sick. He had been determined and thorough. When we left him behind on the docks, we’d be leaving him in a difficult situation. That Kettricken would provide for him, no matter how he had squandered his wealth, I had no doubt. I resolved to have a quiet word with her before we left, to prepare her to rescue him if need be. Then I reined my thoughts back to the conversation, for the Fool was watching me oddly.

I cleared my throat and tried to think of sensible words. ‘I think you are too pessimistic. If you have a coin or two left to your name, you’d best be frugal with it. Just in case I’m right and I keep you alive. And now I must go, for Swift will be waiting for me.’

He nodded, rising as I did. ‘Will you come down to my old chambers when it is time for us to meet Chade for the Skill-lesson?’

‘I suppose so,’ I concurred, trying not to sound reluctant.

He smiled faintly. ‘Good luck with Burrich’s boy,’ he said, and left.

The teacups and charts were still on the table. I suddenly felt too weary to tidy them away, let alone hasten to my lesson with Swift. But I did, and when I arrived on the tower-top garden, he was waiting for me in a square of crenellated sunlight, his back to a chill stone wall, idly playing on a penny whistle. At his feet, several doves bobbed and pecked, and for a moment, my heart sank. As I approached, they all took flight, and the handful of grain that had drawn them scattered in their wind. Swift noticed the relief on my face. He took the whistle from his lips and looked up at me.

‘You thought I was using the Wit to draw them in, and it scared you,’ he observed.

I made myself pause before answering him. ‘I was frightened for a moment,’ I agreed. ‘But not at the idea you might be using your Wit. Rather I feared that you were trying to establish a bond with one of them.’

He shook his head slowly. ‘No. Not with a bird. I’ve touched minds with birds, and my thoughts glance off their minds like a stone skipping on moving water.’ Then he smiled condescendingly and added, ‘Not that I expect you to understand what I mean.’

I reined myself to silence. Eventually I asked him, ‘Did you finish reading the scroll about King Slayer and the acquisition of Bearns?’

He nodded and we proceeded with the day’s lessons, but his attitude still vexed me. I vented it on the practice court, insisting that he pick up an axe and try his strength against me before I would let him go to his bow lesson. The axes were heavier than I recalled, and even with the heads well muffled in leather wraps, the bruises from such a session are formidable. When he could no longer hold the weapon aloft, I let him go to Cresswell for his bow lesson. Then I punished myself for taking out my temper on the boy by finding a new partner, one seasoned to the axe. When I was well and truly aware of just how rusty my skills were, I left the courts and went briefly to the steams.

Cleansed of sweat and frustration, I ate a hasty meal of bread and soup in the guardroom. The talk there was loud and focused on the expedition, Outislander women and drink. Both were acclaimed strong and palatable. I tried to laugh at the jests, but the single-mindedness of the younger guards made me feel old and I was glad to excuse myself and hasten back to my workroom.

I took the secret passage from there down to the chamber I had occupied when I had been Lord Golden’s servant. I listened carefully before I triggered the concealed door. All was quiet on the other side, and I hoped that the Fool was not there. But no sooner had I closed the portal to the hidden access than he opened the outer door of the room. I blinked at him. He wore a simple tunic and leggings, all in black, with low black shoes. The light from the window gilded his hair. Daylight reached past his silhouette into the tiny room and revealed my old cot heaped with possessions I had abandoned when I left his service. The wonderful sword he had given me nestled upon a mound of colourful and extravagant garments tailored for me. I gave the Fool a puzzled look. ‘Those are yours,’ he said quietly. ‘You should take them.’

‘I doubt I’d ever have occasion to dress in such styles again,’ I said, and then heard how hard a rejection that sounded.

‘You never know,’ he said quietly, looking away. ‘Perhaps one day Lord FitzChivalry will again walk the halls of Buckkeep Castle. If he did, those colours and cuts would suit him remarkably well.’

‘I doubt any of that would ever come to be.’ That, too, sounded cold, so I tempered it with, ‘But I thank you all the same. And I will take them, just in case.’ All the awkwardness fell on me again like a smothering curtain.

‘And the sword,’ he reminded me. ‘Don’t forget the sword. I know it’s a bit showy for your taste but …’

‘But it’s still one of the finest weapons I’ve ever drawn. I’ll treasure it.’ I tried to smooth over the slight of my first refusal. I saw now that by leaving it behind when I shifted my den, I’d hurt his feelings.

‘Oh. And this. Best that this come back to you now, too.’ He reached to unfasten the carved wooden earring that Lord Golden always wore. I knew what was concealed within it: the freedom earring that had passed from Burrich’s grandmother to Burrich, to my father and eventually to me.

‘No!’ I gripped his wrist. ‘Stop this funeral rite! I’ve told you, I’ve no intention of letting you die.’

He stood still. ‘Funeral rite,’ he whispered. Then he laughed. I could smell the apricot brandy on his breath.

‘Take charge of yourself, Fool. This is so unlike you that I scarcely know how to talk to you any more,’ I exclaimed in annoyance, feeling the anger that uneasiness can trigger in a man. ‘Can’t we just relax and be ourselves in the days we have left?’

‘The days we have left,’ he echoed. With a twist of his wrist, he effortlessly freed himself from my grip. I followed him back into his large and airy chamber. Stripped of his possessions, it seemed even larger. He went to the brandy decanter and poured more for himself, and then filled a small glass for me.

‘In the days we have left before we sail,’ I expanded my words for him as I took the glass. I looked around the chamber. Necessities had been left in place: a table, chairs, a desk. All else was either gone or in the process of being cleared out. Rolled tapestries and rugs were fat sausages against the wall. His workroom stood open, bare and empty, all his secrets tidied away. I walked into the room, brandy in hand. My voice reverberated oddly as I said, ‘You’ve eradicated every trace of yourself.’

He followed and we stood together looking out of the window. ‘I like to leave things tidy. One must leave so many things incomplete in life that I take pleasure in finishing those I can.’

‘I’ve never known you to wallow in emotion like this before. It almost seems that you are enjoying this.’ I tried not to sound disgusted with him.

A strange smile twisted his mouth. Then he took a deep breath as if freed of something. ‘Ah, Fitz, in all the world, only you would say something like that to me. And perhaps you are right. There is drama in facing a definite end; I’ve never encountered these sensations before … yet, in a like situation, I think you would be untouched by them. You tried to explain to me once how the wolf always lived in the present and taught you to take every possible satisfaction you could from the time that you had. You learned that well. While I, who have always lived trying to define the future before I reach it, I suddenly espy a place beyond which all is black. Blackness. That is what I dream of at night. And when I deliberately sit down and try to reach forward, to see where my path might go, that is all I see. Blackness.’

I did not know what to say to him. I could see him trying to shake off his desperation as a dog might try to shake a wolf’s grip from his throat. I took a sip of the brandy. Apricots and the heady warmth of a summer day flooded me. I recalled our days at my cottage, the brandy on my tongue reawakening the pleasure of that simpler time. ‘This is very good,’ I said to him without thinking.

Startled, he stared at me. Then he abruptly blinked away tears and the smile he gave me was genuine. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘You are right. This is very good brandy, and nothing that is to come can change that. The future cannot take from us the days we have left … unless we let it.’

He had passed some sort of crossroads within himself and was more at peace. I took another swallow of the brandy as I stared out over the hills behind Buckkeep. When I glanced at him, he was looking at me with a fondness I could not bear. He would not have looked at me so kindly if he knew how I deceived him. And yet his terror of the days to come only firmed in me my judgment that I had made the best decision for him. ‘A shame to rush this, but Chade and the others will be waiting.’

He nodded gravely, lifted his glass in a small toast to me and then tossed off the brandy. I followed his example and then had to stand still while the liquor spread heat throughout me. I took a deep breath, smelling and tasting apricots. ‘It is very good,’ I told him again.

He smiled small. ‘I’ll leave all the remaining bottles to you,’ he offered very quietly, and then laughed when I glared at him. Yet his step seemed lighter as he followed me through the labyrinth of corridors and stairs that threaded between the walls of Buckkeep. As I moved through the dimness, I wondered how I truly would feel, did I know the hour and day of my death. Unlike Lord Golden, there would be very few possessions for me to disperse. I numbered my treasures to myself, thinking I owned nothing of significance to anyone but myself; then I realized abruptly it wasn’t true. With a pang of selfish regret, I resolved to correct that. We reached the concealed entrance to the Seawatch Tower. I unseated the panel and we emerged from the hearth.

The others had already gathered so I had no opportunity for a private word to prepare Chade. Instead, as we stepped out, the Prince exclaimed with delight and came forward to welcome Lord Golden. Thick was more cautious, scowling suspiciously. Chade sent me one glance full of rebuke, and then smoothed his face and exchanged greetings with the Fool. But after that first moment of welcome, awkwardness ensued. Thick, unsettled by having a stranger in our midst, wandered aimlessly about the room instead of settling into his place at the table. I could almost see the Prince trying to fit Lord Golden, even dressed so simply, into the role of King Shrewd’s Fool as he had heard the Queen tell the tale. Chade finally said, almost bluntly, ‘So, my dear fellow, what brings you here to join us? It’s wonderful to see you, of course, but we’ve still much to learn and little time in which to learn it.’

‘I understand,’ the Fool replied. ‘But there is also little time for me to share with you what I know. So I came hoping for a bit of your time, privately, after the lesson.’

‘I think it’s wonderful that you’ve come,’ the Prince broke in artlessly. ‘I think you should have been included from the first. You were the one who let us link our strength and go through you to heal Tom. You’ve as much a right to be a member of this coterie as anyone here.’

The Fool looked touched by Dutiful’s comments. He looked down at his hands, neatly gloved in black, rubbed his fingertips together almost idly and then admitted, ‘I don’t have any true Skill of my own. I only used what was left of the touch I’d taken from Verity. And my own knowledge of … Tom.’

At the mention of his father’s name, the Prince had perked up like a foxhound catching a scent. He leaned closer to the Fool, as if his knowledge of King Verity were something that could be absorbed from him. ‘Nonetheless,’ he assured Lord Golden, ‘I look forward to journeying with you. I think you may be a valuable member of this coterie, regardless of your level of Skill. Will not you join us for the day’s lesson and let us explore the extent of your ability?’

I saw Chade torn. The Fool offered a possibility of greater power for the coterie, which Chade craved; but he feared the Fool’s opposition to our basic mission to take the dragon’s head. I wondered if there was an element of jealousy in how his eyes darted from the Fool to me. The Fool and I had always been close, and Chade knew he wielded a friend’s sway over me. Yet now, more than ever, Chade desired to rule me.

His greed for the Skill won out. He added his voice to Dutiful’s. ‘Please, Lord Golden, take a seat with us. If nothing else, you may find our efforts amusing.’

‘Well, then, I shall,’ the Fool declared almost gladly. He pulled out a chair and sat down expectantly. I wondered if any of the others could see the darker tides running behind the placid affability he presented to them. Chade and I took the chairs on either side of him while Dutiful persuaded Thick to come and join us at the table. When he was settled, four of us simultaneously took a deep breath and reached for that state of openness where we could all reach the Skill. As we did so, I had an insight both affirming and alarming. The Fool was an intruder here. In our short time of striving to become a coterie, we had achieved a unity. I had not perceived it until the Fool interrupted it. As I joined my awareness to Dutiful’s and Thick’s, I could feel Chade fluttering like a frantic butterfly at the edge of our union. Thick reached a reassuring hand to draw him into firmer contact with the rest of us. He belonged with us, but the Fool did not.

He was not so much a presence as an absence. I had noticed years ago that he was invisible to my Wit-sense. Now, as I deliberately reached toward him with the Skill, it was like trying to lift sun dazzle off a still pond.

‘Lord Golden, do you avoid us?’ Chade asked very softly.

‘I am here,’ he replied. His words seemed to ripple softly in the room, as if I felt them as well as heard them.

‘Give me your hand,’ Chade suggested. He set his own, palm up, on the table, outstretched toward my friend. It seemed as much a challenge as an invitation.

I felt a minuscule tickle of fear. It quivered along the Skill-bond between the Fool and me, letting me know that link still existed. Then the Fool lifted his gloved hand and set it in Chade’s.

I could feel him then, but not in any way that is easy to describe. If our combined Skill was a quiet pool, then the Fool was a leaf floating upon it. ‘Reach for him,’ Chade suggested, and we all did. My awareness of the Fool’s uneasiness grew stronger via our bond, but I did not think the others could sense that. They could almost touch him, but he parted before them and joined after them, as if they dragged their fingers through water. It disturbed his presence without making it accessible to them. His fear intensified. I reached along our bond surreptitiously, trying to discover what frightened him.

Possession. He did not wish to be touched in a way that might let another possess him. Belatedly I recalled what Regal and his coterie had once done to him. They had found him, through the link I shared with him, and taken a bit of his consciousness and used it against me, to spy upon me and gain knowledge of Molly’s whereabouts. That betrayal still shamed and pained him. He still carried that burden of guilt for something that had happened so long ago. It stabbed deeper that soon he would know that I had betrayed him as well.

It wasn’t your fault. I offered him comfort through our link. He refused it. Then, as if from a distance and yet clear, his thoughts reached mine.

I knew it would happen. I’d foretold it myself, when I was a child. That the one closest to you would betray you. Yet I could not believe that it would be me. And so I fulfilled my own prophecy.

We all survived.

Barely.

‘Are you Skilling to one another?’ Chade asked testily. I both heard and felt his words.

I took a deeper breath and sank deeper into the Skill. ‘Yes,’ I breathed. ‘I can reach him. But only just. And only because we have been Skill-linked before.’

‘Would you have more than this?’ The Fool’s voice was less than a whisper. I discerned a challenge in his words, but could not understand it.

‘Yes, please. Try,’ I bade him.

Beside me at the table, I was aware of the Fool making some small movement but my vision was unfocused on the room and I had no warning of his intentions until his hand settled on my wrist. His fingertips unerringly found their own faded grey fingerprints, left on my flesh so many years ago. His touch was gentle, but the sensation was an arrow in my heart. I physically spasmed, a speared fish, and then froze. The Fool ran through my veins, hot as liquor, cold as ice. For a flashing instant, we shared physical awareness. The intensity of it went beyond any joining I’d ever experienced. It was more intimate than a kiss and deeper than a knife thrust, beyond a Skill-link and beyond sexual coupling, even beyond my Wit-bond with Nighteyes. It was not a sharing, it was a becoming. Neither pain nor pleasure could encompass it. Worse, I felt myself turning and opening to it, as if it were my lover’s mouth upon mine, yet I did not know if I would devour or be devoured. In another heartbeat, we would be one another, know one another more perfectly than two separate beings ever should.

He’d know my secret.

‘No!’ I cried before he could discover my plot against him. I wrenched myself free, mind and body. For a long time I fell, until I struck the cold stone floor. I rolled under the table to escape that touch, gasping. My time of blackness seemed to last for hours, yet it was only an instant before Chade dragged my curled body from under the table. He propped me against his chest as he knelt beside me. Dimly I was aware of him demanding, ‘What happened? Are you hurt? What did you do to him, Fool?’

I heard a sob escape Thick. He alone, perhaps, had sensed what had transpired. A prickling shiver ran over my body. I could not see anything. Then I realized my eyes were tightly clenched shut, my body huddled in a ball. Knowing those things, it still took me a time to persuade myself I could change them. Just as I opened my eyes, the Fool’s thought uncurled in my mind like leaf opening to sunlight.

And I set no limits on that love.

‘It’s too much,’ I said brokenly. ‘No one can give that much. No one.’

‘Here’s brandy,’ Dutiful said close by me. It was Chade who hauled me into a sitting position and put the cup to my lips. I gulped it as if it were water, then wheezed with the shock. When I managed to turn my head, the Fool was the only one still sitting in his chair at the table. His hands were gloved again, and the look he gave me was opaque. Thick crouched in a corner of the room, hugging himself and shivering. His Skill-music was his mother’s song, a desperate attempt to comfort himself.

‘What happened?’ Chade demanded in a fierce voice. I still leaned against his chest, and I could feel the anger emanating from him like heat. I knew he directed his accusatory glare at the Fool, but I answered anyway.

‘It was too intense. We formed a Skill-link that was so complete, I couldn’t find myself. As if we’d become one being.’ I called it the Skill yet I was not sure that was a proper name for it. As well call a spark the sun. I took a deeper breath. ‘It scared me. So I broke free of it. I wasn’t expecting anything like that.’ And those words were spoken as much to the Fool as to the others. I saw him hear them, but I think he took a different message from them than what I had intended.

‘And it affected you not at all?’ Chade demanded of him.

Dutiful helped me to my feet. I needed his aid. I sank down into a chair almost immediately. Yet it was not weariness I felt, but a loose energy. I could have scaled Buckkeep’s highest tower, if I could have recalled how to make my knees bend.

‘It affected me,’ the Fool said quietly. ‘But in a different way.’ He met my eyes and said, ‘It didn’t frighten me.’

‘Shall we try it again?’ Dutiful proposed innocently, and ‘No!’ Chade, the Fool and I all replied with varying degrees of emphasis.

‘No,’ the Fool repeated more quietly in the tiny silence that followed. ‘For myself, I’ve learned enough today.’

‘Perhaps we all have,’ Chade concurred gruffly. He cleared his throat and went on, ‘It’s time we dispersed to our own tasks anyway.’

‘We’ve still plenty of time,’ Dutiful protested.

‘Ordinarily, yes, that would be so,’ Chade agreed. ‘But the days run away from us now. You’ve much to do to prepare for our journey, Dutiful. Rehearse your speech thanking the Outislanders for their welcome again. Remember, the “ch” is sounded toward the back of the throat.’

‘I’ve read it a hundred times now,’ Dutiful groaned.

‘And when the time comes, the words must seem to come from your heart, not from a scroll.’

Dutiful nodded grudgingly to this. He gave one longing look at the bright and breezy day outside the window.

‘Off you both go, then,’ Chade told him, and it was suddenly clear he was dismissing both Thick and Dutiful.

Disappointment crossed the Prince’s face. He turned to Lord Golden. ‘When we are at sea, and have more time and fewer tasks, I’d like to hear of your time with my father. If you wouldn’t mind. I know that you cared for him when he … at the end of his days.’

‘I did,’ the Fool replied gently. ‘And I’d be glad to share my memories of those days with you.’

‘Thank you,’ Dutiful replied. He went to the corner, and gently chivvied Thick along, asking him what on earth had frightened him, for no one had been hurt. I was grateful that Thick had no intelligible answer to that.

They were nearly at the door when I recalled my earlier resolution. ‘Prince Dutiful, would you come to my workroom this evening? I’ve something for you.’

He raised an eyebrow, but when I said no more, he replied, ‘I’ll find time. I’ll see you then.’

Dutiful left with Thick trudging at his heels. But at the door, Thick turned and gave the Fool an oddly appraising look before he transferred his gaze to me. I wondered uneasily how much he had sensed of what had passed between the Fool and me. Then Thick was gone, shutting the door rather too firmly behind himself.

For a moment, I feared that Chade would demand to know more of what had happened. But before he could speak, the Fool said, ‘Prince Dutiful must not kill Icefyre. That is the most important thing that I must tell you, Chade. At all costs, the dragon’s life must be preserved.’

Chade had crossed to the bottles of spirits. He selected one, poured from it silently, and then turned back to us. ‘As the creature is frozen in a glacier, don’t you think it might be a bit late to worry about preserving his life?’ He sipped from his glass. ‘Or do you truly think that any beast could survive that long, bereft of warmth, water and food?’

The Fool lifted his shoulders and shook his head. ‘What do any of us know of dragons? How long had the stone dragons slept before Fitz woke them? If they share any of their natures with true dragons, then perhaps some spark of life still glows within Icefyre.’

‘What do you know of Icefyre?’ Chade demanded suspiciously. He came back to the table and sat down. I remained standing, watching the two of them.

‘I know no more of him than you do, Chade.’

‘Then why forbid us the taking of his head, when you know the Narcheska has demanded this as a condition of the marriage? Or do you think the world would be set into a better path if our two realms remained at each other’s throats for another century or two?’

I winced at his sarcasm. Never would I have mocked the Fool’s stated goal to change the world. It shocked me that Chade did, and made me realize the depth of his antagonism.

‘I’ve no love of strife, Chade Fallstar,’ the Fool replied softly. ‘Yet even a war amongst men is not the worst thing that can occur. Better war than that we do deeper, graver damage to our world itself. Especially when we have the briefest grasp at a chance to repair an almost irreparable wrong.’

‘Which is?’

‘If Icefyre lives … and I concede it would be surpassing strange if he did … but if there is some spark of life in him yet, we must abandon all other quests to free him from the ice and restore him to full life.’

‘Why?’

‘You haven’t told him?’ He swung an accusing gaze to me. I didn’t meet it and he didn’t wait for me to reply. ‘Tintaglia, the Bingtown dragon, is the sole adult female dragon in the world. With every passing year, it becomes more apparent that the young ones which emerged from their cases will remain stunted and weak, unable to hunt or fly. Dragons mate in flight. If the hatchlings never fly, they can never mate. Dragons will die out in the world. And this time, it will be forever. Unless there remains one fully-formed male dragon. One who could rise to mate Tintaglia and sire a new generation of dragons.’

I had told Chade all those things. Did he ask his question to test the Fool’s frankness?

‘You are telling me,’ Chade enunciated carefully, ‘that we must put peace between the Out Islands and the Six Duchies at risk for the sake of reviving dragons. And this will benefit us how?’

‘It won’t,’ the Fool admitted. ‘On the contrary. It will present many drawbacks for men. And many adjustments. Dragons are an arrogant and aggressive species. They ignore boundaries and have no concept of ownership. If a hungry dragon sees a cow in a pen, he’ll eat it. To them, it’s simple. The world provides and you take what you need from it.’

Chade smiled archly. ‘Then perhaps I should do the same, on behalf of humanity. The world has provided us a time free of dragons. I think I shall take it.’

I watched the Fool. He was not upset by Chade’s words. For the space of two breaths he held his peace. Then he said, ‘As you will, sir. But when the time comes, that decision may not be yours. It may be mine. Or Fitz’s.’ As Chade’s eyes blazed with anger, he added, ‘And not only the world but humanity itself does need dragons.’

‘And why is that?’ Chade demanded disdainfully.

‘To keep the balance,’ the Fool replied. He glanced over at me, and then past me, out of the window and his eyes went far and pensive. ‘Humanity fears no rivals. You have forgotten what it was to share the world with creatures as arrogantly superior as yourselves. You think to arrange the world to your liking. So you map the land and draw lines across it, claiming ownership simply because you can draw a picture of it. The plants that grow and the beasts that rove, you mark as your own, claiming not only what lives today, but what might grow tomorrow, to do with as you please. Then, in your conceit and aggression, you wage wars and slay one another over the lines you have imagined on the world’s face.’

‘And I suppose dragons are better than we are because they don’t do such things, because they simply take whatever they see. Free spirits, nature’s creatures, possessing all the moral loftiness that comes from not being able to think.’

The Fool shook his head, smiling. ‘No. Dragons are no better than humans. They are little different at all from men. They will hold up a mirror to humanity’s selfishness. They will remind you that all your talk of owning this and claiming that is no more than the snarling of a chained dog or a sparrow’s challenge song. The reality of those claims lasts but for the instant of its sounding. Name it as you will, claim it as you will, the world does not belong to men. Men belong to the world. You will not own the earth that eventually your body will become, nor will it recall the name it once answered to.’

Chade did not reply immediately. I thought he was stunned by the Fool’s words, his view of reality reordered by them. But then he snorted disdainfully. ‘Pish. What you say only makes it plainer to me that no good will be worked for anyone by resurrecting this dragon.’ He rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘Oh, why do we bother with this fatuous debate? None of us knows what we will find when we get there. It’s all philosophical ramblings and nursery tales at this point. When I confront it, then I will think about what is best to do. There. Does that satisfy you?’

‘I scarcely believe that my satisfaction matters to you.’ And as he spoke those odd words, the Fool sent a sidelong glance my way. But it was not a look to catch my eye, but rather one that pointed me out to Chade.

‘You’re right,’ Chade agreed smoothly. ‘It is not your satisfaction, but Fitz’s agreement that matters to me. Yet I know that if this decision falls to him alone, he would give your satisfaction much weight, even, perhaps, at the risk of Farseer fortunes.’ My old master gave me a speculative look, as if I were a spavined horse that might or might not last through another battle. The smile he gave me was almost desperate. ‘Yet I hope he will hear my concerns as well.’ His gaze met mine. ‘When we confront it, then we will decide. Until then, the choice remains open. Is that acceptable?’

‘Almost,’ the Fool replied. His voice was cool as he proposed, ‘Give us your promise, as a Farseer, that when the time comes, Fitz may do as his judgment bids him.’

‘My promise as a Farseer!’ Chade was incensed.

‘Exactly,’ the Fool replied calmly. ‘Unless your words are just an empty sop thrown to keep Fitz on the path to doing your will.’ He leaned back in his chair, his wrists and hands lax on the arms of it, perfectly at ease. For a moment, I recognized that slender man in black with his shining hair bound back. This was the boy the Fool had been, grown to a man. Then he turned his head to regard Chade more directly, and the familiarity was gone. His face was a sculpted silhouette of determination. I had never seen anyone challenge Chade so confidently.

I was shocked at the words Chade spoke then. His smile was very strange as his eyes went from me to the Fool and back again. It was my gaze he met as he said, ‘I give my word as a Farseer. I will not ask him to do anything against his will. There. Are you content, man?’

The Fool nodded slowly. ‘Oh, yes. I am content. For the decision will come to him, and that I see as clearly as anything that remains to me to see.’ He nodded to himself. ‘There are still things we must discuss, you and I, but once we are on board ship and under way, there will be time for that. But, the day rushes on without us, and I still have much to do to prepare for my departure. Good day, Lord Fallstar.’

A very slight smile hung about his mouth. His glance went from me to Chade. And then he made a most curious gesture. Sweeping his arms wide, he made a graceful bow to Chade, as if they had afforded one another some great courtesy. When he straightened he spoke to me. His tone was warmer. ‘It was good to have a few moments with you today, Fitz. I’ve missed you.’ Then he gave a sudden small sigh, as if he had recalled an unpleasant duty. I suspected that his predicted death had just pushed itself to the forefront of his mind. His smile faded. ‘Gentlemen, you will excuse me,’ he murmured. And he departed, exiting through the cramped panel concealed in the side of the hearth as gracefully as a lord departing a banquet.

I sat staring after him. Our recent Skill-encounter rattled in my mind with his strange words and stranger gestures. He had clashed with Chade over something, and triumphed. Yet I was not quite sure what, if anything, had just been settled between them.

My old mentor spoke as if he could hear my thoughts. ‘He challenges me for your loyalty! How dare he? Me, who practically raised you! How can he think there would be any chance of us disagreeing, when we both know how much rests upon the successful completion of this quest? My word as a Farseer indeed! And what does he think you are, when all is said and done?’

He turned and put the question to me as if he expected an unthinking assent from me. ‘Perhaps,’ I said quietly, ‘he believes that he is the White Prophet and I am his Catalyst.’ Then I took a stronger breath and spoke a question of my own. ‘How can the two of you quarrel over my loyalty, as if I had no thought of my own to give to any decision I might make?’ I gave a snort of disgust. ‘I would not think a horse or a dog as mindless a game piece as you both seem to think I am.’

He was staring past me out of the window when he spoke, and I do not think he truly considered the import of his words. ‘Not a horse or a dog, Fitz, no. I’d never think of you that way. No. You’re a sword. So you were made to be, by me, a weapon to be wielded. And he thinks you fit his hand the best.’ The old man snorted in contempt. ‘The man is, still, a fool.’ He looked at me and nodded. ‘You were wise to tell me of his plans. It is good we shall be leaving him behind.’

There seemed nothing to say to that. I left the Seawatch Tower, going as I had come through the dark maze hidden within the walls of Buckkeep. I had seen both my friend and my mentor more clearly today than I liked. I wondered if the Fool’s touch on my wrist had been a demonstration for both Chade and me of the influence he had over me. And yet, and yet, it had not felt that way. Had he not asked me first if I wished for it? Still, it had felt as if it were a thing he wished to display to me. Yet had it been only circumstances that had made him reveal it to Chade as well? Or had his intent been that I see clearly how Chade regarded me, how he assumed he could always depend on me to do his will? I shook my head. Could the Fool imagine I did not already know that? I clenched my teeth. There would come a moment when the Fool realized Chade and I had conspired against him, a moment when he knew how I had held my tongue today.

I went back to my workroom, and I did not like any of the thoughts I took there with me.

As I pushed open the door, I instantly knew that the Fool had been there before me. He’d left his gift on the table beside my chair. I walked over to it and ran a finger down Nighteyes’ spine. My wolf was in his prime in the carving. A dead rabbit sprawled between his forepaws. His head was lifted, his dark eyes regarding me intelligently, patiently.

I picked it up. I had seen the Fool begin the carving when he sat at the table in my cabin. I had never guessed what it might be, had almost forgotten that he had promised to show it to me when it was finished. I touched the points of Nighteyes’ pricked ears. Then I sat down in the chair and stared into the fire, my wolf cradled in my hands.

FOUR

An Exchange of Weapons

Weaponsmaster Hod ascended to that title after long service as journeyman to Weaponsmaster Crend. Her years in that position were well spent, for she became familiar not only with the use of each weapon, but the manufacture of good blades. Indeed, there are still some who say that her primary talent was in the creation of fine weapons, and that Buckkeep would have been better served to give another the title of Weaponsmaster and keep her at her forge. King Shrewd, however, did not see it that way. Upon Crend’s death, she was immediately moved into his position, and oversaw the training of all Buckkeep’s men-at-arms. She served the Farseer reign well, ultimately giving her life in battle for then King-in-Waiting Verity.

Fedwren’s Chronicles

The Fool’s carefully planned disposal of his possessions sparked in me a sudden desire to sort out my own belongings. That night, instead of packing, I sat on the corner of Chade’s old bed, surrounded by all I owned. If I had been inclined to the Fool’s fatalistic melancholy, perhaps it would have saddened me. Instead, I found myself grinning at the paucity of it. Even Gilly the ferret nosing through my trove seemed unimpressed.

The stack of clothing from the Fool’s chamber, and the marvellous sword with the over-decorated hilt comprised most of it. My clothing from my days in the cottage had largely been consigned to the rag heap near the worktable. I possessed two new uniforms as a Prince’s Guard. One was already carefully packed in a sea chest at the foot of my bed with my other changes of clothing. Concealed beneath them were a number of small packages of poisons, sedatives and restoratives which Chade and I had prepared. On the bed beside me, various small tools, lock picks and other handy oddments were in a small roll that could be concealed inside my shirt. I added it to the sea chest. I sorted through the rest of my strange collection as I waited for Dutiful.

The carving of Nighteyes was on the mantel over the hearth. I would not risk it on the journey with me. There was a charm necklace that Jinna the hedge-witch had made for me, when we were on friendlier terms. I’d never wear it again, and yet I was oddly reluctant to dispose of it. I set it with the clothing Lord Golden had inflicted on me. The little fox pin that Kettricken had given me rode where it always did, inside my shirt above my heart. I had no intention of parting from that. To one side I had placed a few items for Hap. Most were small things I’d made or acquired when he was a child: a spinning top, a jumping jack and the like. I packed them carefully into a box with an acorn carved on the lid. I’d give them to him when I bid him farewell.

In the centre of my bed was the bundle of carved feathers I’d taken from the Others’ beach. Once, I had tried to give them to the Fool, to try in his carved wooden crown. I was certain they would fit. But he had given them a single glance and rejected them. I unrolled the soft leather I’d wrapped them in, considered each of them briefly, and then wrapped them again. For a time I debated what to do with them. Then I tucked them into the corner of the sea chest. Into it also went my needles and various weights of thread for them. Extra shoes and smallclothes. A razor. Mug, bowl and spoon for the ship.

And that was it. There was nothing else to pack, and precious little else in the world that belonged to me. There was my horse, Myblack, but she had little interest in me beyond doing what she must. She preferred her own kind, and would not miss me at all. A stable-boy would exercise her regularly, and as long as Hands was in charge of Buckkeep’s stables I had no fear that she would be neglected or ill-used.

Gilly emerged from the heap of clothing and came romping across the bed to challenge me. ‘Small chance you’ll miss me either,’ I told him as he menaced my hand playfully. There were plenty of mice and rats in the walls of Buckkeep to keep him well fed. He’d probably enjoy having the whole bed to himself. He already believed that the pillow belonged to him. My gaze wandered over the room. Chade had taken possession of all the scrolls I’d brought back from my cabin. He’d sorted them, adding the harmless ones to the Buckkeep library and securing in his cabinets any that told too many truths too plainly. I felt no sense of loss.

I carried the armload of clothing over to one of Chade’s old wardrobes, intending to stuff it all inside. Then my conscience smote me, and I carefully shook out and folded each garment before putting it away. In the process, I realized that, taken individually, many of the garments were not as ostentatious as I had imagined them. I added the warmly-lined cloak to my sea chest. When all of the clothing was stored or packed, I set the jewelled sword on top of the chest. It would go with me. Despite its showy hilt, it was well made and finely balanced. Like the man who had given it to me, its glittering appearance obscured its true purpose.

There was a courteous tap and the wine rack swung out of the way. As Dutiful stepped wearily into the room, Gilly leapt from the bed and sprang to confront him, menacing him with white teeth as he made abortive springs at his feet.

‘Yes, I’m glad to see you, too,’ Dutiful greeted him and swept the little animal up in one hand. He scratched the ferret’s throat gently and then set him down. Gilly immediately attacked his feet. Being careful not to tread upon him, Dutiful came into the room, saying, ‘You had something extra for me to pack?’ With a heavy sigh, he dropped down on the bed beside me. ‘I’m so tired of packing,’ he confided. ‘I hope it’s something small.’

‘It’s on the table.’ I told him. ‘And it’s not small.’

As he walked toward the worktable, I knew a moment of intense regret and would have undone the gift if I could. How could it possibly mean to this boy what it had to me? He looked at it, and then looked up at me, shock on his face. ‘I don’t understand. You’re giving me a sword?’

I stood up. ‘It’s your father’s sword. Verity gave it to me, when last we parted. It’s yours, now,’ I said quietly.

The look that overtook Dutiful’s face in that moment erased any regret I might have felt. He put out a hand toward it, drew it back, and then looked at me. Incredulous wonder shone in his face. I smiled.

‘I said it was yours. Pick it up and get the feel of it. I’ve just cleaned and sharpened it, so be careful.’

He reached his hand down and set it on the hilt. I waited, watching, for him to lift it and discover its exquisite balance. But he drew his hand back.

‘No.’ The word shocked me. Then, ‘Wait here. Please. Just wait.’ And then he turned and fled the room. I heard the scuff of his running footsteps fade in the hidden corridor.

His reaction puzzled me. He had seemed so delighted at first. I walked over and looked again at the blade. Freshly oiled and wiped, it gleamed. It was both beautiful and elegant, yet there was nothing in its design that would interfere with its intended function. It was a tool for killing other men. It had been made for Verity by Hod, the same Weaponsmaster who had taught me to wield both blade and pike. When Verity had gone on his quest, she had gone with him, and died for him. It was a sword worthy of a king. Why had Dutiful rejected it?

I was sitting before the hearth, a cup of hot tea between my two hands, when he returned. He carried a long, wrapped bundle with him. He was talking and untying the leather thongs that bound it as he came through the door. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of this a long time ago, when my mother first told me who you were. I guess because it was given to me so long ago, and then my mother put it away for me. Here!’

The wrappings fell away from it and he flourished it aloft. Grinning widely, he suddenly reversed his grip on it, and proffered it to me, the hilt resting on his left forearm. He grinned at me, his eyes blazing with delight and anticipation. ‘Take it, FitzChivalry Farseer. Your father’s sword.’

A shiver ran over me, standing up every hair on my body. I set the teacup aside and came slowly to my feet. ‘Chivalry’s sword?’

‘Yes.’ I had not thought his grin could grow wider, but it did.

I stared at it. Yes. Even without his words, I would have known it. This blade was the elder brother to the one Verity had carried. It resembled the other sword, but this one was slightly more ornate and longer, designed for a man taller than Verity. There was a stylized buck on the cross guard. It was, I suddenly knew, a sword made for a prince who would be king. I knew I could never bear it. I longed for it all the same. ‘Where did you get it?’ I asked breathlessly.

‘Patience had it, of course. She’d left it at Withywoods when she came to Buckkeep. Then, when she was “sorting the clutter” as she put it, after the end of the Red Ship War, when she was moving her household to Tradeford, she came across it. In a closet. “Just as well I never took it to Buckkeep”, she told me when she gave it to me. “Regal would have taken it and sold it. Or kept it for himself.”’

It was so like Patience that I had to smile. A king’s sword, amongst her ‘clutter’.

‘Take it!’ Dutiful commanded me eagerly, and I had to. I had to feel, at least once, how my hand would fit where my father’s had rested. As I took it from him, it felt near weightless. It perched in my hand like a bird. The moment I relieved Dutiful of it, he stepped to the table and took up Verity’s sword. I heard his exclamation of satisfaction, and grinned as he gripped it two-handed and swept it through the air. These blades were proper swords, as fit to shear through flesh as skewer some vulnerable point. For a time, we were both like boys as we moved the blades in a variety of ways, from the small shifts of the hand and wrist that would block and divert an opponent’s thrust to a reckless overhand slash by Dutiful that stopped just short of the scrolls on the tabletop.

Chivalry’s blade fit me. There was satisfaction in that, even as I realized how woefully unworthy my skills were to a weapon such as this. I was little more than competent with a sword. I wondered how the abdicated king would have felt to know that his only son was defter with an axe than with a sword, and more inclined to use poison than either of those. It was a disheartening line of thought, but before I could give in to that blight, Dutiful was at my side, comparing his blade to mine.

‘Chivalry’s is longer!’

‘He was taller than Verity. Yet this blade, I think, is lighter. Verity had the brawn to put behind a heavy stroke, and so I think Hod made his weapon. It will be interesting to see which weapon fits you best when you are grown.’

He took my meaning instantly. ‘Fitz. I gave you that sword to keep. I mean it.’

I nodded. ‘And I thank you for that thought. But I shall have to be satisfied with the intention in place of the reality. This is a king’s sword, Dutiful. It’s not for a guardsman, let alone an assassin, or a bastard. See, look here, on the hilt. The Farseer buck, large and plain. It’s on Verity’s too, but smaller. Even so, I wrapped the hilt in leather to disguise it in the years after the Red Ship Wars. Anyone who had seen it would have known it couldn’t properly belong to me. This would be even more obvious.’ Regretfully and respectfully, I set it down on the worktable.

Dutiful deposited Verity’s blade carefully beside it. A stubborn look came over his face. ‘How can I take my father’s sword from you, if you won’t take Chivalry’s from me? My father gave you that blade. He meant you to have it.’

‘I’m sure he did, at that moment. And for many years, it has served me well. To see it in your hands will serve me even better. I know that Verity would agree with me. For now, Chivalry’s blade we should both set aside. When you are crowned, your nobles will expect to see the King’s sword on your hip.’

Dutiful scowled in thought. ‘Didn’t King Shrewd have a sword? What became of it?’

‘Doubtless he did. As to what became of it, I’ve no idea. Perhaps Patience had the right of it; perhaps Regal sold it or carried it off for other scavengers to steal after he died. In any case, it’s gone. When the time comes for you to ascend the throne, I think you should carry the King’s sword. And when you sail for Aslevjal, I think you should wear your father’s sword.’

‘I shall. But won’t folk wonder where I got it?’

‘I doubt it. We’ll have Chade put out some tale that he has been holding it for you. Folk love stories of that sort. They’ll be happy to accept it.’

He nodded thoughtfully, then said slowly, ‘It takes some of the pleasure from it, that you cannot carry Chivalry’s sword as openly as I shall carry this one.’

‘For me also,’ I replied with painful honesty. ‘Would that I could, Dutiful. But that is simply how it is. I’ve a sword given to me by Lord Golden, also of a quality that exceeds my skill. I’ll carry that. If I ever lift a blade to defend you, it had better be an axe.’

He looked down, pondering. Then he set his hand to the hilt of Chivalry’s sword. ‘Until the day when you give this sword back to me, on the day I am crowned, I wish it to remain here with you.’ He took a breath. ‘And when I take your father’s sword from you, I will return my father’s sword to you.’

That was a gesture I could not refuse.

Soon he left as he had come, taking Verity’s sword with him. I made myself a fresh cup of tea and sat considering my father’s blade. I tried to think what it meant to me, but encountered only a curious absence inside myself. Even my recent discovery that he had not ignored me, but had Skill-watched me through his brother’s eyes did not make up for his physical absence in my life. Perhaps he had loved me, from afar, but Burrich had been the one to discipline me and Chade the one to teach me. I looked at the blade and groped for a sense of connection, for any emotion at all, but could not find one. By the time I had finished my tea, I still had no answer, nor was I completely certain what my question was. But I had resolved that I would find time to see Hap again before I departed.

I went to bed, successfully claiming the pillow from Gilly. Nonetheless, I slept badly, and even that poor rest was interrupted. Nettle edged into my dreams like a child reluctantly seeking comfort. It was a peculiar contrast. In my dream, I was crossing a steep scree slope from my sojourn in the Mountains. I had crossed this avalanche-prone incline carrying the Fool’s lax body. I was not so burdened in my dream, but the mountainside seemed steeper and the fall eternal. Loose pebbles shifted treacherously under my feet. At any moment I might go sliding off the face of the mountain like the small stones rattling past me. My muscles ached with tension and sweat streamed down my back. Then I caught a flash of motion at the corner of my eye. I turned my head slowly, for I dared risk no swift movement. I discovered Nettle sitting calmly uphill from me, watching my agonized progress.

She sat amongst grass and wildflowers. Her gown was green and her hair decked with tiny daisies. Even to my father’s eyes, she looked more woman than child, but she sat like a little girl, her knees drawn up under the chin and her arms clasped around her legs. Her feet were bare and her eyes troubled.

Such was our dichotomy. I still struggled to retain my footing on the unstable slope. In her dream, adjoining mine, she sat in a mountain meadow. Her presence forced me to admit that I dreamed, and yet I could not surrender the exertion of my nightmare. I did not know if I feared I would be swept to my death or thrust into wakefulness. So, ‘What is it?’ I called to her as I continued my inching progress across the mountain’s face. It mattered not how many steps I took: solid ground remained ever distant, while Nettle kept her place above me.

‘My secret,’ she said quietly. ‘It gnaws at me. So I have come to ask your advice.’

She paused but I did not reply. I did not want to know her secret, or to offer advice. I could not commit myself to helping her. Despite the dream, I knew I was leaving Buckkeep soon. Even if I stayed, I could not venture into her life without the risk of destroying it. Better to remain a vague dream-thing on the edge of her reality. Despite my silence, she spoke to me.

‘If someone gives her word to keep silent about a thing, not realizing how much pain it will bring, not just to herself but to others, is she bound to keep her word?’

That was too grave a question to leave unanswered. ‘You know the answer to that,’ I panted. ‘A woman’s word is her word. She keeps it, or it is worth nothing.’

‘But I did not know the trouble it would cause when I gave it. Nim goes about like half a creature. I did not know that Mama would blame Papa, nor that Papa would take to drink over it, blaming himself more deeply than she does.’

I halted. It was dangerous to do so, but I turned to face her. Her words had plummeted me into a deeper danger than the chasm that yawned below me. I spoke carefully. ‘And you think you’ve found a way around the word you gave. To tell me what you promised not to tell them.’

She lowered her forehead to her knees. Her voice was muffled when she spoke. ‘You said you knew Papa, long ago. I do not know who you truly are; but perhaps you know him still. You could speak to him. The last time Swift ran away, you told me when he and Papa were safely on their way home to us. Oh, please, Shadow Wolf! I don’t know what your connection to my family is, but I know it exists. In trying to aid Swift, I have nearly torn us apart. I have no one else to turn to. And I never promised Swift that I would not tell you.’

I looked down at my feet. She had changed me into her image of me. Her dream was devouring mine. Now I was a man-wolf. My black claws dug into the loose gravel. Moving on all fours, with my weight lower, I clawed my way up the slope toward her. When I was close enough to see the dried salt track of tears on her cheeks, I growled, ‘Tell me what?’

It was all the permission she needed. ‘They think Swift ran away to sea, for so we made it seem, he and I. Oh, do not look at me like that! You don’t know what it was like around here! Papa was a perpetual storm cloud and Swift near as bad. Poor Nim slunk around like a whipped dog, ashamed to win praise from Papa because his twin could not share it. And Mama, Mama was like a mad woman, every night demanding to know what ailed them, and both of them refusing to answer. There was no peace in our house any more, no peace at all. So when Swift came to me and asked me to help him slip away, it seemed the wise thing to do.’

‘And what sort of aid did you give him?’

‘I gave him money, money that was mine, to use as I pleased, money I had earned myself helping with the Gossoin’s lambing last spring. Mama often sent him to town, to make deliveries of honey or candles. I thought up the plan for him, that he would start asking neighbours and folk in town about boats and fishing and the sea. And then, at the last, I wrote a letter and signed Papa’s name as I have become accustomed to doing for him. His eyes … Papa can still write, but his hand wanders for he cannot see the letters he is forming. So, of late, I have written things for him, the papers when he sells a horse and such. Everyone says that my hand is just like his; probably because he taught me to make my letters. So …’

‘So you wrote a letter for Swift saying that his father had released him and that he could go forth and do as he pleased with his life.’ I spoke slowly. Every word she spoke burdened me more. Burrich and Molly quarrelled, and he took to drink again. His sight was failing him, and he believed he had driven his son away. Hearing these things rent me, for I knew I could not mend any of them.

‘It can be difficult for a boy to find any sort of work if folk think he is a runaway apprentice or a lad whose work still belongs to his father.’ She spoke the words hesitantly, trying to excuse her forgery. I dared not look at her. ‘Mama packed up six racks of candles and sent Swift into town to deliver them and to bring back the money. When he said goodbye to me, I knew he meant to take that opportunity. He never came back.’ Around her, flowers bloomed and a tiny bee buzzed from one to the next, seeking nectar.

I slowly worked through her words. ‘He stole the candle money to travel on?’ My estimate of Swift dropped.

‘It wasn’t … it wasn’t exactly stealing. He’d always helped with the hives. And he needed it!’

I shook my head slowly. It disappointed me that she found excuses for him. But then, I’d never had a little brother. Perhaps it was a thing all sisters did.

‘Won’t you help me?’ she asked piteously when my silence grew long.

‘I can’t,’ I said helplessly. ‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘How could I?’ I was completely in her dream now. The meadow grass was firm beneath my feet. A spring day in the hills surrounded me. The bee buzzed past my ear, and I flicked it away. I knew my nightmare still lurked behind me. If I stepped back two paces, I’d be on that treacherous slope again.

‘Talk to Papa for me. Tell him it wasn’t his fault Swift went away.’

‘I can’t talk to your Papa. I’m far, far away. Only in dreams can we reach across distances like this.’

‘Can’t you visit his dreams, as you do mine? Can’t you talk to him there?’

‘No. I can’t.’ Long ago, my father had sealed Burrich off from all other Skill-users. Burrich himself had told me that. Chivalry had been able to draw strength from him for Skilling, and the bond between them meant that Chivalry would be vulnerable through Burrich to other Skill-users. Dimly I wondered; did that mean that at one time Burrich had had some level of Skill-ability? Or did it only mean that the two men were so close that Chivalry could take strength from him for Skilling?

‘Why not? You come to my dreams. And you were friends long ago; you said so. Please. He can’t go on as he is. It’s killing him. And my mother,’ she added softly. ‘I think you owe him this.’

A bee from Nettle’s flowers buzzed past my face and I swiped at it. I decided I needed to end this contact swiftly. She was drawing too many conclusions about her father and me. ‘I cannot come to your father’s dreams, Nettle. But there may be something I can do. I may be able to speak to someone, someone who can find Swift and send him home again.’ Even as I said the words, my heart sank. As annoying as Swift was, I knew what it would mean to the boy to be sent back to Burrich; I hardened my will. It truly wasn’t my problem. Swift was Burrich’s son, and they must sort it out themselves.

‘Then you know where Swift is? You’ve seen him? Is he well, is he safe? A thousand times I’ve thought of him, so young and alone and out in the world. I never should have let him talk me into this! Tell me about him.’

‘He’s fine,’ I said shortly. The bee buzzed past my ear again. I felt it settle on the back of my neck. I tried to paw it off me, but an instant later, I was bowed under the weight of a sizeable animal on my back. I yelped and struggled, but before I could draw breath, I was dangling from the dragon’s jaws. She gave me a shake, not to kill but to caution. I stopped struggling and hung there. Her teeth gripped the scruff of my neck, not piercing either hide or flesh but paralysing me.

As Nettle surged indignantly to her feet, reaching for me, the dragon lifted me higher. I dangled above Nettle and then was swung out over the chasm from my earlier nightmare.

‘Ah-ah!’ the dragon cautioned us both. ‘Resist and I drop him. Wolves do not fly.’ Her words did not come from her mouth and throat, but penetrated my thoughts, a mind-to-mind touch.

Nettle froze. ‘What do you want?’ she growled. Her dark eyes had gone flinty.

‘He knows,’ Tintaglia replied, giving me a small shake. I felt it unhinged every bone in my spine. ‘I want to know all that you know of a black dragon buried in ice. I want to know all you know of an island humans name Aslevjal.’

‘I know nothing of such things!’ Nettle replied angrily. Her hands had knotted into fists. ‘Let him go.’

‘Very well.’ The dragon released me, and for a heart-stopping instant, I plummeted. Then her head shot out on her snake-like neck and she caught me up again. This time her jaws encompassed my ribs. She squeezed me, demonstrating how easily she could crush me. Then she eased the pressure and asked me, ‘And what do you know, little wolf thing?’

‘Nothing!’ I gasped, and then choked out every bit of air in my lungs as she crushed me. It would be quick, I told myself. I would not have to maintain my lie long. She wasn’t a patient creature; she’d kill me swiftly. I glanced back to take a last look at my daughter.

Nettle stood, suddenly larger than she had been. Then she flung her arms wide. Her hair tossed in a wind that only she felt, and then haloed out around her face. She threw her head back. ‘This is a DREAM!’ she shouted. ‘And it is my dream! I cast you out of it!’ The last she spoke as single words, uttered with all the command of a queen. For the first time, I comprehended the strength of my daughter’s Skill. Her ability to shape dreams and command that which happened in them was a manifestation of her Skill-talent.

Tintaglia flung me spinning out over an infinite void. Beneath me I saw not the rocky chasm of my dream, but a vast emptiness without colour or end. I had one whirling glimpse of the dragon writhing as Nettle dwindled her back to the size of a bee. Then I clenched my eyes shut against the dizzying fall. Even as I drew painful breath to scream, Nettle spoke softly by my ear. ‘It’s only a dream, Shadow Wolf. And it belongs to me. In my dreams, you will never come to harm. Open your eyes, now. Awake to your own world.’

An instant before I awoke, I felt the comforting resistance of bedding beneath me and when I opened my eyes to the darkness of my workroom, I was not in panic. Nettle had taken the terror from the nightmare. For a moment, I felt relief. I drew a deep breath, and as I surrendered to sleep once more, I felt a drowsy amazement at my daughter’s odd Skill-strength. But as I tugged my blanket back over my shoulder and reclaimed half the pillow from the ferret, the earlier portion of my dream dragged me back to wakefulness. Swift had lied. Burrich hadn’t discarded him. Worse, his leaving had thrown the family into turmoil.

I lay still, eyes closed, wishing vainly to sleep. Instead, I mapped out what I must do. The boy must be sent home, but I didn’t want to be the one to do it. He’d demand to know how I knew he had lied. So. I’d tell Chade that Burrich had not released Swift from his household. That would involve admitting to Chade that I’d had more Skill-contact with Nettle. Well, it couldn’t be helped, I told myself grumpily. All my secrets seemed intent on leaking out and becoming known.

So I made my resolution and tried to persuade myself that was the best I could do. I tried not to imagine Burrich going back to drinking every night, or Molly driven to distraction not only by her husband’s dive into the bottle but by her son’s vanishing. I tried not to wonder how much Burrich’s vision had faded. Enough that he had either not tried to track his son, or had failed in the effort.

I was up at dawn. I got bread and milk and bacon in the guardroom, and carried it out to the Women’s Garden to eat it. I sat listening to the birdcalls and smelling the new day’s warmth touching the earth. Such things have always been a deep comfort to me. This morning, they affirmed that the goodness of the earth always goes on and made me wish that I could stay to watch the summer grow strong and the fruit swell on the trees.

I felt her before I saw her. Starling wore a morning robe of pale blue. Her hair was loose upon her shoulders, and her graceful narrow feet were in simple sandals. She carried a steaming mug between both her hands. I watched her and wished that things could have been simpler between us. When she noticed me sitting silently on the bench beneath the tree, she gaped in feigned astonishment, then changed her expression to a smile as she came to join me. She sat down, kicked her feet free of her sandals and curled her legs on the bench between us.

‘Well, good morning,’ she greeted me. There was mild surprise in her eyes. ‘I nearly didn’t recognize you, Fitz. You look as if you’ve lost ten years.’

‘Tom,’ I reminded her gently, well knowing that she had dropped my old name to rattle me. ‘And I feel as if you are right. Perhaps the daily routine of a guardsman was what I needed all along.’

She made a sceptical noise in her throat, and took a sip from her mug. When she looked up, she added sourly, ‘I notice you don’t think the same is true for me?’

‘What, that you’d do better as a guardsman?’ I asked her innocently. Then, as she pretended a kick at me, I added, ‘Starling, you always look like Starling to me. Neither older nor younger than I expect you to be, but always Starling.’

She furrowed her brow for a moment, then shrugged and laughed. ‘I never know if you mean the things you say as compliments or not.’ Then she leaned closer to me, sniffing the air near me. ‘Musk? Are you wearing musk these days, Tom Badgerlock? If you are interested in attracting female companionship …?’

‘No, I wear no musk. I’ve just been sleeping with a ferret.’

I had replied with honesty, and her whoop of laughter startled me. A moment later, I was grinning with her as she shook her head at me. She shifted on the bench so that her sun-warmed thigh pressed against mine. ‘That is so like you, Fitz. So like you.’ She gave a sigh of contentment, and then asked lazily, ‘Then, can I surmise that you have ended your mourning and bonded again?’

Her words dimmed the summer morning for me. I cleared my throat and spoke carefully. ‘No. I doubt that I ever will. Nighteyes and I fit together like a knife and a sheath.’ I looked out over the chamomile bed and said quietly, ‘After him, there can be no other. It would be a disservice to whatever creature I joined, for he would be only a substitute, and never genuinely my partner.’

She read more into my words than I intended. She put her arm along the back of the bench. Pillowing her head on it, she looked up at the sky through the tree branches that shaded us. I finished the milk I had brought with me and set the cup aside. I was about to excuse myself for my morning lesson with Swift when she asked, ‘Have you ever thought of taking Molly back, then?’

‘What?’

She lifted her head. ‘You loved the girl. At least, so you’ve always maintained. And she had your child, at great cost to herself. You know that she could have shaken it from her body if she had chosen. That she didn’t means that she felt something deep for you. You should go to her. Take her back.’

‘Molly and I were a long time ago. She is married to Burrich. They built a life together. They have six children of their own,’ I pointed out stiffly.

‘So?’ She brought her gaze to meet mine. ‘I saw him when he came to Buckkeep to fetch Swift home. He was close-mouthed and grim when I greeted him. And he was old. He walks with a hitch and his eyes are clouding.’ She shook her head over him. ‘If you decided to take Molly back from him, he could offer you no competition.’

‘I would never do that!’

She sipped from her mug, looking at me steadily over the rim. ‘I know that,’ she said when she took the cup from her lips. ‘Even though he took her from you.’

‘They both think I’m dead!’ I pointed out to her, my voice harsher than I’d intended.

‘Are you sure you’re not?’ she asked flippantly. Then, at the look on my face, her eyes softened. ‘Oh, Fitz. You never do anything for yourself, do you? Never take what you want.’ She leaned closer to me. ‘Do you think Molly would have thanked you for your decision? Do you truly think you had the right to decide for her?’ She leaned back a little, watching my face. ‘You gave her and the child away as if you were finding a good home for a puppy. Why?’

I’d answered that question so many times I didn’t even need to think. ‘He was the better man for her. That was true then; it’s true now.’

‘Is it? I wonder if Molly would agree.’

‘And how is your husband today?’ I asked her roughly.

Her glance went opaque. ‘Who knows? He’s gone trout fishing in the hills with Lord and Lady Redoaks. As you know, I’ve never enjoyed that kind of outing.’ Then, glancing aside, she added, ‘But their lovely daughter Ivy apparently does. I’ve heard that she leapt at the chance to make the trip.’

She did not need to explain it to me. I took her hand. ‘Starling. I’m sorry.’

She took a breath. ‘Are you? It matters little to me. I’ve his name and his holdings to enjoy. And he leaves me the freedom of my minstrel ways, to come and go as I please.’ She cocked her head at me. ‘I’ve been thinking of joining Dutiful’s entourage for the journey to the Out Islands. What do you think of that?’

My heart lurched at the thought. Oh, no. ‘I think that it would be far worse than going trout fishing. I expect to be uncomfortable and cold for much of it. And Out Island food is terrible. If they give you lard, honey and bone marrow mixed together, you’ve had the height of their cuisine.’

She stood gracefully. ‘Fish paste,’ she said. ‘You’ve forgotten their fish paste. Fish paste on everything.’ She stood looking down on me. Then she reached a hand and pushed several strands of hair back from my face. Her fingertips walked the scar down my face. ‘Some day,’ she said quietly. ‘Some day you’ll realize that we were the perfect match, you and I. That in all of your days and places, I was the only one who truly understood you and loved you despite it.’

I gaped at her. In all our years together, she’d never said the word ‘love’ to me.

She slid her fingers under my chin and closed my mouth for me. ‘We should have breakfast together more often,’ she suggested. Then she strolled away, sipping from her cup as she went, knowing that I watched her go.

‘Well. At least you can make me forget all of my other problems for a time,’ I observed quietly to myself. Then I took my mug back to the kitchen and headed for the Queen’s Gardens. Perhaps it was my conversation with Starling for when I walked out on the tower top and found the boy feeding the doves, I was direct.

‘You lied,’ I said before he could even give me ‘good morning’. ‘Your father never sent you away. You ran off. And you stole money to do it.’

He gaped at me. His face went white. ‘Who … how did …?’

‘How do I know? If I answer that question for you, I’ll answer it for Chade and the Queen as well. Do you want them to know what I know?’

I prayed I had his measure. When he gulped and shook his head suddenly and silently, I knew I had. Given the chance to run home, with no one here the wiser as to how he had shamed himself, he’d take it.

‘Your family is worried sick about you. You’ve no right to leave people who love you in suspense about your fate. Pack up and go, boy, just as you came. Here.’ Impulsively I took my purse from my belt. ‘There’s enough here to see you safely home, and pay back what you took. See that you do.’

He couldn’t meet my eyes. ‘Yessir.’

When he didn’t reach for the purse, I took his hand in mine, turned it palm up and put the sack into it. When I let go of his hand, he still stood staring up at me. I pointed at the door to the stairwell. He turned, stunned, and stumbled toward the door. With his hand on it, he halted. ‘You don’t understand what it’s like for me there,’ he whispered feebly.

‘Yes. I do. Far better than you might imagine. Go home, bow your head to your father’s discipline and serve your family until you reach your majority, as an honest boy should. Didn’t your parents raise you? Didn’t they give you life, put food on your plate, clothes on your back, shoes on your feet? Then it is only right that your labour belongs to them, until you are legally a man. Then you can openly go your own way. You will have years after that to discover your magic, years of your own, rightfully earned, to live as you please. Your Wit can wait until then.’

He halted by the door and leaned his head against it for a moment. ‘No. My magic won’t wait.’

‘It will have to!’ I told him harshly. ‘Now go home, Swift. Leave today.’

He ducked his head, pushed the door open and left, shutting it behind him. I listened to his fading footsteps on the stair and felt his presence fade from my Wit-sense. Then I let out my breath in a long sigh. I had sent him to do a hard thing. I hoped Burrich’s son had the spine to do it. I hoped, without real belief, that the boy’s return would be enough to mend the family. I wandered over to the parapet wall and stood staring down at the rocks below.

FIVE

Departures

Do not disdain those who find that their strongest Skill-talent is in the fashioning of dreams. It is a talent most often manifested among Solos. These lone Skill-users, while not as effective as a coterie, can employ their unique talents to serve their monarchs in ways both subtle and effective. Ominous dreams sent to an enemy lord can make him reconsider his actions, while dreams of victory and glory can fortify the courage of any military leader. Dreams can be rewards, and in some cases can offer balm to those who are discouraged or weary at heart.

Treeknee’s Lesser Uses of the Skill

That evening I told Chade that Swift had become desperately homesick and that I’d sent him home in the hopes that he could mend things with Burrich. The old man nodded distractedly: the boy was the least of his concerns.

I also told him of my conversation with Web, finishing with, ‘He knows who I am. I think he has since he arrived here.’

Chade’s reaction to that was more emphatic. ‘Damn! Why must you start coming unravelled now, when I have so much else to deal with?’

‘I don’t think I’m unravelling,’ I said stiffly. ‘Rather I think that this is knowledge that someone has possessed all along, and now it has come round to bite us. What do you suggest I do?’

‘Do? What can you do?’ he demanded testily. ‘It’s known, boy. All we can do is hope that Web truly has as much goodwill toward us as he appears to have. And that the knowledge is not widespread amongst the Witted.’ He thumped a leather case to settle the scrolls inside and then began to tie it shut. ‘Holly, you say?’ he asked after a moment. ‘You think Holly told Web?’

‘So he seemed to imply.’

‘And when is the last time you saw her?’

‘Years ago, when I lived among the Witted. She was Rolf’s wife.’

‘I know that! My wits aren’t failing me that badly.’ He pondered while he rolled the next scroll up. ‘There isn’t time,’ he finally announced. ‘I’d send you off to see this Holly if there was, to discover how many people she has told. But there just isn’t time. So, think with me, Fitz. How will they use this?’

‘I’m not sure that Web intends to use it at all. The way he said it was as if he wished to help me. I felt no threat from him, nor even that he was holding my secret over my head. It was more as if he were urging me toward honesty with Swift as the best way to break through to him.’

‘Hmm.’ The old man replied thoughtfully, tying the last case shut. ‘Push the teapot this way.’ Then, as he poured, ‘Web is a puzzle, isn’t he? The man knows a great deal, and it isn’t just those Witted tales he tells. I would not call him an educated man, yet, as he puts it, anything he has ever decided he needed to know, he’s found a way to learn.’ Chade’s gaze went distant as he spoke. Plainly he had spent some time pondering Web’s significance. ‘I did not like Civil’s proposal that Dutiful have a “Witted Coterie” as he did not have a Skilled one. No public mention has been made of such a thing. Yet, nonetheless, it seems to have come into existence. There is Civil Bresinga with his cat, that minstrel Cockle and Web. All plan to accompany us on this voyage. And I sense, though the Prince is reluctant to speak of it, that they are a “coterie” of sorts. There is a closeness when all of them are in the room that excludes me. Web is plainly the heart-stone of the group. He is more like a priest than a leader; that is, he does not command, but he counsels them, and speaks often of serving “the spirit of the world” or “the divine”. He has no qualms that such words may make him appear foolish. If he had ambitions, he’d be a dangerous man. With what he knows, he could bring all of us tumbling down. The very few times he has spoken to me, it has been in a very indirect way. I feel as if he is urging us toward an action, but he does not tell us what it is that he hopes we will do. Hmm.’

‘So.’ I ticked the possibilities off on my fingers. ‘Maybe Web simply wanted me to be honest with Swift. Well, with the boy gone, that’s no longer an issue. But perhaps he wants me to reveal to all who I really am. Or perhaps he wants the Farseers to admit that the Prince is Witted. Or, if the two things were presented at once, it would be as good as saying that the Wit runs in the Farseer blood.’ And then my tongue froze. Did the Wit truly run in the Farseer line? The last prince to have definitely had it was the Piebald Prince, and he had left no issue. The crown had passed to a different Farseer bloodline. So, perhaps I had got the Wit from my Mountain-bred mother. And passed it on when Verity had usurped my body for the conception of Dutiful. That was a little bit of the puzzle that I’d never given Chade, nor did I ever intend to. Dutiful, I was convinced, was the son of Verity’s spirit. Yet now I wondered uncomfortably if by the use of my body, Verity had passed on some of my tainted magic to his son.

‘Fitz,’ Chade said, and I startled at his voice, my thoughts having carried me so far afield. ‘Don’t worry so. If Web meant to do us harm, there’d be little advantage in tipping his hand. He’s going with us on the Prince’s quest, so we can keep an eye on him. And talk to him. You, especially, should seek him out. Pretend you wish to learn more of the Wit. That will win him over to you.’

I sighed softly. I was sick of deception. I said as much to Chade. He snorted callously.

‘You were born for deception, Fitz. Born for it. Just as I was, just as all bastards are. We’re tricky things, sons but not heirs, royal but not princes. I would have thought that by now you would have accepted that.’

I only said, ‘I’ll try to get to know Web better on the voyage and see what he’s about.’

Chade nodded sagely. ‘A ship’s a good place to do that. Little for men to do but talk on a voyage. And if he proves to be a danger to us … well.’

He didn’t have to say that many mishaps could befall a man at sea. I wished he had said nothing at all. But he was talking on.

‘Did you put it into Starling’s head to go with us? For she asked. Gave the Queen a long-winded speech about how a minstrel should go to bring home a clean telling of the Prince’s adventure.’

‘Not I. Did the Queen give her permission?’

‘I refused it, saying that all the places on the Prince’s ship were already spoken for, and that the minstrel Cockle had already claimed a spot. Why? Do you think she’d be useful?’

‘No. I fear this may be like the last quest I went on; the less truth that comes home with us, the better.’ I was relieved that Chade had refused Starling, and yet some sneaking part of me was mildly disappointed. That feeling shamed me too much to examine it closely.

The next day, I managed to see Hap. It was only a brief visit, and we talked while he worked. One of the journeymen was doing an inlay project, and had asked Hap to do the sanding of the pieced bits. It looked deadly dull to me, but Hap seemed absorbed in the work when I approached him. He smiled wearily when I greeted him, and gravely accepted the small gifts and mementos I’d brought him. When I asked how he was, he didn’t pretend to misunderstand. ‘Svanja and I are still together, her parents still don’t know, and I’m still juggling that with my duties as an apprentice. But I think I’m managing it. My hope is that if I apply myself here, I can make journeyman quickly. Once I have that status, I think I can present myself to Svanja’s father as a likely marriage prospect for his daughter.’ He sighed. ‘I’m so tired of the sneaking about, Tom. I think Svanja relishes it, that it makes it more exciting for her. But for me, well, I like things settled and done right. Once I’m a journeyman, I can make everything as it should be.’

I bit my tongue before saying that apprenticeships lasted years, not months. We both knew that. What mattered was that Hap was not shirking his training, but delving into it in the hopes of realizing his dreams. What more could I ask of him? So I embraced my son and told him I would be thinking of him. The hug he returned me was fierce. ‘I won’t shame you, Tom. I promise I won’t shame you.’

With the rest of the guardsmen, I loaded my sea chest onto a wagon and followed it down to the docks. Buckkeep Town was decked for Spring Fest. Flowers garlanded door lintels and banners fluttered. The doors to taverns and common houses stood open, with song and the smell of holiday food wafting from them. Some of the men grumbled about missing the holiday but the first day of Spring was a fortuitous day for beginning a journey.

Tomorrow morning, we’d make a show of escorting the Prince aboard. Today we boarded the Maiden’s Chance and jostled companionably for space on the lower deck allotted to us. Our area was dark, airless and thick with the stink of men in close quarters and the bilge below us. I hit my head twice on the low joists, and after that walked hunched. We would be crowded cheek by jowl, with little privacy and no quiet. The smoke-darkened timbers seemed to breathe out a miasma of oppressiveness. The water lapped loudly against the outside of the hull if to remind me that only a plank of wood stood between the cold, wet sea and me.

I stowed my gear quickly, already anxious to be out of there. I little cared where my trunk was lashed down; I resolved to spend as much time above deck in the open air as I could. About half the guard were veterans of this sort of journey. They made much of the fact that we had an area separate from the working sailors, whom they despised as drunks, thieves and brawlers. Personally, I suspected the seamen regarded the guardsmen in much the same light.

I settled my belongings quickly and headed up to the deck. I could not linger there, for it was crowded with sailors and passengers, all with some task in mind that involved pushing past me. Crates were being lifted from the docks and swung overhead before being guided down through the hatches and stowed below decks. The sailors who weren’t shouting at each other were swearing loudly about the landsmen in their way.

Once on the docks again, I breathed a sigh of relief. All too soon, I’d be trapped aboard that ship with no opportunity to escape. But as I came down the gangway, my relief evaporated. On the dock stood the Fool as Lord Golden, fuming. A retinue of servants bearing boxes, crates, bags and packages of all descriptions stood behind him. Blocking him was a harassed scribe with a scroll. He was shaking his head, his eyes nearly shut, as Lord Golden harangued him.

‘Well, obviously there has been a mistake! What seems to elude you is that the error is not mine. For months, it has been settled that I am to accompany the Prince on his quest! Who better can advise him than a man like me who has travelled far and experienced many cultures? So take yourself out of my way! I myself shall select a suitable cabin, as you insist that none has been allotted to me, and move my comforts into it while you trot about and discover who is responsible for this gross error.’

The scribe had never paused in his head shaking and when he spoke, I was certain he was repeating words he’d already uttered. ‘Lord Golden, I humbly regret any error that has been made. My list came directly from Lord Chade’s hands, and my instructions were most explicit. Only those listed here are to be settled aboard the Prince’s ship. Nor am I allowed to leave my post here, to run and ask if some mistake has been made. My orders are quite clear on that.’ As if hoping to be rid of Golden, he added, ‘Perhaps you have been assigned to one of the accompanying vessels.’

Lord Golden gave an exasperated sigh. As he turned to his servant, his eyes seemed to skate past me, but for the tiniest instant, our gazes met. ‘Put that down!’ he commanded the man, and the servant lowered a box to the ground with relief. Lord Golden promptly sat down on it. As he crossed his green-hosed legs, he gestured imperiously at all of his other servants. ‘All of you! Set your burdens down where you are.’

‘But … you’re blocking the … please, Lord Golden …’

He ignored the scribe’s anguish. ‘Here I shall remain until this matter is resolved,’ he announced in a wounded voice. He crossed his arms on his chest. Lifting his chin, Lord Golden gazed out over the waters as if nothing else in the world concerned him at all.

The scribe darted a look past him. His servants and equipment formed an effective blockade of the dock. Other passengers were beginning to clog the docks behind him, and longshoremen with barrows and tubs of supplies were gathering, too. The scribe took a breath and tried to summon authority. ‘Sir, you will have to remove yourself and your belongings until this is resolved.’

‘I shall not. So I suggest you send a runner to Lord Chade and have him give you the authority to let me board. For nothing less will satisfy me.’

My heart sank. I knew that Lord Golden’s remark was intended more for me than for the scribe. He had seen me. He expected I would hasten back to Buckkeep Castle and drop a word in Chade’s ear that would bring a speedy solution to his quandary. He did not yet suspect that his difficulty was of my making, and that even if I regretted it, Chade would stand firm. As I turned away from the milling spectacle he was creating, I saw him give me the ghost of a wink. No doubt he thought that Lord Golden’s grand departure from Buckkeep Town would become one of the town’s legends.

I wanted to see no more of it. As I trudged up the steep streets that led back to the castle, I told myself there was no reason to agonize. Lord Golden would sit there until evicted from the spot. No worse than that. And when we sailed tomorrow without him, well, he’d remain safely in Buckkeep whilst the rest of us went off to whatever discomfort and boredom the journey could offer us. No worse than that.

Nonetheless, the rest of the day dragged for me. After days of last-minute rushing, I found my final hours empty. There was nothing left to do. My space in the guard barracks was empty of all save the clothing and weapon I would wear on the morrow. The Prince’s Guard would go forth handsomely. Leggings, shirt and over tunic were all of Buckkeep blue. The Farseer buck was embroidered on the breast. My new boots had been made to my feet and didn’t pinch. I’d already greased them well against wet. Although it was spring, the cloaks we’d been given were of thick wool against the expected cold of the Out Islands. The Fool’s gift sword laid out atop my colours seemed like a rebuke. I left it there, safe as anything was safe in a barracks where a man’s honour was most of what he possessed in the world.

In my tower workroom, it was much the same. If Chade had noticed that Chivalry’s sword now hung over the mantelpiece, he’d chosen not to comment on it. I moved ineffectually around the room, putting away the things that Chade had left scattered from his packing. The charts of the Out Islands and all other writings that Chade thought might be needed had already been packed. For lack of anything else to do, I lay on the bed and teased the ferret. But soon even Gilly tired of that. He went off to hunt rats. I took myself off to the steams, scrubbed myself raw, and then shaved twice. Afterwards, I went to my barracks and got into the narrow bed there. The rest of the long room was quiet and nearly deserted. Only a few old hands had chosen an early bed as I had. The others were out and about Buckkeep Town, bidding the taverns and whores farewell. I pulled the blankets up around me and stared up at the shadowed ceiling.

I wondered how hard the Fool would try to follow us. Chade had assured me that he wouldn’t be able to get passage out of Buckkeep Town. He’d have to travel to a different port, and pay a lot of money to persuade a ship’s captain to sail after us. Lord Golden wouldn’t have that money. After his recent escapades, I doubted he’d find any friends willing to loan him any. He’d be stuck.

And furious with me, I decided. He had a keen mind. He’d soon deduce who had been behind his abandonment. He would know that I had chosen his life over what he perceived as his destiny. He’d feel no gratitude. His Catalyst was supposed to aid him in changing the course of the world, not thwart him.

I closed my eyes and sighed. It took me several tries to compose myself. When finally I floated just beneath the surface of sleep, I reached out for Nettle. This time, she was sitting in an oak tree, wearing a gown of butterfly wings. I looked up at her from the knoll beneath the tree. I was the man-wolf, as I always was in her dreams. ‘All those dead butterflies,’ I said sorrowfully, shaking my head at her.

‘Don’t be silly. It’s only a dream.’ She stood up on the branch and leapt. I reared onto my hind legs and opened my arms to catch her, but the butterflies of her gown all fluttered simultaneously, and she floated, light as thistledown, and landed on her feet beside me. She wore one large yellow butterfly in her hair like a hair ribbon. It slowly fanned its wings. The colour of her gown shifted in waves as the butterflies wafted their wings lazily.

‘Ew. Don’t all the little legs tickle?’

‘No. It’s a dream, remember? You don’t have to keep the unpleasant parts.’

‘You never have nightmares, do you?’ I asked in admiration.

‘I think that I used to, when I was very small. But I don’t any more. Why would anyone stay in a dream that didn’t please her?’

‘Not all of us can control our dreams the way you can, child. You should count it as a blessing.’

‘Do you have nightmares?’

‘Sometimes. Don’t you recall where you found me last time, crossing that talus slope?’

‘Oh. Yes, I remember that. But I thought it was something you liked to do. Some men like doing dangerous things, you know.’

‘Perhaps. But some of us have had our fill of that, and would avoid nightmares if we could.’

She nodded slowly. ‘My mother has terrible nightmares sometimes. Even when I go into them and tell her to come out, she won’t. She either won’t or can’t see me. And my father … I know he has bad dreams, because sometimes he shouts aloud. But I can’t find my way into his dreams at all.’ She stopped for a moment’s thought. ‘I think that’s why he started drinking again. When he’s drunk, he passes out instead of falling asleep. Do you think he could be hiding from his nightmares?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, and wished she had not told me such things. ‘I bring you news that may ease both of them, however. Swift is on his way back home.’

She clasped her hands together and took a deep breath. ‘Oh, thank you, Shadow Wolf. I knew you could help me.’

I tried to be stern. ‘I wouldn’t have to help you if you’d used common sense. Swift is far too young to be out and about on his own. You shouldn’t have helped him run away.’

‘I know that, now. But I didn’t then. Why can’t real life be like dreams? In a dream, if something starts to go wrong, you can simply change it.’ She lifted her hands to her shoulders and smoothed them down the front of her gown. Suddenly, she was wearing a dress of poppy petals. ‘See? No tickly legs now. You just have to tell the parts you don’t like to go away.’

‘Like you send away the dragon?’

‘The dragon?’

‘You know who I mean. Tintaglia. She appears small at first, as a lizard or a bee and then becomes larger until you vanquish her.’

‘Oh. Her.’ Her brow furrowed. ‘She only comes when you do. I thought she was a part of your dream.’

‘No. She’s not a part of anyone’s dream. She’s as real as you and me.’ It suddenly disturbed me that Nettle had not perceived that. Had our dream conversations exposed her to a greater danger than I knew?

‘Who is she, then, when she is awake?’

‘I told you. She’s a dragon.’

‘There’s no such thing as dragons,’ she declared with a laugh, shocking me into momentary silence.

‘You don’t believe in dragons? Then who saved the Six Duchies from the Red Ship raiders?’

‘Soldiers and sailors, mostly, I suppose. It hardly matters anyway, does it? It happened so long ago.’

‘It matters a great deal to some of us,’ I muttered. ‘Especially to the ones who were there.’

‘I’m sure it does. Yet I’ve noticed that few if any can tell a straight tale of exactly what happened to save the Six Duchies. Just that they saw the dragons in the distance and that the next thing they knew, the Red Ships were sinking or broken. And the dragons were almost out of sight.’

‘Dragons have a strange effect upon people’s memories,’ I explained to her. ‘They … they seem to absorb them as they pass over people. Like a cloth wiping up spilled beer.’

She grinned up at me. ‘So, if that’s true, why doesn’t Tintaglia have that effect on us? How is it we can remember her being in our dreams?’

I held up a warning hand. ‘Let’s not use her name any more. I’ve no wish to encounter her again. As to why we can remember her, well, I think it is because she comes to us as a dream creature rather than in the flesh. Or it could be that she does not take our memories because she is a creature of flesh and blood, instead of …’

I recalled to whom I was speaking and halted. I was telling her too much. If I did not guard my tongue, soon I’d be telling her about Skill-carving dragons from memory stone, and how those creatures were the Elderlings of tale and song.

‘Go on.’ She urged me. ‘If Tintaglia is not of flesh and blood, then what else could she be? And why does she always ask us about a black dragon? Are you going to say that he is real, too?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said cautiously. ‘I don’t even know if he exists at all. Let’s not talk of that, just now.’ I had felt nervous ever since she had mentioned Tintaglia’s name. The word seemed to shimmer in the air, as betraying as the smoke from a cook-fire.

But if there was any truth to the old summoning magic of a name, we were spared that night. I bade her farewell. Somehow, in leaving her dream I re-entered my old nightmare. The sliding pebbles of the steep slope promptly rolled away under my feet. I was falling, falling to my death. I heard Nettle’s out-flung cry of, ‘Change it to flying, Shadow Wolf! Make it a flying dream instead,’ but I did not know how to heed her. Instead, I jerked upright in my narrow cot in the barracks.

Morning was near, and most of the beds were filled now. Yet there was still a small time left for sleep. I tried to find it, but could not, and arose earlier than usual. None of my fellows were stirring. I put on my new uniform, and spent some time trying to persuade my hair to stay out of my face. I had shorn it for grief at Nighteyes’ death, and it had not yet grown enough to stay bound back in a warrior’s tail. I tied it back into a ridiculous stub, knowing it would soon pull free to hang about my face and brow.

I went to the guardroom and ate heartily of a lavish breakfast the kitchens had prepared for us. I knew I was bidding farewell to land food for a time, and availed myself of hot meat, fresh bread and porridge with honey and cream. Meals on the ship would depend on the weather, and most of it would be salted, dried and plainly cooked. If the water were rough and the cook judged fire too dangerous, we’d get cold food and hard bread. The prospect did not cheer me.

I returned to the barracks to find most of the guard stirring to wakefulness. I watched the rest of the men-at-arms don their blue tunics and complain about the weight of wool cloaks on a warm spring day. Chade had never admitted it, but there were a half dozen of our company who, I suspected, were as much spies as guardsmen. There was a quiet watchfulness about them that made me think they saw more than they seemed to.

Riddle, a youngster of about twenty, was most emphatically not. He was as excited as I was jaded. A dozen times he consulted his mirror, paying particular attention to a rather new moustache. He was the one who insisted on loaning me pomade for my hair, saying he could not allow me to set forth on such an important day looking like a shaggy-haired farmer. He himself, dressed for display and seated on his bunk, tapped his feet impatiently on the floor and kept up a constant stream of chatter, everything from teasing me about the ornate hilt on my sword to demanding whether I knew if it was true that dragons could be slain only with an arrow to the eye. His loose energy was an annoying as a pacing dog. I was relieved when Longwick, our newly-appointed captain, tersely ordered us to form up outside.

Not that the order meant imminent departure. It meant only that it was time for us to stand in formation and wait. Guardsmen spend more time waiting than they ever do in drill or fighting. This morning was no exception. Before we were ordered to move, I’d listened to a very explicit account of all three of Hest’s liaisons of the night before, while Riddle helpfully asked detailed questions. When we did get the order to move, it was only as far as the courtyard in front of the main doors. Here we formed up around the Prince’s horse and groom, and waited some more. Servants and lackeys who, like ourselves, were dressed and deployed to show their masters’ importance, soon joined us. Some held horses’ heads, some leashed dogs and some, like us, merely stood, armed and attired and waiting.

Eventually the Prince and his entourage emerged. Thick was at his heels and Sada, the woman who tended him on such occasions, was right behind him. Dutiful spared no glance for me today; I was as faceless as the rest. The Queen and her men preceded us, while Councillor Chade and his escort came immediately behind us. I spotted Civil, with his cat by his side chatting with Web as they found their places in the procession. Despite Chade’s objection, the Queen had announced that several of her ‘Old Blood friends’ would travel with the Prince. The court reaction had been mixed, with some saying that we’d soon see if Old Blood magic was good for anything and others muttering that at least it got the beast-magickers out of Buckkeep.

Behind them came the favoured nobles who would accompany the Prince, both to curry favour with him and to investigate trading opportunities in the Out Islands. Behind them trailed those who would bid us farewell and then enjoy Spring Fest. But although I craned my neck, I saw no sign of Lord Golden as the procession formed up. By the time Dutiful was up and mounted and we were striding out of the gate, it seemed as if all of Buckkeep Castle were following us. I was grateful to be in the forefront, for by the time all passed, the road would be a trampled mire of mud and manure.

We reached the ships but could not simply load and depart. There were speeches and presentations of flowers and last-minute gifts. I had half-expected to find Lord Golden and his baggage and servants still camped out on the docks but there was no sign of them. I wondered uneasily what had happened. He was a resourceful man. Had he managed to find a way aboard the ship?

I sweated through the formalities. Then we moved aboard the ship, flanking the Prince, who went to his cabin, where he would receive farewell visits from the nobles who were not accompanying him, while those who were to be passengers boarded the ship and settled. Some of us were stationed outside the Prince’s cabin, but the rest, including myself, were sent below decks, to be out of the way.

I spent most of that miserable afternoon sitting on my sea chest. Above me, the planks resounded with the noise of people coming and going. Somewhere a dog barked in a continuous frenzy. It was like being stuck inside a cask while someone beat on the outside of it. A dim, smelly cask, I amended to myself, with the rising stink of the bilges, elbow to elbow with men who thought they had to shout to be heard. I tried to distract myself by wondering what had become of the Fool, but that only increased my sensation of suffocation. I bowed my chin down to my chest, closed my eyes and tried to be alone.

It didn’t work.

Riddle perched on my sea chest beside me. ‘Eda’s tits, but it stinks down here! Think it’ll get worse when we’re underway and the bilge is sloshing around?’

‘Probably.’ I didn’t want to think of that before it happened. I’d travelled by sea before, but on those voyages, I’d slept on the deck, or at least had free access to it. Here, in the confined darkness, even the rhythmic swaying of the ship against its mooring was giving me a headache.

‘Well.’ He kicked his heels against the chest, sending the vibration up my spine into my head. ‘I never have been to sea before. Have you?’

‘Once or twice. On little boats, where I had light and air. Not like this.’

‘Oh. Ever been to the Out Islands?’

‘No.’

‘Are you all right, Tom?’

‘Not really. Too much to drink and not enough sleep last night.’

It was a lie but it worked. He grinned, gave me a friendly jostle that made me snarl and then left me alone. The bustle and noise pressed me from all sides. I was miserable and frightened and I wished I hadn’t eaten all the sweet pastries at breakfast. No one was paying attention to me. My collar was too tight, and Sada had already left the ship, so she couldn’t fix it for me.

‘Thick,’ I whispered, recognizing the source of my woe. I sat up straight, drew a deep breath of the foul air and tried not to retch. Then I reached for him. Hey, little man. Are you all right?

No.

Where are you?

In a little room. There’s a round window and the floor moves.

You’re better off than me. I’ve got no window at all.

The floor moves.

I know. But we’ll be fine. Soon all the extra people will get off the boat, and the sailors will throw the lines free and we’ll set off on our adventure. Won’t that be fun?

No. I want to go home.

Oh, it’ll be better, once we get underway. You’ll see.

No, it won’t. The floor moves. And Sada said I’d get seasick.

I wished someone had thought to tell Sada to speak positively of the journey to come.

Is Sada coming with us, then? Is she on board?

No. Only me, by myself. Because Sada gets horribly sick on ships. She felt very sorry for me, that I had to go. She said every day on a ship is like a year to her. And there’s nothing to do except be sick, and vomit and vomit and vomit.

Unfortunately, Thick was right. It was late afternoon before the well-wishers were escorted from the ship. I managed to get up on the deck, but only briefly, for the captain cursed all the guard, ordering us to get back down below, to give his crew room to work. My glimpse of the crowd on the docks did not show me the Fool. I had dreaded to meet his accusing stare, but it worried me even more not to see him there. Then I was herded below decks with the rest and the hatches were closed over us, cutting off what little light and air we’d had before. I perched on my sea chest again. The resinous smell of the ship’s tarry timbers intensified. Overhead, the captain ordered the ship’s boats to tow us away from the dock. The sounds changed as we began to move through the water. The captain shouted incomprehensible commands, and I heard the pattering of bare feet as sailors rushed to obey them.

I heard the ship’s boats called back and taken in. The vessel gave a sort of dip and then the rhythm of the motions changed again. I judged that our canvas had caught the wind. This was it. We were finally underway. Someone took pity on us down below and opened the hatch a crack, which taunted more than comforted. I stared at the skinny band of light.

‘I’m already bored,’ Riddle confided to me. He stood next to me, carving on the heavy planks of the hull.

I made a noise at him. He went on carving.

Well, Tom Badgerlock, we’re underway. How do you fare down below?

The Prince sounded cheery, but what could one expect of a fifteen-year-old, off on a sea-voyage to slay a dragon and win the hand of a Narcheska? I could sense Chade in the background, and pictured him at a table next to the Prince, Dutiful’s fingers lightly touching the back of his hand. I sighed. We still had a lot of work to do to make the Skill-coterie work.

I’m already bored. And Thick seems distressed.

Ah. I was hoping you’d appreciate a task. I’ll send a man to your captain. Thick is at the after rail, and could use some company. You’ll be joining him. That was unmistakably Chade, speaking through the Prince.

Is he sick already?

Not quite yet. But he has convinced himself that he will be.

Well, at least it would get me out into the air, I thought sourly.

A short time later, Captain Longwick called out my name. When I reported to him, he informed me that I was to tend the Prince’s man Thick, who was indisposed on the afterdeck. The men who overheard my orders chivvied me for being nursemaid to a half-wit. I grinned and replied that being above decks watching over one simpleton was far better than being trapped below decks with a troop of them. I climbed the ladder and emerged into the fresh sea air.

I found Thick on the afterdeck, holding onto the railing and staring dolorously back at Buckkeep. The black castle on top of the rocky cliffs was dwindling behind us. Civil stood near the little man, his hunting cat at his heels. Neither he nor the cat looked pleased to be there, and as Thick leaned out over the railing and made retching noises, the cat flattened his ears.

‘Here’s Tom Badgerlock, Thick. You’ll be fine now, won’t you?’ Civil gave me a brief nod, nobleman to guardsman. As always, he stared at me searchingly. He knew I was not what I seemed. I’d saved his life from the Piebalds back in Buckkeep Town. He had to wonder at how I’d suddenly appeared and come to his aid. He’d have to keep wondering, just as I had to wonder how much Laudwine had told him about Lord Golden and me. We’d never spoken of it, nor did I intend to now. I made my eyes opaque and bowed.

‘I’m here to assume my duties, sir.’ My tone was neutrally respectful.

‘I’m very glad to see you. Well, farewell, Thick. You’re in good hands, now. I’m going back into the cabin. I’m sure you’ll feel better soon.’

‘I’m going to die,’ Thick replied dismally. ‘I’m going to puke my guts out and die.’

Civil gave me a sympathetic look. I pretended not to see it as I took my place at the railing alongside Thick. He leaned far out again, forcing gagging sounds from his throat. I held onto the back of his jacket. Ah, yes. The adventure of travel by sea.

SIX

Voyage of Dreams

… despised beast-magic’s other uses. The ignorant believe that the Wit can only be used to give humans the power to speak to animals (words obscured by scorching) and shape-changing for evil intent. Gunrody Lian, the last man to admit openly at Buckkeep Court that he had (large fragment burned away) also for healing the mind as well. From beasts, too, he claimed they could harvest the instinctive knowledge of curative herbs, as well as a wariness against (this portion ends here. Next scorched fragment of scroll begins:) … set hands to her head and held her steady and looked in her eyes. So he stood over her while the ghastly surgery was done, and she never looked away from him, nor cried out in agony. This I myself saw but … (again, into the scorched edge of the scroll. The next three words may be:) dared not tell.

Fallstar’s attempt to recreate the Wit-scroll by Skillmaster
Leftwell, from the burned fragments discovered in a wall of
Buckkeep Castle

I managed to get all the way to the next morning before I vomited myself. I lost count of how many times I held onto Thick while he leaned far over the railing and retched hopelessly at the sea. The taunting of the sailors did not help matters, and if I had dared leave his side, I’d have taken some satisfaction from one or two of them. It was not congenial mockery of a landsman with no stomach for the sea. There was an ugly undercurrent to it, like crows drawn to torment a single eagle. Thick was different, a dimwit with a clumsy body, and they gleefully delighted in his misery as proof that he was inferior to them. Even when a few other miserable souls joined us at the railing, Thick took the brunt of their teasing.

It diminished briefly when the Prince and Chade took an evening stroll out on the decks. The Prince seemed invigorated by the sea air and his freedom from Buckkeep. As he stood by Thick and spoke to him in low tones, Chade contrived to set his hand on the railing touching mine. His back was to me and he appeared to be nodding to the Prince’s conversation with his man.

How is he?

Sick as a dog and miserable. Chade, the sailors’ mockery makes it worse.

I feared as much. But if Dutiful notices and rebukes them, the captain will come down on them as well. You know what will follow.

Yes. They’ll find every private opportunity to make life hell for Thick.

Exactly. So try to ignore it for now. I expect it will wear off once they become accustomed to seeing him about the ship. Anything you need?

A blanket or two. And a bucket of fresh water, so he can wash his mouth out.

So I remained at Thick’s side through the long and weary night, to protect him lest the taunting become physical as well as to keep him from falling overboard in his misery. Twice I tried to take him inside the cabin. Each time we did not get more than three steps from the railing before he was retching. Even when there was nothing left in his belly for him to bring up, he refused to go inside. The sea grew rougher as the night progressed, and by dawn we had a wind-driven rain soaking us as well as the flying spray from the tips of the whitecaps. Wet and cold, he still refused to budge from the railing. ‘You can puke in a bucket,’ I told him. ‘Inside, where it’s warm!’

‘No, no, I’m too sick to move,’ he groaned repeatedly. He had fixed his mind on his seasickness, and was determined to be miserable. I could think of no way to deal with it, except to let him follow it to its extreme and then be done with it. Surely, when he was miserable enough, he’d go inside.

Shortly after dawn, Riddle brought food for me. I was beginning to suspect that perhaps the naïve and affable young man truly was in Chade’s employ and assigned to assist me. If so, I wished he wasn’t, yet I was grateful for the pannikin of mush he brought me. Thick was hungry, despite his nausea, and we shared the food. That was a mistake, for the sight of it leaving Thick shortly after that inspired my own belly to be parted from what I had eaten.

That seemed to be the only thing that cheered Thick that morning.

‘See. Everyone’s going to be sick. We should go back to Buckkeep now.’

‘We can’t, little man. We must go on, to the Out Islands, so the Prince can slay a dragon and win the Narcheska’s hand.’

Thick sighed heavily. He was beginning to shake with the cold despite the blankets that swaddled him. ‘I don’t even like her. I don’t think Prince likes her either. She can keep her hand. Let’s just go home.’

At the moment, I agreed with him but dared not say so.

He went on. ‘I hate this ship, and I wish I’d never come.’

Odd, how a man can become so accustomed to something that he no longer senses it. It was only when Thick spoke the words aloud that I realized how deeply they echoed his wild Skilling-song. All night it had battered my walls, a song made of flapping canvas, creaking lines and timbers and the slap of the waves against the hull. Thick had transformed them into a song of resentment and fear, of misery and cold and boredom. He had taken every negative emotion that a sailor might feel for a ship, and was blasting it out in an anthem of anger. I could put my walls up and remain unaffected by it. Some of the sailors who crewed the Maiden’s Chance were not so fortunate. Not all were sensitive to the Skill, yet for those who were, the unrest would be acute. And in the close quarters, it would quickly affect their fellows.

I spent a few moments watching the crew at work. The current watch moved among their tasks effectively but resentfully. Their competence had an angry edge to it, and the mate who drove them from task to task watched with an eagle’s eye for the slightest sign of slackness or idleness. The congeniality I had glimpsed when they were loading the ship was gone, and I sensed their discord building.

Like a nest of hornets that felt the thud of the axe echoing from the tree trunk below, they were stirred to a buzzing anger that had, as yet, no target. Yet if their general fury continued to mount, we could well be faced with brawls or worse, a mutiny. I was watching a pot come to a seething boil, knowing that if I did nothing, we’d all be scalded.

Thick. Your music is very loud right now. And very scary. Can you make it different? Calm. Soft like your mothersong?

‘I can’t!’ He moaned the words as he Skilled them. ‘I’m too sick.’

Thick, you’re frightening the sailors. They don’t know where the song comes from. They can’t hear it, but some of them can feel it, a little bit. It’s making them upset.

‘I don’t care. They’re mean to me anyway. They should make this ship go back.’

They can’t, Thick. They have to obey the captain, and the captain has to do what the Prince tells him. And the Prince must go to the Out Islands.

‘Prince should make them go back. I’ll get off and stay at Buckkeep.’

But Thick, we need you.

‘I’m dying, I think. We should go back.’ And with that thought, his Skill-music swept to a crescendo of fear and despair. Nearby, a team of sailors had been hauling on a line to put on yet more canvas. Their loose trousers flapped in the constant wind, but they didn’t seem to notice it. Muscles bulged in their bare arms as they methodically hauled on the sheets. But as Thick’s despondent song soaked them their rhythm faltered. The front man took more weight than he could manage, and stumbled forward with an angry shout. In an instant, the sailors had regained control of the line, but I had seen enough.

I sought the Prince with my mind. He was playing stones in his cabin with Civil. Swiftly I relayed my problem to him. Can you pass this on to Chade?

Not easily. He’s right here, watching the play, but so are Web and his boy.

Web has a boy?

That Swift boy.

Swift Witted is on board?

Do you know him? He came on board with Web and seems to serve him as a page serves a master. Why? Is that important?

Only to me, I thought. I grimaced with frustration. Later. But as soon as you can, tell Chade. Can you reach to Thick and calm him?

I’ll try. Drat! You distracted me and Civil just won!

I think this is more important than a game of stones! I replied testily and broke the contact. Thick was sitting on the deck at my feet, his eyes closed, swaying miserably, his music a queasy accompaniment to the rhythm of his body. It was not the only thing making me feel sick. I’d promised Nettle that her brother was on his way back to her. He wasn’t. What was I to say to her? I set it aside as something I couldn’t solve right now. Instead I crouched down beside Thick.

‘Listen to me,’ I said quietly. ‘The sailors don’t understand your music and it frightens them. If it goes on much longer, they might –’

And there I halted. I didn’t want to make him fear the sailors. Fear is a solid foundation for hate. ‘Please, Thick,’ I said helplessly, but he only stared stubbornly out over the waves.

The morning passed while I waited for Chade to come and help me. I suspected that Dutiful Skilled a reassurance to him, but Thick stolidly ignored it. I stared at our wake, watching the other Buckkeep ships that trailed us. Three carracks followed us like a row of fat ducklings. There were two smaller vessels, pinnaces that would serve as communication vessels between the larger ships, enabling travelling nobles to exchange messages and visit one another as the voyage progressed. The smaller boats could use oars as well as sails, and could be used to manoeuvre the heavier ships in and out of crowded harbours. It was a substantial flotilla for Buckkeep to dispatch to the Out Islands.

The rain dwindled to a drizzle and then ceased, but the sun still hid behind the clouds. The wind was a constant. I tried to be positive about it for Thick. ‘See how swiftly it drives us over the water. Soon enough, we’ll reach the Out Islands, and think how exciting it will be to see a new place!’

But Thick only replied, ‘It’s pushing us farther and farther from home. Take me back now.’ Riddle brought us a noon meal of hard bread, dried fish and watery beer. I think he was glad to be out on the deck. The guard was expected to stay below and out of the sailors’ way. No one had said that the more they kept us separate, the less chance there was for fighting, but we all knew it. I spoke little, but Riddle chatted anyway, letting me know that the guardsmen below were also out of sorts. Some were seasick who swore they had never been bothered by that ailment before. That was not good news to me. I ate, and I managed to keep my food down, but I couldn’t persuade Thick even to nibble on the sea bread. Riddle took our dishes and left us alone again. When Chade and the Prince finally appeared, my impatience and anger had been worn away to a dull resignation. While the Prince spoke to Thick, Chade swiftly conveyed to me how difficult it had been for the Prince and him to get out of the cabin alone. In addition to Web, Civil and Swift, no less than three other nobles had come to his cabin to visit and lingered to talk long. As Chade had pointed out earlier, there was little else to occupy the time, and the nobles who had accompanied the Prince had done so to ingratiate themselves with him. They’d take advantage of every moment.

‘So. When are we to work in Skill-lessons?’ I asked him very softly.

He scowled. ‘I doubt that we’ll manage much time for those. But I’ll see what can be done.’

Dutiful didn’t have any more success with Thick than I had. Thick stared out sullenly over the ship’s wake while the Prince spoke earnestly to him.

‘Well. At least we managed to get away without Lord Golden,’ I observed to Chade.

He shook his head. ‘And that was far more difficult than I expected it to be. I imagine you heard of his blocking the docks in an attempt to board. He only gave up on that when the City Guard arrived and arrested him.’

‘You had him arrested?’ I was horrified.

‘Now, lad, be easy. He’s a nobleman and his offence is a fairly trivial one; he’ll be treated far better than you were. And they’ll only hold him two or three days; just long enough for all the Out Island-bound ships to be gone. It seemed the easiest way to deal with him. I didn’t want him coming up to Buckkeep Castle and confronting me, or begging favour of the Queen.’

‘She knows why we did this, doesn’t she?’

‘She does. She doesn’t like it, however. She feels a great debt to the Fool. But don’t worry. I left enough hurdles that it will be difficult if not impossible for Lord Golden to get an audience with her.’

I had not thought my spirits could sink lower, but now they did. I hated to think of the Fool imprisoned and then snubbed by Buckkeep’s royalty. I knew how Chade would have worked it: a word there, a hint, a rumour that Lord Golden was not in the Queen’s graces any more. By the time he was out of the gaol, he’d be a social outcast. A penniless social outcast, with outstanding debts.

I’d only meant to leave him safely behind, not put him into such a position. I said as much to Chade.

‘Oh, don’t worry about him, Fitz. Sometimes you behave as if no one can manage without you. He’s a very capable, very resourceful creature. He’ll cope. If I’d done any less, he’d be on our heels right now.’

And that, too, was true but scarcely comforting.

‘Thick’s seasickness can’t go on much longer,’ Chade observed optimistically. ‘And when it passes, I’ll put it about that Thick has become attached to you. That will give you good reason to be at his side, and sometimes in his chamber adjacent to the Prince’s. Perhaps we shall have more time to confer that way.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said dully. Despite the Prince’s conversation with Thick, I sensed no lessening of his discordant music. It wore on my spirits. By an effort of will, I could convince myself that Thick’s nausea was not mine, but it was a constant effort.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to come back to the cabin?’ Dutiful was asking him.

‘No. The floor goes up and down.’

The Prince was puzzled. ‘The deck moves up and down here, too.’

It was Thick’s turn to be confused. ‘No, it doesn’t. The boat goes up and down on the water. It’s not as bad.’

‘I see.’ I saw Dutiful surrender any hope of explaining it to Thick. ‘In either case, you’ll soon get used to it and the seasickness will go away.’

‘No, it won’t,’ Thick replied darkly. ‘Sada said that everyone will say that, but it isn’t true. She got sick every time she went on a boat and it never went away. So she wouldn’t come with me.’

I was beginning to dislike Sada and I’d never even met the woman.

‘Well. Sada is wrong,’ Chade declared briskly.

‘No she isn’t,’ Thick replied stubbornly. ‘See. I’m still sick.’ And he leaned out over the railing again, retching dryly.

‘He’ll get over it,’ Chade said, but he did not sound as confident as he had.

‘Do you have any herbs that might help him?’ I asked. ‘Ginger, perhaps?’

Chade halted. ‘An excellent idea, Badgerlock. And I do believe I have some. I’ll have the cook make him a strong ginger tea and send it up to you.’

When the tea arrived, it smelled as much of valerian and sleepbalm as it did of ginger. I approved of Chade’s thought. Sleep might be the best cure for Thick’s determined seasickness. When I offered it to him, I firmly told him that it was a well-known sailor’s antidote to seasickness, and that it was certain to work for him. He still regarded it doubtfully; I suppose my words did not carry as much weight as Sada’s opinion. He sipped it, decided he liked the ginger, and downed the whole cup. Unfortunately, a moment later he spewed it up just as swiftly as it had gone down. Some of it went up his nose, the ginger scalding the sensitive skin, and that made him adamantly refuse to try any more, even in tiny sips.

I had been on board for two days. Already it seemed like six months.

The sun eventually broke through the clouds, but the wind and flying spray snatched away whatever warmth it promised. Huddled in a damp wool blanket, Thick fell into a fitful sleep. He twitched and moaned through nightmares swept with his song of seasickness. I sat beside him on the wet deck, sorting my worries into useless piles. It was there that Web found me.

I looked up at him and he nodded gravely down at me. Then he stood by the rail and lifted his eyes. I followed his gaze to a seabird sweeping lazy arcs across the sky behind us. I had never met the creature, but I knew she must be Risk. The Wit-bond between man and bird seemed a thing woven of blue sky and wild water, at once calm and free. I basked in the edges of their shared pleasure in the day, trying to ignore how it whetted the edge of my loneliness. Here was the Wit-magic at its most natural, a mutual bond of pleasure and respect between man and beast. His heart flew with her. I could sense their communion and imagine how she shared her joyous flight with him.

It was only when my muscles relaxed that I realized how tense I had been. Thick sank into a deeper sleep and some of the frown eased from his face. The wind in his Skill-song took on a less ominous note. The calm that emanated from Web had touched us both, but my awareness of that came slowly. His warm serenity pooled around me, diluting my anxiety and weariness. If this was the Wit, he was using it in a way I’d never experienced before. This was as simple and natural as the warmth of breath. I found myself smiling up at him and he returned the smile, his teeth flashing white through his beard.

‘It’s a fine day for prayer. But then, most days are.’

‘That’s what you were doing? Praying?’ At his nod, I asked, ‘For what do you petition the gods?’

He raised his brows. ‘Petition?’

‘Isn’t that what prayer is? Begging the gods to give you what you want?’

He laughed, his voice deep as a booming wind, but kinder. ‘I suppose that is how some men pray. Not I. Not any more.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, I think that children pray so, to find a lost doll or that father will bring home a good haul of fish, or that no one will discover a forgotten chore. Children think they know what is best for themselves, and do not fear to ask the divine for it. But I have been a man for many years, and I should be shamed if I did not know better by now.’

I eased my back into a more comfortable position against the railing. I suppose if you are used to the swaying of a ship, it might be restful. My muscles constantly fought against it, and I was beginning to ache in every limb. ‘So. How does a man pray, then?’

He looked on me with amusement, then levered himself down to sit beside me. ‘Don’t you know? How do you pray, then?’

‘I don’t.’ And then, I re-thought, and laughed aloud. ‘Unless I’m terrified. Then I suppose I pray as a child does. “Get me out of this, and I’ll never be so stupid again. Just let me live”.’

He laughed with me. ‘Well, it looks as if, so far, your prayers have been granted. And have you kept your promise to the divine?’

I shook my head, smiling ruefully. ‘I’m afraid not. I just find a new direction to be foolish in.’

‘Exactly. So do we all. Hence, I’ve learned I am not wise enough to ask the divine for anything.’

‘So. How do you pray then, if you are not asking for something?’

‘Ah. Well, prayer for me is more listening than asking. And, after all these years, I find I have but one prayer left. It has taken me a lifetime to find my prayer, and I think it is the same one that all men find, if they but ponder on it long enough.’

‘And that is?’

‘Think about it,’ he bade me with a smile. He stood slowly and gazed out over the water. Behind us, the sails of the following ships were puffed out like the throats of courting pigeons. They were, in their way, a lovely sight. ‘I’ve always loved the sea. I was on boats since before I could speak. It saddens me that your friend’s experience of it must be so uncomfortable. Please tell him that it will pass.’

‘I’ve tried. I don’t think he can believe me.’

‘A pity. Well, best of luck to you then. Perhaps when he wakes, he’ll feel better.’

He began to walk away, but I remembered abruptly that I had other business with him. I came to my feet and called after him. ‘Web? Did Swift come aboard with you? The boy we spoke of before?’

He halted and turned to my question. ‘Yes. Why do you ask?’

I beckoned him closer and he came. ‘You recall that he is the boy that I asked you to talk with, the one who is Witted?’

‘Of course. That was why I was so pleased when he came to me and offered to be my “page” if I would take him on and teach him. As if I even knew what a page is supposed to do!’ He laughed at such nonsense, and then sobered at my serious face. ‘What is it?’

‘I had sent him home. I discovered that he did not have his parents’ permission to be at Buckkeep at all. They think that he has run away, and are greatly grieved by his disappearance.’

Web stood still and silent, digesting this news, his face showing no expression. Then he shook his head regretfully. ‘It must be a terrible thing for someone you love to vanish, and leave you always wondering what became of him.’

An image of Patience sprang into my mind; I wondered if he had intended that his words prick me. Perhaps not, but the possible criticism made me irritable all the same. ‘I told Swift to go home. He owes his parents his labour until he either reaches his majority or is released by them.’

‘So some say,’ Web said, in a tone that indicated he might disagree. ‘But there are ways parents can betray a child, and then I think the youngster owes them nothing. I think that children who are mistreated are wise to leave as swiftly as they can.’

‘Mistreated? I knew Swift’s father for many years. Yes, he will give a lad a cuff or a sharp word, if the boy has earned it. But if Swift claims he was beaten or neglected at home, then I fear that he lies. That is not Burrich’s way.’ My heart sank that the boy could have spoken so of his father.

Web shook his head slowly. He glanced at Thick to assure himself that the man was still sleeping and spoke softly. ‘There are other types of neglect and deprivation. To deny what unfolds inside someone, to forbid the magic that comes unbidden, to impose ignorance in a way that invites danger, to say to a child, “You must not be what you are.” That is wrong.’ His voice was gentle but the condemnation was without compassion.

‘He raises his son as he was raised,’ I replied stiffly. It felt odd to defend him, for I had so often railed against Burrich for what he had done to me.

‘And he learned nothing. Not from having to deal with his own ignorance, not from what it did to the first lad he treated so. I try to pity him, but when I consider all that could have been, had you been properly educated from the time you were small …’

‘He did well by me!’ I snapped. ‘He took me to his side when no one else would have me, and I’ll not hear ill spoken of him.’

Web took a step back from me. A shadow passed over his face. ‘Murder in your eyes,’ he muttered.

The words were like being doused with cold water. But before I could ask what he meant by them, he nodded to me gravely. ‘Perhaps we shall speak again of this. Later.’ And he turned and paced away from me. I recognized his walk. It was not flight. It was how Burrich would withdraw from an animal that had learned viciousness from bad treatment and had to be slowly re-trained. It shamed me.

Slowly I sat down beside Thick again. I leaned back against the railing and closed my eyes. Perhaps I could doze a bit while he slept. But it seemed I had no sooner closed my eyes than his nightmare threatened me. Closing my eyes was like venturing downstairs into the noisy, smoky common room of a cheap inn. Thick’s nauseous music swirled up into my mind, while his fears amplified the roll of the ship into a terrifying series of plunges and leaps without a pattern. I opened my eyes. Enduring sleeplessness was better than being swallowed by that bad dream.

Riddle brought me a pan of salty stew and a mug of watery beer while Thick still dozed. He’d brought his own rations as well, probably to enjoy eating on deck rather than in the cramped hold below. When I started to waken Thick to share the food, Riddle stopped me. ‘Let the poor moron sleep. If he’s fortunate enough to be able to, he’s the envy of every guardsman below.’

‘And why is that?’

He lifted one shoulder in a hapless shrug. ‘I can’t say. Perhaps it’s just the close quarters. But tempers are tight, and no one’s sleeping well. Half of them are avoiding food for fear it won’t stay down, and some of them are seasoned travellers. If you do manage to doze off, someone shouting out in a dream wakes you. Perhaps in a few days things will settle down. Right now, I’d rather stand in a pit surrounded by snarling dogs than to go back down there. There were two fistfights just a moment ago, over who got fed first.’

I nodded sagely, trying to conceal my anxiety. ‘I’m sure things will settle in a day or so. The first few days of a voyage are always difficult.’ I was lying through my teeth. Usually the first few days were the best, while the journey was still a novelty and before the tedium set in. Thick’s dreams were poisoning the guards’ sleep. I tried to be congenial while waiting for Riddle to leave. As soon as he took our empty dishes and departed, I leaned over and shook Thick awake. He sat up with a wail like a startled child.

‘Shush, now. You’re not hurt. Thick, listen to me. No, shush and listen. This is important. You have to stop your music, or at least make it quieter.’

His face was wrinkled like a prune, with anger and hurt feelings that I had so roughly awakened him. Tears stood in his little round eyes. ‘I can’t!’ he wailed. ‘I’m going to die!’

The men working on deck turned scowling faces our way. One muttered angrily and made a sign against ill luck toward us. On some level, they knew the source of their uneasiness. He snuffled and sulked as I talked to him, but firmly resisted any suggestion that he could either dampen his song, or overcome his seasickness and fear. I became fully aware of the strength of his wild Skilling only when I tried to reach the Prince through the cacophony of Thick’s emotions. Chade and the Prince had probably increased the strength of their walls without even noticing they were doing so. Skilling to them was like shouting into a blizzard.

When Dutiful realized how difficult it was for him to understand me, I felt panic touch him. He was in the midst of a meal and could not graciously leave. Even so, he found some way to make Chade aware of our crisis. They brought the meal to a hasty end and hastened out on deck to us.

By then, Thick had dozed off again. Chade spoke quietly. ‘I can mix a powerful sleeping draught and we can force it down him.’

Dutiful winced. ‘I’d rather not. Thick does not soon forget ill treatment. Besides, what would we gain from it? He sleeps now, and still his song is enough to torment the dead.’

‘Perhaps if I put him into a very deep sleep …’ Chade ventured uncertainly.

‘We’d be risking his life,’ I interrupted. ‘With no assurance that his song would stop.’

‘We have only one option,’ the Prince said quietly. ‘Turn back and take him home. Put him off the ship.’

‘We can’t!’ Chade was aghast. ‘We’ll lose too many days. And we may need Thick’s strength when we actually confront the dragon.’

‘Lord Chade, we are seeing the full effects of Thick’s strength now. And we are seeing that it is not disciplined, nor controlled by us.’ There was a new note in the Prince’s voice, a monarch’s tone. It reminded me of Verity, and his carefully weighted words. It made me smile and that earned me an odd frown from the Prince. I hastened to clarify my own thoughts.

‘Right now, Thick’s strength is not governed, not even by him. He does not intend us ill, but his music threatens us all. Think what sort of damage he might do, were he provoked to true anger. Or badly hurt. Even if we can cure his seasickness and calm his song, Thick will remain a double-edged blade. Unless we can find a sure discipline for his strength, he can threaten us when he is unsettled. Perhaps we would be wiser to go back and put him ashore.’

‘We can’t go back!’ Chade insisted. Then, as both Dutiful and I stared at him, he pleaded, ‘Let me have one more night to ponder. I’m sure I’ll think of a solution. And give him one more night to become accustomed to the ship. Perhaps by dawn, his sickness might have passed.’

‘Very well,’ Dutiful replied after a moment. Again, there was that note in his voice. I wondered how he was learning it, or if he was simply growing into his role as ruler. In either case, I was glad to hear it. I was not sure if his decision to grant Chade one more day was a wise one or not. Yet it was his decision and he had made it with confidence. That was a thing to value.

When Thick awoke, he was sick again. I suspected that his prolonged hunger had as much to do with his weakness now as his seasickness did. He was sore from retching, for the muscles of his belly ached and his throat was raw. I could not persuade him to take anything except water, and that he accepted reluctantly. The day was neither cold nor warm, but Thick shivered in his damp clothes. They chafed him, but my suggestion that we go into his cabin and change or get warm met angry resistance. I longed to simply pick him up and drag him there, but knew he would scream and fight me, and that his music would become wild and violent. Yet I feared that he might soon slip into a real illness.

The slow hours passed miserably, and not just for us. Twice I heard the mate explode in anger at his bad-humoured crew. The second time, he threatened a man with a lashing if he didn’t show a more respectful face. I could feel the tension building aboard the ship.

In late evening the rain returned as a pervasive misting. I felt as if I had not been dry for a week. I put my blanket over Thick, hoping the weight of wool would be good for some warmth. He was dozing fitfully on the deck, twitching in his sleep like a dog with nightmares. I had often heard the jest, ‘You can’t die from seasickness, but you wish you could.’ Now I wondered if it was wrong. How long could his body accept this treatment?

My Wit made me aware of Web before his silhouette lumbered out of the dim light of the ship’s lantern to stand over me. ‘You’re a faithful man, Tom Badgerlock,’ he observed as he hunkered down beside me. ‘This can’t be pleasant duty, but you’ve not left his side even for a moment.’

His praise both warmed me and made me uncomfortable. ‘It’s my responsibility,’ I replied, letting his compliment slide past me.

‘And you take it seriously.’

‘Burrich taught me that,’ I said, a bit testily.

Web laughed easily. ‘And he taught you to hang onto a grievance like a pit-dog hanging onto a bull’s nose. Let it go, FitzChivalry Farseer. I’ll say no more of the man.’

‘I wish you would not bandy that name about so casually,’ I said after a moment of heavy quiet.

‘It belongs to you. It’s a piece of you that is missing. You should take it back.’

‘He’s dead. And better left that way, for the sake of all I hold dear.’

‘Is it truly for them, or is it for yourself?’ he asked of the night.

I wasn’t looking at him. I was staring out over the stern, watching the other ships that trailed us through the watery night. They were black hulks, their sails blotting out the stars behind them. The lanterns they bore rose and fell with them, distant moving stars. ‘Web, what do you want of me?’ I asked him at last.

‘Only to make you think,’ he answered soothingly. ‘Not to make you angry, though I seem to excel at that. Or perhaps your anger is always there, festering inside you, and I am the knife that lances the boil and lets it burst forth.’

I shook my head at him silently, not caring if he could or could not see me. I had other things to deal with right now, and wished I were alone.

As if he could read my thoughts, he added, ‘And tonight I did not even intend to start you on your thinking path. Actually, I came here to offer you respite. I’ll sit vigil with Thick, if you wish to take a few hours to yourself. I doubt you’ve slept properly since you took up this watch.’

I longed to move about freely on my own, to see what the temper was on the rest of the ship. Even more than that, I longed for a little unguarded sleep. The offer was incredibly attractive. It therefore made me immediately suspicious.

‘Why?’

Web smiled. ‘Is it that unusual for people to be nice to you?’

His question jolted me in an odd way. I took a breath. ‘Sometimes it seems that way, I suppose.’

I rose slowly, for I had stiffened in the night chill. Thick muttered in his uneasy rest. I raised my arms over my head and rolled my shoulders as I arrowed a swift thought to Dutiful. Web is offering to take over my watch of Thick for a time. May I allow this?

Of course. He seemed almost surprised that I had asked.

But then, sometimes my prince trusted too easily. Please let Chade know.

I felt Dutiful’s agreement. I spoke aloud to Web, at the end of my stretch. ‘Thank you. I’ll take you up on your offer, very gratefully.’

I watched him settle himself carefully beside Thick and take the smallest sea-pipes I’d ever seen from inside his shirt. Sea-pipes are probably the most common musical instrument in any fleet, for they withstand both bad weather and careless handling. It takes little to learn to play a simple tune on them, yet a talented player can entertain like a Buckkeep minstrel with them. I wasn’t surprised to see them in Web’s hands. He’d been a fisherman; he probably still was, in many ways.

He waved me away. As I departed, I heard a breathy sigh of music. He was playing, very softly, a child’s tune on his pipes. Had he instinctively known that might soothe Thick? I wondered why I hadn’t thought of music as a way to comfort him. I sighed. I was becoming too set in my ways. I needed to remember how to be flexible.

I went to the galley in the hope of begging something hot to eat. Instead I got hard bread and a piece of cheese no bigger than two fingers. The cook let me know I could consider myself fortunate for being allowed that. She didn’t have food to waste, she didn’t, not aboard this top-heavy, over-populated tub. I had hoped for wash water, just enough to splash the salt from my hands and face, but she told me I hadn’t a prayer of that. I’d had my share for the day, hadn’t I? I should take what I was issued and be happy with it. Guardsmen. No idea what life aboard a vessel required of a man in self-discipline.

I retreated from her sharp tongue. I longed to stay above decks to eat, but I was out of my territory there, and the sailors were in a mood to prove it to me. So I went below, down to where the rest of the guard snored and muttered and played cards by the swinging light of a lantern. Our days at sea had not improved the smell of our quarters. I found that Riddle had not exaggerated the ill humour of the men. The comments of one man on ‘the returning nursemaid’ would have been enough justification for a fight if I’d wanted one. I didn’t, and managed to shed his insults, eat my food hastily and dig my blanket out of my sea chest. Finding a place to stretch out was impossible. Prone guardsmen littered the floor. I curled up in their midst. I would have preferred to sleep with my back to a wall, but there was no hope of that. I eased off my boots and loosened my belt. The man next to me muttered nastily and rolled over as I tried to settle on the deck and cover most of myself with my blanket. I closed my eyes and breathed out, reaching desperately for unconsciousness, grateful for the opportunity to close my eyes and sleep. At least in my dreams I could escape this nightmare.

But as I crossed the dim territory between wakefulness and sleep, I recognized that perhaps I held the solution to my problems. Instead of wallowing my way into full sleep, I slid sideways through it, seeking Nettle.

My task was harder than I had expected. Thick’s music was here, and finding my way through it was like blundering through brambles in a mist. No sooner did I think of that than the sounds sprouted tendrils and thorns. Music should not hurt a man, but this did. I staggered through a fog of sickness, hunger and thirst, my spine tight with cold and my head pounding with the discordant music that snatched and dragged at me. After a time I halted. ‘It’s a dream,’ I said to myself, and the brambles writhed mockingly at my words. As I stood still, pondering my situation, they began to wrap around my legs. ‘It’s a dream,’ I said again. ‘It can’t hurt me.’ But my words did not prevail. I felt the thorns bite through my leggings into my flesh as I staggered forward. They tightened their grip and held me fast.

I halted again, fighting for calm. What had begun as Thick’s Skill-suggestion was now my own nightmare. I straightened up against the weight of the thorny vines trying to pull me down, reached to my hip and drew Verity’s sword. I slashed at the brambles and they gave way, wriggling away like severed snakes. Encouraged, I gave the sword a blade of flame that singed the writhing plants and lit my way through the encroaching fog. ‘Go uphill,’ I told myself. ‘Only the valleys are full of mist. The hilltops will be clean and bare.’ And it was so.

When I finally struggled clear of Thick’s Skill-fog, I found myself at the edges of Nettle’s dream. I stood for a time staring up at a glass tower on the hilltop above me. I recognized the tale. The hillside above me was littered with tangling threads. As I waded in, they clung like a spider’s web. I knew that Nettle was aware of me. Nonetheless, she left me to my own devices, and I floundered through the ankle-deep tangle that represented all the broken promises her false lovers had made to the princess. In the old tale, only a truehearted man could tread such a path without falling.

In the dream, I had become the wolf. All four of my legs were soon bound by the clinging stuff and I must needs stop and chew myself clear of it. For some reason, the thread tasted of anise, a pleasant enough flavour in moderation, but choking by the mouthful. When I finally reached the glass tower my chest was wet and my jaws dripped saliva. I gave myself a shake, droplets flying, and then asked her, ‘Aren’t you going to invite me to come up?’

She did not reply. She leaned on the parapet of her balcony and stared out over the countryside. I looked behind me, down to where the brambles waved above the banked fog in the deep valleys. Was the fog creeping closer? When Nettle continued to ignore me, I trotted around the base of the tower. In the old tale, there was no door, and Nettle had recreated it faithfully. Did that mean she had had a lover who had been faithless to her? My heart turned over in me and for a moment I forgot the purpose of my visit. When I had circled the tower, I sat down on my haunches and looked up at the figure on the balcony. ‘Who has betrayed you?’ I asked her.

She continued to stare out and I thought she would not answer. But then, without looking down at me, she replied, ‘Everyone. Go away.’

‘How can I help you if I go away?’

‘You can’t help me. You’ve told me that often enough. So you might as well just go away and leave me alone. Like everyone else.’

‘Who has gone away and left you alone?’

That brought a furious glare. She spoke in a low voice full of hurt. ‘I don’t know why I thought you might remember! My brother, for one. My brother Swift, who you said would soon be coming home to us. Well, he hasn’t! And then my stupid father decided to go look for him. As if a man with fogged eyes can go look for anything! And we told him not to go, but he did. And something happened, we don’t know what, but his horse came home without him. So I went out on my horse, despite my mother shrieking at me that I wasn’t to leave, and I tracked his horse’s trail back and found Papa by the side of the road, bruised and bloody and trying to crawl home dragging one leg. So I brought him home, and then my mother scolded me again for disobeying her. And now my father is in bed and all he does is lie there and stare at the wall and not speak to anyone. My mother forbade any of us from bringing him any brandy. So he won’t talk to us or tell us what happened. Which makes my mother furious at all of us. As if it were my fault.’

Halfway through this tirade, her tears had begun to stream down her face. They dripped from her chin and ran over her hands and trickled down the wall of the tower. Slowly they solidified into opal strands of misery. I reared up on my hind legs and clawed at them, but they were too smooth and too shallow for me to gain any purchase. I sat down again. I felt hollow and old. I tried to tell myself that the misery in Molly’s home had nothing to do with me, that I had not caused it and could not cure it. And yet, the roots of it ran deep, did they not?

After a time, she looked down at me and laughed bitterly. ‘Well, Shadow Wolf? Aren’t you going to say you can’t help me with that? Isn’t that what you always say?’ When I could think of no reply, she added in an accusing tone, ‘I don’t know why I even speak to you. You lied to me. You said my brother was coming home.’

‘I thought he was,’ I replied, finding words at last. ‘I went to him and I told him to go home. I thought he had.’

‘Well, perhaps he tried to. Perhaps he started this way, and was killed by robbers, or fell in a river and drowned. I don’t suppose you ever considered that ten is a bit young to be out on the roads alone? I suppose you never thought that it might have been kinder if you had brought him home safely to us, instead of “sending” him? But no, that might have been inconvenient to you.’

‘Nettle. Stop. Let me speak. Swift is safe. Alive and safe. He is still here, with me.’ I paused and tried to breathe. The inevitability of what must follow those words sickened me. Here it comes, Burrich, I thought to myself. All the pain I ever tried to save you. All tied up in a tidy package of misery for you and your family.

For Nettle asked, as I knew she must, ‘And where is “safe with you”? And how do I know he is safe? How do I know you are a true thing at all? Perhaps you are like the rest of this dream, a thing I made. Look at you, man-wolf! You are not real and you offer me false hope.’

‘I am not real as you see me,’ I replied slowly. ‘But I am real. And once upon a time, your father knew me.’

‘Once upon a time,’ she said scornfully. ‘Another tale from Shadow Wolf. Take your silly stories away.’ She took a shuddering breath and fresh tears started down her face. ‘I’m not a child any longer. Your stupid stories can’t help me.’

So I knew I had lost her. Lost her trust, lost her friendship. Lost my chance of knowing my child as a child. Terrible sadness welled up in me, but it was laced with the music of brambles growing. I glanced behind me. The thorn vines and fog had crept higher. Was it just my own dream threatening me, or had Thick’s music become even more menacing? I didn’t know. ‘And I came here seeking your help,’ I reminded myself bitterly.

‘My help?’ Nettle asked in a choked voice.

I had spoken without thinking. ‘I know I don’t have the right to ask you for anything.’

‘No. You don’t.’ She was looking past me. ‘What is that, anyway?’

‘A dream. A nightmare, actually.’

‘I thought your nightmares were about falling.’ She sounded intrigued.

‘That’s not my nightmare. It belongs to someone else. He is … it’s a very strong nightmare. Strong enough to spread out from him and take over the dreams of other people. It’s threatening lives. And I don’t think the man whose dream it is can control it.’

‘Just wake him up, then.’ She offered the solution disdainfully.

‘That might help, for a little time. But I need a more permanent solution.’ For a brief moment, I considered telling her that the man’s nightmare endangered Swift as well. I pushed the thought aside. There was no use frightening her, especially when I wasn’t sure she could help me.

‘What did you think I could do about it?’

‘I thought you could help me go into his dream and change it. Make it pleasant and calm. Convince him that what is happening to him won’t kill him, that he’ll be fine. Then his dreams might be calmer. And we could all rest.’

‘How could I do that?’ And then, more sharply, ‘And why should I do that? What do you offer me in exchange, Shadow Wolf?’

I did not like that it had come down to barter, but I had only myself to blame. It was cruellest of all that the only thing I had to offer her would bring pain and guilt for her father. I spoke slowly. ‘As to how, you are very strong in the magic that lets one person walk into another person’s dreams and change them. Strong enough, perhaps, to shape my friend’s dream for him, even though he himself is also very strong in magic. And very frightened.’

‘I have no magic’

I ignored her words. ‘As for why … I have told you that Swift is with me, and safe. You doubt me. I don’t blame you, for it appears I have failed you in my earlier assurance. But I will give you words, to say to your father. They will … they will be hard for him to hear. But when he hears them, he will know that what I say is true. That your brother is alive and well. And with me.’

‘Tell me the words, then.’

For one brief Chade-ish moment, I thought of demanding that first she help me with Thick’s dreaming. Then I harshly rejected that notion. My daughter owed me exactly what I had given her: nothing. Perhaps there was also the fear that if I did not speak to her then, I would lose my courage. Uttering those words was like touching my tongue to a glowing coal. I spoke them. ‘Tell him that you dreamed of a wolf with porcupine quills in his muzzle. And that the wolf said to you, “As once you did, so I do now. I shelter and guide your son. I will put my life between him and any harm, and when my task is done, I will bring him safely home to you”.’

I had cloaked my message as best I could, under the circumstances. Nettle still struck far too close to the truth when she eagerly asked, ‘My father cared for your son, years ago?’

Some decisions are easier if you don’t allow yourself time to think. ‘Yes,’ I lied to my daughter. ‘Exactly.’

I watched her mull this for a moment. Slowly her tower of glass began to melt into water. It flowed, warm and harmless, past my feet until her balcony had descended to the ground. She offered me her hand to help her climb over the railing. I took it, touching and yet not touching my daughter for the first time in her life. Her tanned fingers rested briefly on my black-clawed paw. Then she stood clear of me and looked down at the fog and creeping briars that were ascending the hillside toward us.

‘You know I’ve never done anything like this before?’

‘Neither have I,’ I admitted.

‘Before we go into his dream, tell me something about him,’ she suggested.

The fog and bramble crept ever closer. Whatever I told her about Thick would be too much, and yet for her to enter his dream ignorant might be dangerous to all. I could not control what Thick revealed to her in the context of the dream. For one fleeting second, I wondered if I should have consulted Chade or Dutiful before seeking Nettle’s aid. Then I smiled grimly to myself. I was Skillmaster, was I not? In that capacity, this decision was mine alone.

And so I told my daughter that Thick was simple, a man with the mind and heart of a child, and the strength of an army when it came to Skill-magic. I even told her that he served the Farseer Prince, and that he journeyed with him on a ship. I told her how his powerful Skill-music and now his dreams were undermining morale on the ship. I told her of his conviction that he would always be seasick and that he would likely die from it. And as I told her these things, the thorns grew and twined toward us, and I watched her quickly drawing her own conclusions from what I said; that I was on board the ship also, and therefore that her brother was with me, on a sea-voyage with the Farseer Prince. Rural as her home was, I wondered how much she had heard of the Narcheska and the Prince’s quest. I didn’t have to wonder long. She put the tale together for herself.

‘So that is the black dragon that the silver dragon keeps asking you about. The one the Prince goes to slay.’

‘Don’t speak her name,’ I begged her.

She gave me a disdainful look that mocked my foolish fears. Then, ‘Here it comes,’ she said quietly. And the brambles engulfed us.

They made a crackling sound as they rose around our ankles and then our knees, like fire racing up a tree. The thorns bit into our flesh and then a dense fog swirled up about us, choking and menacing.

‘What is this?’ Nettle exclaimed in annoyance. Then, as the fog stole her from my sight, she exclaimed, ‘Stop it. Shadow Wolf, stop it right now! This is all yours; you made this mess. Let go of it!’

And she wrested my dream from me. It was rather like having someone snatch away your blankets. But most jarring for me was that it evoked a memory I both did and did not recognize: another time and an older woman, prying something fascinating and shiny from my chubby-fisted grasp, while saying, ‘No, Keppet. Not for little boys.’

I was breathless in the sudden banishment of my dream, but in the next instant we literally plunged into Thick’s. The fog and brambles vanished, and the cold salt water closed over my head. I was drowning. No matter how I struggled I could not get to the top of the water. Then a hand gripped mine and as Nettle hauled me up to stand beside her, she exclaimed irritably, ‘You are so gullible! It’s a dream, and that’s all it is. Now it’s my dream, and in my dream we can walk on the waves. Come on.’

She said it and it was so. Still, I held on to her hand and walked beside her. All around us, the water stretched out, glittering shoreless from horizon to horizon. Thick’s music was the wind blowing all around us. I squinted out over the water, wondering how we would ever find Thick in the trackless waves, but Nettle squeezed my hand and announced clearly through Thick’s wild song, ‘We’re very close to him now.’

And that, too, was so. A few steps more and she dropped to her knees with an exclamation of pity. The blinding sunlight on the water hid whatever she stared at. I knelt beside her and felt my heart break.

He knew it too well. He must have seen it, sometime. The drowned kitten floated just beneath the water. Too young even for his eyes to be opened, he dangled weightlessly in the sea’s grip. His fur floated around him, but as Nettle reached in to grip him by the scruff of the neck and pull him out, his coat sleeked suddenly flat with the water. He dangled from her hand, water streaming from his tail and paws and dribbling from his nose and open red mouth. She cupped the little creature fearlessly in her hand. She bent over him intently, experimentally flexing the small rib cage between her thumb and forefingers. Then she held the tiny face close to hers and blew a sudden puff of air into the open red mouth. In those moments, she was entirely Burrich’s daughter. So I had seen him clear birth-mucus from a newborn puppy’s throat.

‘You’re all right now,’ she told the kitten authoritatively. She stroked the tiny creature, and in the wake of her hand, his fur was dry and soft. He was striped orange and white, I suddenly saw. A moment before, I thought he had been black. ‘You’re alive and safe, and I will not let any evil befall you. And you know that you can trust me. Because I love you.’

At her words, my throat closed up and choked me. I wondered how she knew them to say. All my life, without knowing it, I had wanted someone to say those words to me, and have them be true and believable. It was like watching someone give to another the gift you had always longed for. And yet, I did not feel bitterness or envy. All I felt was wonder that at sixteen, she would have that in her to give to another. Even if I could have found Thick in his dream, even if someone had told me those were the words I must say, the words he most desperately needed to hear, I could not have said them and made them true as she did. She was my daughter, blood of my blood, and yet the wonder and amazement she made me feel at that moment made her a creation entirely apart from me.

The kitten stirred in her hand. It looked about blindly. When the little red mouth opened wide, I was prepared for a yowl. Instead, it questioned in a hoarse little voice, ‘Mam?’

‘No,’ Nettle replied. My daughter was braver than I. She did not even consider the easy lie. ‘But someone like her.’ Nettle looked around the seascape as if noticing it for the first time. ‘And this is not a good place for someone like you. Let’s change it, shall we? Where do you like to be?’

His answers surprised me. She coaxed the information from him, detail by detail. When they were finished, we sat, doll-sized, in the centre of an immense bed. In the distance, I could make out the hazy walls of a travelling wagon such as many puppeteer families and street performers lived in when they travelled from town to town. It smelled of the dried peppers and braided onions that were roped across one corner of the ceiling. Now I recognized the music around us, not just as Thick’s mother song, but also the elements that comprised it: the steady breathing of a sleeping woman, the creak of wheels and the slow-paced thudding of a team’s hoofbeats, woven as a backdrop for a woman’s humming and a childish tune on a whistle. It was a song of safety and acceptance and content. ‘I like it here,’ Nettle told him when they were finished. ‘Perhaps, if you don’t mind, I’ll come and visit you here again. Would that be all right?’

The kitten purred, and then curled up, not sleeping, but simply being safe in the middle of the huge bed. Nettle stood up to go. I think that was when I realized that I was watching Thick’s dream but was no longer part of it. I had vanished from it, along with all other discordant and dangerous elements. I had no place in his mother’s world.

‘Farewell for now,’ Nettle told him. And added, ‘Now remember how easy it is to come here. When you decide to sleep, all you have to do is think of this cushion.’ She touched one of many brightly embroidered pillows on the bed. ‘Remember this, and when you dream, you’ll come straight here. Can you do that?’

The kitten rumbled a purr in response, and then Thick’s dream began to fade around me. In a moment, I stood again on the hillside by the melted glass tower. The brambles and fog had vanished, leaving a vista of green valleys and shining rivers threading through them.

‘You didn’t tell him he wouldn’t be seasick any more,’ I suddenly remembered. Then I winced at how ungrateful my words sounded. Nettle scowled at me and I saw the weariness in her eyes.

‘Do you think it was easy to find all those things and assemble them around him? He kept trying to change it all back into cold sea-water.’ She rubbed her eyes. ‘I’m sleeping, and yet I suspect I’m going to wake exhausted.’

‘I apologize,’ I answered gravely. ‘Well do I know that magic can take a toll. I spoke without thinking.’

‘Magic,’ she snorted. ‘This dream-shaping is not magic. It is just a thing I can do.’

And with that thought, she left me. I pushed from my mind the dread of what might be said when she gave Burrich my words. There was nothing I could do about any of that. I sat down at the base of her tower, but without Nettle to anchor it, the dream was already fading. I sank through it into a dreamless sleep of my own.

SEVEN

Voyage

Do not make the error of thinking of the Out Islands as a kingdom under a sole monarch, such as we have in the Six Duchies, or even as an alliance of peoples such as we see in the Mountain Kingdom. Not even the individual islands, small as they may seem, are under the sole command of any single lord or noble. In fact, there are no ‘nobles or lords’ recognized among the Outislanders. Men have status according to their prowess as warriors and the richness of the spoils they bring back. Some have the backing of their matriarchal clans to enhance whatever reputation they may claim by force of arms. Clans hold territory on the islands, it is true, but these lands are the matriarchal farmlands and gathering beaches owned by the women and passed down through their daughters.

Towns, especially harbour towns, belong to no single clan and mob law is generally the rule in them. The city guard will not come to your aid if you are robbed or assaulted in an Out Island town. Each man is expected to enforce the respect others should give him. Cry out for help and you will be judged weak and beneath notice. Sometimes, however, the dominant clan in the area may have a ‘stronghouse’ in the town and set itself up in judgment over disputes there.

The Outislanders do not build castles and forts such as we have in the Six Duchies. A siege is more likely to be conducted by enemy vessels taking control of a harbour or river mouth rather than by a force attempting to seize land. It is not unusual, however, to find one or two clan ‘stronghouses’ in each major town. These are fortified structures built to withstand attack and often having deep cellars with not only a well for water but also substantial storage for food. These ‘stronghouses’ usually belonged to the dominant clan in each town, and were designed more for shelter from civil strife than to withstand foreign attack.

Shellbye’s Out Island Travels

When I awoke, I could feel that the ship was calmer. I had not slept for many hours, but I felt rested. About me on the deck, men still sprawled, immersed in slumber as if they had not slept well in days, as was the case.

I rose carefully, bundling my blanket in my arms and stepping through the prone bodies. I put my blanket back into my sea chest, changed into a cleaner shirt and then went back on deck. Night was venturing toward morning. The clouds had rained themselves out, and fading stars showed through their rent curtains. The canvas had been reset to take advantage of a kindlier wind. The barefoot sailors moved in quiet competence on the deck. It felt like the dawn after a storm.

I found Thick curled up and sleeping, the lines of his face slack and peaceful, his breathing hoarse and steady. Nearby, Web dozed; his head drooped forward onto his bent knees. My eyes could barely make out the dark shape of a sea bird perched on the railing. It was a gull of some sort, larger than the average. I caught the bright glint of Risk’s eye, and nodded to her in affable greeting as I approached slowly, giving Web time to open his eyes and lift his head. He smiled at me.

‘He seems to be resting better. Perhaps the worst is over.’

‘I hope so,’ I replied. Cautiously I opened myself to Thick’s music. It was no longer a storm of Skill, but was still as constant as the shushing waves. His mother’s song had become dominant in it again, but I heard also the trace of a kitten purring, and a reassuring echo of Nettle’s voice assuring him that he was loved and safe. That unsettled me a bit; I wondered if I only heard it because I had witnessed the change, or if Chade and the Prince would also detect her words and voice.

‘You look more rested as well,’ Web observed, his voice abruptly recalling me to my manners and myself.

‘Yes, I am. And I thank you.’

He extended a hand to me, and I took it, helping him onto his feet. Once upright, he released my hand and rolled his shoulders to limberness again. On the railing, his bird waddled a step or two closer. In the gathering light, I marked the deep yellow of her beak and feet. Somewhere in Burrich’s tutelage, I seemed to recall that bright colours were indicative of a well-nourished bird. This creature gleamed with health. As if aware of my admiration, she turned her head and carefully preened a long flight feather through her bill. Then, as effortlessly as a cat lofts into a chair, she rose from the railing, her cupped wings catching the wind and lifting her in flight.

‘Show off,’ Web muttered. He smiled at me. It came to me that Wit-partners take the same inane pride in one another that parents do in their children. I smiled back, commiserating.

‘Ah. That looks genuine. In time, my friend, I think you will come to trust me. Tell me when you do.’

I gave a small sigh. It would have been courteous to insist that I already trusted him, but I did not think I could lie well enough to deceive him. So I simply nodded. Then, as he turned to go, I remembered Swift. ‘I’ve another favour I would ask of you,’ I said awkwardly.

He turned back to me, sincere pleasure in his face. ‘I’ll take that as an indication of progress.’

‘Could you ask Swift to give me some of his time today? I’d like to talk to him.’

Web cocked his head like a gull regarding a dubious clamshell. ‘Are you going to brow-beat him about returning to his father?’

I considered. Was I? ‘No. I’m only going to tell him that I regard it as essential to my honour that he return safely to Buckkeep. And that I expect him to keep up his lessons with me while on this journey.’ Oh, that would please Chade, I thought sourly. My time already was stretched thin, and I was taking up yet another task.

Web smiled warmly. ‘It would please me greatly to send him to you to hear those things,’ he replied. He offered me a sailor’s brief bow before he departed, and I nodded back.

A Skilled suggestion from me meant that the Prince rose early and was on the deck beside Thick when he finally stirred. A servant had brought up a small basket, with warm bread and a pot of hot tea in it. The smell of it made me aware I was ravenous. He set it on the deck near Thick and then the Prince dismissed him. We stood silently staring out over the sea, waiting for Thick to awaken.

When did his music change? When I awoke this morning, I could not believe how relaxed and rested I felt. It took me some time before I realized what the change was.

It’s such a relief, isn’t it? I wanted to say more, but dared not. I could not admit to the Prince that I had tampered with Thick’s dreams, because I wasn’t really the one who had done it. I doubted that Thick had even been aware I was there.

Thick’s awakening saved me. He coughed, and then opened his eyes. He looked up at Dutiful and me and a slow smile spread over his face. ‘Nettle fixed my dream for me,’ he said. Before either Dutiful or I could respond to his words, he went off in a fit of coughing. Then, ‘I don’t feel good. My throat hurts.’

I seized the opportunity to divert the conversation. ‘It’s probably from all the retching you’ve done. Look, Thick, Dutiful has brought you tea and fresh bread. The tea will ease your throat. Shall I pour you some?’

His only reply was another spell of coughing. I crouched down beside him and touched his cheek. His face was warm, but he had just awakened and he was still wrapped in wool blankets. It didn’t mean he had a fever. He pushed the blankets away irritably, and then sat shivering in his wrinkled, damp clothing. He looked miserable and his music began to swirl discordantly.

The Prince took action. ‘Badgerlock, bring that basket. Thick, you are coming back into the cabin with me. Immediately.’

‘I don’t want to,’ he groaned, then shocked me by slowly standing up. He staggered a step, then looked out over the rolling waves and seemed to recall, ‘I’m seasick.’

‘That’s why I want to take you to the cabin. You’ll get better there,’ the Prince told him.

‘No, I won’t,’ Thick insisted, but all the same when Dutiful started off toward the cabin, he slowly fell in behind him. His gait was unsteady, as much from weakness as from the gentle shifting of the deck. I stepped up to take his arm and escorted him, the laden basket on my other arm. He wobbled along beside me. We stopped twice for coughing spells, and by the time we reached the door of the Prince’s cabin, my concern had become worry.

Dutiful’s chamber was more elaborate and better furnished than his bedchamber at home. Obviously someone else had designed it to a Buckkeep idea of what a prince merited. It had a bank of windows that looked out onto the wake behind the ship. There were rich carpets over the polished deck, and heavy furniture that was well anchored against the sway of the ship. I would probably have been more impressed if I had lingered there longer, but Thick arrowed for his own small room that opened off the main chamber. It was far more modest, little more than a closet the size of his bunk with a space beneath it for storing personal items. The architect of the ship had probably intended it for a valet rather than a bedchamber for the Prince’s pet simpleton. Thick immediately crumpled onto the bed. He moaned and muttered as I shook him out of his stained and sweaty clothing. When I covered him with a light blanket, he clutched it to himself and complained, teeth chattering, of the cold. I fetched him a stuffed coverlet from the foot of the Prince’s own bed. I was certain of his fever now.

The pot of tea had cooled a bit, but I poured a cup for Thick and sat by him while he drank it. At my Skilled suggestion, the Prince sent for willow bark tea for his fever and raspberry root syrup for his cough. When the servant finally brought them, it took me some time to coax Thick to accept them. But his stubbornness seemed to have been eroded by the fever, and he gave way to me.

The room was so small that I could not shut the door while I was sitting on the edge of his bed, so it remained open and I idly watched the flow of people through my Prince’s chamber as I tended our simpleton. I found little of interest until Dutiful’s ‘Witted coterie’ arrived. They were Civil, Web, the minstrel Cockle and Swift. Dutiful was seated at the table, softly rehearsing his Outislander speech when they came in. As the servant admitted them and then was dismissed, he pushed the scroll aside with apparent relief. Civil’s cat padded in at his heels and immediately made himself comfortable on the Prince’s bed. No one seemed to take any notice of him.

Web glanced at me, bemused, before he greeted the Prince. ‘All’s fair aloft, Prince Dutiful.’ I thought it was an odd courtesy, until it dawned on me that he was relaying the word from his bird, Risk. ‘No ships save our own are in sight.’

‘Excellent.’ The Prince smiled his approval before he turned his attention to the others. ‘How fares your cat today, Civil?’

Civil held up his hand. His sleeve fell back to expose a raised red scratch the length of his forearm. ‘Bored. And irritated with the confinement. He’ll be glad when we see land again.’ All the Witted ones laughed indulgently together, as parents would over a child’s wilfulness. I marked how comfortable they all seemed in the Prince’s presence. Only Swift seemed to retain any stiffness, and that could have been due to either his awareness of me or the age difference between him and the rest of the company. So had Verity’s closest nobles been with him, I recalled, and thought to myself that the casual affection of those men was more valuable than the way Regal’s hangers-on used to bow and scrape to him.

So it did not seem overly odd when Web turned to look at me and then asked Dutiful, ‘And has Tom Badgerlock come to join us today, my prince?’

Two questions rode in his words. Was I there to admit my Wit and possibly my identity, and would I be joining their ‘coterie’? I held my breath as Dutiful answered, ‘Not exactly, Web. He tends my man Thick. I understand you kept watch by him during the night to allow Badgerlock some rest, and for that I thank you. Yet now Thick has taken a cough from his night exposure and is feverish. He finds Badgerlock’s company soothing, and so the man has agreed to sit with him.’

‘Ah. I see. Well, Thick, I’m sorry to hear you are ill.’ As he spoke, Web came to peep in through the door. At the table behind him, the rest of the coterie continued their quiet conversation. Swift watched Web anxiously. Thick, huddled in his blankets and staring at the wall, seemed only mildly aware of him. Even his Skill-music seemed subdued and muted, as if he lacked the energy to drive it. When Thick made no response, Web touched me softly on the shoulder and said quietly, ‘I’ll be happy to take a watch beside him tonight, too, if you’d like the rest. In the meanwhile,’ he turned from me and gestured at Swift, whose face clouded with sudden apprehension, ‘I’ll leave my “page” here with you. Doubtless you two have much to discuss, and if there are any errands that can be run for Thick’s comfort, I’m sure Swift will be glad to fetch for you. Isn’t that right, lad?’

Swift was in an untenable position and he knew it. He came to heel like a whipped dog and stood beside Web, eyes downcast. ‘Yes sir,’ he replied softly. He lifted his gaze to me and I didn’t like what I saw there. It was fear coupled with dislike, and I did not feel I had done anything to justify either of those emotions.

‘Swift,’ Web said, drawing the boy’s eyes back to him. He went on quietly, in a voice pitched for our ears alone. ‘It will be fine. Trust me. Tom wishes to be sure you will continue your education while you are aboard this ship. That is all.’

‘Actually, there is more,’ I said unwillingly. That made both of them stare at me. Web lifted a brow. ‘I’ve given a promise,’ I said slowly. ‘To your family, Swift. I promised that I’d put my life between you and anything that threatened you. I’ve promised that I’ll do my best to see you safely home, when all this is over.’

‘What if I don’t want to go home when all this is over?’ Swift asked me insolently, his voice rising. I felt more than saw the Prince become aware of the conversation. And then the boy added, indignantly, ‘Wait! How did you talk to my father? There wasn’t time for you to send a messenger and then get a reply before we left. You’re lying.’

I drew a slow breath through my nostrils. When I could speak calmly, I replied, keeping my voice pitched low. ‘No. I am not lying. I sent my promise to your family. I didn’t say they had replied. I still consider it just as binding.’

‘There wasn’t time,’ he protested, but more quietly. Web looked at him disapprovingly. I scowled. Web flicked a disapproving glance at me, but I met it steadily. I’d promised to keep the boy alive and return him home. That didn’t mean I had to tolerate his insults gladly.

‘I suppose this may be a long voyage for both of you,’ Web observed. ‘I’ll leave you to each other’s company, and hope you both learn to make the best of it. I believe you each have something to offer the other. But you’ll only value it if you discover it for yourselves.’

‘I’m cold,’ Thick moaned, rescuing me from Web’s lecture.

‘There’s your first errand,’ I told Swift brusquely. ‘Ask the Prince’s serving man where you can find two more blankets for Thick. Wool ones. And bring him a big mug of water as well.’

I think it offended his dignity to fetch things for a half-wit, but he found it preferable to remaining in my company. As Swift scuttled off, Web gave a sigh.

‘Truth between the two of you,’ he advised me. ‘It’s going to be your only bridge to reaching that boy, Tom. And he needs you to reach him. I’m only realizing that now. He ran from his home, and he ran from you. He has to stop running or he’ll never learn to stand and face down his problems.’

So, he thought I was one of Swift’s problems? I looked away. ‘I’ll deal with him,’ I said.

Web sighed wearily. ‘I’ll leave him to you, then.’

Web returned to the table and the Witted coterie’s conversation. After a time, they all left. The Prince resumed rehearsing his speech. By the time Swift returned with blankets and a mug of water for Thick, I’d combed through Dutiful’s collection of scrolls and selected several I thought would benefit Swift. To my surprise, I found some I hadn’t seen before; Chade must have acquired them just before we sailed. They dealt with Out Island society and customs. I chose the simpler ones for Swift.

I made Thick as comfortable as I could. His fever was rising. The hotter he became the more fantastic the music he Skilled. He still hadn’t taken in any food, but at least he’d lost the will to fight me as I held the mug to his mouth and made sure that he drank it all. I settled him again, tucking the blankets snugly around him, and wondering how the heat of a fever could make a man think he was cold.

When I finished, I glanced up to find Swift looking at us in distaste. ‘He smells funny,’ the boy complained to my reproving glance.

‘He’s sick.’ I pointed at the floor as I resumed my seat at the edge of Thick’s bed. ‘Sit there. And read aloud to us, quietly, from that scroll. No, the one with the frayed edge, there. Yes, that one.’

‘What is it?’ he asked needlessly as he untied the scroll and opened it.

‘It’s a description of the history and people of the Out Islands.’

‘Why do I need to read this?’

I ticked the reasons off on my fingers. ‘Because you need to practise your reading. Because we are going there, and it behoves you to know something about the people there so you don’t shame your prince. Because the history of the Six Duchies is entwined with that of the Out Islands. And because I said so.’

He lowered his eyes but I sensed no mellowing toward me. I had to prompt him again before he began reading it. But once he began, I think he interested himself. The rise and fall of his boyish voice was soothing. I let my thoughts float on the sound, barely taking in the sense of the words.

He was still reading when Chade entered. Ostensibly, I paid no attention to the old man while he conferred quietly with the Prince. Then Dutiful Skill-touched me. Chade would like you to dismiss Swift for a time, so we could speak freely here.

A moment.

I nodded as if to myself over whatever Swift had just read. When he drew breath, I reached out to touch his shoulder. ‘That’s enough for today. You can go. But I will be here tomorrow, and so should you be. I’ll expect you.’

‘Yes sir.’ There was no anticipation, no resignation in his voice. Just a flat acknowledgement. I suppressed a sigh. He went to the Prince, made his courtesy and was dismissed. At a Skill-nudge from me, Dutiful let him know that he thought education a desirable advantage for every man, and that he, too, wished to see Swift at his lessons every day. He received the same lacklustre assent that I had, and then Swift went his way.

The door had scarcely closed behind him before Chade was at my side. ‘How is he?’ he asked gravely as he touched Thick’s face.

‘Feverish and coughing. He has taken water but no food.’

Chade sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. He felt Thick’s throat just under his jaw and then slipped his hand inside his collar, assessing his fever. ‘For how long,’ he asked me, ‘has he been fasting?’

‘It has been at least three days since he took any substantial food that stayed with him.’

Chade breathed out noisily. ‘Well, that is where we must begin. Get nourishment into him. Salty broths, thick with soft meat and vegetables.’

I nodded, but Thick groaned and turned his face to the wall. His music had an odd floating quality to it. It seemed to fade into a distance, as if it were leaking into a place I could not access.

Chade’s hand on my wrist distracted me. What did you do to him, last night? Did you cause this sickness, do you think?

His query shocked me and I answered it aloud. ‘No. No, I think this is just the result of his seasickness, his nights on deck in the rain and a lack of food.’

Thick had, perhaps, been aware of our Skilling. He rolled his head toward us and looked at me balefully. Then his eyes sank shut again.

Chade moved away, motioning for me to follow. He sank down onto a well-padded bench built beneath one of the windows and indicated I should sit close beside him. The Prince had been setting out game pieces for stones. Now he lifted his gaze to regard us curiously.

‘Strange, that speaking softly may be the best way to keep this private.’ Chade pointed out the window as if bidding me observe something. I leaned forward and nodded. He smiled, and spoke quietly near my ear. ‘I could not sleep last night. I’ve been practising Skill-exercises on my own. I fancy that I’ve become more attuned to it. Thick’s music was strong and wild. Then, I sensed something … someone. You, I thought. But there was another presence, one I thought I had glimpsed before. It grew stronger, more masterful; then Thick’s music calmed.’

A part of me was astounded that Chade was strong enough in the Skill to have witnessed anything. I didn’t think fast enough and I was silent for too long before I asked innocently, ‘Another presence?’

Chade smiled toothily. ‘Nettle, I think. You are bringing her into the coterie this way?’

‘Not really,’ I said. And it was like a wall collapsing, this surrendering of my secret to Chade. I resented it, and yet I could not deny the relief that I felt to speak of it. I was tired of my secrets, I realized abruptly. Too tired to protect them any more. Let him know of Nettle and her strength. It didn’t mean I’d allow her to be used. ‘I asked a favour of her. I needed to let her know that Swift was safe and that I’d watch over him. Before we left Buckkeep, I’d told her that he was coming home, because that was what I believed. When I discovered he’d come aboard with Web, well … I couldn’t leave her in suspense, wondering if her brother were dead in a ditch somewhere.’

‘Of course not,’ Chade murmured. His eyes glinted with hunger for information. I fed it.

‘In return, I asked that she soothe Thick’s nightmare. She seems very skilled at controlling her own dreams. Last night, she proved capable of controlling someone else’s.’

I watched his face as avidly as he watched mine. I saw him ponder the possible uses of such a thing; saw sparks kindle as he recognized how powerful a weapon it could be. To take control of the images in a man’s mind, to guide his unguarded thoughts into channels grim and daunting, or uplifting and lovely … what could not be done with such a tool? One could craze a man with nightly terrors, inspire a wedding alliance based on romantic dreams, or poison an alliance with suspicions.

‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘Nettle is unaware of the power of what she does. She does not even know it is the Skill she plies. I will not bring her into the coterie, Chade.’ And then I told the most cunningly crafted lie I could swiftly fashion. Had he been aware of it, Chade would have been proud of me. ‘She will work best for us as a solo, uncognizant of the full import of what she does. She will remain more tractable so. Even as I was, when I worked as an unknowing youth.’

He nodded gravely, not bothering to deny the truth of it. I saw then a blind spot in my mentor. He had loved me, and yet still used me, and still permitted me to be used. Perhaps, just as he had been used. He did not guess that I would shield Nettle from such a fate. ‘I’m glad you have come to see that that is for the best,’ he said approvingly.

‘What’s out there?’ the Prince asked curiously. He rose to come and stare out of the window. Chade replied some nonsense about us playing tricks with our eyes, seeing first the ships as moving upon the water and then blinking, to make the water move beneath the ships.

‘And what was it that you wished to speak to us privately about?’ Dutiful asked curiously.

Chade took a breath and almost I saw him scrabble for a topic. ‘I think this is an excellent arrangement. With both Thick and Fitz here, we have access to our entire coterie. I think it would be well if we let it be known that Thick has grown very attached to Fitz and wishes him near. With that excuse, it will not seem so odd for an ordinary guardsman to attend his prince so closely, even after Thick’s health improves.’

‘I thought we had already discussed that?’ Dutiful queried.

‘Did we? Well. I suppose we did. Excuse an old man’s wandering mind, my prince.’

Dutiful made a small and sceptical noise. I made a tactful retreat to Thick’s bedside.

His fever had in no way abated. Chade called a servant and commanded the foods he thought would be most helpful for Thick. I thought of the surly cook I’d encountered and pitied the boy sent with the order. He returned far too soon with a cup of hot water with a piece of salt meat in the bottom of it. Chade fumed at that, and sent a second serving man with terse and precise orders. I coaxed plain water into Thick, and listened anxiously as his breathing grew more hoarse.

The food arrived. The cook’s second effort was much better than her first, and I managed to spoon some of it down Thick. His throat was sore and swallowing pained him, so the meal was very slow. She had also, at Chade’s direction, sent food for me so that I could eat without leaving his side. That became the regular pattern of my meals. It was nice to be able to eat at my leisure without competing with the rest of the guardsmen but at the same time, it isolated me from any talk save Thick’s, Chade’s and Dutiful’s.

I had hoped to get a solid night of sleep my first night in the Prince’s cabin. Thick had settled and did not toss or moan. I dared to hope that he had found his own peace. My pallet spanned the threshold to his closet. I closed my eyes, longing to find my own rest, but instead breathed deep, centred myself and dove into Thick’s dream.

He wasn’t alone. Kitten-Thick nestled in the middle of a big bed upon his cushion while Nettle moved quietly around the tiny room. She seemed to be busy with evening tasks. She hummed as she tidied away discarded clothing and then set foodstuffs into the cupboards. When she was finished, the little room was neat and bright. ‘There,’ she told the watchful kitten. ‘You see. All is well. Everything is where it should be and as it should be. And you are safe. Sweet dreams, little one.’ She stood on her tiptoes to blow out the lamp. I had a sudden odd realization. I had known she was Nettle, but perceived her through Thick’s eyes as a short, stout woman with long greying hair bundled into a knot and deep lines in her face. His mother, I realized, and knew then that she had borne him very late in her life. She looked more of an age to be his grandmother.

Then Thick’s dream retreated from me, as if I gazed at a lighted window from a distance. I looked around me. We were on the hillside, the melted tower above me and a bramble of dead briars surrounding me. Nettle stood at my side. ‘I do this for him, not you,’ she said bluntly. ‘No soul should have to endure dreams so plagued with fear.’

‘You’re angry at me?’ I asked her slowly. I dreaded her answer.

She did not look at me. From nowhere, a cold wind blew between us. She spoke through it. ‘What did they really mean, those words you told me to say to my father? Are you truly a callous beast, Shadow Wolf, that you gave me words to pierce his heart?’

Yes. No. I lacked a truthful answer to give her. I tried to say, I would never want to hurt him. But was that true? He had taken Molly to be his own. They had believed me dead; neither of them had intended me ill. But he had taken her from me, all the same. And raised my daughter, in safety and health. Yes. That was true, and I was grateful to him for that. But not grateful that she would always see his face when she heard the word ‘Papa’. ‘You asked me for those words,’ I said, and then heard how harsh I sounded.

‘And just like the wishes granted in old tales, you gave me what I wanted and it has broken my heart.’

‘What happened?’ I asked unwillingly.

She didn’t want to tell me, and yet she did. ‘I told him I’d had a dream, and that in the dream, a wolf with porcupine quills in his nose had promised to watch over Swift and bring him safely home to us. And I said the words you gave me. “As once you did, so I do now. I shelter and guide your son. I will put my life between him and any harm, and when my task is done, I will bring him safely home to you.”’

‘And?’

‘My mother was kneading bread, and she told me not to speak of Swift if all I could talk was moonshine and foolishness. But her back was to the table where I sat with my father. She did not see his eyes widen at my words. For a time, he just stared at me, with his eyes showing the whites all around them. Then he fell from the chair to the floor and lay there, staring like a corpse. I thought he was struck dead. My brothers and I carried him to his bed, fearing the worst. My mother was terrified, demanding of him where he hurt. But he did not answer. He only put his hands over his eyes, curled up like a beaten child and began to weep.

‘He wept all today, and did not say a word to any of us. As night fell, I heard him get up. I came to the edge of my loft and looked down. He was dressed for travel. My mother was holding to his arm, begging him not to go out. But he said to her, “Woman, you’ve no idea what we have done, and I haven’t the courage to tell you. I’m a coward. I’ve always been a coward.” Then he shook her off and left.’

For a terrible flashing instant, I imagined Molly spurned and abandoned. It was devastating.

‘Where did he go?’ I managed to ask her.

‘I suspect he’s coming to you. Wherever you are.’ Her words were curt, and yet I heard hope in them, hope that someone knew where her father was bound and why. I had to take it from her.

‘That cannot be. But I think I know where he has gone, and I think he will come back to you soon.’ Buckkeep, I thought to myself. Burrich was a direct man. He’d go to Buckkeep, hoping to corner Chade and question him. He’d get Kettricken instead. And she would tell him. Just as she had told Dutiful who I really was. Because she believed in telling people the truth, even if it hurt them.

While I was still pondering that scene, Nettle spoke again. ‘What have I done?’ she asked me. It was not a rhetorical question. ‘I thought I was so clever. I thought I could bargain with you, and get my brother safely home. Instead … what have I done? What are you? Do you wish us ill? Do you hate my father?’ Then, with even more dread she asked, ‘Is my brother in your power somehow?’

‘Please don’t fear me. You have no reason to fear me,’ I said hastily, and then wondered if it was true. ‘Swift is safe, and I promise I will do all in my power to bring him home to you as soon as I can.’ I paused, wondering what I could safely tell her. She was no fool, this daughter of mine. Too many hints and she’d unravel the whole mystery. Like as not, then I’d lose her forever. ‘I knew your father, a long time ago. We were close. But I made decisions that went against his rules, and so we parted. For a long time, he has believed I was dead. With your words, he knows I am not. And because I never came back to him, he now believes he did me a great wrong. He didn’t. But if you know your father at all, you will know that it is what he believes in that regard that will drive him.’

‘You knew my father a long time ago? Did you know my mother then, too?’

‘I knew him long before you were born.’ Not quite a lie, but a deception nonetheless. I let her mislead herself.

‘And so my words meant nothing to my mother,’ Nettle softly concluded after a moment.

‘Yes,’ I confirmed. Then, gingerly I asked, ‘Is she all right?’

‘Of course not!’ I felt her impatience with my stupidity. ‘She stood outside the house and shouted after him when he left, and then ranted to all of us that she never should have married such a stiff-necked man. A dozen times she asked me what I said, and a dozen times I told her of my “dream”. I came so close to telling her all I knew of you. But that would not have helped, would it? For she never knew you.’

For one chill instant, I saw it through Nettle’s eyes. Molly stood in the road. In her struggle to restrain Burrich, her hair had come loose. It curled as it ever had, brushing against her shoulders as she shook her fist after him. Her youngest son, little more than six, clutched at her skirts, sobbing in terror at this wild spectacle of his father abandoning his mother. The sun was setting, tingeing the landscape with blood. ‘You blind old fool!’ Molly shrieked after her husband, and the flung words rattled against me like stones. ‘You’ll be lost or robbed! You’ll never come home to us!’ But the fading clatter of galloping hooves was her only reply.

Then Nettle turned away from the scalding memory of it, and I found we were no longer on the hill with the melted tower. Instead, we were in a loft. My wolf ears on top of my head nearly brushed the low rafters. She was sitting up in her bed, her knees clutched to her chest. Beyond the curtain that screened us from the rest of the attic, I could hear her brothers breathing. One shifted in his sleep and cried out restlessly. No one dreamed peacefully in this house tonight.

I desperately wanted to beg her to say no word of me to Molly. I dared not, for then she would be certain that I lied. I wondered how strongly she already suspected a link between her mother and myself. I did not answer her directly. ‘I don’t think your father will be gone long. When he returns home, will you tell me, to put my mind at rest?’

‘If he comes home,’ she said in a low voice, and I suddenly knew that Molly had voiced aloud the family’s very real fears. Now Nettle spoke reluctantly, as if speaking the truth made it more real. ‘He has already been robbed and beaten once when he was travelling alone seeking for Swift. He has never admitted it to us, but we all know that is what befell him. Nevertheless, he has once more set out alone.’

‘That’s Burrich,’ I said. I dared not voice aloud what I hoped in my heart: that he had ridden a horse that he knew well. Although he would never use his Wit to speak to his mount, that did not prevent the animals he worked with from communicating with him.

‘That’s my father,’ she agreed, both with pride and sorrow. And then the walls of the room began to run like inked letters when tears fall on them. She was the last sight to fade from my dream. When I came to myself, I was staring up at a darkened corner of the Prince’s cabin, seeing nothing.

In the tedious days and nights that followed, Thick’s condition changed little, for better or worse. He would rally for a day and a night, and then slip back into fever and coughing. His real illness had chased away his fear of seasickness, but there was no comfort for me in that. More than once, I sought Nettle’s aid in banishing Thick’s fever-dreams before they could unsettle the crew. Sailors are a superstitious lot. Under Thick’s influence, they shared a nightmare, and when they compared their night’s recollections, decided it was a warning from the gods. It only happened once, but was nearly enough to set off a mutiny.

I worked more closely and more often on Skill-dreams with Nettle than I desired. She did not speak of Burrich and I did not ask, though I know we both counted the days that he had been gone. I knew that if she had had tidings of him, she would share them. His absence in her life left a place for me. Unwillingly, I felt our bond grow stronger, until I carried a constant awareness of her with me at all times. She taught me, without realizing, how to slip behind Thick’s dreams and manipulate them, gently guiding them into consoling images. I could not do it as well as she did. Mine was more a suggestion to him, while she simply set the dream right.

Twice I felt Chade observing us. It grated on me, but there was nothing I could do about it since to acknowledge him would have made Nettle aware of him as well. Yet, in ignoring him, I profited as well, for he grew bolder, I saw my old mentor grow stronger in the Skill. Did he not realize it, or did he conceal it from me? I wondered, but did not betray that wondering to him.

I have never found sea travel enthralling. One watery seascape is much like any other. After a few days, the Prince’s cabin seemed almost as cramped, confining and stuffy as the hold my fellow guardsmen shared. The monotonous food, the endless rocking and my anxiety for Thick hollowed me. Our diminished coterie made little progress in our Skill-lessons.

Swift continued to come to me daily. He read aloud, earning knowledge of the Out Islands and refreshing mine as he did so. At the end of each session, I would question him to be sure the knowledge was settling into his mind and not simply passing through his eyes and out of his mouth. He had a good head for holding information, and asked a few questions of his own. Swift was seldom gracious but he was obedient to his teacher, and for now that was all I asked.

Thick seemed to find Swift’s presence soothing, for he would relax, and some of the lines would smooth from his brow as he listened. He spoke little and breathed hoarsely and would sometimes go off into coughing fits. The process of coaxing spoonfuls of broth into him exhausted both of us. The rounded paunch he had recently gained dwindled, and dark hollows showed under his small eyes. He was as sick a creature as I’ve ever seen, and his acceptance of his misery was heart wrenching. In his own mind, he was dying, and not even in his dreams could I completely vanquish that notion.

Nor could Dutiful aid me in that. The Prince did his best, and he was truly fond of Thick. But Dutiful was fifteen, and a boy in many ways still. Moreover, he was a boy being courted by his nobles, who daily devised distractions that would put him in their company. Freed of Kettricken’s austere traditions, they plied him with entertainment and flattery. Smaller boats shuttled between the ships of our betrothal fleet, not only bringing nobles to visit Dutiful but often carrying Chade and him off to the other vessels for wine and poetry and song. Such trips were meant to divert his attention from the ennui of the uneventful voyage and they succeeded only too well, but it behoved Dutiful to distribute his favours and attentions amongst his nobles. The success of his reign would be built upon the alliances he forged now. He could scarcely have refused to go. Yet all the same, it bothered me to see how easily his attention could be drawn away from his ill servant.

Web was my sole comfort. He came every day, offering quietly to keep watch by Thick while I took some time for myself. I could not completely relax my vigil, of course. I maintained a Skill-awareness of Thick lest he sweep us all into some wild and fearful dream. But I could at least leave the confines of the cabin to stroll briefly on the deck and feel some wind in my face. This arrangement, however, kept me from having time alone with Web. It was not just for Chade’s ends that I longed to speak with him. More and more, his quiet competency and kindness impressed me. I had a sense that he courted me, not as Dutiful’s nobles courted the Prince, but as Burrich had insinuated himself into the presence of a horse he wished to retrain. And it worked, despite my being aware of it. With every passing day, I felt less wariness and caution toward him. It no longer seemed a threat that he knew who I really was, but almost a comfort. I harboured a host of questions I longed to ask him: How many of the Old Blood knew that FitzChivalry still lived? How many knew I was he? Yet I dared not voice such questions in Thick’s hearing, even when he wandered in his fever dreams. There was no telling how he might repeat such words, aloud or in dreams.

Very late one evening, when the Prince and Chade had returned from some entertainment, I waited until Dutiful had dismissed his servants. He and Chade sat with glasses of wine, talking quietly on the cushioned bench beneath the window that looked out over our wake from our dimly lit cabin. I rose and left Thick’s side, and going to the table, beckoned them. Weary as they both were from a long session of stones with Lord Excellent, they were still intrigued enough to immediately join me. I spoke to Dutiful without a preamble. ‘Has Web ever confided to you that he knows I am FitzChivalry?’

The look of astonishment on his face was answer enough.

‘Did he need to know that?’ Chade grumbled at me.

‘Is there a reason to keep such knowledge from me?’ the Prince replied for me, more sharply than I would have expected.

‘Only that this bit of intrigue has nothing to do with our present mission. I would keep your mind focused on the matters that most concern us, Prince Dutiful.’ Chade’s voice was restrained.

‘Perhaps, Councillor Chade, you could let me decide which matters concern me?’ The asperity in Dutiful’s voice warned me that this was a topic that had been discussed before.

‘Then there is no sign that anyone else in your “Witted coterie” knows who I am?’

The Prince hesitated before replying slowly. ‘None. There has been talk, from time to time, of the Witted Bastard. And when I think back, Web has initiated it. But he brings it up in the same manner in which he teaches us Witted history and traditions. He speaks of a topic, and then asks us questions that lead us deeper into understanding it. He has never spoken of FitzChivalry as other than a historic figure.’

A little unnerving, to hear of myself as a ‘historic figure’. Chade spoke before I became too uncomfortable.

‘Then Web teaches your Witted coterie formally? History, traditions … what else?’

‘Courtesy. He tells us old fables of Witted folk and beasts. And how to prepare before beginning a Search for an animal partner. I think that what he teaches are things that the others have known from childhood, but he teaches them for my benefit and Swift’s. Yet when he tells tales, the others listen closely, especially the minstrel Cockle. I think he possesses much lore that was on the verge of being lost, and he speaks it to us that we may keep it safe and pass it on in our turn.’

I nodded to that. ‘When persecution broke up the Witted communities, the Witted had to conceal their traditions and knowledge. It would be inevitable that less of it was passed on to their children.’

‘Why, do you think, does Web speak of FitzChivalry?’ Chade asked speculatively.

I watched Dutiful think it through, in the same way Chade had taught me to ponder any man’s action. What could he gain by it? Who did it threaten? ‘It could be that he suspects that I know. Yet I don’t think that is it. I think he poses it to the Wit-coterie to make them consider, “what is the difference between a ruler who is Witted or unWitted? What would it have meant for the Six Duchies if Fitz had come to power at that time instead of being executed for his magic? What might it mean for the Six Duchies if it ever becomes safe for me to reveal that I am Old Blood? And also, how does it benefit my people, all my people, to have an Old Blood ruler? And how can my Wit-coterie assist me in my reign”?’

‘In your reign?’ Chade asked sharply. ‘Do their ambitions run that far ahead of us? They had spoken of aiding you on this quest, to show the Six Duchies that the Wit can be put to a good cause. Do they think to continue as advisors beyond this task?’

Dutiful frowned at Chade. ‘Well, of course.’

When the old man knit his brows in irritation, I intervened. ‘It seems natural to me that they would, especially if their efforts do assist the Prince in his quest. To use them and then cast them aside afterward is not the sort of political wisdom you have taught me over the years.’

Chade was still scowling. ‘Well … I suppose … if they truly proved to be of any value, they would expect some compensation.’

The Prince spoke levelly, but I could sense him holding his temper. ‘And what would you expect them to ask in return if they were a Skill-coterie aiding me?’ He sounded so like Chade as he set his trap question that I almost laughed aloud.

Chade bristled. ‘But that would be entirely different. The Skill is your hereditary magic, as well as being vastly more powerful than the Wit. That you would bond with your Skill-coterie and accept both counsel and companionship from them would be expected.’ Then he stopped speaking abruptly.

Dutiful nodded slowly. ‘Old Blood is also my hereditary magic. And I suspect there is far more to it than we know. And, yes, Chade, I do feel a bond of both companionship and trust with those who share that magic. It is, as you said, to be expected.’

Chade opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again. After an instant, he opened his mouth, but again subsided. Irritation vied with admiration when he said quietly, ‘Very well. I follow your logic. I do not necessarily agree with the conclusion, but I follow it.’

‘That is all I ask,’ the Prince replied and in his words I heard the echo of the monarch he would be.

Chade turned his beetling gaze on me. ‘Why did you bring this up?’ he asked me crossly, as if I had sought to precipitate a quarrel between them.

‘Because I need to know what it is that Web seeks from me. I sense that he courts me, that he tries to draw me closer into his confidence. Why?’

There is no true silence on board a ship. Always there are the ongoing conversations between wood and water, canvas and wind. Those voices were the only ones in the cabin for a time. Then Dutiful gave a small snort. ‘Unlikely as you think it, Fitz, perhaps he only wishes to be your friend. I see nothing here for him to gain.’

‘He holds a secret,’ Chade said sourly. ‘There is always power in holding a secret.’

‘And danger,’ the Prince countered. ‘Revealing this secret is as dangerous to Web as it is to Fitz. Think what would follow if he revealed it. Would it not undermine my reign? Would not some of the nobles turn on my mother the Queen, angered that she had kept this secret from them and preserved Fitz’s life?’ In a lower voice he added, ‘Do not forget that in revealing to Fitz that he knew his identity, Web put himself at risk, also. This is a secret that some men would kill to preserve.’

I watched Chade sift it through his mind. ‘Truly, the threat is to your reign as much as to Fitz,’ he conceded worriedly. ‘Right now, you are correct. It benefits Web most to keep the secret a secret. As long as your reign is amiable toward the Witted, they have no interest in deposing you. But if you ever turned against them? What then?’

‘What then indeed?’ Dutiful scoffed. ‘Chade, ask yourself as you have so often asked me, “what would happen next?” If my mother and I were overthrown, who would seize power? Why, those who had overthrown us. And they would be the enemy of the Witted, a harsher enemy than Old Blood has had to confront in my lifetime. No. I think Fitz’s secret is safe. More, I think he should set aside his wariness and become Web’s friend.’

I nodded, wondering why such an idea made me so uneasy.

‘I still see little benefit in this Witted coterie,’ Chade muttered.

‘Do you not? Then why do you ask me each day what Web’s bird has seen? Does it not ease your mind to know that all the ships she has shown Web have been honest merchant or fishing vessels? And think what tidings she gave us today. She has flown over the harbour and town of Zylig, and Web has looked down on it through the bird’s eyes. He has seen no massing of folk as for battle or treachery. True, the city is swelled with people, but it seems to flaunt a festive air. Do you not take comfort in that?’

‘I suppose so. But it is a thin comfort, given that treachery is so easy to disguise.’

Thick rolled over, muttering, and I made that my excuse to leave them. Not long after, Chade departed for his own cabin, the Prince went to his bed and I made up my pallet beside Thick’s bunk. I thought of Web and Risk, and tried to imagine seeing the ocean and the Out Islands through a bird’s eyes. It would be a marvel and a wonder. Yet before my imagination could capture me completely, a wave of longing for Nighteyes swept over me. That night, I dreamed my own dreams, and they were of wolves hunting in the summer-seared hills.

EIGHT

The Hetgurd

This is how it was. Eda and El coupled in the darkness, but he did not find favour with her. Then she gave birth to the land, and the outrush of her waters which accompanied that birth was the sea. The land was shapeless, clay and still, until Eda took it in her hands. One at a time, she moulded the runes of her secret name, and El’s too, did she fashion. She spelled out the god name with the God’s Runes, setting them in careful order in the ocean. And all this El watched.

But when he would have taken up clay of his own to fashion his own runes, Eda would not give any over to him. ‘You gave me but a rush of fluid from your body as seed to make all this. The flesh of it came from me. So take back only what was yours to start with, and be content with it.’

El was little content with that. So he made for himself men, and gave them ships and put them on the sea’s face. Laughing to himself, he said, ‘There are too many for her to watch them all. Soon they will walk on her land and shape it to my liking, so it spells my name instead of hers.’

But Eda had already thought before him. And when El’s men came to land, they found Eda’s women, already walking on it and ordering the growing of fruit and grain and the proliferation of the cattle. And the women would not suffer the men to shape the lands, nor even to abide on them for long. Instead, the women said to the men, ‘We will let you give us the brine of your loins, with which we will shape flesh to follow ours. But never will the land that Eda bore belong to your sons, but only to our daughters.’

Birth of the World, as told by Out Island bards

Despite Chade’s misgivings, Web’s bird had shown him accurately what we could expect. The next morning, the lookout cried out his sighting, and by afternoon the nearest islets of the Out Islands were streaming past on our port side. Green banked islands, tiny houses and small fishing vessels enlivened a view that had been watery for too long. I tried to convince Thick to rise and come on deck to see how close we were to the end of our journey but he refused to be tempted. When he spoke, his words were slow and measured. ‘It won’t be home,’ he moaned. ‘We’re too far from home, and we’ll never get back there again. Never.’ Coughing, he turned away from me.

Yet even his sour attitude could not dampen my relief. I convinced myself that once he was on shore, he would regain both his health and spirits. The knowledge that we were close to getting off that cramped vessel made every moment stretch into a day. It was only the next afternoon that we sighted Zylig, but it seemed a month had passed. When small boats rowed out to greet us and guide our ships through the narrow channel to their harbour, I longed to be on deck with Chade and Prince Dutiful.

Instead, I paced the Prince’s cabin, staring out at the frustrating view from the aft windows. I could hear our captain bellowing and the thunder of the sailors’ feet on the deck. Chade and Prince Dutiful and his contingent of nobles and his Witted coterie were all up on the deck, looking on as the ship approached Zylig. I felt like a dog chained in the kennel while the hounds streamed off to the hunt. I felt the change in the ship’s movements as our canvas was lowered and the towlines of our pilot boats took up their slack. When they had us in position, the Out Island guides brought us about so that our stern now faced Zylig. As I heard the splash of our anchor, I stared restlessly out at the foreign city that awaited us. The other Six Duchies ships were being manoeuvred into anchorage nearby.

I do not think there is anything so ponderously slow as a ship coming into port, save perhaps the process of unloading. Suddenly the water about us swarmed with small craft, their oars dipping and rising as if they were many-legged water bugs. One, grander than the rest, soon bore Prince Dutiful, Chade, a selected entourage and a handful of his guards away from the ship. I watched them go, certain they had forgotten about Thick and me. Then there was a tap at the door. It was Riddle, freshly attired in his guard’s uniform. His eyes shone with excitement.

‘I’m to watch your half-wit while you get yourself ready. There’s a boat waiting to take you and him and the rest of the guard ashore. Step lively now. Everyone else is ready to go.’

So they had not forgotten me, but neither had they served me with much warning of their plans. I took Riddle at his word, leaving him with Thick while I went below. The guards’ area was deserted. The others had donned their clean uniforms as soon as we’d approached harbour. Those who hadn’t accompanied the Prince lined the railing on deck, eager to be away. I changed swiftly and hurried back to the Prince’s quarters. Harrying Thick into clean clothing was not going to be pleasant or easy, but when I arrived, I found that Riddle had already undertaken that task.

Thick swayed on the edge of his bunk. His blue tunic and trousers hung on his wasted frame. Until I saw him dressed, I had not realized how much flesh he had lost. Riddle knelt by the bunk, good-naturedly trying to chivvy him into his shoes. Thick was moaning feebly and making vaguely helpful motions. His face was crumpled with misery. If I had doubted it at all before, I was now certain that Riddle was one of Chade’s men. No ordinary guardsman would have undertaken that task.

‘I’ll finish that,’ I told him, and could not keep the brusqueness from my voice. I could not have said why I felt protective of the small man looking at me blearily from his little round eyes, but I did.

‘Thick,’ I told him as I finished getting his shoes on. ‘We’re going ashore. Once we’re on solid ground again, you’re going to feel much better. You’ll see.’

‘No, I won’t,’ he promised me. He coughed again and the rattle in it frightened me. Nonetheless, I found a cloak for him and heaved him to his feet. He staggered along beside me as we left the cabin. Out on the deck in the fresh wind for the first time in days, he shivered and clutched his cloak tightly around him. The sun shone brightly, but the day was not as warm as a summer day in Buck. Snow still owned the peaks of the higher hills, and the wind carried its chill to us.

The Outislanders provided our transportation to shore. Getting Thick from the deck into the dancing boat below required both Riddle and myself. I silently cursed at those guards who laughed at our predicament. At their oars, the Outislanders discussed us freely in their own tongue, unaware that I understood the disdain they expressed for a Prince who chose an idiot as his companion. Once settled on the seat beside Thick, I had to put my arm around him to settle him against the terrors of a small, open boat. He wept, the round tears rolling down his cheeks as our little dory rose and fell with every passing wave. I blinked at the bright sunlight glancing off the moving water and stared stolidly at the wharves and houses of Zylig as the straining sailors rowed us to our destination.

It was not an inspiring view. Peottre Blackwater’s disdain for the city was not misplaced. Zylig offered all the worst aspects of a lively port. Wharves and docks jutted haphazardly into the bay. Vessels of every description crowded them. Most were fat-hulled, greasy whale-hunters, with a permanent reek of oil and butchery clinging to them. A few were merchanters from the Six Duchies. I saw one that looked Chalcedean and one that could have been Jamaillian. Moving amongst them were the small fishing boats that daily fed the bustling town, and even smaller craft that were hawking smoked fish, dried seaweed and other provisions to the outward bound vessels. Masts forested the skyline and the docked ships grew taller as we approached them.

Beyond them, I caught glimpses of warehouses, sailors’ inns and supply stores. Stone structures predominated over wood. Narrow streets, some little more than trails, meandered amongst the crowded little buildings. At one end of the bay where the water ran shallower and rocky, unfit for anchorage, little stone houses clustered by the water. Rowing-boats were pulled out above the tide-line, and spread fish hung like laundry drying from poles. Smoking fires in trenches beneath the fish added flavour as it preserved the catch. I glimpsed a pack of children racing along the beach, shrieking raucously in some wild game.

The section of the town we were approaching seemed recently built. In contrast to the rest of the settlement, the streets were wide and straight. Timber supplemented the native stone, and most of the structures were taller. Some had windows of swirled glass in the upper storeys. I recalled hearing that the Six Duchies dragons had visited this port city, bringing death and destruction to our enemies. The structures in this area were all of an age, the streets straight and well cobbled. It was strange to see this orderly section amongst the haphazard port town and wonder what it had looked like before Verity as Dragon had paid a call here. Stranger still to think that the destruction of war could result in such rebuilt tidiness.

Above the harbour, the land rose in rocky hillsides. Dark evergreens hunched in sheltered areas. Cart tracks wound among the hillsides where sheep and goats grazed. Smoke wandered up through the tree cover from scarcely visible huts. Mountains and taller hills, crowned still with snow, loomed beyond them.

We had arrived on a low tide, and the docks towered above us, supported on thick timbers crusted with barnacles and black mussels. The rungs of the ladder up to the dock were still wet from the retreating tide, and festoons of seaweed hung from them. The Prince and several boatloads of nobles had already disembarked. More Buckkeep noblemen were unloading as we approached. Grudgingly they gave way to us, to allow the Prince’s guard to clamber up the ladders onto the docks and form up to escort Dutiful to his welcome.

I was the last out of the tippy little boat, having shoved a moaning Thick ahead of me up the slippery ladder. Once on the docks, I moved us away from the edge and looked around me. The Prince, flanked by his advisors, was being greeted by the Hetgurd. I was left standing to one side with Thick, unsure of what was expected of me. I needed to get him to a place where he would be comfortable and out of the public eye. I wondered uneasily if it would not have been wiser for me to remain on the ship with him. The open looks of disgust and dismay that he was receiving did not indicate a warm welcome for us. Evidently the Outislanders shared the Mountain opinion of children that were born less than perfect. If Thick had been born in Zylig, his life would not have lasted a day.

My status as both bastard and assassin had often left me lurking in the shadows at official proceedings so I did not feel slighted. If I had been alone, I would have known that my task was to mingle and observe while being nondescript. But here, in a foreign land, saddled with a sick and miserable simpleton and clad in a guard’s uniform, I could do neither. So I stood awkwardly at the edge of the crowd, my arm supporting Thick, and listened to the exchange of carefully-phrased greetings, welcome and thanks. The Prince seemed to be acquitting himself well, but the look of concentration on his face warned me not to distract him with a Skill-query. Those who had come to meet him represented a variety of clans, judging by the differing animal sigils featured in their jewellery and tattoos. Most were men, richly attired in the lush furs and heavy jewellery that signified both rank and wealth among the Outislanders; but there were four women also. They wore woven wool garments trimmed with fur, and I wondered if this was to show the wealth of their land holdings. The Narcheska’s father, Arkon Bloodblade, was there, along with at least six others displaying the boar of his clan. Peottre Blackwater accompanied him, his narwhal an ivory carving on a gold chain around his neck. It seemed odd to me that I saw no other narwhal sigils. That was the Narcheska’s maternal clan, and among the Outislanders, her significant family line. We were here to finalize the terms of the marriage between Dutiful and her. Surely it was a momentous occasion for her clan. Why did only Peottre come to represent them? Did the rest oppose this alliance?

The formalities of greeting satisfied at length, the Prince and his entourage were escorted away. The guard formed up without me and marched off behind him. For a moment I feared that Thick and I would be left standing on the docks. Just as I was wondering if I could bribe someone to take us back to the ship, an old man approached us. He wore a collar of wolf fur and sported the boar sigil of Bloodblade’s clan, but did not seem as prosperous as the other men. He obviously believed he could speak my language, for I could understand about one word in four of his barbarously mangled Duchy tongue. Fearing to insult him by asking him to speak Outislander, I waited and finally grasped that the Boar Clan had appointed him to guide Thick and I to our lodging.

He made no offer to assist me with Thick. In fact, he assiduously avoided getting any closer to him than was absolutely necessary, as if the little man’s mental deficiency was a contagion that might leap to him like a plague of lice. I felt it as a slur, but counselled myself to patience. He walked briskly ahead of us, and did not slacken his pace, even though he often had to halt completely to wait for us. Obviously, he did not wish to share the gawking stares we attracted. We made a strange sight, me in my guard’s uniform and poor miserable Thick, swathed in a cloak and staggering along under my arm.

Our guide led us through the reconstructed part of town and then up a steeper, narrower road. Thick’s breath was a moaning wheeze. ‘How much farther?’ I demanded of our guide, calling the words to him as he hastened ahead of us.

He turned abruptly, scowling, and made a brusque motion for me to keep my voice down. He gestured up the street at an old building, all of stone and much larger than the houses we had passed in the lower part of town. It was rectangular, with a peaked roof of slates, and three storeys high. Windows interrupted the stonework at regular intervals. It was a plain and functional building, stoutly built and probably amongst the oldest structures in the town. I nodded, unspeaking. A boar, his tusks and tail lifted defiantly, was etched into the stone above the entry. So. We would be housed in the Boar Clan’s stronghouse.

By the time we reached the courtyard around the building, our guide was practically chewing his moustache in his teeth-gnashing impatience at our slow pace. I no longer cared. When he opened a side door and gestured to me to hurry, I slowly drew myself up to my full height and glared down at him. In my best Outislander, and all too aware of how poor my accent was, I told him, ‘It is not the pleasure of the Prince’s companion that we hurry. I serve at his command, not yours.’

I saw uncertainty wash over the man’s face as he wondered if he had offended someone of a much higher rank than he knew. He was somewhat more courteous as he showed us up two steep flights of stairs and into a chamber that looked out over the town and the harbour through a swirl of thick glass. By then I’d had enough of him. I gauged him as a lesser lackey to some minor Boar war-leader. As such, I dismissed him brusquely once we were inside, and shut the door even though he lingered in the hallway.

I sat Thick down on the bed and then assessed the room quickly. There was a door that connected to another, much grander chamber. I decided that we had been put in a servant’s room adjacent to the Prince’s quarters. The bed was adequate, the furnishings simple in Thick’s small room. Even so, it seemed a palace after his closet on the ship. ‘Sit there,’ I told Thick. ‘Don’t go to sleep yet.’

‘Where are we? I want to go home,’ he mumbled. I ignored him and stole through into the Prince’s chamber. There I helped myself to a pitcher of wash water and a basin and drying cloths. There was a platter of food on the table. I was not sure exactly what it was, but took several pieces of a dark, sticky stuff cut in squares, and an oily-looking cake covered with seed. I also took a bottle of what I thought was wine and a cup.

Thick had toppled over on his bed. Painstakingly I hauled him upright again. Despite his groaning protests I made him wash his face and hands. I wished that I had a tub to put him in, for he smelled strongly of his days of sickness. Then I forced food down him, and a glass of the wine. He complained and snivelled until he hiccupped. Once I felt him marshal his Skill-strength against me but it was a weak and childish swipe that did not even challenge my walls. I pulled off his tunic and shoes and put him to bed. ‘The room is still moving,’ he muttered petulantly. Then he closed his eyes and was still. A few moments later he gave a great sigh, stretched out in the bed and fell into a true sleep. I closed my own eyes and cautiously tiptoed into his dream. The kitten slept in a tiny curled ball upon the embroidered pillow. He felt safe. I opened my eyes, suddenly so weary that I could have cast myself down on the floor and slept where I fell.

I didn’t. Instead I used what was left of the clean water. I sampled the food, found it unpalatable and ate it anyway. The oily one was probably intended to be some sort of sweet; the other tasted strongly of fish paste. The ‘wine’ was something fermented from fruit; other than that, I had few ideas about it. It didn’t quite take away the fish taste from my mouth. Then, armed with the basin of soiled water, I left the chamber to venture out into our lodgings. If anyone questioned me, I was simply looking for a place to dump the slops.

The building was as much stronghold as clan residence. We were on the highest floor, and I heard no sounds of other occupants. The interior walls featured carved and painted boars and tusk motifs. The other doors on the hall were not locked. They seemed to alternate between small chambers such as Thick had and larger ones, more generously furnished. None of them met the Buckkeep standard for guest housing even for lesser nobles. I reserved judgment on that. I doubted they intended to insult us: I knew the Outislanders had different customs for hospitality than the Six Duchies did. Generally speaking, houseguests were expected to provide their own victuals and comforts. We had come here knowing that. The wine and food in the Prince’s room seemed to be a nod to the Six Duchies hospitality the Narcheska’s entourage had enjoyed at Buckkeep. There were no signs of any servants on this upper floor, and I doubted that any would be supplied to us.

The next floor down seemed much the same. These rooms smelled as if they had been recently used; odours of smoke, food and, in one case, wet dog lingered in them. I wondered if they had been vacated for our use. The chambers here were slightly smaller, and the windows were of oiled skin rather than glass. Heavy wooden shutters, some bearing the old scars of arrows, offered protection from any determined assault. Evidently the highest chambers were accorded to those of highest ranks; very different from the Six Duchies, where servants were given the upper rooms so that nobility need not climb too many flights of steps. I had just closed a door when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. An ant trail of servants suddenly appeared, bearing belongings, comforts and victuals for their Six Duchies masters. They halted in confusion, milling in the hallway, and one asked me, ‘How do we know which chamber is for who?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ I replied pleasantly. ‘I’m not even certain where we are to dump slops.’

I slipped away from them, leaving them to sort out the rooms, suspecting that the best ones would go to the nobles with the most aggressive servants. On the ground floor I found a back door that led out to a waste pit behind the privies and dumped my water there. Another door led down a corridor to a large kitchen where several young Outislander men were tending a large roast on a spit, chopping potatoes and onions, and kneading bread. They seemed intent on their tasks and all but ignored me as I peered in at them. A quick tour of the outside of the building showed me that a second, much grander door led to a large open hall that made up much of the ground floor of the building. These doors stood open to admit both light and air. Within, I glimpsed what was undoubtedly the welcome gathering for the Prince. I abandoned my basin in the deep grass at one end of the building, and hastily straightened my uniform and smoothed back my hair into a tail.

Unnoticed, I slipped into the back of the room. My fellow guardsmen were ranged against the wall. They looked as alert as men do when they are stiflingly bored and ignored. In truth, there seemed little for them to guard against.

The large room was long and low ceilinged. The main part of it was taken up with benches, all of a height and all full of seated men. There was no throne or dais of any kind. Nor were the benches oriented to focus attention on one person. Rather, they ringed the room, leaving the centre open. A bowed old kaempra, or war leader of the Fox Clan was speaking. His short jacket was fringed with the tips of fox tails, white as his unruly hair. He was missing three fingers on his sword hand, but wore a necklace of his enemies’ fingerbones to compensate. He tugged at them nervously as he spoke, glancing often at Bloodblade as if reluctant to give offence and yet too angry to keep silent. I only caught his closing words. ‘No one clan can speak for all of us! No one clan has the right to bring bad luck down on us all.’

As I watched, the Fox kaempra nodded gravely to each corner of the room and then retired to his bench. Another man stood and made his way to the centre and began speaking. I saw the Prince and Lord Chade seated amongst the nobles who attended him in one section of the benches. His Wit-coterie was ranged behind him. The Hetgurd, for so I recognized this assembly – the gathering of the warrior leaders of the clans – had accorded my prince no indication of his rank. Here, he was seated as a warrior leader among his warriors, just as the other clan warrior-leaders were. This was a gathering of equals, come together to discuss the Narcheska’s betrothal. Did they see him so? I tried not to scowl at the thought.

All this I grasped in the time it took my eyes to adjust to the dimness of the hall after the summer sunshine outside. I found a piece of wall to lean on next to Riddle in the back row of guardsmen. Riddle spoke out of the side of his mouth. ‘Not like us at all, my friend. No feast or gifts or songs to welcome our Prince. Just a how-d’ye-do greeting on the docks and then they brought him straight here and began discussing the betrothal. Right to business for these people. Some don’t like the idea of one of their women leaving her motherlands to go live in the Six Duchies. They think it’s unnatural and probably bad luck. But most don’t care much about that, one way or another. They seem to think that would be Clan Narwhal’s bad luck, not theirs. The real sticking point is the dragon-slaying bit.’

I nodded to his swift summary. Chade had a good man in Riddle. I wondered where he had recruited him and then focused my attention on the man who was speaking. I noticed now that he stood in the middle of a ring painted on the floor. It was intricate and stylized, and yet still recognizable as a serpent grasping its own tail. The man did not give his name before he began speaking. Perhaps he assumed that everyone knew it, or perhaps the only important part of his identity was the sea otter tattooed on his forehead. He spoke simply, without anger, as if explaining something obvious to rather stupid children.

‘Icefyre is not a cow that belongs to any one of us. He is not cattle to be offered as part of a bride price. Even less does he belong to the foreigner Prince. How then can he offer the head of a creature that does not belong to him as payment to the Blackwater Mothershouse of the Narwhal Clan? We can only see his promise in one of two ways. Either he has made his offer in ignorance, or it is an affront to us.’

He paused then and made a strange gesture with his hand. In a moment its meaning was made clear as Prince Dutiful slowly stood and then came to join him in the speaker’s circle. ‘No, Kaempra Otter.’ Dutiful addressed him as warrior-leader for his clan. ‘It was not ignorance. It was not intended as affront. The Narcheska presented this deed to me as a challenge to prove myself worthy of her.’ The Prince lifted his hands and let them fall helplessly. ‘What could I do but accept it? If a woman issued such a challenge to you, saying before your gathered warriors, “accept it or admit cowardice”, what would you do? What would any of you do?’

Many heads in the assembly nodded to this. Dutiful nodded gravely back to them and then added, ‘So what am I to do now? My word has been given, before your warriors and mine, in the hall of my parents. I have said I will attempt to do this thing. I know of no honourable way to unsay such words. Is there a custom here, among the people of the Narcheska, that allows a man to call back the words that have issued from his mouth?’

The Prince moved his hands, imitating the same gesture that the Otter kaempra had used to cede him the speaker’s circle. He bowed to the four corners of the hall, and then retreated to his bench again. As he took his seat, Otter spoke again.

‘If this was the manner of your accepting the challenge, then I will take no affront toward you. I reserve what I think of clan Blackwater’s daughter for issuing such a challenge. Regardless of the circumstances.’

I had previously noticed Peottre Blackwater sitting almost by himself on one of the front benches. He scowled at the Otter’s remark but made no indication that he wished to speak. The Narcheska’s father, Arkon Bloodblade, sat a small distance away from Peottre, his Boar warriors ranked about him. Arkon’s brow remained smooth, as if the rebuke had nothing to do with him, and perhaps by his lights that was correct. The Otter had rebuked Elliania as a daughter of the Blackwater family of the Narwhal Clan. Arkon Bloodblade was a Boar. Here, within his own people, he assumed the role that they expected of him. He was only the Narcheska’s father. Her mother’s brother, Peottre Blackwater, was responsible for the quality of her upbringing.

When the silence had stretched enough that it was obvious no one would offer a defence for what the Narcheska had done, the Otter leader cleared his throat. ‘It is true that as a man you cannot call back your word, Prince of the Farseer Buck Clan. You have said you will try to do this thing, and I will concede that you must do it, or be judged no man at all.

‘Yet that does not release us of the Out Islands of our duties. Icefyre is ours. What do our great mothers tell us? He came to us, in the years before years were counted, and asked asylum from his grief. Our wise women granted it to him. And in return for our sheltering, he promised that his protection should be ours. We know the power of his spirit and the invulnerability of his flesh, and fear little that you shall slay him. But if, by some strange twist of fate, you manage to do him injury, on whom will his anger fall after he has killed you? On us.’ He turned slowly in a circle as he spoke, including all the clans as he warned them, ‘If Icefyre is ours, we also belong to him. Like a kin pledge we should see the debt woven between us. If his blood is shed, must not we shed blood in return? If, as his kin, we fail to come to his aid, cannot he exact from us the blood price ten times over, according to our law? This Prince must honour his word as a man. That is so. But after, must not war come to us again, regardless of whether he lives or dies?’

I saw Arkon Bloodblade draw a long slow breath. I noted now what I had not before, that he held his hand in a certain way, open yet with the fingers pointing toward his sternum. Several men, I now saw, were making the same gesture. A request to speak? Yes, for when the Otter warrior made the now familiar gesture, Bloodblade stood and came to take the man’s place in the circle.

‘None of us want war again. Not here in the God Runes, nor in the Prince’s farmers’ fields across the water. Yet a man’s word must be satisfied. And though we all be men here, there is a woman’s will in this as well. What warrior can stand before a woman’s will? What sword can cut her stubbornness? To women Eda has given the islands themselves, and we walk upon them only by her leave. It is not for men to set aside the challenge of a woman, lest our own mothers say, “you do not respect the flesh you sprang from. Walk no more on the earth that Eda has granted us. Be abandoned by us, with only water under your keel and never sand under your feet.” Is that easier than war? We are caught between a man’s word and a woman’s will. Neither can be broken without disgrace to all.’

I had understood Bloodblade’s words but the full import of their meaning escaped me. Obviously there was custom here we were not familiar with, and I questioned what we had blundered into with our matchmaking. Bleakly I wondered if we had not fallen into a trap. Was the Blackwater family of the Narwhal Clan intent on kindling war between the Six Duchies and the Out Islands? Had their offer of the Narcheska been a sham, to draw us into a situation in which regardless of the outcome, we had invited bloodshed yet again to our shores?

I studied Peottre Blackwater’s face. His expression was stolid and still, his eyes turned inward. He seemed impassive to the dilemma his sister-daughter had set us, and yet I felt he was not. I sensed rather that we balanced on the knife blade that had already cut deep into him. He looked, I suddenly thought, like a man without choices. A man who could no longer hope, because he knows that no action of his own can save him. He was waiting. He did not plan or plot. He had already done the task he had set out to do. Now he could only wait to see how other men would carry it out. I was certain I was right, and yet what I could not understand or even imagine was why. Why had he done it? Or, as her father had said, was it beyond his control, the will of a woman who might be younger than he was and dependent on him, and yet controlled who might walk on the earth of his mother-holdings?

I looked around me. There were simply too many differences between us, I decided. How could the Six Duchies ever make a peace with the Out Islands when our customs varied so widely? Yet, tradition had it that the Farseer line had its roots in the Out Islands, that Taker, the first Farseer monarch, had begun his life as an Out Island raider who had seen the log fortress that Buckkeep once was and decided to make it his own. Our lines and our ways had diverged far since those days. Peace and prosperity depended on us finding some common ground.

The likelihood of that did not seem great.

I lifted my eyes to find the Prince’s gaze fixed on me. I had not wanted to distract him before. Now I sent him a reassuring thought. Thick is resting in his chamber upstairs. He ate and drank before he went to sleep.

I wish I could be doing the same. They did not give me so much as a chance to wash my face before they convened the Hetgurd. And now it shows no sign of ending.

Patience, my prince. They’ll end this eventually. Even Outislanders must eat, drink, and sleep some time.

Do they piss, do you think? That’s starting to be a very immediate concern to me. I’ve thought of excusing myself quietly, but don’t know how it would be interpreted if I stood and walked out now.

The hair stood up on the back of my neck as I felt a fumbling Skill-touch. Thick?

It was Chade. I saw Dutiful start to reach out his hand, to touch Chade and add his strength to the old man’s. I stopped him. No. Don’t. Let him try it on his own. Chade, can you hear us?

Barely.

Thick is asleep upstairs. He ate and drank before he fell asleep.

Good. I sensed the effort he put into that brief reply. Nonetheless, I was grinning. He was doing it.

Stop. Silly grin. He scolded me. He looked around the room gravely. Bad situation. Need time to think. Need to stop this before it goes too far without us.

I made my face solemn. The expression was far more in keeping with that of those around me. Arkon Bloodblade was surrendering the speaking circle to a man who wore an Eagle badge. They paused to clasp wrists in a warrior’s greeting before the Eagle entered the circle. The Eagle kaempra was an old man, possibly the oldest man in the assembly. Grey and white streaked his thinning hair, yet he still moved like a warrior. He stared around at us accusingly, and then spoke abruptly, the ends of his words softened by his missing teeth.

‘Doubtless a man must do what he has said he will do. It wastes our day to even discuss that. And men must honour their kinship bonds. If this foreign Prince came here and said, “I have promised a woman that I would kill Orig of the Eagle Clan”, all of you would say, “Then you must try, if you have promised to do it”. But we would also say, “But know that some of us have kinship bonds with Orig. And we will kill you before we let you do this thing.” And we would expect the Prince to accept that as obviously correct, also.’ His slow gaze travelled the assembly disdainfully. ‘I smell merchants and traders here, who used to be warriors and honourable men. Shall we sniff after Six Duchies goods like a dog grovelling after a bitch? Will you trade your own kin for brandy and summer apples and red wheat? Not this Eagle.’

He gave a snort of contempt for all who thought there was any need of more discussion, left the circle and crabbed back to sit amongst his warriors. A silence fell as we all pondered his words. Some exchanged glances: I sensed the old man had cut close to the bone. There were many here uneasy at the thought of letting the Prince kill their dragon, but they were also hungry for peace and trade. War with the Six Duchies had cut them off from all trade from points south of us. Now the Chalcedean quarrel with the Bingtown Traders was throttling that route. If they did not gain free trade with the Six Duchies, they would have to forgo all goods and luxuries that warmer countries could provide for them. It was not a thought to relish. Yet no one there could oppose the Eagle’s stance without taking the name of greedy trader to himself.

We have to end this somehow. Now, before anyone adds their spoken approval to his words. Chade’s thin Skilling sounded desperate.

No one else stepped forward into the speaking circle. No one had a solution to offer. The longer the silence stretched, the more charged the room became. I knew Chade was right. We needed time to think of a diplomatic solution to our position. And if there wasn’t one, we still needed time to discover how many of the Outislander clans would actively oppose us and how many would simply disapprove. Given the disapproval of the other clans, would the Narcheska persist in her challenge to Dutiful or would she withdraw it? Could she honourably recall it? Here we were, not even a full day on this island’s soil and already we seemed on the verge of confrontation.

Adding to my discomfort was that I was becoming aware of Dutiful’s need to urinate. I started to shield myself from his Skill, and then had a different idea. I recalled how Thick’s uneasiness aboard the ship had spread to infect the sailors. I wondered if Dutiful’s current discomfort could be used in a like manner.

I opened myself to his unwitting sending, amplified it and then sent my Skill questing out through the room. None of the Outislanders that I touched had any strong aptitude for the Skill, but many were susceptible to its influence in varying degrees. Once Verity had used a similar technique to baffle Red Ship navigators, convincing them that they’d already passed key landmarks and thus sending their ships onto the rocks. Now I used it to end this Hetgurd gathering by reminding every man my Skill could touch of his urgent need to empty his bladder.

All around the room, men began to shift in their seats.

Doing? Chade demanded.

Ending this meeting, I told him grimly.

Ah! I felt Dutiful’s sudden comprehension, and then felt him join his persuasion to mine.

Who is in charge? I asked him.

No one. They share authority here. Or so they say. Dutiful obviously thought it a poor system.

Bear opened meeting. Chade told me tersely. I felt him draw my attention to a man who wore a bear’s tooth necklace. I was suddenly aware of how much strength it was taking from Chade for him to do this feeble Skilling.

Don’t tax yourself, I warned him.

Know my own strength! His reply was angry but even from where I stood, I could see his shoulders drooping.

I singled out the Bear and focused my attention on him. Fortunately for me, he had little wall against the Skill and a full bladder. I pressed urgency on him and he suddenly stood up. He came forward to claim the speaking circle and the others ceded it to him with hand motions of giving.

‘We need to ponder on this. All of us.’ He suggested, ‘let us go apart, to talk with our own clans and see what thoughts they have for us. Tomorrow, let us gather again and speak of what we have learned and thought. Do any think this is wise?’

A forest of hands rose in spiralling gestures of assent.

‘Then let our meeting be over for this day,’ the Bear suggested.

And just that quickly, it was over. Men stood immediately and began moving toward the door. There was no ceremony to it, no precedence for those of higher rank, just a push of men toward the exit, some with a greater insistence than others.

Tell your captain that you must check on your ward. That, until he is fit, I have commanded that you continue to tend him. We’ll soon join you upstairs.

I obeyed my prince’s command. When Longwick released me, I retrieved the washing basin I’d left outside the door and returned to Thick’s chamber. He had not stirred that I could see. I felt his forehead. He was still feverish, but it did not burn as it had aboard the ship. Nonetheless, I roused him and coaxed him to drink water. He took little urging to down a whole mug of it, and then settled back into the bed again. I was relieved. Here, in this strange room and away from the perspective of his sick bed on the ship, I could truly see how wasted Thick was. Well, he would recover now. He had all he needed: quiet, a bed, food and drink. Soon he would be better. I tried to convince myself that my hope was a fact.

I heard Prince Dutiful and Chade conversing in the hall with someone. I stood and went to the door, ear pressed to it. I heard Dutiful pleading weariness, and then the closing of the door of the next chamber. His servants must have been waiting for him there. Again, there was a murmur of conversation, and then I heard him dismiss them. A little time passed and then the connecting door opened and Dutiful wandered in. He held a small black square of the food in his hand. He looked depressed. He held the food up and asked me, ‘Any idea what this is?’

‘Not really, but it has fish paste in it. Maybe seaweed, too. The cakes with the seeds are sweet. Oily but sweet.’

Dutiful regarded the food in his hand with distaste, then gave the shrug of a fifteen-year-old who hasn’t been fed for several hours and ate it. He licked his fingers. ‘It’s not bad, as long as you expect it to taste like fish.’

‘Old fish,’ I observed.

He didn’t reply. He’d crossed over to where Thick slept and stood looking down on him. He shook his head slowly. ‘This is so unfair to him. Do you think he’s getting better now?’

‘I hope so.’

‘His music has become so much quieter, it worries me. Sometimes I feel as if Thick himself goes away from us when his fever rises.’

I opened myself to Thick’s music. Dutiful was right. It did seem less intense. ‘Well, he’s sick. It takes strength and energy to Skill.’ I didn’t want to worry about him just now. ‘Chade surprised me today.’

‘Did he? You must have known that he would keep at it until he could do at least that much. Nothing stops the old man once he has decided to do something.’ He turned away from me and headed toward the connecting door. Then he paused. ‘Did you want any of that stuff to eat?’

‘No, thank you. You go ahead.’

He spoke over his shoulder. He vanished for a moment into his own room, then returned with one hand stacked with the fish cakes. He bit into one of the squares, made a dismal face and then quickly ate the rest of it. He looked around the room hungrily. ‘Didn’t anyone bring us food yet?’

‘You’re eating it, I think.’

‘No. This is just an Out Island nod because we fed them. I know Chade told servants to find fresh food and buy it for us.’

‘Are you saying that Boar Clan isn’t going to feed us?’

‘They may. They may not. Chade seems to think we should act as if we don’t expect it. Then, if they offer us food, we can accept it as a gift. And if they don’t, we don’t seem grasping or weak.’

‘Have you informed your nobles of their customs?’

He nodded. ‘Many of them came here as much to form new trading alliances and see what other opportunities the Out Islands offered as to support me in my courtship of the Narcheska. So they are just as glad to move about Zylig, seeing what is for sale here and what people might want to buy. But we’ll have to feed my guard, the servants and of course my Wit-coterie. I thought Chade had arranged provisions.’

‘The Hetgurd seem to accord you little respect,’ I said worriedly.

‘I do not think they truly understand what I am. It is a foreign concept to them, that a boy of my years, unproven as a warrior, is assured the ruling of such a large territory. Here, men do not claim sovereignty over an area of land, but instead show strength by the warriors they can command. In some ways, I am seen more as a son of my mother’s house. Queen Kettricken was in power when we defeated them at the end of the Red Ship War. They are in awe of that, that she not only kept the home lands safe but that she launched war against them in the form of the dragons she called down on them. That is how it is told here.’

‘You seem to have learned a great deal in a very short time.’

He nodded, pleased with himself. ‘Some of it comes from putting together what I hear here with what I experienced of the Outislanders at Buckkeep. Some from the reading I did on the way here.’ He gave a small sigh. ‘And it is not as useful as I hoped it would be. If they offer us hospitality, I mean, feed us, then we can see it as welcome, that they know it is our custom and honour it. Or we can see it as insult, that we are too weak to feed ourselves and too foolish to have come prepared. But no matter how we see it, we can’t be certain how they meant it.’

‘Like your dragon-slaying. Do you come to kill a beast and thus prove yourself a worthy mate for the Narcheska? Or do you come to kill the dragon that is the guardian of their land, proving that you can take whatever you want from them?’

Dutiful paled slightly. ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way.’

‘Nor had I. But some of them do. And, it brings us back to that one essential question. Why? Why did the Narcheska choose this particular task for you?’

‘Then you think it has significance to her besides my being willing to risk my life just to marry her?’

For a moment all I could do was stare at him. Had I ever been that young? ‘Well, of course it does. Don’t you think so?’

‘Civil had said that she probably wanted “proof of my love”. He said that girls were often like that, asking men to do things that were dangerous or illegal or next to impossible, simply to prove their love.’

I made a mental note of that. I wondered what Civil had been asked to do and by whom, and if it had related to the Farseer monarchy or was merely a boyish deed of derring-do that some girl had demanded of him.

‘Well, I doubt it would be anything that romantically frivolous with the Narcheska. How could she possibly think that you loved her, after the way she has treated you? And she’s certainly given no sign of being fond of your company.’

For a flashing moment, he stared at me with stricken eyes. Then he smoothed his expression so completely that I wondered if I had been mistaken. Surely the Prince could not be infatuated with the girl. They had nothing in common, and after he had accidentally insulted her, she had treated him as less than a whipped dog whining after her. I looked at him. A boy can believe almost anything when he is fifteen.

Dutiful gave a slight snort. ‘No. She has certainly given me no sign of even tolerating my company. Think on it. She did not journey here with her father and uncle to meet us and offer us welcome to these islands. She is the one who thought up this ridiculous quest, but I notice she is nowhere in sight when it must be justified to her countrymen. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps it has nothing to do with me proving my love for her, or even proving my courage. Perhaps all along it was only to present a stumbling block to our marriage.’ In a glum voice, he added, ‘Perhaps she hopes I’ll die in the attempt.’

‘If we press forward with the task, it may block more than your marriage. It may send both our countries back to war.’

Chade entered on those words. He looked both worried and weary. He cast a disparaging look around the small chamber and observed, ‘Well, I see Thick has been afforded a chamber almost as lush as that allotted to Prince Dutiful and me. Is there anything to eat and drink?’

‘Nothing I’d recommend,’ I observed.

‘Fish and greasecakes,’ Prince Dutiful offered.

Chade winced. ‘Is that what the local market offers? I’ll send a man to bring us provisions from the ship. Foreign food will not ride well with me after this day. Come. Let us allow Thick some rest.’ He spoke over his shoulder as he led us through the connecting door to the Prince’s room. As he sat down on Dutiful’s bed, he added, ‘I do not approve of your putting the Skill to such a low use, Fitz. And yet, I must admit, you extricated us from a difficult situation. Please, consult with me before you use it in such a way again.’

It was both a rebuke and a compliment. I nodded, but Dutiful snorted. ‘Consult with you? Am not I to have any say in these matters?’

Chade recovered well. ‘Of course you are. I am merely conveying to Fitz that in matters of diplomacy he should not assume that he knows best which course we should set.’

The Prince opened his mouth to speak, but at that moment there came a rap at the hall door. At a gesture from Chade, I retreated to Thick’s room, drew the connecting door nearly closed and stood at an angle that allowed me to view a slice of the room without being observed.

Chade lifted his voice and asked, ‘Who is there?’

The visitor interpreted that as permission to enter. The door opened and as I set my muscles in readiness, Peottre Blackwater came in. He closed the door behind him, and then swept a Buckkeep bow to the Prince and Chade. ‘I have come to tell you that there is no need for you or any of your nobles to venture forth in search of food and drink. It is the pleasure of clans Boar and Narwhal to provide for you as generously as you did for our folk when we visited your Six Duchies.’

The words were spoken perfectly. It was a well-rehearsed speech. Chade’s response was as practised. ‘It is a gracious offer, but our people have already seen to their own provisions.’

Peottre looked distinctly uncomfortable for a moment, but then admitted, ‘We have already informed your nobles of our invitation, and are honoured that all have accepted it.’

Outwardly, both Chade and the Prince maintained a stiff silence, but Dutiful’s anguished worry rang in my mind. I should have cautioned all of them not to accept any offer of hospitality that was not conveyed through me. Will we be seen as weaklings now?

Peottre’s gaze moved worriedly from Chade’s face to the Prince’s. He seemed to sense he had mis-stepped. Then, ‘May I speak for a time with you?’ he asked.

‘Lord Blackwater, you are welcome to call upon me at any time,’ the Prince assured him reflexively.

A very slight smile twitched Peottre’s face. ‘Well you know I am no “lord”, Prince Dutiful, but only a kaempra of the Narwhal Clan. And even as that, I stand in the Hetgurd assembly with no warriors at my back. They tolerate me more for the sake of my sister’s husband, Arkon Bloodblade, than for any respect toward me. Our clan has fallen on very hard times in every way except the richness of our motherlands and the honour of our bloodlines.’

I privately wondered in what other ways a clan could experience hardship, but Peottre was still speaking. ‘I was not unprepared for what we heard from the Hetgurd this afternoon. In truth, ever since the Narcheska proposed her challenge, I have expected it. Arkon Bloodblade, too, saw that there were those who would be disgruntled by the test she has proposed. I wanted to tell you that we are not unprepared for this. We have made plans against it. The hospitality we offer, within this stronghouse, is but one safeguard we have put in place. We had hoped opposition would not be voiced so soon, nor by such a respected kaempra as the Eagle kaempra. It is our great good fortune that the Bear kaempra, who is allied with Boar, saw fit to dismiss the assembly so abruptly. Otherwise, discussion might have gone too far for us to mend it.’

‘You might have warned us of this opposition, Kaempra Peottre, before we faced the Hetgurd,’ Chade observed quietly, but the Prince cut through his words with, ‘So you think it can be mended? How?’

I winced at his eagerness. Chade was right. The man deserved a rebuke for having led us into a trap, not an unquestioning acceptance of his aid in getting out of it.

‘It will take time, but not too long – days rather than months. Since we returned from your country, we have spent much in both wealth and influence to buy allies. I speak bluntly, of course, of what cannot be openly acknowledged. Those who have agreed to support us must not swing too quickly to our side, but must seem to be persuaded by the arguments that Clan Boar will present in our favour. So, I wish to counsel you both to patience and to wariness until the Hetgurd is swayed.’

‘Wariness?’ Chade queried sharply. Assassins? His unspoken fear reached me clearly.

‘This is not the right word,’ Peottre apologized. ‘Sometimes, it seems, what one language says in one word another has many for. I would ask you to be … not as seen. Not as visible. Not as easy to find or to speak to.’

‘Unavailable?’ the Prince suggested.

Peottre smiled slightly and shrugged. ‘If that is how you would say it. We have a saying here, “It is difficult to insult the man you don’t speak to”. That is what I suggest. That the Farseer Buck Clan avoids giving offence by being … unavailable.’

‘While we trust Boar Clan to speak for us?’ Chade asked. He allowed a trace of scepticism into his voice. ‘And what are we to do in the meanwhile?’

Peottre smiled. I was not in the best position to observe him, but I thought I had glimpsed a look of relief that we seemed inclined to accept his advice. ‘I would suggest that we remove you completely from Zylig. All expect that you will visit the mothershouse of the Narcheska. It was almost surprising to the Hetgurd that you came here first. So, I suggest that tomorrow you board the Boar vessel Tusker and sail with us to Wuislington, the motherlands of the Narwhal Clan. There, you shall be welcomed and provided for, just as you welcomed and provided for us at Buckkeep. I have reported to my mothershouse of your customs in this regard. They find them unusual, but will concede the fairness of feeding you as you fed us.’

He could not conceal his hope as he offered this suggestion. His eagerness alarmed me. Did he shoo us away from danger, or lure us into it? I felt the same query cross Chade’s mind as he said, ‘But we have only arrived here today, and we are weary from the sea. The Prince’s man, Thick, does not fare well on the waves. He has taken ill and needs his rest. We cannot think of leaving tomorrow.’

I knew that we could, and that he was considering the cost of it even now. He but said these words to Peottre to see what the man would reply. For a moment, I almost pitied the Outislander. He could not know that Chade and the Prince were sharing their thoughts, let alone that I stood around the corner not only hearing his every word but also supporting their observations with mine. I saw dismay blossom behind his eyes, and confirmed to both Dutiful and Chade that I believed his discomfort was genuine, even as he exclaimed, ‘But you must! Leave the man here with someone to tend to him. He will be safe in the Boar’s stronghouse. To do murder in a clan’s stronghouse is a terrible insult to their mothershouse and the Boar Clan is powerful. No one will consider it.’

‘But they might consider it if he ventured outside the stronghouse? Or if I went out tonight, seeking a meal perhaps?’ The velvet courtesy of Chade’s tone did not quite mask the razor edge of his question.

From my concealment, I could see that Peottre regretted his hasty words. He considered lying and then boldly pushed that aside in favour of blunt truth. ‘You must have known it could come to this. You are not fools, either of you. I have seen you study men and balance the bargain you offer this one against what that one desires. I have seen you offer both honey and the spur to move others to your will. You would have come here knowing what Icefyre means to some of us. You would have anticipated this opposition.’

I felt Chade caution Dutiful to silence as he spoke out severely on his behalf. ‘Opposition, yes. Even a muttering of war. A threat of murder to the Prince’s man, or the Prince himself, no. Dutiful is the sole heir to the Farseer crown. You are not a fool, either. You know what that means. We have extended him as far into danger as we will risk him in allowing him to embark on this ridiculous quest. Now you admit that murder may hang over him, simply because he seeks to keep his word to your sister-daughter. The stakes for this alliance have become too high, Peottre. I will not wager the Prince’s life for the sake of this betrothal. The Narcheska’s demand has never made sense to me. Give us one good reason why we should proceed.’

The Prince was seething. His Skill-objections to Chade’s high-handedness drowned out my own thoughts. I thought I knew what Chade was doing, yet the only emotion I could experience was Dutiful’s affront that Chade would imply he would retreat from his word. Even Thick turned over with a heavy moan under the Prince’s Skill-onslaught.

Peottre’s glance darted to the Prince. Even without the Skill, he could read a young man’s spirit. ‘Because Prince Dutiful had said he will do it. To back away from his word now and flee home would make him seem both cowardly and weak. It might stave off war, but it would invite raiding again. You know our saying, I am sure: “a coward owns nothing for long”.’

In the Six Duchies we say, ‘Fear is the only thing that a man cannot take from a coward’. I supposed that it meant the same thing. That if our prince showed a cowardly nature, so all the Six Duchies would be judged, and the Outislanders would see us as ripe to be raided again.

Silence! Glare all you wish, but still your tongue! Chade’s command to Dutiful was as strong a bit of Skilling as I had ever experienced from him. Even more astonishing was the private command he arrowed solely to me. Watch Peottre’s face, Fitz. I felt what it cost Chade in strength, yet he kept his voice steady as he said coolly, ‘Kaempra Narwhal, you mistake me. I did not say the Prince would go back on his word to set the dragon’s head before your Narcheska. He has given his word, and a Farseer does not go back on his word. But having done that deed, I see no need to waste my prince’s bloodline on a woman who would connive to send him into such danger, from her own people as well as from a dragon. He will do this, but we will feel no duty to wed him to the Narcheska afterward.’

I had done as Chade bid me, but there was no reading the succession of expressions that flitted over Peottre’s visage. Astonishment, of course, followed by confoundment. I knew what Chade desired to discover. What did Peottre and the Narcheska seek most strongly: the death of the dragon or an alliance with the Farseers? Yet we were no closer to an answer when Peottre stammered out, ‘But is not that what the Six Duchies most desires? To create goodwill and an alliance by this marriage?’

‘The Narcheska is not the only woman of high stature in the Out Islands,’ Chade replied dismissively. Dutiful had grown very still. I could sense the racing of his thoughts, but not hear them. ‘Certainly Prince Dutiful can find a woman from amongst your people who does not frivolously risk his life. And if not, there are other alliances to be had. Do you think Chalced would not value such an arrangement with the Six Duchies? Here is an old Six Duchies saying for you to ponder: “There is more than one fish in the sea”.’

Peottre was still struggling to grasp the sudden change in situation. ‘But why risk the Prince’s life in slaying the dragon if there is no reward for doing so?’ he asked bewilderedly.

It was finally Dutiful’s turn to speak. Chade fed him the words, but I think he would have known them for himself even without the prompting. ‘To remind the Out Islands that what a Farseer says he will do, he does. A few years have passed since my father roused his Elderling allies and destroyed most of this city. Perhaps the best way for us to stave off war between the Six Duchies and the Out Islands is not with a wedding. Perhaps the best way is to remind your countrymen, again, that what we say we will do, we do.’ The Prince’s voice was soft and even. He spoke, not man to man, but as a king.

Even a warrior such as Peottre was not immune to such an assumption. He took less offence at my young prince’s words than he would if one of his fellow kaempras had spoken so to him. I saw him uncertain of his footing, yet I could not have said if he was dismayed at the thought that his sister-daughter might not be wed to the Prince, or relieved. ‘Truly, it must seem that we have resorted to trickery in tempting you to swear to such a task. And now that you have discovered the full import of your promise, you must feel twice tricked. It is a hero’s task that Elliania has laid upon you. You have sworn to do it. Did I desire to indulge in trickery, I would remind you that you had given your word, as well, to wed her. I might ask if you were not, as a Farseer, bound as tightly there to do as you had said you would do. But I release you from that without quibbling. You feel yourself betrayed by us. I cannot deny that it appears that way. I am certain that you recognize that if you perform this task and then refuse the Narcheska’s hand, you will shame us in proportion to the glory that you have won for yourself. Her name will become a word for the faithless trickery of a woman. I do not relish such a prospect. Nonetheless, I bow to your right to take such a stance. Nor will I bring blood-vengeance against you, but will hold my sword and acknowledge that you had a right to feel yourself wronged.’

From my place of concealment, I shook my head. What Peottre said obviously filled him with great emotion, yet I knew I was missing the full import of his words. Our traditions were simply too different. One thing I did know, and an instant later the Prince echoed my thought even as he looked at Peottre consideringly. Well, I have not bettered the situation. We both stand affronted by the other’s behaviour now. How can I improve this? Draw a sword and challenge him right now?

Don’t be a fool! Chade’s rebuke was as sharp as if Dutiful had been serious. Accept his offer of transport aboard the Tusker to Wuislington. We knew we would have to make that journey; as well to appear to concede it to him. Perhaps we may learn more when we are there. This riddle must be unravelled, and I would have you away from the Hetgurd and any assassination attempts until I know more.

Prince Dutiful lowered his head slightly. I knew it was at Chade’s suggestion, but it must have appeared to Peottre that he perhaps regretted the tenor of his earlier words. ‘We are pleased to accept your hospitality this night, Peottre Blackwater. And we will take passage on the Tusker tomorrow, to Wuislington.’

The relief that Peottre felt at Dutiful’s words was palpable. ‘I myself will vouch for the safety of your folk while we are gone from them.’

Dutiful shook his head slowly. His mind was racing. If Peottre were seeking to separate him from his guard and advisors, he would not allow it. ‘My nobles will, of course, remain here. As they are not of the Farseer line, I suspect that they will not be seen as of my clan and appropriate targets for vengeance. But certain of my entourage must accompany me. My guard, and my advisors. I am sure that you understand.’

What of Thick? He is still very sick. I asked the question urgently.

I cannot leave you behind, and I will not trust him to the dubious care he would receive from another. Hard as it will be for him, he must travel with us. He is a member of my Skill-coterie. Besides. Think of the havoc he could wreak in our absence did he go back to his old nightmares.

‘Farseer Prince of the Six Duchies, in that I think we can accommodate you.’ In his eagerness to be certain of our assent, Peottre almost babbled the words.

The conversation had moved into safer channels. In a short time, Peottre escorted them downstairs to a meal. Chade loudly observed to the Prince that they must arrange that a substantial meal be sent upstairs to Thick, to hasten his recovery. Peottre assured them that this would be done, and then I heard them leave. When they were clear of the Prince’s room, I let out my pent breath, rolled my shoulders and moved to check on Thick. He slept on, peacefully unaware that on the morrow he would be carted off to yet another miserable sea voyage. I looked down on him and sent calming thoughts into his dreams. Then I sat down by the door and awaited, without enthusiasm, whatever Outislander victuals would be sent up to me.

NINE

Mothershouse

Bowsrin was kaempra for the Badger Clan at that time. His ships were fleet, his warriors strong, and he raided well, bringing back brandy and silver and tools of iron. He was nearly a hero before he shamed his clan.

He desired a woman of the Gull Clan. He went to her mothershouse with gifts, but she did not accept them. Her sister did, and he lay with her, but it was not enough for him. He went away and raided for a year and returned to the Badger mothershouse with much wealth, but no pride in his heart, for he was eaten up with unworthy lust.

His warriors were good fighters but foolish in heart, for they listened to his command when he took them to raid the Gull Clan mothershouse. Their warriors were away and the women in the field when Bowsrin’s ships came to their shore. Kaempra Bowsrin and his warriors killed their old men and some of their nearly-grown boys, and took the women on the bare earth, despite how they fought. Some died rather than be forced. Bowsrin stayed there for seventeen days, and every day that he was there, he forced the Gull Clan daughter Serferet to accept his body. Finally she died of it. Then they left, to return to their own mothershouse.

The moon changed and then the Badger Mothershouse received tidings of what their kaempra had done. They were shamed. They drove their men from their lands, telling them never to return. Seventeen of their sons the women gave to the Gull Clan, to do with whatever they wished, in atonement for Bowsrin’s evil. And the mothershouses of all clans banned Bowsrin and his men from the land, and any man who offered them any comfort was to share their fate.

In less than a year, the sea ate him and his men. And Clan Gull used his forfeited sister-sons, not as slaves, but as warriors to defend their shores and as men to raise up more sons and daughters for Gull Clan. And the women of the mothershouses were at peace with one another again.

Outislander cautionary tale, from Bard Ombir

The next day we took ship for the island of Mayle. Prince Dutiful and Chade met briefly with the convened Hetgurd to announce this decision to them. The Prince gave a brief speech in which he said he had chosen to recognize the conflict as a Hetgurd matter. As a man, he could not call back the word he had given, but he would give them the chance to discuss this challenge and reach a consensus on what their will was. He spoke with dignity and calm, Chade told me later, and his willingness to concede that it was a matter only the Hetgurd could settle seemed to soothe many of the ruffled feathers. Even Eagle spoke well of it, saying that a man who was willing to face a challenge squarely was a man anyone could respect, regardless of where he was birthed.

The Prince’s nobles received the tidings of his departure with varying degrees of surprise and dismay. It was conveyed to them as a slight change in our schedule. Most had not planned to accompany the Prince to his fiancée’s mothershouse; they had been told back in Buckkeep that such a large delegation of folk would not be easily welcomed there. They had expected to stay in Zylig and establish connections for future trade negotiations. For the most part, they were content to remain on Skyrene and court trading partners. Arkon Bloodblade, kaempra of the Boar Clan and the Narcheska’s father, quietly assured us that he would remain with his warriors to ensure their stay was pleasant, and to further advance our cause with the Hetgurd.

Chade told me later that he had strongly suggested to our nobles that they continue to enjoy the hospitality of the Boar stronghouse rather than investigate the hospitality of the local inns. He also suggested that they display their own heraldic devices when they went out and about amongst the Outislanders, just as the clansmen sported their animal sigils. I doubt that he told the Six Duchies nobles there would be more safety for them if they were not seen as part of the Farseer Buck Clan, as the Outislanders thought of the Prince’s family.

The Tusker was an Outislander vessel, far less comfortable than the Maiden’s Chance had been. She bobbed more in the waves, I noted as I watched the others board, but her shallower draught was more suitable for the inter-island channels that we would be navigating than the Maiden’s deeper hull. Some of the channels, I was told, were barely passable at a low tide, and during certain tides that came only once or twice a year a man could walk from island to island on foot. We would traverse several of these channels before once more crossing open water to the Narcheska’s home island and her village of Wuislington.

It was a cruel thing to do to Thick. I let him sleep as long as possible before I awakened him to a hot meal of familiar foods brought from the Maiden’s Chance. I urged him to eat and drink well and spoke only of pleasant things. I concealed from him that we would be embarking on yet another voyage. He was unhappy about having to wash and dress, wanting only to go back to his bed. I longed to be able to let him, for I was convinced it would have been best for his health. But we could not safely leave him behind in Zylig.

Even when we stood on the docks with the Prince’s guardsmen, his Wit-coterie, Chade and Prince Dutiful, watching the cargo of bridal gifts being loaded onto the Tusker, Thick thought we had only come out on a morning’s stroll. The boat was tied alongside the dock. At least, I told myself grimly, boarding would present no problem. I was wrong. He watched the others walk up the gangway and on board with no qualms, but when it was his turn, he stopped dead beside me. ‘No.’

‘Don’t you want to see the Outislander ship, Thick? Everyone else has gone on board to look around. I’ve heard it is very different from our ship. Let’s go and see it.’

He looked at me for a moment in silence. ‘No,’ he said. His little eyes were beginning to narrow in suspicion.

Further deception was useless. ‘Thick, we have to go on board. It’s going to sail soon, to take the Prince to the Narcheska’s home. We have to go with him.’

Around us, activity on the docks had halted. All else had been in readiness, and all the others were aboard. The ship waited only for Thick and me. Men from other ships and passers-by stared at Thick’s strangeness avidly, with varying degrees of revulsion on their faces. Sailors from the Tusker waited to haul the planks of the walkway on board and cast off lines. They stared at us in annoyance, waiting. I sensed from them that we humiliated them by our very presence. Why could not we get on board and out of sight below decks? Time to act. I took his upper arm firmly. ‘Thick, we have to get on board now.’

‘No!’ He bellowed the word suddenly as he slapped at me wildly, and both his fear and his fury struck me in a wild wave of Skill. I staggered aside from him, bringing a general guffaw from those who had halted to watch us. In truth, it must have looked strange to them, that the petulant slap of a half-wit had near driven me to my knees.

I hate to recall what followed. I had no choice but to force him. But Thick’s terror left him no choice either. We fought it out on the docks, my physical size and strength and the stoutness of my well-practised walls against his Skill and awkward fighting abilities.

Both Chade and Prince Dutiful were instantly aware of my dilemma, of course. I sensed the Prince trying to reach Thick and calm him, but the red haze of his anger acted as efficiently as any Skill-wall. I could not feel Chade’s presence at all; I think his effort of the day before had drained him. The first time I seized Thick with the intent of simply lifting him off his feet and carrying him aboard, his Skill flooded into me. The skin-to-skin contact left me vulnerable. It was his fear that he flung at me, and I near wet myself with the terror he woke in me. Ancient memories of moments when death’s jaws had closed around me rushed through me. I felt the teeth of a Forged one sink into my shoulder and an arrow thudded home in my back. I had lifted him to my shoulder, and I sagged to my knees, under the weight of his terror rather than his body. This elicited a fresh roar of laughter from the onlookers. Thick broke free of me and then stood there, crying out wildly and wordlessly, at bay, unable to flee, for now a circle of jeering men ringed us.

The mockery around us grew, battering me more effectively than Thick’s flailing fists. I could not grasp hold of him without risking the integrity of my walls, nor did I dare lower my walls against Thick’s onslaught to allow my own Skill to have its full effect. So I made futile efforts at herding him aboard, closing off his escape whenever he tried to dart past me down the docks. When I stepped toward him, he would step back, closer to the gangplank, and the circle of men there would give way. Then he would dart at me, hand outstretched, knowing that if he touched me, my walls would fall before him. And I would be forced to give ground to avoid his reaching hand. And all the while, men laughed and shouted to their comrades in their harsh tongue, to come and see a duchyman who could not fight a half-wit.

In the end, it was Web who saved me. Perhaps the excited cries of the sailors on the Tusker brought him to the railing. The bulky sailor pushed his way past the gawkers and came down the gangway toward us. ‘Thick, Thick, Thick,’ he said calmingly. ‘Come now, man. There’s no need for this. No need at all.’

I had known that the Wit could be used to repel someone. Who has not leapt back from the clashing teeth of a dog or narrowly avoided the swipe of a cat’s claws? It is not just the threat that forces one to give ground, but the force of the creature’s anger that pushes its challenger back. I think that for a Witted one, to learn to repel is as instinctive as knowing how to flee danger. I had never stopped to think that there might be another complementary force, one that calmed and beckoned.

I did not have a word for what Web exuded toward Thick. I was not his target, yet I was still peripherally aware of it. It settled my hackles and calmed my thundering heart. Almost without my volition, my shoulders lowered and my jaw unclenched. I saw a wondering look come over Thick’s face. His mouth sagged open and his tongue that was never completely inside it, protruded even more as his little eyes drooped almost closed. Web spoke softly. ‘Easy, my friend. Relax. Come now, come with me.’

There is a look a kitten gets when its mother lifts it by the nape of its neck. That look was on Thick’s face as Web’s big hand settled on his arm. ‘Don’t look,’ Web suggested to him. ‘Eyes on me, now,’ and Thick obeyed him, looking up at Web’s face as the Witmaster led him aboard the ship as easily as a lad leads a bull by the ring in its nose. I was left trembling, the sweat drying down my spine. The blood rushed to my face at the taunting of the men that accompanied my boarding of the ship. Most of them spoke Six Duchies in a rudimentary way. That they used it now was deliberate, to be sure I understood their scorn. I could not pretend to ignore them, for I could not control the blood which reddened my face with shame. I had no place I could vent my anger as I stalked after Web. I heard the planks taken up behind me as soon as I was on board. I didn’t look back, but trailed after Web and Thick toward a tent-like structure on the deck of the ship.

The accommodations were far cruder than those on the Maiden’s Chance had been. On the foredeck, there was a permanent cabin with wooden walls, such as I was accustomed to seeing on a ship. I was to learn it was divided into two chambers. The larger of these had been given over to the Prince and Chade, and the Wit-coterie crowded into the smaller one. This temporary cabin on the aft deck was for the guardsmen. The walls were made of heavy leather stretched on poles with the entire structure lashed down to pegs set in the deck. These shelters were a concession to our Six Duchies sensibilities; the Outislanders themselves preferred an open deck as best for hauling freight or fighting. A look at the faces of my fellow guardsmen persuaded me of how little welcome Thick would be amongst them. After my shameful performance on the dock, I was little higher in their regard. Web was trying to get Thick to sit down on one of the sea chests that had been brought from the Maiden’s Chance.

‘No,’ I told him quietly. ‘The Prince prefers that Thick be housed close at hand to him. We should take him to the other cabin.’

‘It’s even more crowded than this one,’ Web explained, but I only shook my head.

‘The other cabin,’ I insisted, and he relented. Thick went with him, still with that glazed look of trust on his face. I followed, feeling as exhausted as if I’d spent a morning in sword training. It was only later that I realized that it was Web’s own pallet he settled Thick onto. Civil sat in the corner on a smaller pallet, his snarling cat on his lap. The minstrel Cockle was disconsolately inspecting three broken strings on a small harp. Swift was looking everywhere but at me. I could feel his dismay that this half-man had been brought right into his living space. The silence in the tiny room was thicker than butter.

Once Thick had settled on the pallet, Web smoothed a calloused hand over his sweaty brow. Thick stared up at us in puzzlement for a moment and then closed his eyes, weary as a child. His breathing was hoarse as sleep claimed him. After the buffeting he’d dealt me, I longed to join him there, but Web was taking my arm.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘We have to talk, you and I.’

I would have resisted him if I could, but when he set his hand on my shoulder, my defiance melted. I let him steer me out onto the deck. I heard the jesting shouts of the sailors when I reappeared, but Web chose to ignore them as he steered me to a rail. ‘Here,’ he said, and from his hip took a leather flask and unstoppered it. The scent of brandy reached me. ‘A bit of this down you, and then take some deep breaths. You look like a man who has bled half to death.’

I did not think I needed the brandy until I took some and felt its heat run through me.

Fitz?

The Prince’s worried query reached me as a whisper. I realized abruptly how tightly I was still holding my walls. Gingerly I eased them down, and then reached back to Dutiful. I’m fine. Web has Thick settled now.

‘That’s right. I do. But you scarcely need to tell me that.’

Give me a moment, my prince, to gather myself. I had not even realized that I had spoken aloud the thought I’d previously Skilled to Dutiful. ‘I know. I’m a bit rattled, I suppose.’

‘Yes, you are. What I don’t understand is why. But I have my suspicions. The simple man is very important to the Prince, isn’t he? And it has something to do with how he could stop a warrior in his prime from forcing him to do a thing he didn’t wish to do. What made you flinch before his touch? When I touched him, nothing happened to me.’

I handed him back his flask. ‘Not my secret,’ I said bluntly.

‘I see.’ He took a mouthful of his brandy. He looked aloft pensively. Risk did a lazy loop around our ship, waiting for us. Canvas blossomed suddenly on the mast. A moment later, it bellied in the wind and I felt our ship dip and then gather speed. ‘Short journey, they tell me. Three days, four at most. If we’d taken the Maiden’s Chance, she would have had to sail around the whole cluster of islands, and then we would have had to put her at harbour on one of the other islands and still take another shallow draught vessel to reach Wuislington.’

I nodded sagely to that, not knowing if it was true or not. Perhaps his bird had told him. More likely, it was sailor gossip, gained by his own ready ears.

As if it were a logical continuation, he asked, ‘If I were to guess this secret, would you tell me I’d got it right?’

I gave a short sigh. Only now that the struggle was over did I realize how weary I was. And how strong Thick had been when driven by his fear and anger to apply all his strength to me. I hoped he had not burned reserves he could not afford. His sickness had already drained much of his vigour. He had thought himself in a life-or-death struggle with me; of that I had no doubt. Concern for him suddenly filled me.

‘Tom?’ Web pressed me, and with a start I recalled his question.

‘It’s not my secret,’ I repeated doggedly. Hopelessness was welling up in me like blood from a puncture wound. I recognized it as Thick’s. That didn’t help. I’d have to quell it somehow, before it could affect the rest of the people on the ship.

Can you handle him for us?

The assent I sent to the Prince was an acknowledgement of his request rather than a confirmation that I could accomplish it.

Web was offering me his flask again. I took it, swigged from it, and then said, ‘I have to go back to Thick. It’s not good for him to be left alone.’

‘I think I see that,’ he agreed as he took the flask back from me. ‘I wish I was sure if you were protector or gaoler to him. Well, Tom Badgerlock, when you judge that it’s safe for me to be the one to stay with him, you let me know. You look as if you could use a bit of rest yourself.’

I nodded without replying and left him there. I went to the little chamber allotted to the Wit-coterie. All the other folk had fled, probably made uncomfortable by the strength of the emotions emanating from Thick on a swelling Skill-tide. He slept, but it was for exhaustion, not peace. I looked down on his face, seeing a simplicity there that was not childish or even simple. His cheeks were flushed and tiny beads of sweat stood on his forehead. His fever was back and his breathing was raspy. I sat on the floor by his pallet. I was ashamed of what we were doing to him. It wasn’t right and we knew it, Chade and Dutiful and I. Then I gave in to my weariness and lay down at his side.

I gave myself three breaths to centre myself and gather my Skill. Then I closed my eyes and put my arm lightly across Thick in order to deepen our Skill-connection. I had expected him to have his walls up against me, but he was defenceless. I slipped into a dream in which a lost kitten paddled desperately in a boiling sea. I drew him from the water as Nettle had done and took him back to the waggon and the bed and the cushion. I promised him that he was safe and felt his anxiety ease a little. But even in his dreams, he recognized me. ‘But you made me!’ the kitten suddenly cried out. ‘You made me come on a boat again!’

I had expected anger and defiance, or even an attack following those words. What I received was worse. He cried. The kitten wept inconsolably, in a small child’s voice. I felt the gulf of his disappointment that I could betray him so. He had trusted me. I picked him up and held him, but still he cried, and I could not comfort him, for I was at the base of his sorrow.

I was not expecting Nettle. It was not night, and I doubted that she was sleeping. I suppose I had always assumed that she could only Skill when she slept. A foolish notion, but there it was. As I sat rocking the tiny creature that was Thick, I felt her presence beside me. Give him to me, she said with a woman’s weariness at a man’s incompetence. Guilty at my relief, I let her take him from me. I faded into the background of his dream, and felt his tension ease as I retreated from him. It hurt that he found my presence upsetting, but I could not blame him.

After a time, I found myself sitting at the base of the melted tower. It seemed a very forsaken place. The dead brambles coated the steep hillsides all around it, and the only sound was the wind soughing through their branches. I waited.

Nettle came. Why this? she asked, sweeping an arm at the desolation that surrounded us.

It seemed appropriate, I replied dispiritedly.

She gave a snort of contempt and then, with a wave, made the dead brambles into deep summer grasses. The tower became a circle of broken stone on the hillside, with flowering vines wandering over it. She seated herself on a sun-warmed stone, shook out her red skirts over her bare feet and asked, Are you always this dramatic?

I suspect I am.

It must be exhausting to be around you. You’re the second most emotional man I know.

The first being?

My father. He came home yesterday.

I caught my breath, and tried to be casual as I asked And?

And he had gone to Buckkeep Castle. That is as much as he told us. He looks as if he has aged a decade and yet sometimes I catch him gazing across the room and smiling. Despite his fogged eyes, he keeps staring at me, as if he has never seen me before. Mother says she feels as if he keeps saying farewell to her. He comes to her and puts his arms around her and holds her as if she might be snatched away at any moment. It is hard to describe how he behaves; as if some heavy task is finally finished, and yet he also acts like a man preparing for a journey.

What has he told you? I tried to keep her from sensing my dread.

Nothing. And no more than that to my mother, or so she says. He brought gifts for all of us when he came back. Jumping jacks for my smallest brothers, and cleverly carved puzzle boxes for the older boys. For my mother and me, little boxes with necklaces of wooden beads inside them, not roughly shaped but each carved like a jewel. And a horse, the loveliest little mare I’ve ever seen.

I waited, knowing what I would hear next and yet praying it would not be said.

And he himself now wears an earring, a sphere carved from wood. I’ve never seen him wear an earring before. I didn’t even know his ear was pierced for one.

I wondered if they had talked, Lord Golden and Burrich. Perhaps the Fool had merely left those gifts with Queen Kettricken to be passed on to Burrich. I wondered so many things and could ask none of them. What are you doing right now? I asked her instead.

Dipping tapers. The most boring and stupid task that exists. For a moment, she was silent. Then, I’ve a message for you.

My heart stopped at those words. Oh?

If I dream of the wolf again, my father says, I’m to tell him, you should have come home a long time ago.

Tell him … A thousand messages flitted through my mind. What could I say to a man I hadn’t seen in sixteen years? Tell him that he needn’t fear I’ll take anything away from him? Tell him that I love still as I have always loved? No. Not that. Tell him I forgive him. No, for he never knowingly wronged me. Those words could only increase whatever burden he put upon himself. There were a thousand things I longed to say and none I dared send through Nettle.

Tell him? Nettle prompted me, avidly curious.

Tell him I was speechless. And grateful to him. As I have been for many years.

It seemed inadequate, and yet I forced myself to say no more. I would not be impetuous. I would think long and hard before I gave any real message to Nettle to relay to Burrich. I did not know how much she knew or guessed. I did not even know how much Burrich knew of all that had befallen me since last we parted. Better to regret unsaid words than repent of words I could never call back.

Who are you?

I owed her at least that much. A name to call me by. There was only one that seemed right to give her. Changer. My name is Changer.

She nodded, both disappointed and pleased. In another place and time, my Wit warned me that others were near me. I pulled away from the dream and she reluctantly let me go. I eased back into my own flesh. For a time longer, I kept my eyes closed while opening all my other senses. I was in the cabin, Thick breathing heavily beside me. I smelled the oil the minstrel used on the wood of his harp and then heard Swift whisper, ‘Why is he sleeping now?’

‘I’m not,’ I said quietly. I eased my arm away from Thick lest I awake him and then sat up slowly. ‘I was just getting Thick settled. He is still very sick. I wish we didn’t have to bring him on this voyage.’

Swift was still looking at me oddly. Cockle the minstrel was moving very softly, wiping the frame of his repaired harp with oil. I stood, head bent beneath the low ceiling and looked at Burrich’s son. Much as he wished to avoid me, I had a duty. ‘Are you busy with anything right now?’ I asked Swift.

He looked at Cockle as if expecting the minstrel to speak for him. When he remained silent, Swift replied quietly, ‘Cockle was going to play some Six Duchies songs for the Outislanders. I was going to listen to them.’

I took a breath. I needed to pull this boy closer to me if I were going to keep my word to Nettle. Yet I’d already alienated him by trying to send him home. Too firm a rein on him now would not gain his trust. So I said, ‘Much can be learned from a minstrel’s songs. Listen, also, to what the Outislanders say and sing, and do your best to gain a few words of their language. Later, we will speak of what you learned.’

‘Thank you,’ he said stiffly. It was as hard for him to express gratitude as it was for him to acknowledge I had authority over him. I would not push for that, yet. So I nodded to him and let him leave. Cockle swept me a minstrel’s gracious bow at the door and for an instant our eyes met. The friendliness there surprised me, until he bade me farewell with, ‘It’s rare to find a man-at-arms who values learning, and rarer still to find one who recognizes that minstrels can be a source of it. I thank you, sir.’

‘It is I who thank you. My prince has asked me to educate the lad. Perhaps you can show him that gaining knowledge need not be painful.’ In the blink of an eye, I made a second decision. ‘I’ll join you, if I would not be intruding.’

He flourished me another bow. ‘I’d be honoured.’

Swift had gone ahead of us, and he did not look pleased when he saw me accompanying the musician.

The Outislander sailors were like any sailors I’ve ever known anywhere. Any sort of entertainment was preferable to the daily tedium of the ship. Those not currently on duty soon gathered to hear Cockle sing. It was a fine setting for the minstrel, standing on the bare deck with the wind in his hair and the sun at his back. The men who gathered to hear him brought their own handiwork with them, much as women would have brought their embroidery or knitting. One worked a tatter of old rope into a knotted mat; another carved lazily at a bit of hardwood. The intentness with which they listened confirmed what I had suspected. By choice or by chance, most of Peottre’s crew had a working knowledge of Duchy tongue. Even those of the crew working the sails nearby had one ear for the music.

Cockle gave them several traditional Six Duchies ballads that memorialized the Farseer monarchs. Wise enough a man was he to avoid any of the songs that had to do with our long feud with the Out Islands. I wouldn’t have to sit through Antler Island Tower today. Swift appeared to pay good attention to the songs. His attention was most deeply snared when Cockle told an Old Blood fable in song. I watched the Outislander sailors as Cockle sang it and wondered if I’d see the same disgust and resentment that many Six Duchies people showed when such songs were sung. I didn’t. Instead, the sailors seemed to accept it as a strange song of foreign magic.

When he had finished, one of the Outislander sailors stood with a broad grin which wrinkled the boar tattoo on his cheek. He’d set aside his whittling and now he brushed the fine curls of clinging wood from his chest and trousers. ‘You think that magic is strong?’ he challenged us. ‘I know a stronger, and best you know it, too, for face it you might.’

With one bare foot, he nudged the shipmate who sat on the deck beside him. Plainly embarrassed at the circle of listeners, this man nonetheless tugged free a little carved whistle that hung inside his shirt on a string around his neck and played a simple, wailing tune on it, while his fellow, with more drama than voice, hoarsely sang us a tale of the Black Man of Aslevjal. He sang in Outislander, and in the special accents that their bards used, making the song even harder for me to follow. The Black Man stalked the island, and woe to any who came there with unworthy intents. He was the dragon’s guardian, or perhaps he was the dragon in human form. Black as the dragon was black, ‘something’ as the dragon was ‘something’, strong as the wind and as unslayable, and unforgiving as ice was he. He would gnaw the bones of the cowardly, and slice the flesh of the rash, he would …

‘To your duty!’ Peottre suddenly interjected into our circle. His command was good-naturedly severe, reminding us that he was acting captain on this ship as well as our host. The sailor stopped barking the song and looked at him askance. I sensed a tension there; the boar proclaimed that this was Arkon Bloodblade’s warrior. Most of the crew was marked as Bloodblade’s, loaned to Peottre for this task. Peottre gave a tiny shake of his head at the sailor, as much rebuke as warning, and the man lowered his shoulders.

‘At what task, then, in our hours of rest?’ he still asked, a hint of bravado in his tone.

Peottre spoke mildly but his stance said he would tolerate no defiance. ‘Your duty, Rutor, is to rest in these hours, so that when you are called to work, you come fresh to the task. Rest, then, and leave entertaining our guests to me.’

Behind him, both Chade and the Prince had emerged from their cabin to watch curiously. Web stood behind them. I wondered if Peottre had heard the man’s song and excused himself abruptly from their company. I reached to them both. Do we know a tale of the Black Man on Aslevjal Island? One who guards the dragon, perhaps? For that is the song that Peottre has just silenced.

I know nothing. I will ask Chade in a quiet moment.

Chade? I attempted a direct contact.

There was no response. He did not even shift his eyes toward me.

I think he attempted too much yesterday.

Has he taken any teas today? I asked suspiciously. Skill-effort such as Chade had expended yesterday could well leave a novice exhausted, yet the old man was moving as spryly as ever. Elfbark? I wondered jealously. Denied to me but used by him?

He has some foul brew nearly every morning. I’ve no idea what is in it.

I quashed the thought before I could betray myself to the Prince. I did resolve to purloin a pinch of Chade’s tea herbs if I could and determine what he was using. The old man was too careless with his health. He would burn his life away while trying to spend it in our cause.

I had no such opportunity. The remaining days of our brief voyage passed uneventfully. I was kept occupied with Thick’s care and Swift’s education. These two actually merged, for when Thick awoke from a long sleep, he was weak and fretful, yet would not tolerate me looking after him. He was willing to accept Swift’s attentions, however. The boy was understandably reluctant. Caring for a sick man is tedious and can be unpleasant. Swift also felt the ingrained abhorrence that many Six Duchies folk feel toward the malformed. My disapproval did not shake this from him, but Web’s calm acceptance of Thick’s differences gradually swayed the boy. Web’s ability to teach Swift by example made me feel a clumsy and thoughtless guardian. I wanted so badly to do well by Swift, as well as Burrich had done by Nettle, and yet I repeatedly failed even to win his trust.

Days can be long when one feels useless. I had little time with Chade or the Prince. There was no casual way to be alone with either of them on the crowded ship, so communication was limited to the use of the Skill. I tried to reach to Chade as little as possible, hoping that a time of rest would rebuild his ability. The Prince relayed to me that Chade knew nothing of a Black Man on Aslevjal Island. Peottre kept the sailor who had sung of him extremely busy, so he was not available as a source for me. Isolated from Chade and Dutiful and rejected by Thick, I felt lonely and incapable of discovering peace anywhere. My heart yearned out to old memories, to my simple romance with Molly and the effortless friendship I had once shared with the Fool. Nighteyes came often to my mind, for Web and his bird were very much in evidence and Civil’s cat trailed him everywhere on the ship. I had lost the passionate attachments I had formed in my youth, and lost, too, the heart to seek others. As for Nettle, and Burrich’s invitation for me to ‘come home’ … my heart ached with longing to do just that, but I knew it was a time that I longed to return to, not a place, and neither Eda nor El offers that to a man. When we sailed into a tiny harbour, no more than a bite out of a small island’s coast, and Peottre shouted with pleasure to see his home, envy flooded me.

Web stepped up to the ship’s railing beside me, disturbing my fine wallow in melancholy. ‘I left Swift helping Thick get his shoes on. He’ll be glad to be ashore again, though he doesn’t admit it. He’s not even really seasick any more. It’s his lung ailment that weakens him now. That, and homesickness.’

‘I know. And little I can do about either on this ship. Once we’re ashore, I hope to find him a comfortable place and offer him quiet, rest and good food. They’re usually the best hope one has for such illness.’

Web nodded in companionable silence as we drew closer to the shore. A single figure, a girl in blowing russet skirts, stood on a headland watching us approach. Sheep and goats grazed the rocky pasturage around her and on the rolling hillsides behind her. Inland, we glimpsed threads of rising smoke from cottages that snuggled tight amongst the furze. A single dock on stone pilings reached out into the tiny bay to greet us. I saw no sign of a town. As I watched, the girl on the headland lifted her arms over her head and waved them three times. I thought she was greeting us, but perhaps she signalled folk at the settlement, for a short time later people came down the path to the shore. Some stood on the dock, awaiting us. Others, youngsters, ran along the beach, shouting excitedly to one another.

Our crew sailed the ship right up to the dock in a brash display of seamanship. The tossed lines were caught and made fast, checking our motion. In a matter of moments, it seemed, our canvas was taken down and stowed. On the deck, Peottre surprised me by offering gruff thanks to the Boar crew who had sailed the ship. It made me aware yet again that we were dealing with an alliance of two clans, not one. Obviously, both Peottre and the crewmen regarded this as a great favour and possible debt between the clans.

That was made even clearer to me in the manner in which we disembarked. Peottre went first, and as he stepped onto the dock, he made a grave obeisance to the women gathered to greet him. There were men there as well, but they stood behind the women, and it was only after Peottre had been warmly received by the older women of his clan that he walked past them to the men to exchange greetings. Few of them, I noted, were of warrior age, and those who were bore the disabling scars of that trade. There were a few oldsters, and a milling group of boys in their early teens. I frowned to myself, and then tried to pass my thought to Chade. Either their men don’t see fit to greet us, or they are concealed from us somewhere.

His returned thought was thin as a thread of smoke. Or they were decimated in the Red Ship War. Some clans took heavy losses.

I could sense that he strained to reach me and let the contact lapse. He had other things on his mind just now. It was more my Wit than my Skill that picked up the Prince’s restlessness and disappointment. The reason for that was plain. Elliania was not among those who had come to meet us. Don’t let it bother you, I counselled him. We don’t know enough of their customs in this regard to know what her absence means. Don’t assume it is a slight.

Bother me? I’d hardly noticed. This is about the alliance, Fitz, not about some girl and her ploys. The sharpness of his retort betrayed his lie. I sighed to myself. Fifteen. All I could do was thank Eda that I’d never have to be that age again.

Peottre must have advised Chade of their custom in this regard, for he and all our party remained standing on the deck until a young woman in her early twenties lifted her clear voice and invited the son of the Buck Clan of the Farseer Holdings to descend from the ship with his folk.

‘That’s our signal,’ Web said quietly. ‘Swift will have Thick ready to leave. Shall we go?’

I nodded, and then asked, as if I had a right to, ‘What does Risk show you? Does she see armed men anywhere about?’

He smiled a tight smile. ‘If she had, don’t you think I would have told you? My neck would be in as much danger as yours. No, all she sees is what we ourselves have noted. A quiet orderly settlement in the peace of the early day. And a very fruitful valley, just beyond those hills.’

So we joined the others and trooped off the boat to stand a respectful distance behind our prince as he was welcomed to Elliania Blackwater’s mothershouse and holdings. The words of the greeting were simple, and in their simplicity I heard ritual. By this act of greeting and granting permission to come ashore, the women asserted both their ownership over the land and their authority over any people who set foot in Wuislington. Despite this, I was still surprised when a similar ritual of welcoming was offered to the Boar Clan members who disembarked behind us. As they replied to the welcome, I heard what had eluded me before. In accepting the welcome, they also pledged on the honour of their mothershouse that each man would be responsible for the good conduct of all the others. The penalty for violating the hospitality was not specifically spoken. A moment later, the sense of such a ritual came to me. In a nation of sea raiders, there must be some safeguard that made their own homes inviolable to other raiders in their absence. I suspected some ancient alliance of the women of the various clans was at work here, and wondered what punishment a man’s own mothershouse would mete out to him for transgressing the welcome of another clan’s.

Greetings finished, the women of the Narwhal mothershouse led the Prince and his party away. His guard followed them, and then came Web, Swift and me with Thick. The lad walked before us while Web and I supported Thick. Behind us came the Boar crew, talking of beer and women and making jests about the four of us. Above us, Risk wheeled in the clear blue sky. Beach gravel crunched under our feet on the well-tended road.

I had expected Wuislington to be larger and closer to the water. As the Boar sailors, impatient with our plodding progress, passed us, Web engaged one in conversation. The man was plainly eager to hasten on with his fellows, and just as obviously reluctant to be seen in the company of the half-wit and his keepers. So his response was brief but courteous, as Web always seemed to bring out courtesy in those he spoke to. He explained that the harbour was good but not excellent. There was little current to worry about, but when the prevailing winds blew they were strong and cold enough ‘to scour the flesh from a man’s bones!’ Wuislington was built in a sheltered dip of the land, just beyond the next rise, where the wind blew over it rather than through it.

So we found it to be. The town was cupped in a sheltering palm of land. We followed the road down into it, and the day seemed to grow stiller and warmer as we descended. The town below us was well planned. The wood-and-stone mothershouse was the largest structure, towering as stronghouse over the simpler cottages and huts of the town. An immense painted narwhal decorated the slated roof of the house. Behind the mothershouse was a cultivated green that reminded me of the Women’s Garden at Buckkeep Castle. The streets of the town were laid out in concentric rings around it, with most of the markets and tradesmen’s homes at the section nearest to the sea-road. All this we saw before our closeness to it hid it from us.

The Prince’s party had long vanished from our sight, but Riddle came back to us, puffing slightly from trotting. ‘I’m to show you to your lodging,’ he explained.

‘We won’t be housed with the Prince, then?’ I asked uneasily.

‘They’ll be housed as guests in the mothershouse, along with his minstrel and companions. There is special housing for warriors of visiting clans, outside the stronghouse. Men of other clans may be guests there during the day, but warriors are not permitted to spend the night within the stronghouse. The Prince’s guard will be housed away from him. We don’t like it, but Lord Chade has told Captain Longwick to accept it. And a cottage has been arranged for Thick. The Prince orders that you take lodging with him.’ Riddle looked uncomfortable. In a quieter voice, as if offering apology, he added, ‘I’ll make sure your sea chest is brought there. And his things as well.’

‘Thanks.’

I didn’t have to ask. Thick’s difference made him unacceptable as a guest in the mothershouse. Well, at least they had been wise enough not to put us in with the guards. Nonetheless, it was becoming taxing to me to share Thick’s outcast status. Little as I liked the intrigues of the Farseer Court, when I was too far removed from Dutiful and Chade, I felt ill at ease. I knew we were in danger here, but the greatest danger is always the one we are ignorant of. I wanted to hear what Chade heard, to know moment by moment how our negotiation was unfolding. Yet Chade could not demand that we be housed closer to the Prince, and someone had to remain with Thick. I was the logical choice. It all made sense, which didn’t decrease the frustration I felt.

They did not insult us. The one-room stone cottage was clean, even though it smelled of disuse. Obviously it had not been inhabited for some months, yet there was wood in the hod and pots for cooking. The water cask was brimming with cold fresh water. There was a table and chairs, and a bed with two blankets on it in the corner. Sunlight lay across the floor in a fall from the single window. I’d stayed in worse places.

Thick said little as we settled him onto the bed. He was wheezing from the walk and his cheeks were red, but it was not the flush of health, but the mark of a sick man who had over-exerted himself. I pulled the shoes from his feet and then tucked the blankets around him. I suspected that the nights would be chilly here even in summer, and wondered if the two coverings would be enough to keep him comfortable.

‘Do you need any help here?’ Web asked me. Swift stood impatiently by the door, looking toward the mothershouse, two streets away.

‘Not from you, but I’ll need Swift for a time.’ I had expected the look of dismay the boy gave me. It didn’t dampen my resolve. I took coin from my purse. ‘Go to the market. I have no idea what you’ll find there. Be very polite, but get us something to eat. Meat and vegetables for a soup. Fresh bread if they have it. Fruit. Cheese, fish. Whatever this will buy.’

By his face, he was torn between nervousness and a boy’s eagerness to explore a new place. I set the money on his palm and hoped the Outislanders would accept Six Duchies coins.

‘Then,’ I added, and saw him wince. ‘Go back to the ship. Riddle will see to our chests, but I want you to get extra bedding from the bunks there. Enough to make up pallets for you and me, as well as extra blankets for Thick.’

‘But, I’m to stay in the mothershouse, with the Prince and Web and all …’ His voice dribbled away in disappointment as I shook my head.

‘I’ll need you here, Swift.’

He glanced at Web as if seeking his support. The Witmaster’s face remained calm and neutral. ‘Are you sure there is no way I can be of assistance?’ he asked me again.

‘Actually,’ and I was suddenly almost frozen by how difficult it was to ask, ‘if you wouldn’t mind coming back later, I’d enjoy a few hours to myself. Unless the Prince needs you elsewhere.’

‘I will do that. Thank you for asking.’ His second comment was genuine, not an idle courtesy. I let a moment pass in silence as I handled his words. He praised me for finally being able to ask a favour of him. When I met his eyes, I realized how long that silence had been but his face was as calm and patient as ever. Again I had that feeling he was stalking me, not as a hunter stalks prey but as a trainer befriends a wary animal.

‘Thank you,’ I managed.

‘And perhaps I’ll accompany Swift to the market, for I am as curious to see this town as he is. I promise we won’t dawdle, however. Do you think a sweet pastry might tempt Thick to eat, if we chanced upon a bakery?’

‘Yes.’ Thick’s voice was wavering as he replied, but I took heart from this show of interest. ‘And cheese,’ he added hopefully.

‘Pastries and cheese should probably be what you look for first,’ I amended. I turned to Thick with a smile but his eyes wandered away from me. I was still unforgiven for forcing him aboard the ship. I knew I’d have to do it at least two more times, for our journey back to Zylig and then for the ship that would take us to Aslevjal. I could not make myself face the thought of the eventual journey home. It seemed hopelessly far away now.

Web and Swift left, the boy chattering happily and the man responding as eagerly. In truth, I was relieved to see them go together. A boy in a strange town might easily give unintentional offence or be in danger. Nonetheless, I felt abandoned as I watched them walk away.

I backed away from the gulf of self-pity that beckoned me by putting my mind on the folks I cared about. I tried not to wonder what had befallen Hap or the Fool since I had left Buckkeep Town. Hap was a sensible lad. I had to trust him. And the Fool had managed his own life, or lives, for many years with no help from me. Yet it still made me uncomfortable to know that somewhere back in the Six Duchies, he was probably furious at me. I caught myself tracing the silvery fingerprints his Skill-touch had left on my wrist. I had no sense of him, but nonetheless put both my hands behind my back. I wondered again what he had said to Burrich, or if he had seen him at all.

Useless thoughts, but there was little else to occupy me. Thick watched me as I drifted idly around the small cottage. I offered him a dipper of cold water from the cask, but he refused it. I drank, tasting the difference of this island in its water. It tasted mossy and sweet. Probably pond water, I thought. I decided to build a small fire on the hearth in case Web and Swift brought back uncooked meat.

Time passed very slowly. Riddle and another guardsman came with our trunks from the ship. I took brewing herbs from my trunk. I filled the heavy kettle and set it on the hearth to heat, more to be doing something than because I wanted a cup of tea. I mixed the herbs to be sweet and calming, chamomile and fennel and raspberry root. Thick watched me suspiciously when I poured the hot water, but I didn’t offer him the first cup. Instead I put a chair by the window where I could look out over the sheep on the grassy hillside above the town. I drank my tea and tried to find the satisfaction I had once taken in peace and solitude.

When I offered Thick the second cup, he accepted it. Perhaps my drinking the first one had reassured him that I didn’t intend to drug or poison him, I thought wearily. Web and Swift returned, their arms full of bundles and the lad’s cheeks pink from the walk and fresh air. Thick slowly levered himself to an upright position to eye what they had brought. ‘Did you find a strawberry tart and yellow cheese?’ he asked hopefully.

‘Well, no, but look what we did find,’ Web invited him as he unloaded his trove onto the table. ‘Sticks of smoked red fish, both salty and sweet. Little rolls of bread, with seeds sprinkled on top. And here’s a grass basket full of berries for you. I’ve never seen any like this. The women called them mouse-berries, for the mice stuff their tunnels full of them to dry for the winter. They’re a bit sour, but we did find some goat-cheese to go with them. These funny orange roots they said to roast in the coals and then eat the insides with salt. And lastly, these, which aren’t as hot as when we bought them but still smell good to me.’

The last items were pastries about the size of a man’s fist. Web carried them in a sack of twisted and woven grass lined with wide fronds of seaweed. As he set them out on the table, I smelled fish. The pasties were stuffed with chunks of white fish in rich and greasy gravy. It heartened me when Thick tottered out of his bed to come to the table for one. He ate one hurriedly, pausing only when his coughing fits forced him to, and a second one more slowly, with another cup of tea to wash it down. He coughed so heavily and for so long after his tea that I feared he was choking, but at last he took a deeper breath and looked round at us with watery eyes. ‘I’m so tired,’ he said in a trembling voice, and no sooner did Swift help him back to bed than he nodded off to sleep.

Swift had enlivened our meal with his discussion of the town with Web. I had kept quiet while we ate, listening to the boy’s observations. He had a quick eye and an inquisitive mind. It seemed that most of the market-folk had been friendly enough after they’d seen his coins. I suspected that Web’s genial curiosity had once more worked for him. One woman had even told him that the morning’s low tide would be a good time for gathering the sweet little clams from the beaches. Web mentioned this, and then wandered into a tale of clamming with his mother when he was a youngster, and from there to other tales of his childhood. Both Swift and I were fascinated by them.

We shared another mug of the tea I’d made, and just as the afternoon began to seem companionable and pleasant, Riddle arrived at the door. ‘Lord Chade sent me to say you’re to go up to the mothershouse for a welcome,’ he announced from the door.

‘You’d best go then,’ I told Web and Swift reluctantly.

‘You, too,’ Riddle informed me. ‘I’m to stay with the Prince’s half-wit.’

I gave him a look. ‘Thick,’ I said quietly. ‘His name is Thick.’

It was the first time I’d ever rebuked Riddle for anything. He just looked at me, and I could not tell if he were hurt or offended. ‘Thick,’ he amended. ‘I’m to stay with Thick. You know I didn’t mean anything by that, Tom Badgerlock,’ he added almost petulantly.

‘I know. But it hurts Thick’s feelings.’

‘Oh.’ Riddle glanced suddenly at the sleeping man, as if startled to learn he had feelings. ‘Oh.’

I took pity on him. ‘There’s food on the table, and hot water for tea if you want.’

He nodded, and I sensed that we’d made peace. I took a moment to smooth my hair back and put on a fresh shirt. Then I took a comb to Swift, much to his disgust, and was dismayed at the knots in the boy’s hair. ‘You need to do this every morning. I’m sure your father taught you better than to go about looking like a half-shed mountain pony.’

He gave me a sharp look. ‘That’s the very words he uses!’ he exclaimed, and I excused my own slip, saying, ‘It’s a common saying in Buck, lad. Let’s look at you, now. Well, you’ll do. Washing a bit more often wouldn’t hurt you either, but we’ve no time for it now. Let’s go.’

I felt a pang of sympathy for Riddle as we left him sitting alone at the table.

TEN

The Narcheska

This is their custom regarding marriage; it is binding only so long as the woman wishes to be bound by it. The woman chooses the man, although the man may court a woman he finds desirable, with gifts and deeds of war done in her honour. If an Outislander woman accepts a man’s courtship, it does not mean she has bound herself to him, only that she may welcome him into her bed. Their dalliances may last a week, a year or a lifetime. It is entirely of the woman’s choosing. All things that are kept under a roof belong to the woman, as does all that comes from the earth which her mothershouse claims. Her children belong to her clan, and are commonly disciplined and taught by her brothers and uncles rather than by their father. While the man lives on her land or in her mothershouse, his labour is hers to command. All in all, it baffles this traveller why a man would willingly submit to such a minor role, but Outislanders seem likewise baffled by our arrangements, asking me sometimes, ‘Why do your women willingly leave the wealth of their own families to become servants in a man’s home?’

An Account of Travel in a Barbarous Land, by Scribe Fedwren

The mothershouse of the Narwhal Clan was both fortification and home. It was by far the oldest structure in Wuislington. The stout wall that surrounded its grounds and garden were the first line of defence. If invaders pushed the defenders back, they could retreat to the mothershouse itself. Scorch marks on its stone walls and timbers showed that it had stood even against fire. There were no apertures at all in the lower storey, the second boasted arrow slits and only the third had real windows and these featured stout shutters that would have defied any missiles. Yet it was not a castle in our tradition. There was no place to bring sheep or for an entire village to take shelter, nor a place for great stores of food. I suspected it was intended to defy raiders who would come and go with a tide rather than to withstand a significant siege. It was one more way in which the Outislanders differed from our folk and our way of thinking.

Two young men wearing the Narwhal badge nodded us past the gate in the wall. Inside, the road had crushed shell added to the beach gravel that paved it, giving it a gleaming opalescence that sparkled underfoot. The door of the mothershouse, carved with narwhals, stood open wide enough to admit three men abreast. Within, all was dimness and torchlight. It was almost like entering a cave.

We paused inside the entrance to let our eyes adjust. The air was thick with the aromas of long human habitation. There were food smells, stews and smoked meat and spilled wine and the odour of cured hides and gathered people. It could have been a stench, but it was not. Rather, it was a homey smell, of safety and family.

The entrance gave immediately onto a great room, with supporting pillars as the only dividers. There were three hearths, all with cook-fires on them. The stone-flagged floor was strewn with fresh rushes. Benches and shelves ran around the walls. The lower benches were wide, and the rolled sleeping skins proclaimed that these were beds by night and seating and tables by day. The higher, shallower shelves above the benches held foodstuffs and personal possessions. Most of the light in the room came from the hearths, though there were ineffectual candles in sconces on many of the pillars. In the far left corner, a wide staircase wound up into the dimness. It was the only access I could see to the upper regions of the house. It made sense. Even if an attacking force gained control of this level of the mothershouse, the folk above would have only one entrance to defend. Invaders would pay dearly to gain the upper floors of the mothershouse.

All this I saw through the gathered people. Folk of every age were clustered everywhere and there was a sense of anticipation in the air. We were obviously late. At the end of the long room, before the largest hearth, Prince Dutiful waited. Ranged on his side of the hearth were Chade and his Wit-coterie, and beyond them, his guard drawn up in three rows. The Narwhal clan-folk parted to make way for us to assume our correct positions. Web and Swift advanced to stand with Cockle the minstrel and Civil and his Wit-cat. I took a place at the end of the front row of guardsmen.

Elliania was not there. Those gathered on the other side of the hearth were mostly women. Peottre was the only adult man in his prime. There were a few old grandfathers, four lads about the Narcheska’s age, and then six or seven boys ranging down to toddlers clinging to their mothers’ skirts. Had the Red Ship War so decimated the Narwhal Clan?

The Boar warriors from the ship were present, but they stood in a group off to one side, witnesses to rather than participants in whatever was about to happen. The people who crowded the rest of the room were almost entirely Narwhal Clan, as evinced by their jewellery, clothing adornments and tattoos. The exceptions seemed to be almost entirely males standing alongside women, and were probably men who had married into the clan or were partners in a less formal arrangement with a Narwhal woman. I saw Bears, Otters and one Eagle amongst them.

Without exception, the women were strikingly arrayed. Those who did not wear jewellery of gold or silver or precious stone were still bedecked with ornaments of shell, feather and seeds. The artful arrangement of their hair had not been neglected, and added substantially to the height of several women. Unlike Buckkeep, where the women seemed to shift their finery in mysteriously feminine co-ordination, I saw a wide variety of styles. The only unifying theme to the beaded or embroidered or woven patterns of their dress seemed to be the brightness of the colours and the Narwhal motif.

Those in the first circle, I surmised, were relatives of the Narcheska, while those who stood closest to the hearth would be her most immediate family. They were almost all women. All of the Narwhal women shared an intent, almost fierce air. The tension in that part of the room was palpable. I wondered which one was her mother, and wondered, too, what we awaited.

Absolute silence fell. Then four Narwhal clansmen carried a wizened little woman down the stairs and into the hall. She rode in a chair fashioned from twisty pieces of gleaming willow-wood and cushioned with bearskins. Her thin white hair was braided and pinned in a crown to her head. Her eyes were very black and bright. She wore a red robe and the narwhal motif was repeated in tiny ivory buttons sewn all over it. The men set her chair down, not on the floor, but upon a heavy table where she could remain seated and still look out over all those who had gathered in her house. With a small whimper of complaint, the old woman straightened herself in the chair, sitting tall and gazing at the folk who had gathered. Her pink tongue wet her wrinkled lips. Heavy fur slippers dangled on her skinny feet.

‘Well! Here we all are!’ she proclaimed.

She spoke the words in Outislander, loudly, as old folks who are going deaf are prone to do. She did not seem as mindful of the formality of the situation, nor as tense as the other women.

The Great Mother of the Narwhal Clan leaned forward, her gnarled hands gripping the twisted wood of the chair arms. ‘So. Send him out, then. Who seeks to court our Elliania, our Narcheska of the Narwhals? Where is the warrior bold enough to seek the mothers’ permission to bed with our daughter?’

I am sure those were not the words Dutiful had been told to expect. His face was the colour of beetroot as he stepped forward. He made a warrior’s obeisance before the old woman and spoke in clear Outislander as he proclaimed, ‘I stand before the mothers of the Narwhal Clan, and seek permission to join my line with yours.’

She stared at him for a moment and then scowled, not at him, but at one of the young men who had borne her chair. ‘What is a Six Duchies slave doing here? Is he a gift? And why is he trying to speak our language and doing such a horrible job of it? Cut his tongue out if he attempts it again!’

There was a sudden silence, broken by a wild whoop of laughter from someone in the back of the room, quickly muffled. Somehow, Dutiful kept his aplomb, and was wise enough not to attempt to explain himself to the incensed Mother. A woman from the Narcheska’s contingent stepped to the Mother’s side and stood on tiptoe, whispering frantically to her. The Mother waved her off irritably.

‘Stop all that hissing and spitting, Almata! You know I can’t hear a word when you talk like that! Where is Peottre?’ She glanced around as if she’d misplaced a shoe, then lifted her eyes and scowled at Peottre. ‘There he is! You know that I hear him best. What is he doing way over there? Get here, you insolent rascal, and explain to me what this is about!’

There would have been a sweet humour to watching the old woman order the seasoned warrior about if his face had not betrayed such worry. He strode over to her, went down briefly on one knee and then stood up. She lifted one root-like hand and settled it on his shoulder. ‘What is this about?’ she demanded.

‘Oerttre,’ he said quietly. I suspect his deep voice reached her old ears better than the woman’s shrill whisper had. ‘It’s about Oerttre. Remember?’

‘Oerttre,’ she said, and her eyes brimmed suddenly with tears. She looked around the room. ‘And Kossi? Little Kossi, too? Is she here, then? Come home to us at last?’

‘No,’ Peottre said shortly. ‘They’re not here, neither one of them. And that is what this is about. Remember? We talked about it in the garden, this morning. Remember?’ He nodded at her slowly, encouraging her.

She watched his face and nodded slowly with him, and then stopped. She shook her head once. ‘No,’ she cried out in a low voice. ‘I don’t remember. The alyssum has stopped blooming, and the plums may be sour this year. I remember we spoke of that. But … no. Peottre, was it important?’

‘It was, Great Mother. It is. Very important.’

She looked troubled and then suddenly angry. ‘Important, important! Important, says a man, but what do men know?’ Her old voice, cracked and shrill, rose in anger and derision. Her thin hand slapped her thigh in disgust. ‘Bedding and blood-shedding, that is all they know, that is all they think is important. What do they know of the sheep to shear and the gardens to be harvested, what do they know of how many barrels of salt-fish for the winter and how many casks of sweet lard? Important? Well, if it’s important, let Oerttre handle it. She is the Mother now, and I should be allowed to rest.’ She lifted her hand from Peottre’s shoulder and gripped the arms of her chair. ‘I need my time to rest!’ she complained piteously.

‘Yes, Great Mother. Yes, you do. And you should take it now and I will see that all is handled as it should be. I promise.’ And with these words, Elliania emerged from the shadows at the top of the stairs and hurried down to us. Her lightly shod feet seemed to skim each riser. Half of her hair was pinned up with tiny star pins; the rest flew loose to her shoulders. It did not look intentional. Behind her on the stairs, two young women started to follow her, then halted in horror, whispering to one another. I suspected they had been readying her for her appearance, and she had bolted free of them when she heard the raised voices.

I recognized her bearing more than her form as people parted to let her through. Like Dutiful, she had grown taller in the months since I had last seen her, and all her childish plumpness had melted away, replaced by woman’s flesh. As she came past the line of her women, I was not the only Six Duchies man who gasped. Her gown covered her shoulders and back but left bare her proudly up-tilting breasts. Had she rouged her nipples, to make them stand so pink? I wondered, and felt my flesh stir in response. An instant later, I had flung up my walls and Guard your thoughts, I chided Dutiful. He must have heard me, yet he did not flinch. He stared at the Narcheska’s bared breasts as if he had never seen a woman’s breasts, and in all likelihood, that was possible.

She did not spare a glance for him and his gawking but went straight to the Great Mother. ‘I will deal with this, Peottre,’ she said in her new woman’s voice. Then she spoke to the men who had carried her chair. ‘You have heard our Great Mother. She requires her time of rest. Let us all thank her for gracing our gathering this evening, and wish her calm sleep and easy bones.’

There was a murmur of response, echoing the Narcheska’s goodnight to the Great Mother, and then the young men took up the old woman’s chair and carried her off. The Narcheska stood straight and silent, turning to watch after her until she disappeared into the shadows at the top of the stair. She took a deep breath. The Prince was now staring at her back, at the knob at the top of her spine bared by her upswept hair and her graceful neck above it. The seamstresses had cut it well, I thought to myself. Not even the edge of her tattoos peeped over it. I saw Chade give Dutiful a tiny jab in the ribs. The young man started as if waking from a dream and discovered a sudden interest in Peottre’s feet. Peottre was staring at him flatly, as if he were an ill-mannered dog that might steal meat from the table if he were not watched.

I saw the Narcheska square her shoulders. She turned back to face us all. Her eyes roved over the assembly. The ornament in her hair was made from narwhal’s horn. I have no idea how they had wrought that iridescent blue upon it. The tiny star pins sparkled around it, and I no longer had any doubt that the carving that Prince Dutiful had found upon the Treasure Beach had presaged this moment. I was no closer to knowing what that meant, and had no time to think upon it.

Somehow the Narcheska had found a smile. It was a bit wry at the corners as she gave a small laugh and a shrug. ‘I’ve forgotten what I’m supposed to say now. Will someone speak the Mother’s words for me?’ Then, before anyone could reply to her request, she let her gaze come to meet Dutiful’s. He had blushed before; now he burned as he met her eyes. She ignored his fluster and spoke calmly. ‘You see, we combine two of our traditions tonight. By chance, it is my time to show myself as a blooded woman before my clan. And on this very day you are come here, to offer yourself as mate to me.’

His lips moved. I think they muttered the words ‘blooded woman’ but no sound came forth.

She laughed, but the lightness had gone out of it. It was brittle as ice shards breaking. ‘Have you no ceremony among your folk for this? A boy bloodies his sword to become a man, no? In his ability to kill, he announces that he is now complete. But a woman has no need of a sword. Eda herself bloodies us, and announces us as complete. What a man can take with a sword, a woman can give by her flesh alone. Life.’ She set both her ringless hands on her flat belly. ‘I have shed my first woman’s blood. I can bring forth life from within me. I stand before you all, a woman now.’

There was a muttered response of ‘Welcome, Elliania, Narwhal Clan woman’. I sensed that she had stepped back into the ritual and taken up the words, too. Peottre had retreated into the row of her clansmen. Women came to stand around her. A formalized greeting passed between every woman of the Narwhal Clan and Elliania. A group of wide-eyed girls, hair loose upon their shoulders, stood in a cluster, watching her. One, taller than the others and close to being a woman herself, pointed at Dutiful and said something approving to two of her fellows. They giggled and drew closer to her, whispering and nudging one another. I sensed that these girls had been Elliania’s playmates and companions, but that Elliania had stepped apart from them now and into the ranks of the women. The effortless way in which she had assumed command of the situation told me that she had, in many ways, been a woman amongst them for a long time. This ceremony was the formal recognition that her body was starting to catch up with her spirit.

When every woman had greeted her, Elliania stepped back out of the circle of firelight from the hearth. A stillness came over the crowd, replacing the murmur of comment and welcome. For a brief time, I felt their awkwardness. Peottre shifted on his feet, then forced himself to stand still. Dutiful remained where he had been, and I sensed that these minutes were passing like hours for him.

Finally, the same young woman who had whispered to the Great Mother stepped forward. A faint blush suffused her cheeks. Obviously, she felt she was stepping above her station, but no one else had offered to take charge. She cleared her throat, but there was still a tremor in her voice as she said, ‘I am Almata, a daughter of the Mothers of the Narwhal Clan. I am cousin to the Narcheska Elliania, and six years her senior. Unworthy as I am, I will speak for the Great Mother.’

She paused a moment, as if to allow time for someone to challenge her in this role. There were older women present, but none of them spoke. A few gave tiny, encouraging nods. Most looked heart-sick. Almata took a deep breath, visibly steadied herself, and spoke again.

‘We are gathered in our mothershouse because one not of our clan has come among us, seeking to join his lines to ours. He asks, not just for any woman, but for our Narcheska Elliania, she whose daughters will in turn be Narcheska and Mother and Great Mother to us all. Stand forth, warrior. Who seeks to court our Elliania, our Narcheska of the Narwhals? Where is the warrior bold enough to seek the mothers’ permission to bed with our daughter, and give her daughters to raise up as Mothers of the Narwhal Clan?’

Dutiful took a shuddering breath. He should not have; he should have been steadier than that, and yet I could not blame him. All could sense that something was awry here tonight, and it was something more than foreigners intruding on an Outislander ceremony. I had a sense of people stretching to close a gap, of trying to mend a tragedy by retreating to tradition. Yet there was no space left for us to be cautious. Dutiful’s voice was steady as he proclaimed, ‘I come. I would have the Narcheska Elliania of the Narwhal Clan as the mother of my children.’

‘And how will you provide for her and the children that you will give her? What will you contribute to the Narwhal Clan, that we should let your bloodlines mingle with ours?’

And suddenly we were on solid ground. Chade had prepared well for this. Riddle nudged me, and I stepped aside almost in rhythm with the other guards. Behind them was a canvas-draped heap. Longwick dragged the cover from it, and each guardsman in turn took up an item and brought it forward as Chade announced what it was. Dutiful stood silent and proud as his gifts were presented to both Almata and the Narcheska, as well he might be. Nothing had been spared.

Some of the trove had come with us, hastily transferred from the Maiden’s Chance to the Tusker. Casks of brandy from Shoaks, a bale of ermine skins from the Mountain Kingdom, and coloured glass beads from Tilth, wrought into a tapestry that could be hung over a window. Silver earrings, Kettricken’s own handiwork. Cotton, linen and fine woollen cloth from Bearns were among the offerings. Other gifts were merely mentioned as promises, cargo to be brought from Zylig on the next trip. The reading of that list took some time. The labour of three skilled smiths for three years. A bull and twelve cows of our finest bloodlines. Six brace of oxen, and a team of matched horses. Hunting hounds and two merlins, trained to be ladies’ birds. And some things that Chade offered on Prince Dutiful’s behalf were only dreams yet: trade and peace between the Six Duchies and the Out Islands, gifts of wheat when their fishing harvest was poor, good iron, and the freedom to trade in all the Six Duchies ports. It was a long list and I felt the day’s weariness catch up with me as Chade catalogued it for them.

But all weariness left me when Chade concluded and Almata spoke again. ‘This is the offer made to our clan. Mothers, daughters and sisters, what say you? Do any speak against him?’

Silence followed her words. It evidently expressed approval, for Almata nodded gravely. Then she turned to Elliania. ‘Cousin, Woman of the Narwhal Clan, Elliania the Narcheska, what is your will? Do you desire this man? Will you take him as yours?’

The muscles stood out in Peottre’s neck as the slender young woman stepped forward. Dutiful held out a hand, palm up. She stood beside him, shoulder to shoulder, and placed her hand flat upon his. When she turned to look at him and their eyes met, my lad blushed again. ‘I will take him,’ she replied gravely. A part of me noted that she did not reply as to whether she desired him or not. She took a deeper breath and said, more loudly, ‘I will take him, and he will bed me and we will give daughters to the mothershouse. If he performs the task that I have already named to him. If he can bring here, to this hearth, the head of the dragon Icefyre, then he may call me wife.’

Peottre’s eyes flickered shut and then open again. He forced himself to watch as his sister-daughter sold herself. His shoulders moved once in what might have been a sob denied. Almata held a hand out and someone placed a long strip of leather in it. She stepped forward and continued speaking as she bound Dutiful’s and Elliania’s wrists together.

‘This binds you as your words have bound you. While she accepts you, bed with no other, Dutiful, or that woman’s life is forfeit to Elliania’s knife. While he pleases you, Elliania, bed with no other, or that man must face the challenge of Dutiful’s sword. Now, mingle your blood upon the hearthstones of our mothershouse, in offering to Eda for the children she may send you.’

I had no desire to watch, but I did. First the knife was offered to Dutiful. He betrayed no pain as he sliced his forearm until it bled freely. He cupped his bound hand and waited for blood to trickle past the leather strip and into his palm. Elliania did likewise, her face grave and somehow impassive, as if she had transgressed into an area so far beyond disgrace that nothing could move her now. When each hand cupped a small amount of blood, Almata guided their hands into a clasp. Then they knelt and each left a palmprint of the mingled blood on the hearthstone. When they turned to face the gathered folk again, Almata freed their hands of the leather cord, and offered it to Dutiful, who accepted it gravely. Almata moved to stand behind them, a hand on each of their shoulders. She tried to put a note of joy into her voice, but it sounded flat to me as she announced, ‘They stand before you, joined and bound by their words. Wish them well, my people.’ The murmur of approval that rose from the gathered folk was more as if they applauded a deed of great courage than if they had just witnessed the happy joining of a loving couple. Elliania bowed her head before it, Sacrifice for them in some way I did not yet comprehend.

I’m married? Wonder, dismay and outrage mingled in Dutiful’s flung Skill-thought.

Not until you give her a dragon’s head, I warned him.

Not until we hold the real ceremony in Buckkeep Castle, Chade comforted him.

The Prince looked dazed.

All around us, the hall erupted into activity. Boards were brought out, and then food to grace them. Outislander minstrels struck up a song upon their windy instruments. True to their tradition, the minstrels so twisted the words to fit the tune that I could scarce understand it. I noticed that two of them came to greet Cockle and invite him to their corner of the hall. Their welcome seemed genuine, and again I was struck by the universal understanding that seems to exist amongst musicians.

Dutiful Skill-shared with me the words Elliania had said quietly to him. ‘Now you must hold my hand and walk with me as I present you to my older cousins. Remember, they are my elders. Although I am the Narcheska, I still owe them the deference due my elders. So do you.’ She spoke as if instructing a child.

‘I’ll try not to humiliate you,’ he replied, rather stiffly. His words did not please me and yet I could not completely blame him for saying them.

‘Then smile. And keep quiet, as befits a warrior in a mothershouse that is not his own,’ she retorted. She took his hand and let it be obvious that she led him. Rather as one might lead a prize bull by the ring in his nose, I thought to myself. The women did not come to meet him. Instead, Elliania took him from group to group. At each, he made the warrior’s obeisance accepted in the Out Islands, that is, he offered his sword hand, empty and now bloodied, wrist up, to them while bowing his head. They smiled upon him, and offered comments to the Narcheska upon her choice. I sensed that in another time and place, the words would have been light-hearted and teasing. But at this ceremony and with this man, the compliments offered to her were moderate and well-mannered. Instead of relieving the tension of the formal pledging, they prolonged it.

Seeing the other groups of warriors dispersing throughout the feast, Chade dismissed us from our ranks. Ears and eyes open, he cautioned me as I wended my way through the throng.

Always, I replied to him. He did not need to suggest that I keep the Prince in sight. Until I knew what was behind this façade, I had no idea who might or might not wish him harm. And so I drifted about the wedding feast, never too far from my prince, keeping a light Skill-contact with him.

The gathering was very different from any Buckkeep celebration. There was no seating of the guests according to rank or favour. Instead, the food was set out and people helped themselves to it and wandered the room as they ate it. There was roast mutton on spits kept warm near the hearth, and trays heaped with fowl cooked whole. I sampled from a platter of smoked candlefish, seasoned and crisp and remarkably tasty. Outislander breads seemed to be dark and unleavened, cooked in huge flat rounds. Diners tore off a piece of an appropriate size and then heaped it with sliced and pickled vegetables, or dipped it in fish-oil and salt. All the flavours of the foods seemed overly strong to me, and much of it was pickled or smoked or salted. Only the mutton and the chicken were fresh-killed, and even those had been seasoned with some sort of seaweed.

The eating and drinking, the talking and the music and some sort of juggling contest, with betting, all happened simultaneously. The roar of raised voices was nearly deafening. After a time, I became aware of something else. Young Outislander women of the Narwhal Clan were approaching not just our guardsmen but even Civil and Cockle. I saw several guards grinning fatuously as their young partners led them outside or up the shadowy staircase.

Are they deliberately luring Dutiful’s guard away? I Skilled anxiously to Chade.

Here, it is a woman’s prerogative, he replied. They do not have the same customs regarding chastity. The guardsmen were warned to be cautious but not cool. The Prince’s warriors and companions are expected to be available for the evening, but only if they are invited; it would be a breach of hospitality if they approached a woman who had not first signalled her interest. If you have not noticed, there is a lack of men here, and far fewer children than there should be for this many women. An empty womb filled on a wedding night foretells a lucky child, here.

Was there a reason I was not told of this before now?

Does it bother you?

After a moment of surreptitious peering, I located my old mentor. He was sitting on one of the bed-benches, nibbling on a fowl’s leg and conversing with a woman half his age. I caught a glimpse of Civil and his cat disappearing into the upper reaches of the house. The woman who led him was at least five years older than he was, but he did not look intimidated. I had no time to wonder nor worry where Swift had vanished to; surely he was too young to be of any interest to these viragos. In that moment I realized that Dutiful was leaving the mothershouse in the company of a gaggle of the Narcheska’s girlish friends. Elliania did not look particularly pleased, even though she still held his hand and led him out of the door.

It was not easy to follow him. A woman with a tray of sweets stepped between me and the door. I managed to feign a thick-witted indifference to her offering of more than the sticky confections as I helped myself to a handful in a boorish display of greed and ate them in two mouthfuls. Somehow this flattered her, and she set the tray aside and followed me as I ate them. She was still at my elbow when I reached the door. ‘Where’s the backhouse?’ I asked her, and when she did not understand the Six Duchies euphemism, I mimed what I sought. With a puzzled look, she pointed out a low building to me and returned to the feasting. As I walked toward it, I cast a wide glance for Dutiful. There were several couples in the courtyard, in various stages of dalliance, and two boys carrying water from the well back into the mothershouse. Where had he gone?

I saw him at last, not far away, sitting beside Elliania on a grassy rise near some young apple trees. The other girls had settled around them in a ring. These were girls not yet women, as their loose hair proclaimed. I guessed that their ages ranged from ten to fifteen or so. Doubtless, before this night, they had been Elliania’s playmates for years. Now she has left their companionship behind her with her change to woman’s status.

Not quite, Dutiful informed me sourly. They have evaluated me as if I were a horse bought cheap at the fair. ‘If he is a warrior, where are his scars?’ ‘Did not he have a clan? Why does his face not bear her tattoo?’ They tease her, and one of them is quite a nasty little vixen. Lestra is her name, and she is Elliania’s older cousin. She is mocking Elliania, saying that perhaps she is a woman and even wed in name, but that she doubts that she has ever been kissed. Lestra claims to have been kissed several times, quite thoroughly, even though she has not bled yet. Fitz, have the girls no shame nor reticence in this land?

I grasped it on an intuitive level. Dutiful, it is a driving out. Elliania is no longer one of them, and so they will peck and tease her tonight. Doubtless it would have happened in any case; it may even be seen as a part of her womanhood ceremony. And then, needlessly, I added Be careful. Follow her lead, lest you shame her somehow.

I have no idea what she wants of me, he replied helplessly. She glares at me out of the corner of her eye, and yet holds to my hand as if it were a line thrown to her in wild water.

As clearly as if I sat beside him, the words reached me through our Skill-link. The girl who flung the challenge was taller than Elliania, and perchance older. I knew enough of women to know that age alone did not determine their blood time. Indeed, save for her loose hair, I would have guessed her a woman already. Lestra spoke saucily, taunting Elliania with, ‘So. You’ll bind him to you, so no one else can have him, but you dare not even kiss him!’

‘Perhaps I do not wish to kiss him yet. Perhaps I intend to wait until he has proven himself worthy of me.’

Lestra shook her head. She had little bells wired into her hair and I heard the jingle of her mane as she said mockingly, ‘No, Elliania, we know you well. As a girl you were always the most meek and least daring of us. I daresay you are the same as a woman. You don’t dare kiss him, and he is too timid a man to take one for himself. He is a smooth-cheeked boy, masquerading as a man. Isn’t that true, “Prince”? You are as timid as she is. Perhaps I could teach you to be bolder. He does not even look at her breasts! Or perhaps they are so small, he cannot see them.’

I did not envy Dutiful. I had no advice to offer him. I sat myself down on the low stone wall that marked the edge of the young orchard. I lifted my hands to my face and rubbed my cheeks, as a man does when he has had too much to drink and seeks to drive the tingle from his face. I hoped folk would think me drunk and leave me sitting. I did not relish watching Dutiful go through his dilemma, but I dared not leave him. I sagged my shoulders and set my head as if staring into the distance while watching out of the corner of my eye.

Dutiful made an effort, speaking stiffly. ‘Perhaps I respect Narcheska Elliania too much to take what she has not offered.’ I could feel his steely determination not to look at her breasts as he said this. His awareness of them, bared and warm so near him, was taking its toll.

He could not see the look Elliania cast to one side. That answer had not pleased her.

‘But you don’t respect me, do you?’ the little minx taunted him.

‘No,’ he replied shortly. ‘I do not think that I do.’

‘Then there is no problem. Show your boldness and kiss me!’ Lestra commanded him triumphantly. ‘And I will tell her if she is missing anything worth having.’ As if to force him to the act, she leaned forward suddenly, thrusting her face at him, even as one sly hand flew toward his groin. ‘What’s this?’ she crowed mischievously as Dutiful shot to his feet with an exclamation of outrage. ‘There’s more than a kiss he has waiting for you, Elliania. Look at it! An army of one has pitched a tent for you there! Will the siege last long?’

‘Stop it, Lestra!’ Elliania snarled. She, too, had come to her feet. Her cheeks blazed with colour and she did not look at Dutiful but scowled at her enemy. Her bared breasts rose and fell with her angry breath.

‘Why? You’ve obviously no intent of doing anything interesting with him. Why shouldn’t I take him? By rights, he should be mine, just as by rights I should be Narcheska. And will be, when he takes you off to be a lesser woman in his own mothershouse.’

Several of the girls gasped, but Elliania’s eyes only blazed hotter.

‘That is among the oldest of the lies you tell, Lestra! Your great-grandmother was the younger twin. Both midwives said so.’

‘First out of the womb is not always oldest, Elliania. So many say. Your great-grandmother was a mewling, sickly kitten of a babe. Mine was the hearty, healthy child. Your great-grandmother had no right to be Narcheska, nor did her daughter, or her granddaughter, or you!’

‘Sickly? Indeed! Then how is it that she lives still, as Great Mother! Take back your lie, Lestra, or I will cram it down your throat.’ Elliania spoke in a flat, ugly voice. It carried well. I was not the only one who had turned to watch the quarrel. When Dutiful stepped forward, mouth open to speak, Elliania put her hand flat in the centre of his chest and thrust him back. The young girls formed into a ring now around the potential combatants and he found himself outside it. He looked toward me as if for help.

Don’t intervene. Elliania has made it plain that she doesn’t want you to.

I hoped my advice was good. Even as I attempted to Skill the situation to Chade, I saw Peottre. He had probably been lurking just out of my line of sight at the building’s corner. He strolled over to the low wall where I sat and leaned one hip on it casually. ‘He should stay out of that,’ he said to me casually.

I swung my head and regarded him blearily. ‘Who?’

He stared at me levelly. ‘Your Prince. He should leave this to Elliania to settle. It’s woman’s business, and she won’t welcome his interference. You should convey that to him, if you can.’

Peottre says, step back from it. Let Elliania settle it.

What? Dutiful demanded in consternation.

Why is Peottre speaking to you? Chade demanded.

I don’t know!

To Peottre, I said, ‘I’m just his guardsman, sir. I don’t advise the Prince.’

‘You’re his bodyguard,’ Peottre replied pleasantly. ‘Or his … what would it be in your language? His chaperone? As I am for Elliania. You’re good, but you’re not invisible. I’ve seen you watching him.’

‘I’m his guardsman. I’m supposed to guard him,’ I protested, letting the words slur a little. I wished I’d thought to have a glass of wine. The smell of spirits can be very convincing.

He was no longer looking at me. I turned to stare up the hill. There was a shout behind me from the door of the mothershouse, and I heard other people emerging. The two girls had gone into a clinch. With apparent ease, Lestra threw Elliania onto the ground on her back. Even at that distance, I heard her breath whoosh out of her. Peottre made a frustrated sound and he twitched in that small way that experienced fighters do when they are watching a prized student compete. As Lestra flung herself on top of Elliania, the smaller girl suddenly drew her knees up to her chest and firmly kicked her opponent in her midsection. Lestra shot backwards, landing badly. Elliania rolled to her knees and, careless of her fine gown and coiffed hair, flung herself on top of Lestra. Every muscle in Peottre’s neck and arms was taut, but he did not move. I came to my feet to gain a better vantage and gawked, just as the other Buckkeep guardsmen were doing. The Outislanders who had emerged to watch the struggle were interested, but not intent. Evidently, for girls or women to wrestle in this manner was not shocking to them.

By sitting high on Lestra’s chest, her knees on her arms, Elliania had effectively pinned the larger girl to the earth. Lestra was kicking and struggling, but the Narcheska had gripped a handful of her loose hair to fix her head to the ground. With her free hand, she rubbed a handful of dirt into Lestra’s mouth. ‘Let honest earth cleanse the lie from your lips!’ she shouted triumphantly. Dutiful stood back from them, his mouth ajar. He was aware of the wild jiggle of Elliania’s bared breasts as her chest heaved with exertion. I sensed he was as horrified at his physical reaction to that as he was by the girls’ struggle. All around them, the other girls leapt and yelled, encouraging the combatants.

With a wild shriek, Lestra tore her head free of Elliania’s grasp, leaving her clutching a goodly handful of hair. Elliania slapped her, hard, and then seized her by the throat. ‘Call me Narcheska, or you will not draw another breath!’ she shouted at her.

‘Narcheska! Narcheska!’ the older girl shrieked, and then she began to sob wildly, more from frustration and humiliation than pain.

Elliania put her hand flat to Lestra’s face and pushed up off it as she stood. ‘Leave her alone!’ she warned two of the girls who stepped forward to aid the loser. ‘Let her lie there and be glad that I didn’t have my knife. I am a woman now. From now on, my knife will answer anyone who dares to dispute that I am Narcheska. From now on, my knife will answer anyone who dares to touch the man I have claimed for myself.’

I glanced at Peottre. His grin was hard, showing every tooth he had. Elliania reached Dutiful in two strides. He stood gawking down at his dishevelled bride. As casually as I would seize a horse’s mane to mount him, she reached up and gripped his warrior’s tail. As she pulled his face down to hers, she commanded him, ‘You will kiss me now.’

An instant before their mouths met, he snatched his Skill-awareness away from me. Yet neither I nor any man watching needed the Skill to sense the fervour in that kiss. She locked her mouth to his, and as his arms came awkwardly around her to draw her closer, she leaned into his embrace, deliberately brushing her bared breasts against his chest. Then she broke the kiss, and while Dutiful drew an uneven breath, she met his eyes and reminded him, ‘Icefyre’s head. On my mothers’ hearth. Before you may call me wife.’ Then, from within the circle of his embrace, she looked at her old playmates and announced, ‘You girls may stay here and play if you wish. I’m taking my husband back inside to the feasting.’

She stepped clear of his arms, and took his hand again. He followed her docilely, grinning vapidly. Lestra was sitting up, alone, staring after them with fury and shame. There were approving whoops from several women and some envious groans from the watching men as she triumphantly led her prize past them. I glanced at Peottre. He looked stunned. Then his eyes came to mine. ‘She had to do that,’ he told me sternly. ‘To make her point with the other girls. That’s why she did it. To establish herself in their eyes as a woman, and to make clear her claim to him.’

‘I could see that,’ I agreed mildly. But I did not believe him. I suspected that something had just happened that was outside his plan for Elliania and Dutiful. It made it all the more essential for me to discover just what his true intent was.

The rest of the evening seemed bland. Eating, drinking and listening to Outislander bards could not compare to the claiming of power that I had just witnessed. I found a meat pie and a mug of ale and took it to a quiet corner. I pretended to be absorbed in it as I Skilled to Chade all that I had witnessed.

This is moving more swiftly than I had dared hope, he Skilled in return. And yet I mistrust it. Does she truly want him as husband, or was it only to establish what she claimed, that no one can take him from her? Does she hope lust will spur him to kill the dragon for her?

I felt foolish as I told him, This is the first time I have realized that if she becomes his bride and moves to his house, some will say she has forfeited her place here. Lestra spoke of her becoming a ‘lesser woman in his mothershouse’. What did it mean?

Chade’s reply came reluctantly. I think the idiom is the same used for a woman captured in a raid, but taken as a wife rather than a slave. Her children have no clan. It is like being a bastard, somewhat.

Then why would she agree to this? Why would Peottre allow it? And if she is not the Narcheska when she comes to Buckkeep and remains there, do we gain any advantage by this wedding? Chade, this does not make sense to me.

There is still too much that is not clear here, Fitz. I sense an unseen current in all this. Stay alert.

And so I did, through the long evening and longer night. The sun lingered as it does in that northern clime, so that night was just a long twilight. When the time came for the bridal couple to retire, it was Dutiful who announced that he would remain below in the common room ‘lest any say that I have taken what I have not earned’. It added another awkward moment to the day, and I saw a puff-lipped Lestra gloating about it with her cohorts. The couple parted at the foot of the staircase, Elliania ascending and Dutiful going off to take a seat beside Chade. This night, he would sleep within the mothershouse, as befitted a man properly wedded to a woman of the clan, but down here on the bed boards, not above with Elliania. His guards were dismissed for the night, to return to the warriors’ housing or warmer welcomes, so long as their partners bedded them outside the mothershouse walls. I longed to move closer to Chade and Dutiful and have some quiet talk with them, but I knew it would look odd. Instead, I decided that it was time for me to return to my own lodgings.

I had not gone far when I heard footsteps crunching on the pathway behind me. Glancing back, I saw Web. Beside him slogged a weary Swift. The tops of his cheeks were very pink and I suspected the boy had overindulged in wine. Web nodded to me, and I slackened my pace to allow them to catch up with me. ‘Quite an occasion,’ I remarked idly to Web when he walked beside me.

‘Yes. I think the Outislanders now regard our prince as wed to their Narcheska. I thought this was only to confirm the betrothal before her mothers’ hearth.’ There was a note of question in his statement.

‘I don’t think they make any distinction between couples marrying and couples announcing that they will marry. Here, where property and children belong to the woman, marriage is seen in a different light.’

He nodded slowly. ‘No woman ever has to wonder if a babe is truly hers,’ he observed.

‘Does it make that great a difference that the children belong more to the woman than they do the husband?’ Swift asked curiously. His words were not slurred, but when he spoke, I could smell the wine on his breath.

‘I think it depends on the man,’ Web answered gravely. After that, we walked for a time in silence. Whether I would or no, my thoughts wandered to Nettle and Molly and Burrich and me. To whom did she belong now?

As we drew near the cottage, the town around us was silent. Any folk who were not at the wedding festivities in the mothershouse were long abed. I opened the door quietly. Thick needed all the rest he could get; I did not wish to wake him. The slice of light that we admitted to the cottage showed me Riddle lying on the floor beside Thick’s bed. One eye was open and his hand was on his bared blade arranged beside him. When he saw who it was, he closed his eyes and lapsed back into sleep.

I remained standing motionless by the door. There was another intruder in the cottage, one whose presence Riddle had not noticed. Large and round as a fat cat, yet masked like a ferret, he crouched on the table, his bushy striped tail sticking straight up behind him. He looked at us with round eyes over the hunk of our cheese that he clutched in his front paws. The marks of his sharp teeth were clearly visible in it.

‘What is it?’ I breathed to Web.

‘I think they call it a robber-rat, though rat it is clearly not. I’ve never seen the like of it before,’ he replied as softly.

The robber-rat stared past us both, his entire attention fixed on Swift. Like a whisper against my senses, I became aware of the Wit flowing between the two. There was a smile on Swift’s face. He stepped forward, pushing between Web and me to do so. I lifted a hand to reach after him, but before I could do so, Web’s hand fell on the boy’s shoulder. He jerked Swift back, startling the robber-rat with the abruptness of his move. Aloud, he told the creature, ‘Take the cheese and go.’ Then, in the harshest voice I’d ever heard him use, he demanded of Swift, ‘What did you think you were doing? Have you not heard one word of anything I’ve tried to teach you?’

Robber-rat and cheese were gone in a flicker of motion, vanishing through the open window with a flick of striped tail.

Swift gave a cry of disappointment and tried to wrench himself free of Web’s grip. The stout man’s hand held him firm. The boy was angry, mostly I think in response to Web’s visible anger with him. ‘All I did was greet him! I liked the feel of him. I could sense that we would go well together. And I wanted …’

‘You wanted him like a child wants a bright toy on a tinker’s tray!’ Web spoke severely and there was no mistaking the condemnation in his voice as he released Swift’s shoulder. ‘Because he was sleek and swift and clever. And he is as young and foolish as you are. And as curious. You felt him reach back to you not because he was seeking a partner but because you intrigued him. That is not a basis for a Wit-bond. And you are not old enough nor mature enough to be seeking a partner. If you attempt that again, I will punish you, just as I would punish any child who deliberately put himself or a playmate into danger.’

Riddle had sat up and was regarding the discussion with open-mouthed astonishment. It was no secret to anyone that both Web and Swift were part of Dutiful’s Witted coterie. I shuddered to think how close I had come to betraying myself as Old Blood. Even Thick had opened one sleepy eye to scowl at the argument.

Swift flung himself disconsolately into a chair. ‘Danger,’ he muttered. ‘What danger? Is it dangerous that I might have someone that cared about me, at last?’

‘Danger that you would bond with a creature you know nothing about? Has he a mate and kits at home? Would you take him from them, or remain here on this island when we sailed? What does he eat and how often? Would you stay here with him for his lifespan, or take him away from all others of his kind when we left here, condemning him to remain forever mateless? You took no thought for him, Swift, nor for anything beyond the connection of the moment. You’re like a drunk, bedding a young girl tonight with no thoughts for the morrow. It is not a behaviour I can excuse. No true Old Blood would.’

Swift glared at him. Riddle spoke thoughtlessly into the tense silence. ‘I did not know the Witted had any rules about bonding with animals. I thought they could bond with any creature, for an hour or a year.’

‘A false perception,’ Web said heavily, ‘that many folk not of Old Blood have about us. It is bound to happen, when one people must keep their ways secret and unseen. But it leads to the idea that we use animals and then discard them. It makes it easier for folk to think we would bid a bear savage a man’s family, or send a wolf to kill a flock of sheep. The Wit-bond is not a man taking mastery over an animal. It is a joining founded on mutual respect, for life. Do you understand that, Swift?’

‘I meant no harm,’ he replied stiffly. There was no repentance or apology in his voice.

‘Neither does the child who plays with fire and burns a cottage down. Meaning no harm is not enough, Swift. If you would be Old Blood, then you must respect our rules and ways all the time, not just when it suits you.’

‘And if I don’t?’ Swift asked sullenly.

‘Then call yourself a Piebald, for that is what you will be.’ Web drew in a heavy breath and then sighed it out. ‘Or an outcast,’ he said softly. I felt that he tried not to look at me as he spoke those last words. ‘Why any man would wish to remain apart from his own, I do not know.’

ELEVEN

Wuislington

The attachment that the women have to their clan lands is remarkable. They often refer to tales that the earth itself is made from Eda’s flesh and bones while the sea belongs to El. All land belongs to the women of the clan; the men born into a clan may tend the land and help with the harvest, but the women determine the distribution of the harvest and also decree what crops will be planted and where and in what proportions. It is not merely a matter of ownership, but a matter of Eda’s worship.

Men may be buried anywhere, and most often are given to the sea. But all women must be buried within their own clan fields. The graves are honoured for seven years, during which time the burial field is left fallow. After that, they are ploughed again, and the first harvest from such a field is served in a special feast.

While the Outislander men are wanderers and may remain away from their home ports for years, the women tend to stay close to the lands of their birth. In marriage, they expect their husbands to reside with them. If an Outislander woman dies away from her clan lands, extraordinary efforts will be made to return her body to her clan fields. To do otherwise is both great shame and serious sacrilege for the woman’s clan. The clans will willingly go to war to repatriate a woman’s body to her home.

An Account of Travel in a Barbarous Land, by Scribe Fedwren

We were guests at Wuislington at the Narcheska’s mothershouse for twelve days. It was a strange hospitality they offered us. Chade and Prince Dutiful were allotted sleeping space on the benches in the lower level of the house. The Witted coterie was housed alongside the guardsmen outside the walls. Thick and I continued in our cottage, with Swift and Riddle as frequent visitors. Every day, Chade sent two of the guards into the village to purchase victuals. They brought a share to us in the cottage, some to the guards and the rest back to the mothershouse. Although Blackwater had promised to feed us, Chade had chosen this tactic shrewdly. To be seen as dependent on the Narwhal mothershouse largesse would be seen as a weakness and a foolish lack of planning.

There were good aspects to our extended stay. Thick began to recover his health. He still coughed and was short of breath if he went for a walk, but he slept more naturally, took an interest in his surroundings, ate and drank, and generally recovered some of his spirits. He still held it against me that I had forced him to travel there in a ship and that he would eventually have to leave in the same way. Every effort at casual conversation that I made always seemed to lead us back to that bone of contention. Sometimes it seemed easier not to speak to him at all, but then I sensed his anger for me as a simmering displeasure. I hated that things had become uncomfortable between us when I had worked so hard to gain his trust. When I said as much to Chade during one of our brief meetings, he dismissed it as necessary. ‘It would be far worse if he blamed it on Dutiful, you see. In this, you will have to be the whipping boy, Fitz.’ I knew it was so, and yet his words were no comfort.

Riddle spent several hours daily with Thick, usually when Chade wanted me to keep an unobtrusive eye on Dutiful. Web and Swift often came to the cottage. Swift seemed chastened by Web’s rebuke and appeared generally more respectful to both Web and myself. I kept the lad busy with daily lessons and demanded that he practise his bow as well as his swordsmanship. Thick would come to sit outside the cottage and watch our mock battles in the sheep enclosure. He always cheered for Swift, bellowing his pleasure every time the boy landed a blow with the bound swords we used. I confess that bruised my feelings as much as Swift’s thwacks bruised my flesh. It was my own skills more than his that I wished to keep sharp, but teaching the boy not only gave me an excuse to practise, it also allowed me to demonstrate my proficiency to the Outislanders. They did not gather to watch, but from time to time I would glimpse a lad or two perched on a nearby wall, eyeing us. I resolved that if I must be spied upon, I would see that the reports of me were that I was not easy prey. I did not think that their scrutiny was casual curiosity.

I felt constantly watched in that place. Wherever I went, always it seemed there was someone nearby, idly lingering. I could not have pointed to a single boy or old woman that spied on me, and yet there were always eyes on my back. I felt, too, a sense of danger to Thick. It was in the glances he received whenever we went out, and in the reaction of the folk we encountered. They drew back from him as if he carried contagion, and stared after us as if he were a two-headed calf. Even Thick seemed aware of it. I realized that, without consciously thinking of it, he seemed to use the Skill to be less noticed. It was not like his blast of “You don’t see me!” that had once nearly laid me low, but more a constant announcement of his unimportance. I stored the knowledge away as something worth discussing with Chade.

I had little true time with my old mentor, and the Skill-messages I relayed to him were brief. We all felt it was more important that he use his Skill-strength in being available to Dutiful. Chade had also decided that as Peottre Blackwater had already discerned that I was a bodyguard for the Prince, there was no harm in my more openly pursuing that role. ‘As long as he does not realize you are any more than that,’ Chade cautioned me.

I tried to be an unobtrusive observer and guard to the Prince. Although Dutiful never complained I think he was uncomfortable with my constant lurking presence. The rest of the settlement regarded Dutiful and Elliania as a married couple now. There was no effort to chaperone them in any way. Only Peottre’s presence, as subtle as a standing stone, reminded us that some in the Narcheska’s family would see that their relationship remained chaste until Dutiful had fulfilled his end of the bargain. I think Peottre and I watched one another as much as we watched Dutiful and the Narcheska. In a strange way, we became partners.

I discovered in that time one of the reasons why the Narcheska was held in such regard by all of the clans, not just Narwhal. This was a culture in which women owned the land and what it produced. I had assumed the wealth of the Wuislington Isle was in its sheep. It was only when I trailed Dutiful and Elliania on one of their hikes across the rocky hills of the island that I came to discover its true wealth. They crested a ridge, with Peottre a discreet distance away from them and me a distant fourth. As I too reached the rise and then looked down into the next valley, I gasped.

There were three lakes in the valley, and two of them steamed even in the height of the summer day. Greenery was lush all around them, as were the precisely planted and tended fields that patchworked the valley. As I followed them down into the valley, the constant cooling wind faded. I walked down into cupped warmth and the smell of mineral-rich water. The boulders and stones had been cleared from the fields to neatly divide the crops as stone fences. Not only did the crops grow better in this warmer valley, but there I saw plants and trees that I would have judged too tender to flourish this far north. Here, in the harsh Out Islands, was an island mellowed by bubbling hot springs into an oasis of gentle warmth and plenty. No wonder the winning of the Narcheska was seen as such a prize. An alliance with she who controlled the food produced here was a valuable thing indeed in these harsh lands.

Yet I also had to note that, even in the midst of the summer, many of the fields were left fallow, and workers on the land were not as numerous as I would have expected. Again, the women and girls outnumbered the men and boys, and few of the males were in their prime years. It presented a mystery to me. Here were women, wealthy in land and lacking the workers to farm it. Why were there not more men courting here from other clans, seeking to contribute children to this island of plenty?

One early evening, Dutiful and Elliania were jumping two of the scrawny little island ponies that her people used for a multitude of tasks on Mayle. Their course was a stony meadow at the gently sloping base of a hill littered with boulders, and their makeshift jumps were cut saplings laid across paired boulders. The little ponies amazed me with how high they could leap when badgered into jumping. Sheep had cropped the grass short and scrub brush fringed the meadow. The deepening blue of the sky arched over us, and soon the first stars would show. They were riding bareback, and Dutiful had already taken two tumbles from his scrawny and wilful steed in his attempts to keep pace with his fearless consort. The girl was wholeheartedly enjoying herself. She rode astride; her yellow skirts bunched and blossomed around her legs. From the knee down, her legs were bare, even her feet. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair wild and she rode with a disregard for everything except showing the Prince she could excel him at this. The first time he fell, Elliania had ridden on, her mocking laughter reaching all of us. The second time, she actually rode back to see if he was injured while Peottre caught the nasty little beast and led it back to them. Most of my attention was focused on Dutiful; I felt proud of him for how genial he had been about both falls.

These ponies are as skinny and bony as calves. Trying to keep a seat on one is more bruising than taking the fall when it hops sideways.

Elliania seems to manage it well enough, I pointed out teasingly. At the look he shot me, I hastily added, It doesn’t look easy. I think she admires your tenacity.

I think she admires my bruises, the little vixen. I caught a note of fondness in the epithet. As if to distract me from that, the Prince added, Glance to your left and tell me if you see someone behind the boulders at the edge of the scrub brush.

I flicked my eyes that way without turning my head. Something was there. I was not sure if it was a person or a large animal crouched there. The Prince re-mounted, and clung to his seat while the pony did a series of wild crow-hops across the meadow. His mount was obviously weary of the game, but Elliania’s merry laughter rewarded Dutiful’s efforts to stay on top. He cleared the jump that had previously defeated him, and she saluted him with a flourish. Her enjoyment of the spectacle seemed genuine, and a glance at Peottre showed that a grudging smile lit even his dour face. I joined my laughter to theirs and walked closer to them.

Ride toward that area and take a tumble. And when you do, make sure the pony flees toward the boulders.

He Skilled a disgusted groan at me, but did as I asked. And when the pony bolted, I sprang up and raced after it full speed, deliberately more chasing him than attempting to catch the creature. Together we flushed a woman, clad all in moss green and brown from her hiding place. She fled with no pretence of doing anything else, and I recognized not only how she moved but the very faint scent of her that I caught. Much as I longed to chase after her, I did not. Instead I Skilled what I now knew to both Chade and Dutiful.

That was Henja! The Narcheska’s servant from Buckkeep. She’s here on the island, spying on us.

Neither replied to me save with a wave of dread.

I was deliberately awkward at catching the pony. Finally Peottre came to help me. ‘We gave that old woman quite a fright!’ I observed to him as I herded the pony toward him.

He seized the recalcitrant little animal by the forelock and looked up at the sky. He never met my gaze. ‘It grows dark. We are fortunate the Prince did not take a worse fall and severely injure himself.’ Then, to our wards, ‘We should go back now. The ponies are tired of jumping and night draws on.’

I wondered if he had tried to warn me of a worse danger to the Prince than falling from a pony’s back. I took him around again. ‘Do you think that poor old woman is all right? Should we look for her? She seemed quite frightened. I wonder what she was doing behind those boulders.’

Face and voice impassive, he replied, ‘She was probably just gathering kindling. Or herbs or roots. I do not think we need bother about her.’ He lifted his voice. ‘Elliania! The time for fun is over. We should return to the mothershouse.’

I saw Elliania’s face when you made Henja run. The Narcheska was startled. And now she is frightened.

The brusque nod she gave to Peottre’s words confirmed the Prince’s opinion. She slid immediately from her pony’s back, and then lifted the hackamore from his head, turning him loose on the hillside. Peottre did the same for the beast the Prince had been riding, and suddenly I found myself walking back to the mothershouse alongside them. Elliania and Dutiful led the way, and the silence between them contrasted sadly with their earlier merriment. My heart was heavy for him. He was learning to love this Outislander girl, but every time they drew closer to one another, the damned politics of throne and power wedged them apart. I felt a sudden rush of anger, and spoke rashly.

‘That was Henja, wasn’t it? That woman hiding in the bushes. She was the Narcheska’s servant in Buckkeep Castle, if I recall correctly.’

I give the man credit for his composure. Although he could not look at me, his voice was calm. ‘I doubt it. She left our service before we departed Buckkeep. We both believed she might be happier in the Six Duchies, and thus were glad to release her.’

‘Perhaps she returned to Wuislington on her own. Perhaps she became homesick.’

‘This is not her home: she is not of our mothershouse,’ Peottre announced firmly.

‘How odd.’ I was determined to be relentless. As a mere guardsman, I would not be expected to possess tact, only curiosity. ‘I thought that in this country, the mother’s family was all important, so anyone attending the Narcheska would be of her mothers’ line.’

‘Ordinarily, yes.’ Peottre’s voice was growing stiffer. ‘No woman of the family could be spared at the time we sailed. So we hired her.’

‘I see.’ I shrugged. ‘I have wondered, why do not Elliania’s mother and sisters attend her now? Are they dead?’

He shuddered as if I’d stuck a dart in him. ‘No. They aren’t.’ Bitterness came into his voice. ‘Her two older brothers are. They died in Kebal Rawbread’s War. Her mother and her younger sister live but they are … detained elsewhere, on an important matter. If they could be here with her now, they would.’

‘Oh, I’m sure of that,’ I replied blandly. I was convinced of the truth of every word he had uttered, and just as certain that I did not have the entire truth.

Late that night, while Thick slept heavily, I Skilled as much to Chade. I tried to keep my thoughts to the old man private and separate from my Skill-link to the Prince. I could sense his restless sleep. The undercurrent of the boy’s frustration and impatience set my nerves on edge. I tried to set his emotions aside as I communicated to Chade all that had passed between Peottre and me. Chade was annoyed with my bluntness with Peottre even as he was avidly interested in the man’s responses. There are designs within designs here, like one of the Fool’s wooden puzzle balls. I am convinced that he and the Narcheska have an agenda of their own, and that not all in her mothershouse knows of it. Some do. Almata for example. And the Narcheska’s great-grandmother has been told, but I do not think she can hold the significance in her mind. Lestra and her mother interest me. Lestra stands to become Narcheska when Elliania goes off to Buckkeep to wed Dutiful. Yet, she seems to vie with Elliania for Dutiful’s attention, and I suspect her mother encourages it. Does she grasp that eventually becoming Queen of the Six Duchies might be a loftier ambition than stealing the Narcheska title from Elliania? I do not think Lestra and her mother attach any importance to Elliania’s demand for the dragon’s head. I think that Lestra’s ambitions should give both Elliania and Peottre concern, yet they seem to remain aloof, their thoughts elsewhere. Elliania only drives Lestra off when the challenge becomes too blatant to ignore.

Like their fistfight on the night of the wedding?

Betrothal, Fitz. Betrothal. We do not recognize that ceremony as a true wedding. The Prince must be wed at home, in Buckkeep, and the marriage must be consummated. But no, not just that confrontation. Lestra has made several attempts at him since then, usually when the Narcheska is not about.

Does Elliania know?

How could she?

He might tell her, I speculated. I wonder what would happen if she knew?

I have no desire to find out. The situation is quite complicated enough as it is. Perhaps this is just a rivalry between girl-cousins. I wish I understood Henja’s role in all this. Is she just some dotty old woman? Or more? Are you quite sure it was her?

Quite. It had not been just my eyes that confirmed it, but I would not tell Chade I had scented her, and that enough of the wolf remained in me to be certain of that sense.

Our conversation had wearied Chade and I let him go to his rest. I checked to be sure the cottage door was latched, and then regretfully closed the window shutters as well. I did not like sleeping in such a tightly closed place. I always slept best when I could feel air moving freely on my face, but after my sighting of Henja that day, I would not give anyone the opportunity to have a clear shot at me.

Such was my frame of mind as I settled myself for sleep, and the next morning, I tried to use it to account for my nightmares. Yet it was not fair to call my dreams that. There was nothing of terror in them, only uneasiness, and a vividness that was not Skill-walking, but something else. I dreamed of the Fool as he had been once, not as Lord Golden but as a pale, frail lad with colourless eyes. In that guise, he bestrode the stone dragon behind Girl on a Dragon, and together they rose into the blue skies. But then suddenly he became Lord Golden, and as he rode behind the carved and soulless girl that was a part of the dragon sculpture that he had called back to wakefulness and life, a black and white cloak fluttered out on the wind behind him. His hair was pulled back sleek and tight from his face and bound back like a warrior’s tail. His expression was so set and stern that he looked as soulless as the Girl whose slender waist he clasped. His hands were bare, I saw in surprise, for it had been a very long time since I had seen him do anything ungloved. Higher they rose into the sky, and higher still, and then suddenly he lifted his hand and pointed, and the girl kneed the dragon to fly in the direction of that slender, pointing finger. Then clouds cloaked them as if mist enfolded them. I stirred from sleep to find my own fingers set to my wrist in the pale prints he had once left there. I shifted in my bedding but could not seem to come back to full wakefulness. Pulling my blanket more tightly around me, I surrendered to sleep again.

And then I did Skill-walk in my dreams, to a most disturbing scene. Nettle sat and chatted with Tintaglia on a grassy hillside. I knew it was a dream of Nettle’s making, for never had flowers blossomed so brightly, nor bloomed so evenly throughout the grass. It reminded me of a carefully worked tapestry. The dragon was the size of a horse, and crouched in a way that was not quite threatening. I stepped into the dream. Nettle’s back was very straight and her voice nearly brittle as she demanded of the dragon, ‘And what has any of that to do with me?’

And in a silent aside to me, Why did you delay? Didn’t you feel me summoning you?

‘I can hear that, you know,’ Tintaglia pointed out calmly. ‘And he did not hear you summoning him because I did not wish him to. So, you see, you are quite alone, if I decide you are.’ The dragon suddenly turned her cold gaze on me. Beauty had fled her reptile eyes, leaving them spinning gems of fury. ‘A fact that does not escape you, either, I assume.’

‘What do you want?’ I demanded of her.

‘You know what I want. I want to know what you know of a black dragon. Is he real? Does another dragon, grown and whole, still exist in the world?’

‘I don’t know,’ I answered her truthfully. I could feel her mind plucking at mine, trying to get past the words I gave her to see if I was hiding anything. It was like having cold rat feet run over you in a prison cell at night. Then she seized that memory and tried to turn it against me. I slammed my walls tighter. Unfortunately that meant that Nettle was also outside them. They both became like shadows dimly cast on a wavering curtain.

Tintaglia spoke, and her voice reached me like a whisper of doom. ‘Accept that your kind will serve mine. It is the natural order of things. Serve me in this and I will see that you and yours prosper. Defy me, and you and yours will be swept aside.’ Suddenly the image of the dragon loomed large and towered over Nettle. ‘Or devoured,’ she offered knowingly.

Dread prickled at me. On some fundamental level, the dragon associated me with Nettle. Was it simply that she had always reached me through my daughter, or did she sense our kinship? Did it matter? My daughter was in danger, and it was my fault. Again. And I had no idea how to protect her.

It did not matter. A moment ago the flower-studded meadow had reminded me of a tapestry. Then Nettle abruptly stood up, bent and seized her dream, then shook it as if she sought to shake dust from a rug. The dragon’s presence was flung from it and went spinning off into nothingness, dwindling as it went. In that nothingness, Nettle stood and wadded up her dream and tucked it into her apron pocket. I no longer knew where or what I was in her dream, but she sent the words to me. You’ll have to learn to stand up to her and drive her off, not just curl up in a ball and hide. Remember, Shadow Wolf, that you are a wolf. Not a mouse. Or so I thought. She began to fade.

Wait! The Prince Skilled with desperate determination. In some way I did not understand, he caught at her and detained her. Who are you?

Nettle’s shock went through me like a wave. She struggled a moment, but when his grip held, she demanded, Who am I? Who are you, who dare to intrude here so rudely? Let go of me.

Dutiful did not react well to her rebuke. Who am I? I am the Prince of all the Six Duchies. I go wherever I will.

For a moment, she was stunned to silence. Then, You are the Prince? Her disbelief was as evident as her scorn.

Yes, I am. And now you will stop wasting my time and tell me who you are! I winced at the snap of command in his voice. A terrible silent void stretched all around me. Then Nettle reacted as I had known she would.

Oh. Well, of course I will, since you ask me so nicely. Prince Mannerless, I am Queen I-Doubt-It-Very-Much of the Seven Dungheaps. And perhaps you go “wherever you will”, but when the where belongs to me, I will that you do not ever go there. Changer, you should cultivate nicer friends.

I saw what she had done. In the pause, she had seen exactly how he had fastened himself to her. And now, effortlessly, she shook herself free of him. And vanished.

I jolted awake with her disdain rattling against me like flung pebbles. Torn between awe for my daughter and dread of the dragon, I tried to recover myself. I needed to think what I could do. Instead, Chade pushed his way into my mind.

We need to talk. Privately. His Skill trembled with excitement.

Privately? Are you sure you know what the word means? Why, tonight of all nights, did he have to spy on me?

Not privately. Dutiful was furious with both of us as he broke in on our Skilling. Who is she? How long has this been going on? I demand to know. How dare you train another Skilled one and keep her existence concealed from me!

Go back to sleep! Thick’s ponderous Skilling was between a moan and a command. Go back to sleep and stop shouting. It was only Nettle and her dragon. Go back to sleep.

Everyone knows of her except me? This is intolerable. Dutiful’s Skilling held fury and frustration, and that terrible sense of betrayal when one discovers one has been excluded from a secret. I demand to know who she is. Right now.

I fenced my thoughts tightly and prayed, even though I knew it would avail me nothing.

Chade? The Prince drove him out of his silence.

I do not know, my lord. The old man lied gracefully and without remorse. I both damned and admired him.

FitzChivalry.

Truly, there is a power to the naming of a man by his true name. I shuddered at the impact, and then swiftly begged, Do not call me by that name. Not here, not now, lest the dragon be listening. It was not the dragon I feared, but my daughter. Too many bits of my secrets were falling into her hands.

Tell me, Tom.

Not this way. If we must speak of this, let us speak voice to ear only. Near me in the dark, Thick pulled his blankets up over his head, groaning.

Meet me now. The Prince’s voice was grim.

This isn’t wise. Chade counselled us both. Let it wait until morning, my prince. There is no sense in inviting questions by summoning a man-at-arms to you in the middle of the night.

No. Now. What was truly unwise was for both of you to deceive me about this Nettle person. I will know now what is going on behind my back and why. It was almost as if I were in the mothershouse by the bed-benches. I could feel how his anger chased the chill from his bared chest as he threw his covers aside, sense how furiously he thrust his feet into his shoes.

Give me time to dress then, Chade conceded wearily.

No. Stay where you are, Councillor Chade. You say you know nothing? Then there is no sense in your bothering to come. I’ll meet Fitz … Tom alone for this.

His anger roared like a fire now, and yet he still had refrained from saying my name. In some corner of my mind, I admired his restraint. But the greater part of my thoughts was taken up with a dilemma. This was my prince who was angry with me, and to his way of thinking, he was justified. How would I react to his questions? Who was I to him tonight? Friend, mentor, uncle or subject? I became aware that Thick was sitting up on his blankets, watching me dress.

‘I’ll only be gone a short time. You’ll be fine here alone,’ I reassured him even as I wondered if that was so.

I don’t want to leave Thick alone here. I Skilled to the Prince, hoping this excuse would spare me.

Then bring him. The Prince bit off his succinct order.

‘Do you want to come?’

‘I heard him,’ Thick replied wearily. He heaved a huge sigh. ‘You’re always making me go places I don’t want to go,’ he complained as he rummaged for clothing in the dark.

I felt a year had passed before he was dressed. He huffily refused any offer of assistance from me. Together we finally left the cottage and wound our way through the village. The odd twilight that passes for night in that part of the world lent its grey aspect to the world. It was oddly restful to my eyes and I finally identified the sensations. These dimmed colours reminded me of how Nighteyes had perceived the world on the evenings and dawns when we had hunted together. It was a gentle light, and undistracted by colour, the eye was free to pick up the small movements of game. I walked light as the wind, but Thick shuffled disconsolately along beside me. Every now and then, he coughed. I reminded myself that he was still not completely well and tried to find patience with his slow pace.

Little bats flickered through the air over the town. I caught the furtive glide of a robber-rat as it slunk from a rain barrel to a doorstep. I wondered if it was the same one that Swift had tried to befriend, then put it out of my mind. We were drawing closer to the mothershouse. The courtyard was deserted. They posted no guard here, though they kept a lookout over the coast and harbour. Evidently they feared no attacks from within their own folk. I wondered then if Peottre had told me all he knew of Henja. Certainly he and the Narcheska seemed wary of the woman and he had said she was an outsider. Why, then, did he not post a guard against her?

I led Thick away from the main door. We approached the mothershouse from behind, past the stone walls and hedges that confined the sheep. Around the corner of a shed, the Prince was waiting for us near some bushes beside the privies. He shifted restlessly as he watched us approach, and I sensed his impatience. I lifted a silent hand to him to gesture to him to join us in the concealment of the hedge. Then:

Don’t come to me. Stand still. No, hide. Or go away.

I halted, confused by the Prince’s sudden command. And then I saw what had rattled him. Elliania wore a cloak over her nightgown as she leaned out from the door and glanced around. I barely had time to put a hand on Thick’s chest and urge him back out of sight behind the hedge-line. The little man angrily slapped my hand from his chest. ‘I heard him,’ he complained to me as I shushed him in vain.

We have to be very quiet, Thick. The Prince doesn’t want Elliania to know we are here.

Why not?

He just doesn’t, that’s all. We need just to hide here and be very quiet. I crouched down on the earth behind the hedge and patted the ground by me invitingly. Thick, hunched in the greyness, scowled down at me. I longed simply to take him home but I was sure Elliania would hear his shuffling tread if we tried to leave. It was better to wait. Surely she wouldn’t be long. She probably only needed to use the back house. I peered around the trunks of the hedge through a gap in the branches. Come join us here before she sees you, I Skill-suggested to the Prince.

No. She’s seen me. Go away. I’ll talk to you later. Then, disbelieving, I felt him raise his Skill-walls against me. He had grown stronger. It was by the Wit that I sensed him, poised and quivering in her steady-eyed regard as she came to him in the dusky light of a sun that scraped along the edge of the horizon, refusing to set.

I felt a lurch of dismay as I saw how swiftly she went to him and how close she stood to him in the dimness. This was not the first time these two had met clandestinely. I wanted to turn my eyes away and yet I stared avidly, peering at them through the bushes. Her words barely reached me. ‘I heard the door open and close, and when I looked out of the window, I saw you waiting here.’

‘I couldn’t sleep.’ He reached out as if to take her hands, but then dropped his hands back to his sides. I felt more than saw the sharp glance he sent my direction.

Go away. I’ll speak to you tomorrow. His Skill-sending was tight and small. I doubted that even Thick was aware of it. Royal command was in his tone. He expected me to obey him.

I can’t. You know this is dangerous. Send her back to her room, Dutiful.

I had no sense that he had received my thought. He had closed himself off to focus only on the girl. Behind me, Thick stood up, yawning and gaping. ‘I’m going back,’ he announced sleepily.

Sshh. No. We have to stay here and be very quiet. Don’t talk out loud. I peered at the young couple anxiously, but if Elliania had heard Thick, she gave no sign. I wondered uneasily where Peottre was, and what he would do to Dutiful if he found them together like this.

Thick sighed heavily. He crouched back down, and then sat flat on the ground. This is stupid. I want to go back to bed.

Elliania glanced down at Dutiful’s hands at his side, and then, cocking her head, looked up at his face. ‘So. Who are you waiting for?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Lestra? Did she invite you to meet her here?’

A very odd smile appeared on Dutiful’s face. Was he pleased that he had pricked her to jealousy? He spoke more softly than she did, but I could watch his lips form the words. ‘Lestra? Why would I wait by moonlight for Lestra?’

‘There is no moon tonight,’ Elliania pointed out sharply. ‘And as for why Lestra, why, because she would willingly give you her body to use as you wished. More for the sake of spiting me than because she found you handsome.’

He crossed his arms on his chest. I wondered if he did so to hold in his satisfaction or to keep from taking her in his arms. She was slender as a willow, and her night braids fell to her hips. I could almost smell the warmth of her rising up to him. ‘So. Do you think she finds me handsome?’

‘Who knows? She likes odd things. She has a cat with a crooked tail and too many toes. She thinks it’s pretty.’ She shrugged. ‘But she would tell you that you were handsome, simply to win you.’

‘Would she? But perhaps I don’t want Lestra to win me. She is pretty, but perhaps I don’t want Lestra at all,’ he suggested to her.

All the night held its breath as she looked up at him. I saw the rise and fall of her breasts as she took a deeper breath, daring herself. ‘Then what do you want?’ she asked, soft as a breeze.

He didn’t try to take her in his arms. I think she would have resisted that. Instead, he freed one hand from his crossed arms and with the tip of one finger, lifted her chin. He leaned forward, bending down to take the kiss he stole from her. Stole? But she did not flee. Instead, she rose on her toes as only their mouths touched in the soft dimness.

I felt a lecherous old man, sprawled in the darkness of the hedge, spying on them. I knew he plunged himself into danger, that they both took foolish chances, but my heart leapt at the thought that my lad might know love as well as an arranged marriage. When their kiss finally broke, I hoped he would send her back to her bedchamber. I wanted him to have this moment, but I also knew that I’d have to intervene if it looked as if their experiment was going to venture past a kiss. I cringed at the thought, but steeled myself to the necessity of it.

With dread, I heard her breathless question. ‘A kiss. That was all you wanted?’

‘It is all I’ll take now,’ he countered. His chest was rising and falling as if he’d run a race. ‘I’ll wait until I’ve earned more to take more.’

An uncertain smile crossed her face. ‘You need not earn it if I choose to give myself to you.’

‘But … you said you would not be my wife until I brought you the dragon’s head.’

‘In my land, a woman gives herself where she will. It is different from being married. Or a wife, as you call it. Once a girl is a woman, she can take whatever man she wishes into her bedskins. It does not mean she is wed to each of them.’ She glanced aside and added carefully, ‘You would be my first. Some consider that more special than to be vowed to one another. It would not make me your wife, of course. I will not be wife or wedded to you until you have brought the dragon’s head here, to my mothershouse.’

‘I would like you to be my first, as well,’ Dutiful said carefully. Then, as if uttering the words were as difficult as dragging a tree up by the roots, he added, ‘But not now. Not until I’ve done what I’ve said I’d do.’

She was shocked, but not that he would keep his promise. ‘Your first? Truly? You’ve known no woman yet?’

It took him a long moment to admit it. ‘It is the custom of my land, though not all follow it. To wait until we are wed.’ He spoke stiffly, as if fearing she would mock him for his chastity.

‘I would like to be your first,’ she admitted. She stepped closer to him, and this time his arms settled around her. She melted her body against him as his mouth found hers.

My Wit made me aware of Peottre before they were. Engrossed as they were, I doubt either of them would have been aware of a herd of sheep passing around them, but I came to my feet as I saw the old warrior step around the corner of the mothershouse. His sword was on his hip and his eyes were dangerous. ‘Elliania.’

She leapt out of Dutiful’s embrace. One guilty hand wiped her mouth as if to conceal the kiss she had taken. I give Dutiful full credit that he stood his ground. He swung his head to look steadily at Peottre. There was nothing of remorse or disgrace in his stance, nor anything of boyishness. He looked like a man interrupted while kissing a woman who belonged to him. I held my breath, wondering if I would better or worsen the situation by stepping into plain view.

The silence was as still and watchful as the night. The gaze held between Peottre and Dutiful. It was a measuring look, not quite a challenge. When Peottre spoke, his words were for Elliania. ‘You should go back to your bedchamber.’

At his suggestion, she spun and fled. Her bare feet were silent on the dust of the courtyard. Even after she was gone, Dutiful and Peottre continued to regard one another. At last Peottre spoke. ‘The dragon’s head. You promised. As a man, you gave your word.’

Dutiful inclined his head once, gravely. ‘I did. As a man, I promised.’

Peottre started to turn away. Dutiful spoke again.

‘What Elliania offered me, she offered as a woman, not as the Narcheska. Is she free to offer that, by your customs?’

Peottre’s spine stiffened. He turned slowly and spoke unwillingly. ‘Who else can offer that to you, save a woman? Her body belongs to her. She can share that with you. But she will not truly be your wife until you bring her the head of Icefyre.’

‘Ah.’

Again, Peottre slowly turned to go, and again Dutiful’s voice stopped him.

‘Then she is more free than I am. My body and my seed belong to the Six Duchies. I am not free to share it where I would choose, but only with my wife. That is our custom.’ I almost heard him swallow. ‘I would that she knew that. That, by our customs, I cannot accept what she offers, except dishonourably.’ His voice dropped, and his next words were a request. ‘I would ask that she not tempt nor taunt me with what I cannot honourably take. I am a man but … I am a man.’ His explanation was both awkward and honest.

So was Peottre’s response. There was grudging respect in his voice as he said, ‘I will see that she knows that.’

‘Will she … will she think less of me? Will she think me less of a man?’

‘I do not. And I will see that she understands what it costs a man to hold back from such an offer.’ He stood looking at Dutiful as if seeing him for the first time. When he spoke, there was great sadness in his words. ‘You are a man. You would be a good match for my sister-daughter. The grand-daughters of your mother would enrich my line.’ He spoke the last as if it were a proverb rather than something that he could truly hope for. Then he turned and silently left.

I saw Dutiful draw a deep breath and sigh it out again. I dreaded that he would reach for me with the Skill, but he did not. Instead, head bent, he walked back into Elliania’s mothershouse.

Thick had fallen asleep sitting on the ground, his head bowed heavily onto his chest. He moaned lightly as I gently shook him to wakefulness and helped him to his feet. ‘I want to go home,’ he muttered as he tottered down the road beside me.

‘Me, too,’ I told him. And yet it was not Buckkeep that came to my mind, but a meadow overlooking the sea, and a girl in bright red skirts that beckoned me. A time, rather than a place. No road led there any more.

TWELVE

Cousins

The toothy spires of the dragon’s isle cup the glacier in its maw

As the gaping mouth of a dying man wells blood.

Young man, will you go there?

Will you climb the ice to win the regard of your fellow warriors?

Dare you cross the crevasses, seen and unseen?

Dare you brave the winds that sing of Icefyre, asleep within the ice?

He will burn your bones with cold, he will. The icy wind is his fiery breath.

With it he will blacken the skin of your face until it peels from the sore pink flesh beneath it.

Young man, will you venture there?

To win the favour of a woman, will you walk beneath the ice on the wet black stones that see no sky?

Will you find the secret cavern that gapes only when the tide retreats?

Will you count your own heartbeats to mark the passing of time until the sea waves return to grind you to a smear of blood against the deep blue ice above you?

‘The Dragon’s Welcome’: Outislander song,
translation by Badgerlock

The very next day, we were told that all the issues regarding the Prince killing Icefyre had been resolved. We would return to Zylig to accept the Hetgurd’s terms, and then depart for Aslevjal and our dragon-hunt. I wondered briefly if the sudden plans for sailing had anything to do with the night scene I had witnessed, but then watched the releasing of a bird that carried tidings of our departure, and decided that the news had doubtless been borne to us on the same wings.

The ensuing bustle spared me an uncomfortable interview with the Prince, but plunged me into misery of a different sort. Thick was completely opposed to getting back onto a ship. It was useless to tell him that this was the only way he would eventually get home. In moments like that, I glimpsed the limits of his mind and logic. Thick had developed since he had come to us, becoming not only more free with his words but more sophisticated in how he used them. He was like a plant finally granted sunlight as he revealed more understanding and potential than I had suspected from the shuffling half-wit servant in Chade’s tower. And yet, he would always carry his differences with him. Sometimes he became a frightened and rebellious child, and at such times, reasoning with him did us no good. In the end, Chade resorted to a strong soporific the night before we were to sail, which required me to keep a vigil on his dreams all that night. They were uneasy ones that I soothed as best I could. It filled me with misgivings that Nettle did not come to help me, even though in another sense I was glad she did not.

Thick was still soddenly asleep when we loaded him into a handcart to transport him to the ship the next day. I felt a fool trundling him over the bumpy roads and down to the docks, but Web walked alongside me and talked as casually as if this were an everyday occurrence.

Our departure seemed to be more of an event than our arrival. Two ships awaited us. I noticed that the entire Six Duchies contingent was loaded on the Boar ship as before. The Narcheska and Peottre and the few folk accompanying them embarked onto a smaller, older vessel, flying a banner with a narwhal on it. The Great Mother came down to see her off and to offer a blessing to her. I understand there was other ceremony as well but I saw little of it, for Thick began to stir restlessly in his bunk and I judged it best to stay close by him lest he awake and decide to get off the ship.

I sat by his bunk in the tiny cabin allotted to us and tried to Skill peace and security into his dreams. The movement of the waves and the sound of the ship leaked in despite my best efforts. With a start and a cry he came awake and sat up, staring around the cabin with eyes both wild and groggy. ‘It’s a bad dream!’ he wailed, and ‘No,’ I had to tell him. ‘It’s real. But I promise I’ll keep you safe, Thick. I promise.’

‘You can’t promise that! No one can promise that on a boat!’ he accused me. I had put my arm around him comfortingly when he first sat up. Now he flung himself away from me. He huddled back into his blankets, rolled to face the wall and began to sob uncontrollably.

‘Thick,’ I began helplessly. Never had I felt so cruel, never so wrong in anything I had ever done.

‘Go away!’ Despite my walls, the Skill-command in his word snapped my head back on my spine. I found myself on my feet, groping toward the door of the minuscule cabin we’d share with the Wit-coterie. I forced myself to halt.

‘Is there anyone you want to be with you?’ I asked hopelessly.

‘No! You all hate me! You all trick me and poison me and make me go on the ocean to kill me. Go away!’

I was glad enough to do so, for his Skill pushed at me like a strong, cold wind. As I went out of the low cabin door, I stood upright too soon and slammed the top of my head into the doorjamb. The jolt was enough to dizzy me as I staggered the rest of the way onto the deck. Thick’s cruel laugh was like a second blow.

I soon learned it was not an accident. Perhaps the first one had been, but in the days of our journey, Thick managed enough Skill-stumbles for me that any thought of coincidence soon vanished. If I was aware of him, I could sometimes counter it, but if he saw me first, I’d only know of it when the boat seemed to lurch under me. I’d try to catch my balance, and instead stumble to the deck or walk into a railing. But at that time, I dismissed it as my own clumsiness.

I went to find Chade and Dutiful. We had a greater degree of privacy on that journey than we had previously had on all our travels. Peottre and the Narcheska and her guards were on the other vessel. The Boar clansmen who operated our vessel seemed little interested in how we socialized, and fewer pretences were needed.

So it was that I went directly to the Prince’s cabin and knocked. Chade admitted me. I found them both well settled, including a meal set out on a table. It was Outislander fare, but at least there was plenty of it. The wine with it was of a decent quality, and I was pleased when a nod from Dutiful invited me to join them.

‘How is Thick?’ he asked without preamble. It was a relief, almost, to give a detailed report on that, for I had dreaded that he would immediately demand that I explain Nettle. I detailed the small man’s discomfort and unhappiness and ended up with, ‘Regardless of his Skill-strength, I do not see how we can force him to continue. With every ship we embark on, he dislikes me more and becomes more intractable. We risk stirring an enmity in him that we can never quell, one that will make him set his Skill against all our endeavours. If it can safely be done, I propose that we leave him on Zylig while we go on to Aslevjal.’

Chade set his glass down with a thud. ‘You know it can’t be done, so why ask it?’ I knew his irritation masked his own guilt and regret when he added, ‘I swear, I never thought it would be so hard on him. Is there no way to make him understand the importance of what we do?’

‘The Prince might be able to convey it to him. Thick is so angry with me right now, I don’t think he’ll truly hear anything I say.’

‘He isn’t the only one who is angry with you,’ Dutiful observed coolly. The calmness with which he addressed me warned me that his anger had gone very deep indeed. He controlled it now as a man controls his blade. Waiting for an opening.

‘Shall I leave you two alone to discuss this?’ Chade rose a shade too hastily.

‘Oh, no. As you know nothing of Nettle and her dragon, I’m sure this will be as enlightening to you as it is to me.’

Chade sank slowly back into his chair, his retreat severed by the Prince’s sarcasm. I knew abruptly that the old man was not going to help me at all. That, if anything, Chade relished my being cornered this way.

‘Who is Nettle?’ Dutiful’s question was blunt.

So was my answer. ‘My daughter. Though she does not know it.’

He leaned back in his chair as if I’d doused him with cold water. There was a long moment of silence. Chade, damn him, lifted his hand to cover his mouth, but not before I’d seen his smile. I shot him a look of pure fury. He dropped his hand and grinned openly.

‘I see,’ Dutiful said after a time. Then, as if it were the most important conclusion he could reach, ‘I have a cousin. A girl cousin! How old is she? How is it that I’ve never met her? Or have I? When was she last at court? Who is her lady mother?’

I could not find my tongue, but I hated Chade speaking for me. ‘She has never been to court, my prince. Her mother is a candle maker. Her father … the man she thinks is her father is Burrich, formerly the Stablemaster at Buckkeep Castle. She is sixteen now, I believe.’ He halted there, as if to give the Prince time to puzzle it out.

‘Swift’s father? Then … is Swift your son? You spoke of having a foster-son, but …’

‘Swift is Burrich’s son. And Nettle’s half-brother.’ I took a long breath, and heard myself ask, ‘Have you any brandy? Wine isn’t enough for this tale.’

‘I can see that.’ He stood up and fetched it for me, more nephew than prince in that moment, and ready to be enraptured by ancient family history. It was hard for me to tell that old tale, and somehow Chade nodding sympathetically made it worse. When the convoluted connections were finally all traced for him, Dutiful sat shaking his head.

‘What a mare’s nest you made of it, FitzChivalry. With this piece in place, the tale my mother told me of your life makes much more sense. And how you must hate Molly and Burrich, that they could both set you aside and faithlessly forget you and find comfort in one another.’

It shocked me that he could speak of it that way. ‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘That isn’t how it was. They believed me dead. There was nothing faithless about them going on living. And, if she had to give herself to someone, then … then I am glad that she chose a man worthy of her. And that he finally found a bit of happiness for himself. And that together they protected my child.’ It was getting harder to speak as my throat tightened. I loosened it with a slug of brandy, and then wheezed in a breath.

‘He was the better man for her,’ I managed to add. I had told myself that so often, through the years.

‘I wonder if she would have thought so,’ the Prince mused, and then, at the look on my face, added hastily, ‘I beg your pardon. It’s not my place to wonder such things. But … but I am still shocked that my mother allowed this. Often she has spoken with me, forcefully, about how much rests on me as the sole heir to the throne.’

‘She gave way to Fitz’s feelings in that. Against my counsel,’ Chade explained. I could hear the satisfaction he took in finally vindicating himself.

‘I see. Well, actually, I don’t see, but for now the question is, how have you been teaching her to Skill? Did you live near her before or …?’

‘I haven’t been teaching her. What she knows of it, she has mastered on her own.’

‘But I was told that was horribly dangerous!’ Dutiful’s shock seemed to deepen. ‘How could you allow her to be risked this way, knowing all she means to the Farseer throne?’ That question was for me, and then he accusingly demanded of Chade, ‘Did you prevent her coming to court? Was this your doing, some silly effort at protecting the Farseer name?’

‘Not at all, my prince,’ he denied smoothly. He turned his calm gaze on me and told Dutiful, ‘Many times, I have asked Fitz to allow Nettle to be brought to Buckkeep, so that she could both learn her own importance to the Farseer line and be instructed in the Skill. But, again, this was an area in which FitzChivalry’s feelings had their way. Against the counsel of both the Queen and myself.’

The Prince took several deep breaths. Then, ‘This is unbelievable,’ he said quietly. ‘And intolerable. It will be remedied. I’ll do it myself.’

‘Do what?’ I demanded.

‘Tell that girl who she is! And have her brought to court and treated as befits her birth. See her educated in all things, including the Skill. My cousin is being raised as a country girl, dipping candles and feeding chickens! What if the Farseer throne required her? I still cannot grasp that my mother allowed this!’

Is there anything more chilling than looking at a righteous fifteen-year-old and realizing he has the power to unravel your entire life? I felt queasy with vulnerability. ‘You have no idea what that would do to my life,’ I pleaded quietly.

‘No. I don’t,’ he admitted easily, but with growing outrage. ‘And neither do you. You go around making these monumental decisions about what other people should know or not know about their own lives. But you don’t really have any more idea how it will turn out than I do! You just do what you think is safest and then crawl around hoping no one will find out and blame you later if things go wrong!’ He was building up to a frenzy, and I suddenly suspected that this was not entirely about Nettle.

‘What are you so angry about?’ I asked bluntly. ‘This is nothing to do with you.’

‘Nothing to do with me? Nothing to do with me?’ He stood up, nearly knocking his chair over. ‘How can Nettle be nothing to do with me? Do not we share a grandfather? Is not she a Farseer born, and possessed of the Skill-magic? Do you know –’ He choked for a moment, and then visibly composed himself. In a softer voice he asked, ‘Have you no idea what it would have meant to me to grow up with a peer? Someone of my blood, someone closer to my own age that I could talk to? Someone who would have to shoulder a share of the responsibility for the Farseer reign, so that it wouldn’t always have had to be on only me?’ He glanced aside, staring as if he could see through the wall of the cabin and gave an odd little snort. ‘It could be her here in this cabin, promised to an Outislander spouse instead of me. If my mother and Chade had had two Farseers to spend to buy us peace, who knows …’

The thought made my blood cold. I didn’t want to tell him that was exactly what I had tried to protect Nettle from. I did give him one truth. ‘It had never occurred to me to look at it from your point of view. It had never occurred to me that it would have an effect on you at all.’

‘Well, it has. And it does.’ He suddenly shifted his focus to Chade. ‘And you, too, have been negligent beyond all tolerance. This girl is the heir to the Farseer throne, after me. That should be documented and witnessed; it should have been done before I left port! If anything befalls me, if I die trying to chop up this frozen dragon, there will be chaos as all try to suggest who should be –’

‘It has been done, my prince. Many years ago. And the documents kept safe. In that, I have not been negligent.’ Chade seemed incensed that Dutiful could even think such a thing.

‘It would have been nice to know that. Can either of you explain to me why it was so important to keep this information from me?’ He glared from Chade to me, but his stare settled on me as he observed, ‘It seems to me that you have gone about for a lot of your life, making decisions for other people, doing what you thought was best without consulting them about what they wanted at all. And you aren’t always right!’

I kept my temper. ‘That’s the trouble with making a decision. You never know if it’s right until after you’ve done it. But it is what adults are supposed to do. Make decisions. And then live with them.’

He was silent for a time. Then he said, after a moment, ‘And if I made an adult decision to tell Nettle who she is? To right at least that much of the wrong we have done her?’

I took a breath. ‘I’m asking you not to do that. It isn’t something that should just be dropped on her, all of a piece.’

He was quiet for a longer time and then asked wryly, ‘Have I any other secret relatives who will come popping into my life when I least expect it?’

‘None that I know of,’ I replied seriously. Then, more formally, ‘My prince, please. Let me be the one to tell her, if she must be told.’

‘It’s certainly a task you deserve,’ he observed, and Chade, who had been solemn for a few moments, smiled again. Dutiful seemed almost wistful as he added, ‘She seems strong in the Skill. Think how it could be, if she were here now. We’d have her to rely on, and perhaps Thick could have stayed safely at home.’

‘Actually, she works well with Thick. She’s excellent at calming him and has gained a lot of his trust. She is the one who disarmed his nightmares for us on our voyage to Zylig. But in reply to what you said, no, my prince. Thick is too strong and too volatile to be left on his own anywhere now. And that is a thing that we must eventually deal with. The more we teach him, the more dangerous he becomes.’

‘I think the best remedy for Thick’s wilfulness is to take him home and put him back in his familiar life. I expect that he’ll regain a more even temperament then. Unfortunately, I have to find and kill a dragon before we can do that.’

I was relieved to leave the topic of Nettle, and yet there was one more chink in the wall to close. ‘My prince. Swift knows nothing of all this, of Nettle being my daughter and only half-sister to him. I’d like to keep it that way.’

‘Ah, yes. Of course, when you decided to keep this a secret, you never wondered how it might affect other children that might come along.’

‘You are right. I didn’t,’ I admitted stiffly.

‘Well, I’ll keep silent. For now. But you might want to consider how you would feel if you were only now discovering who your parents were.’ He cocked his head at me. ‘Think about it. What if it was suddenly revealed to you that you weren’t Chivalry’s son but Verity’s? Or Regal’s? Or Chade’s? How much gratitude would you feel toward those who had known all along and “protected” you from the truth?’

The cold chasm of doubt yawned briefly before me, even as I rejected such wild ideas. Yes, Chade was capable of such deception, but my logic denied the possibility. Still, Dutiful had succeeded in his goal. He had stirred in me the anger I would have felt at being deceived for so long. ‘I’d probably hate them,’ I admitted. I met his eyes squarely as I added, ‘And that is yet another reason why I don’t wish Nettle to know.’

The Prince pursed his lips and then nodded briefly. It wasn’t a promise to keep my secret, but more an acknowledgement of the complexities of revealing it. That was as much as he was going to give me. I hoped he’d leave the subject now, but with a slight scowl, he asked suddenly, ‘And why is Queen I-Doubt-It-Very-Much consorting with the Bingtown dragon? Is she in league with Tintaglia?’

‘No!’ I was shocked that he could think such a thing of her. ‘Tintaglia found her through stalking my thoughts, or so I believe. When we Skill strongly, I think the dragon can perceive us. Or, as you and Thick discovered, when you are dream-walking. Tintaglia knows something of who I am from the Bingtown delegation’s visit to Buckkeep. We were careless of our Skilling then, and I think she marked me. She knows that I visit Nettle. I think that she seeks to threaten Nettle as a way to wring information out of me. She wants to know what we know about the black dragon, Icefyre. As all the young dragons that hatched in the Rain Wilds are feeble, he may be her only hope of a mate. And thus her only hope of perpetuating her kind.’

‘And we have no way to protect Nettle.’

A note of pride crept into my voice as I said, ‘She has proven herself very capable against the dragon. She has defended herself, and me, better than I could have hoped to do.’

He measured me with his eyes. ‘And doubtless she will continue to do so. As long as the dragon remains a threat that only comes into her dreams. But we do not know much of this Tintaglia. If, as has been suggested, the black dragon is her only hope of a mate, then she may become very desperate indeed. Nettle may be able to defend herself in her dreams; how will she fare against a dragon alighting in front of her home? Will Burrich’s home stand against a dragon’s fury?’

That was an image I didn’t want to consider. ‘She only seems to find Nettle at night in her dreams. It may be that she does not know where Nettle actually is.’

‘Or it may only be that she chooses to stay close to the young dragons. For now. And that tomorrow night, or an hour hence, driven by desperation, she may take wing to Nettle’s home.’ He set the heels of his hand to his temples and, eyes closed, rubbed them. When he opened his eyes, he shook his head at me. ‘I cannot believe that you never considered this. What are we to do?’ He did not wait for an answer, but turned to Chade. ‘Have we messenger birds aboard?’

‘Of course, my prince.’

‘I will send a message to my mother. Nettle must be taken to safety in Buckkeep … oh, this is foolish. It would be far swifter to Skill to her, warn her of her danger, and send her to my mother.’ He lifted his hands to his eyes, rubbed them, and then gave a heavy sigh as he lowered them. ‘I’m sorry, FitzChivalry,’ he said, softly and sincerely. ‘If she were not in danger, perhaps I could leave things as they are. But I cannot. I’m shocked that you would consider doing so.’

I bowed my head. I received his words with a strange sensation, not anger nor dismay, but a sense of the inevitable at last winning its way. A shiver ran over me, standing up the hair on my hands and arms. An image of the Fool, smiling in satisfaction, came into my mind. I glanced down to see that I was once more tracing his fingerprints on my wrist. I felt like someone who had just been manoeuvred into making a fatal move in a game of stones. Or like a wolf, brought to bay at last. It was too immense a change to regret or fear. One could only stand frozen, awaiting the avalanche of consequences that must follow it.

‘FitzChivalry,’ Chade said after a moment or two of my silence. I could hear the concern in his voice and the kindly look he gave me almost hurt.

‘Burrich knows,’ I said awkwardly. ‘That I’m alive. I sent him a message through Nettle, one only he would understand. Because I had given Nettle my word, and I needed Burrich to know that his son, that Swift was safe and with us. Burrich went to Kettricken. And, perhaps he spoke with the Fool as well. So … he knows.’ I took a deep breath. ‘He may even be expecting something like this, a summons to the court. He must suspect that Nettle has the Skill. How else would she have received knowledge of Swift’s safety from me? He was King’s Man to Chivalry. He knows what the Skill is. Would that Chivalry had not sealed him off from it. Would that I could touch minds with him, now. Though I do not think I would have the courage …’

‘Burrich was King’s Man to Chivalry?’ Dutiful rocked back in his chair, balancing it on the two back legs. He looked from one of us to the other in consternation.

‘He loaned Prince Chivalry strength for Skilling,’ I confirmed.

Dutiful shook his head slowly. ‘Another thing that has never been mentioned to me.’ He crashed his chair back down onto the deck. ‘What will it take?’ He demanded angrily. ‘What must happen here, to rattle all the secrets out of you two?’

‘That wasn’t a secret,’ Chade said heavily. ‘Only a bit of ancient history, long forgotten as it seemed of little import to the present. Fitz, you are sure that Burrich is sealed?’

‘Yes. I tried to get through to him any number of times. I’ve even tried to borrow Skill-strength from him, that time in the mountains. Nothing. He’s opaque. Even Nettle has tried to get into his dreams, and she cannot. Whatever Chivalry did to Burrich, he did thoroughly.’

‘Interesting. We should try to rediscover how Chivalry sealed him. If ever we need to eliminate Thick’s Skill as a threat, that might be one way to do it. Seal him.’ Chade spoke the words in his considering way, with no thought that anyone might find them offensive.

‘Enough!’ the Prince snapped at him, and we both flinched, surprised at his intensity. He crossed his arms on his chest and shook his head. ‘You two sit here like puppeteers and consider from afar other people’s lives and how you will manipulate them.’ He swung his gaze slowly from Chade to me, forcing both of us to meet his eyes. He was young and vulnerable, and suddenly wise as prey in facing us. ‘Do you know how frightening you are sometimes? How can I sit here and look at how you have shaped Nettle’s life, and not wonder what kinks you have knowingly put in mine? You, Chade, speak so calmly of sealing Thick to the Skill. Must not I wonder, would they join their strengths and do that to me, if I somehow became a threat to their plans?’

I was shocked that he grouped us together so, and yet, chilling as his words were, I could not deny them. Here he was, on his way to a quest he did not desire to win a bride he had not chosen. I dared not look at Chade, for how would Dutiful interpret us exchanging a private glance just then? I looked at my brandy glass instead, and lifting it between two fingers, rocked the liquid, and then swirled it, as so often I had seen Verity doing when he pondered something. Whatever answers he might have glimpsed in the dancing liquor, they eluded me.

I heard the slow scrape of Chade’s chair as he pushed it back from the table, and ventured a glance that way. He stood, older than he had been ten minutes ago, and slowly walked around the table. As the Prince twisted in his chair to look up at him, puzzled, the old assassin went ponderously down on one knee, and then two before him. He bowed his head and spoke to the floor.

‘My prince,’ he said brokenly. And then, ‘My king you will be. That is my only plan. Never would I lift a hand to harm you, no, nor cause others to do so. Take from me now, if you will, the oath of fealty that others will only formally swear to you when you are fully crowned. For you have had it from me since the moment you were birthed. Nay, from the instant you were conceived.’

Tears stung my eyes.

Dutiful put his hands on his hips and leaned forward. He spoke to the back of Chade’s head. ‘And you lied to me. “I know nothing of this Nettle and dragon.”’ His mimicry of Chade’s innocence was excellent. ‘Isn’t that what you said?’

A long silence ensued. I pitied the old man’s knees on the floor. Chade drew a deep breath and spoke grudgingly. ‘I don’t think it’s fair to count it as a lie when we both know I’m lying. A man in my position is sometimes supposed to lie to his lord. So that his lord can speak truthfully when asked what he was told about a subject.’

‘Oh, get up.’ There was both disgust and weary amusement in the Prince’s voice. ‘You convolute the facts until neither of us know what you are talking about. You could swear fealty a thousand times to me, but if tomorrow you thought a good purging would aid me in some way, you’d slip me an emetic.’ He stood up and held out a hand. Chade took it and Dutiful drew him to his feet. The old assassin straightened his back with a groan, and then came around the table to take his seat again. He seemed unchastened by either the Prince’s blunt words or the failure of his own dramatics.

I was left wondering what I had just witnessed. Not for the first time, I realized how different the relationship was between the old assassin and this boy and what it had been like between us when I was growing up. And that, I thought, was the answer in a nutshell. When Chade and I sat and talked, we sat and talked as tradesmen do, unabashed about the dirty secrets of our business. We should not speak like that before the Prince, I decided. He was not an assassin, and should not be included in our more nefarious enterprises. We should not lie about them to him, but perhaps we should refrain from rubbing his nose in them.

Perhaps, that was what he had been reminding us about. I shook my head in quiet admiration. Kingliness was blossoming in him, as naturally as a hound-pup exploring a trail. Already, he knew how to move us and use us. I did not feel demeaned by that, but reassured.

Almost immediately, he took that comfort from me. ‘FitzChivalry, I expect you to speak to Nettle tonight when she dreams. Tell her it is my command that she go to Buckkeep Castle and seek asylum with my mother. That should convince her I am who I say I am. Will you do that?’

‘Must I phrase it like that?’ I asked reluctantly.

‘Well … perhaps you can modify it. Oh, tell her whatever you like, so long as she goes to Buckkeep immediately and understands that the danger to her is real. I will write a brief message to my mother and send it by bird, just to be sure all understand that this is not to be disputed.’ He stood, heaving a great sigh. ‘And now I am going to sleep, in a real bed behind a closed door instead of displayed on a plank in a common room like a choice game trophy. I can’t remember when I’ve been this tired.’

I was glad to leave the cabin. I took a turn about the deck. The wind was fresh, Risk swept the sky ahead of our ship, and the day was fine. I could not tell if I dreaded or anticipated the task before me. Dutiful had not said that I must tell Nettle she was my daughter. Yet sending her to Buckkeep Castle was setting her on the path to that knowledge. I shook my head. I no longer knew what I hoped for. I knew one thing I dreaded, however. The Prince’s words about Tintaglia had shaken me. Had I been too serene about Nettle’s ability to foil the dragon? Could the beast know where she lived?

The day passed slowly for me. I checked on Thick twice. He remained in his bunk, his face turned to the wall, insisting he was sick. In truth, I suspected he was becoming accustomed to sea voyages despite himself. When I told him he didn’t seem sick to me and perhaps he’d enjoy coming out on deck, he nearly succeeded in making himself puke on my feet with his wild retching. Instead, he went off in a fit of genuine coughing, throaty and deep, and I decided I was wiser to leave the little man in peace. On my way out, I ‘accidentally’ clipped my shoulder on the doorframe. Thick laughed.

Nursing my new bruise, I went up onto the deck. Out on the foredeck I found Riddle with a square of canvas and a handful of beach pebbles, trying to teach the stone game to two of the crewmen. I left that unsettling sight, and found Swift with Civil. His cat had climbed one of the masts and they were trying to persuade him to come down, much to the annoyance of our captain and the amusement of several Outislanders. Risk lighted in the rigging just out of the cat’s reach and teased him, with partially uplifted wings and squawks until Web came to order her to cease and aid in getting the cat down.

And so the day went, and the dreaded and longed-for nightfall came. I returned to the cabin I shared with Thick. Swift had brought him his dinner, and the empty dishes on the floor seemed to indicate his appetite was intact. I stacked them and set them aside, only to stumble over them a moment later. A low chuckle from Thick was the only sign he had witnessed my clumsiness. When I offered him good night, he ignored me.

He had the sole bunk. I lay down in my blankets on the floor and spent a good amount of time trying to find enough calmness to approach sleep and that suspended place between sleep and wakefulness where I could dream-walk. It was wasted time. No matter how I sought Nettle, I could not find her. It worried me enough that I could not sleep, but made fruitless forays into dream-walks for most of the night. But the more I looked for her, the more she wasn’t there.

In the darkness of the stuffy little cabin, I told myself that if something had befallen Nettle, surely I would know of it. We were Skill-linked. Surely she would have cried out to me if she had been in danger. I consoled myself that my daughter had blocked me from her dreams before; and she had been irritated with me for ‘allowing’ the Prince into our shared place the last time we had visited. Perhaps this was my punishment from her. But, as I lay in the darkness and stared at black, it came to me that the last time I had seen Tintaglia, the dragon had claimed she could block me from Nettle if she chose to. What had the dragon said to Nettle? ‘You are quite alone, if I decide you are.’ Where was my daughter right now? Trapped in a nightmare, tormented by a dragon? No, I promised myself. Nettle had shown she could competently defend herself there. I cursed the logic Chade had taught me, for it said that then the dragon, to gain what she wanted, would shift the battlefield to one more to her liking. Such as physically hunting down my daughter.

How fast could a dragon fly? Fast enough to get from the Rain Wild River to Buck in a single night? Surely not. But I did not know, I could not be sure. I shifted on the wooden floor and struggled with the short blankets.

When morning came at last, I rose, sandy-eyed and lurched to my feet. Somehow I tangled my feet in the blankets and slipped, banging my shins. Thick appeared to sleep through my cursing. I left the cabin and went directly to report to the Prince. He listened in grim silence. Neither he nor Chade told me how foolish I had been to leave my daughter defenceless against a dragon in the name of protecting her. The Prince merely said, ‘Let us hope she is only angry with you. The bird flew yesterday. And as soon as he reaches Buckkeep, my mother will not be slow in sending for Nettle. I told her the danger was great, and not to waste time. We have done all we can, FitzChivalry.’

It was a pale comfort. When I was not imagining the dragon feasting on Nettle’s tender flesh, I was imagining Burrich’s reaction to a company of Queen’s Guard sent to his home to fetch Nettle back to Buckkeep Castle. I passed the voyage in a misery of suspense with little to distract me save Thick’s sullen and subtle revenges on me. The second time I scraped my knuckles reaching for the doorknob, I turned on him.

‘I know you’re doing this, Thick. I don’t think it’s fair. It’s not my fault you are on this voyage.’

He sat up slowly, swinging his bare legs over the side of his bunk. ‘Then whose fault is it, huh? Who made me come on this boat, when I’m going to die from it?’

I saw my error. I could not tell him I was only doing the Prince’s bidding. Chade was right. In this, I had to take the blame. I sighed. ‘I brought you onto the ship, Thick. Because we need your help if we are going to slay the dragon.’ I put all the warmth and excitement into my voice that I could muster. ‘Don’t you want to help the Prince? Don’t you want to be part of the adventure we’re having?’

He squinted at me as if I were crazy. ‘Adventure? Puking and eating fishy food? Going up and down, up and down all the time? Going around people who wonder why I’m not dead?’ He crossed his stubby arms on his chest. ‘I heard adventures in stories. Adventures have golden coins and magic and beautiful girls to kiss. Adventures aren’t puking!’

At the moment I was inclined to agree with him. As I left the cabin, I stumbled over the doorstep. ‘Thick!’ I remonstrated.

‘I didn’t do it!’ he claimed, but he laughed all the same.

The little ships flew over the white-tipped waves, and the winds favoured us. Even so, the voyage seemed interminable to me. By day I tried to oversee Swift’s lessons and be sure that Thick was not neglected without too many minor injuries to myself. By night, I struggled to reach my daughter, and found nothing. By the time we put into port at Zylig, I felt a tottering wreck and possibly looked as bad. Web came to stand beside me at the railing as I watched our approach to the town.

‘I won’t ask you your secrets,’ he said quietly. ‘But I’ll offer to help you bear whatever it is you’re bearing, in any way I can.’

‘Thank you, but you’ve already eased much of it. I know I’ve been impatient with Swift these last few days, and that you’ve been helping him with his lessons. And I know, too, that you’ve visited Thick often and kept boredom away from him. That’s as much help as anyone can give me right now. Thank you.’

‘Very well, then,’ he said regretfully, and patted me on the shoulder and left.

Our stay in Zylig dragged for me. We spent our nights in the stronghouse there, and I spent many of my days there also. Thick’s cough lingered still, but I do not think he was as sick as he claimed to be. Tedious as it was for me to linger near his sickroom, I still judged it to be for the best, for on the two occasions I did persuade him to venture outside, the looks he received were not kindly. Thick was like a crippled chick in a flock of healthy birds; any excuse would have sufficed to peck him to bits. He did not feel kindly toward me, and yet I was not comfortable leaving him alone. Although he did not ever ask me to stay with him, whenever I left the chamber he was in, he would find an excuse to follow me, or to call for me a few minutes later.

The first time that Web came at Chade’s suggestion to spend time with Thick, I thought it was the old man deliberately throwing us together. But then Chade summoned me and sent me out in the evening, garbed as an Outislander, right down to the owl tattoo he hastily marked on my cheek. With paint and pitch he put a twisting scar in my lower lip to explain my taciturn ways and guttural speech. He gave me enough Outislander coin to sit and drink their miserable beer in their overheated taverns for an evening. After that, I went out several more times, each time dressed as a trader from another clan. Zylig was a major trading town; no one remarked on an unfamiliar face in a noisy inn. My function was to sit and listen to gossip and tales. The negotiations with the Hetgurd had stirred all sorts of interests. Outislander bards were tipped well to sing every song they knew of Aslevjal and Icefyre, and many a family tale was traded to impress cronies around the inn fire. I listened well, and distilled gossip and legend down to common factors likely to be true.

There was definitely something frozen in the ice of Aslevjal Island, but it had been almost a generation since anyone had seen it clearly. Men told their fathers’ stories of visiting the island. Some had camped on the beach and trekked over the glacier for a glimpse. Others had visited at the lowest tides of the year, when the retreating waters bared an under-ice passage on the south side of the island. By all accounts it was treacherous, for once one was in channels walled with blue ice, it was easy to become lost or to miscalculate the time and tides and stay too long. Then the returning sea trapped the unwary, never to release his bones. For those wise and strong and sly enough, the under-ice tunnel led to a huge cavern, where one might speak with the trapped dragon and beg a boon of him. Some had received prowess as hunters, others luck with women and others had won fecundity for their mothershouses. So the tales went.

They spoke, too, of leaving an offering for the Black Man of Aslevjal. Some spoke as if he were a hermit, others as if he were a spirit guardian of the dragon. All agreed he was dangerous, and that it was wise to mollify him with a gift. Some said raw red meat was the best offering; others contended his goodwill could be purchased with packets of tea herbs, bright beads or honey.

Twice I heard the island mentioned in connection with the Red Ship War. There was less talk of this; few dwell long on tales of wars that were not gloriously won. I gathered that during the war, Kebal Rawbread and the Pale Woman had wished to establish a stronghold on Aslevjal. No one spoke of why, but many captured Six Duchies folk had been borne there, to work out the rest of their days as slaves. It seemed that Rawbread had made slaves, too, of the kin of any Outislanders who opposed his war. They had been Forged by him, and carried off to Aslevjal Island, never to be seen or heard from again. Thus the island had gained an aura of shame and misery that vied with its legendary dragon. Few wished to make a pilgrimage there to prove their mettle any more.

All of these things I held in my mind, and reported them in detail to both Chade and Dutiful. In late evening talks, my old mentor and I tried to see how these things might help or hinder us in our quest. Sometimes I felt we only discussed these nebulous rumours because there was so little that we knew for certain.

Dutiful had two long meetings with the Hetgurd, each lasting several days. The end result of them was that they had set the terms of our dragon hunt as if it were some sort of wrestling or shooting contest. What had Chade chewing his tongue was that the Boar Clan had arranged this negotiation and bound us to it without consulting him at all. Although I did not witness it, I heard that Arkon Bloodblade was surprised when the Prince, with cold courtesy, expressed dismay at the terms.

‘We cannot change what he agreed to for us,’ Chade told me grimly. ‘But it was worthwhile to see Bloodblade’s face when Dutiful told him, “My word is mine, and I am the only man who can give it. Never again presume to speak for me.”’

This he told me over brandy, in the same room in the stronghouse we had originally occupied. Thick and Dutiful were in the adjoining room. I could hear only the tone of their conversation: Dutiful was calmly explaining why Thick must board the ship the next day and Thick’s voice was varying from a child’s whine to a man’s angry refusal. It did not sound as if it were going well. But, given what Bloodblade had committed us to, I did not think any of it could go much worse than it had.

Our nobles had done well in our absence, better than I had expected. Trading alliances between varying clans and Six Duchies houses were already being formalized. Displaying their own insignia had seemed to distance them sufficiently from the Buck of the Farseers to allow them to approach the varying clans without prejudice. Dutiful dined with his nobles almost every night, and each evening seemed to bring news of more trade negotiations. If the Prince were able to present a dragon’s head to the Narcheska, we would have succeeded in our goal. The Six Duchies and the Out Islands would be so tied together with marriage and trade that future wars would not profit anyone.

But the Hetgurd seemed determined it would not be easy for us. The Farseer Prince would be allowed to challenge the dragon, but the Hetgurd had set the rules for the confrontation. When we departed for Aslevjal, we would not be taking the Prince’s Guard with him, but only a set number of warriors. Dutiful’s Wit-coterie took up most of that count, and so far he had refused to consider Chade’s suggestion that he leave his Witted allies and take hardened fighters instead. As Dutiful had challenged her, the Narcheska would be accompanying us. We assumed that meant Peottre as well, and perhaps a few warriors from Narwhal or Boar Clans, though their help had not been promised to us. A boat selected by the Hetgurd would transport us to Aslevjal. It would also transport the six Hetgurd representatives, who would see that we adhered to their rules. They would be warriors, selected from six different clans other than Boar or Narwhal. They would be allowed to defend themselves, if the dragon threatened them, but otherwise not harm him or assist us in any way. What we took with us would be limited to what the ship could carry, and once we were ashore, we’d be carrying it on our backs.

‘I’m surprised they didn’t specify the Prince must fight the dragon in single combat.’

‘They came close to it,’ Chade said sourly. ‘He is supposed to be the first man to challenge the beast. And it was strongly suggested that he should attempt to deal the death blow, if there is one. They are warriors enough to know that in the heat of a battle, no one can say which blow will actually do the deed. One of their bards will be accompanying us, as witness. Just what we needed.’ He scratched a whiskery cheek wearily. ‘Not that we are greatly concerned about any of that. As I’ve said from the start, I think this is more a case of digging something out of the ice than battling any living creature. I had looked forward to having a larger work force for that part of this business.’ He coughed slightly and looked mildly pleased with himself as he said, ‘But perhaps I have something that will serve us as well as the extra men would have.’

‘How many men is Dutiful allowed?’

‘Twelve. And we make up the count of them far too quickly. You and me, Web, Civil, Cockle, Riddle, Thick, Longwick and four guardsmen.’ He shook his head. ‘I wish Dutiful would consider leaving at least Civil and Cockle here. Two more seasoned warriors can make all the difference in a situation.’

‘What of Swift? Is he staying here, then?’ I could not decide if I felt relief or uneasiness at the thought.

‘No, we’ll take him. But as he’s a boy yet, he doesn’t count toward our quota of warriors.’

‘And we leave tomorrow?’

Chade nodded. ‘Longwick has spent the last week gathering provisions for us. Most of what we brought of Six Duchies victuals has been used; I’m afraid we’ll be eating the local provender. He has sorted through what we had and acquired what we need for a party of twelve. I’ve already warned him that there will be a cat to feed as well as the rest of us. We will all carry weapons, regardless of whether we’ve been trained in them or not. An axe for you?’

I nodded. ‘And one for Swift. He has his own bow and arrows, but as you said before, an axe for chopping ice may be more to the point.’

Chade sighed. ‘And that is where my invention runs out. I have no idea what we’ll be facing, Fitz. We’ll have food and tents and weapons and some tools. But beyond that, I’ve no idea what we’ll need.’ He poured himself a stingy dollop of brandy. ‘I’ll not deny that I take pleasure in knowing that Peottre is just as dismayed by all this as I am. He and the Narcheska will be accompanying us. Bloodblade is coming on the ship, but I don’t think he’s staying for the dragon-slaying.’ He smirked sarcastically as he called it that, doubting it would be any such thing. ‘It’s damnably inconvenient all round, this giving a task the rules of a contest. They’ve limited us to two message birds as well, but to be used only to summon the ship back when we are ready to leave the island. They’ll be in the keeping of our chaperones.’

His words pushed my mind into another direction. ‘Do you suppose the bird you sent has reached Kettricken yet?’

He gave me a pitying look. ‘You know there’s no way for us to tell. Wind or storms, a hawk … so many things can delay or stop a bird. A message bird flies only toward its home and mate. There is no way for Kettricken to send word back to us.’ Delicately he added, ‘Have you thought of trying to reach Burrich?’

‘Last night,’ I replied. To his lifted eyebrow, I replied, ‘Nothing. I felt like a moth battering at a lantern glass. I can’t reach him. Years ago, I used to be able to catch glimpses of them, of Molly and Burrich. Not a mind-to-mind touch, but … well, it’s no use. That’s gone. I suspect that Nettle was my focus for it, though I did not see through her eyes.’

‘Interesting,’ he said softly, and I knew he was squirrelling away that bit of information for possible future use. ‘But you cannot reach Nettle?’

‘No.’ I boxed the word in, refusing to let any emotion ride on it. I reached across the table and picked up the brandy bottle.

‘Go easy on that,’ Chade warned me.

‘I’m nowhere near drunk,’ I retorted irritably.

‘I didn’t say you were,’ he responded mildly. ‘But we haven’t much left. And we may want it more on Aslevjal than we do here.’

I set the bottle down as Dutiful came back into the room. Thick trailed him, a sullen look on his face. ‘I’m not going,’ Thick announced as he came in.

‘Yes, you are,’ Dutiful responded stubbornly.

‘Not.’

‘Are.’

‘Enough!’ Chade interjected as if they were seven-year-olds.

‘Not!’ Thick breathed as he sat down with a thump at the table.

‘Yes, you are,’ Dutiful insisted. ‘Unless you want to stay here all by yourself. All alone, with no one to talk to. All by yourself, just sitting in this room until we come back.’

Thick thrust out his chin, lower lip and tongue all at once. He crossed his short thick arms on his chest and cast Dutiful a measuring glance. ‘I don’t care. Not alone, anyway. I’ll just talk to Nettle. She’ll tell me stories.’

I sat up with a jolt. ‘You can talk to Nettle.’

He glared at me, as if he had just realized that in needling Dutiful he had given something away to me. He swung his feet. ‘Maybe. But you can’t.’

I knew I could not afford to lose my temper with him, or push him too hard.

‘Because you are stopping me from talking to her?’

‘No. She just doesn’t want to talk to you.’ He measured me as he said this, perhaps to see if this idea bothered me more than the thought that he could block me from her. He was right. It did. I sent a tiny, private plea to Dutiful. Find out for me. Is she safe?

Thick’s eyes flickered from me to Dutiful and back again. The Prince kept silent. He knew as well as I did that we had been caught Skilling. Anything he said to Thick right now would be suspect. And the little man had not been pleased with Dutiful to begin with. I picked at that thought. ‘So. You’re not going with us when we leave, Thick?’

‘No. No more ships.’

It was cruel. I did it anyway. ‘Then how are you going to get home? Going on a ship is the only way to get home.’

He looked doubtful. ‘You aren’t going home. You’re going to that dragon island.’

‘To start with, yes. But after that, we’re going home.’

‘And you’ll come back here and get Thick first.’

‘Maybe,’ Dutiful conceded.

‘Maybe, if we are still alive,’ Chade embroidered. ‘We had been counting on your help. If you stay here and we go on without you …’ The old man shrugged. ‘The dragon may kill all of us.’

‘Serve you right,’ Thick replied darkly. But I thought we had put a crack in his resolve. He seemed to be thinking as he sat scowling at his pudgy hands clasped at the table’s edge.

Chade spoke slowly and consideringly. ‘If Nettle is telling Thick stories to keep him company, then I don’t think she is in any great danger, Fitz.’

If he had hoped to provoke a comment from Thick, he failed. The little man gave a disgusted ‘hmph’ and settled back in his chair, arms crossed firmly on his chest.

‘Let it go,’ I suggested softly to all of them. When I tried to think why Nettle might be so angry with me as to break off all contact, there were far too many reasons. Yet, I told myself sternly, to know she was alive and angry with me was preferable to thinking that a dragon might have decimated her and her family. I longed for certainty about the situation, and knew I would not get it. In my heart, I wished speed to the messenger bird we had sent. If Nettle must be angry, let her at least be angry in a safe place.

Little else was said that evening. Three of us went over our packing, and Chade spent time muttering worriedly over a cargo manifest. Thick made a great show of not packing. At one point, Dutiful began to gather up Thick’s clothes and stuff them into a bag, but when Thick dumped it out on the floor again, they both left them there. They were still there when we all went to bed.

I did not sleep well. Now that I knew Nettle was purposely ignoring me, I could find and feel the shape of her barrier. More annoying was knowing that Thick was observing me as I groped, and taking pleasure in my inability to break through it. If he had not, perhaps I would have made a more serious effort to get into Nettle’s dreams. Instead, I gave it up and tried to slide into true sleep. Instead, I had a restless night of brief dreams of all the people I’d hurt or failed, from Burrich to Patience, with the most vivid ones being of the Fool’s accusing stare.

We arose before the sun the next morning. We broke our fast in near silence, with Thick in a simmering sulk, waiting for us to entreat or order him to move. By tacit consent, none of us did. What brief words we shared were spoken past him. We loaded up our individual bags. Riddle arrived to help us carry our gear. Chade let the guardsman take his pack but Prince Dutiful insisted on carrying his own. And we left.

Riddle walked a step behind Chade, carrying his pack. Longwick and the other four guardsmen followed us. I did not know any of them well. Hest, a youngster, I liked well enough. Churry and Drub were close friends and seasoned warriors. All I knew of Deft was that he lived up to his name when the dice were in his hands. The rest of the guard would be left behind with our nobles, and our diminished party was to form up on the docks. As we walked through the cobbled streets, I asked, ‘And if Thick doesn’t come after us, what then?’

‘Leave him,’ Dutiful replied grimly.

‘You know we can’t,’ I pointed out, and he grunted in reply.

‘I could go back and drag him along,’ Riddle offered doubtfully. I winced to think of that, and Chade shook his head mutely.

It might come to that, I observed privately to them. I can’t do it, because his Skill can knock me to my knees. But someone unSkilled and insensitive to Thick’s power might be able to force him physically. Look at the times when other servants mistreated him, taking his coins. Of course, we’d have to deal with his anger about that in the days to come, but at least he would be with us.

Let’s wait and see, the Prince replied grimly.

As we neared the docks, people grew more numerous, until we realized a crowd had gathered to watch our departure. The Tusker had been loaded since yesterday, and awaited only our boarding and the morning turn of tide to depart. There was a strange mood amongst the Outislanders. It was as if they had turned out to watch a competition of champions, and we were not the favoured ones. No one hurled rotten vegetables or insults, but the knowing silence was almost as hard a pelting.

Closer to the ship, our own nobles had gathered to wish us farewell and good luck. They clustered about the Prince, wishing him well, and as I waited obediently behind him, it struck me how little they realized of his quest and what it might mean. There was good-natured joking with him, and hearty wishes for good fortune, but none of his nobles looked particularly worried for him.

As we boarded, with still no sign of Thick, my heart sank and my belly knotted with fear. We could not leave him here alone, no matter how annoyed Dutiful might be with him. There was not just the fear of what he might do in our absence, but my worry over what might be done to him, stripped of the Prince’s protection. Would the Six Duchies nobles care much what became of a half-wit lackey in Dutiful’s absence? I leaned on the railing, and stared over the head of the crowd milling on the docks, up to the stronghouse. Web came to lean beside me. ‘Well. Looking forward to the voyage?’

I smiled bitterly. ‘The only voyage I’m looking forward to is the one that takes us home.’

‘I haven’t seen Thick come aboard yet.’

‘I know. We’re still waiting for him. He was reluctant to get on another boat, but we’re hoping he’ll come on his own.’

Web nodded slowly and sagely to that, and then wandered off.

I stood, fretting and chewing the side of my thumb. Thick? Are you coming? The ship will leave soon.

Leave me alone, Dogstink!

He flung the name with intense anger, so that I almost smelled the image he hurled at me. On the edges of his fury, I could feel his fear and hurt that we would so abandon him. Our departure had agitated and worried him, but I still suspected his stubbornness would win out.

Time and tide wait for no man, Thick. Decide soon. Because when the waters are right, the ship has to leave. And after that, even if you let us know you’ve changed your mind and want to come, it will be too late. We won’t be able to come back for you.

Don’t care. And with that, he slammed his walls so tight that it felt like a physical slap. I was left feeling that I’d made the situation worse.

Too soon, I saw the final preparations for our departure begin. A late arrival of cargo from the Maiden’s Chance came on board. There were a number of small casks, and I smiled, wondering if Chade had recalled a stash of brandy on the other ship. Weaponry and tools came aboard as well, as we filled up the odd corners of the hold with anything Chade thought might be helpful. But finally, it was time to depart. Well-wishers who had followed the Prince on board were leaving. The Hetgurd representatives arrived with their gear. All the last-minute cargo was stowed out of the way and the small boats that would tow us out of the harbour and into open water were manned and waiting. Web came to stand anxiously beside me at the railing.

‘I don’t think he’s coming,’ I said quietly. I felt ill. ‘I’ll go and speak to the Prince. We’ll have to send someone after him.’

‘I already have,’ Web replied grimly.

‘You did? What did Prince Dutiful say?’ I hadn’t seen any of our guardsmen depart from the ship.

‘Oh. No, not spoken to him,’ Web replied distractedly. ‘I sent someone. Swift.’ More to himself, he muttered, ‘I hope this isn’t an unfair test. I think he can do it. But perhaps I should have gone myself.’

‘Swift?’ Mentally I measured the growing lad against Thick, and shook my head. ‘He’ll never be able to do it. Thick is awkward, but he’s surprisingly strong when he’s roused. He might do the boy harm. I’d best go after them.’

Web seized me by the arm. ‘No! Don’t go! Look. He’s done it. They’re coming now!’

The relief in his voice was as if Swift had conquered some monumental task. Perhaps, in all justice, he had. I watched them come, the short man trudging along by the slight boy. Swift carried Thick’s pack and held his hand protectively. That shocked me, but even at this distance, the boy’s attitude was visible. His head was up and wary, and he met the eyes of every man they passed, as if challenging him to mock the half-wit or delay their progress. It was as great a display of courage as I’d ever seen, and my evaluation of the boy soared. It would have taxed my will to lead Thick by the hand through that throng, yet on they came. As they got closer and I could see the expression on Thick’s face, I realized that more was at work here than simply sending a boy to bid him come.

‘What is it?’ I asked Web in a low voice.

‘It’s the Old Blood. As well you know.’ He spoke softly, not turning to look at me. ‘It works best Wit to Wit as you would say. But even on those who have no Wit, one can exert a drawing closer. I’ve had Swift practising. Today was a sterner test than I wished to set him. But he’s done well.’

‘Yes. I can see that he has.’ There was a look of trust on Thick’s face as the boy led him toward the boarding plank. He hesitated there, halting. Then Swift spoke softly to him, and, still holding the little man’s hand, led him up the gangway. I debated before next I spoke, but curiosity dragged the words from me. ‘I know how to push someone away from me with the Wit. I think I’ve always known how to do that. But how do you draw someone closer with it?’

‘Ah. Well. The pushing away might come by instinct. Usually the drawing close does, too. I would have thought you knew it; now I understand why you’ve never used it with Thick.’ He cocked his head and looked at me appraisingly. ‘Sometimes, the things you don’t know baffle me. As if you’d forgotten or somehow lost some part of yourself.’

I think he saw the uneasiness that his words woke in me, for he suddenly changed his tone and spoke in generality. ‘I think all creatures use that drawing force, to some extent, with their young or when they wish to attract a mate. Perhaps you’ve used it without realizing it. But, you see, that is why a man given this magic should make an effort to learn about it. To be aware of how he’s using it.’ He let a silence fall, then added, ‘I’ll offer again to teach you what you need to know.’

‘I have to go and see to Thick and get him settled.’ I turned hastily to go.

‘Yes. I know that you do. You’ve many tasks and duties, and I won’t claim to know all that you do for our prince. I’m sure that at any moment of the day, you can find some reason to be too busy for this. But a man makes time for what is important in his life. So. I’ll be hoping that you’ll come to me. This is the last time I’ll make the offer. Now it’s up to you to accept it.’

And before I could hurry away, he turned and quietly left me there. Overhead, Risk lifted off from our mast with a lonely cry that rode down the wind. Lines were tossed, the planks were pulled in, and in the little boats men leaned to their oars to pull us away from the docks and out to where the wind could catch us. I promised myself that I’d find the time, today, to speak to Web about privately learning about my magic. I hoped I didn’t lie.

But nothing is ever simple. With the Narcheska, her father Arkon Bloodblade and her Uncle Peottre on board, most of Dutiful’s and Chade’s social time was taken up with one or another of them. I had little private conversation with either of them. Instead, as before, I was confined to Thick’s companionship. As he was miserable, he saw no reason why I shouldn’t be also. The minor bruises and scrapes he had given me on the previous voyage were renewed, and there was little I could do about it. Putting up walls against his subtle Skill-influence would have reduced my awareness of Chade and Dutiful. So I endured.

To make it worse, the water we crossed was nasty. We battled currents and tides that always seemed to oppose us. For two days of our journey, our ship rocked badly and Thick was genuinely seasick, as were Cockle, Swift and Civil. The rest of us ate little and moved from one hand-hold to another. I glimpsed a very pale Narcheska taking a walk on the deck on Peottre’s arm. Neither of them looked as if they were enjoying themselves. The slow days crawled by.

I did not find an opportunity to discuss the Wit with Web. From time to time, I would recall my intention, but it always seemed to come to me at a moment when a dozen other things wanted my attention. I tried to pretend it was circumstance that kept me from approaching him. In reality, I could not name what held me back.

Our destination finally appeared on the horizon. Even from a distance, Aslevjal looked a dismal place. It is among the northernmost of the Out Islands, a toothy isle of grim visage. Summer never really triumphs there. The milder days of summer’s brief visit are not sufficient to melt the snow of the previous winter on its mountains. Most of the island is locked under the glacier that squats within the pronged hold of its peaks. Some say it is actually two islands, bridged by the ice of the glacier, but I do not know the basis for that belief. Low tide bares black sand beaches around it like a dreary skirt. A barren and stony stretch of beach and a bit of cliff are permanently exposed at one end of it. In other places, rocks thrust up through the glacier’s pale coat. I could not tell if the cloudiness around the island was the ice smoking in the sunlight or snow blown by the continuous north wind we were encountering.

Our approach was slow as both wind and water seemed to oppose us. We tacked painfully toward the island. I was at the railing when Dutiful and the Narcheska, accompanied by Chade and Peottre, came out to look at the island. Dutiful scowled at it. ‘It does not look like a place where any creature would willingly reside, let alone something the size of a dragon. Why would a dragon be there?’

The Narcheska shook her head and spoke softly. ‘I do not know. I only know that our legends say that he is there. So, thither we must go.’ She pulled her wool cloak more closely around her. The wind seemed to carry the island’s icy bite to us.

In the afternoon, we rounded a headland and turned back toward Aslevjal’s sole bay. Our spies’ reports had told us it was a deserted place, with the remnants of a dock and a few stone structures tumbling into disrepair. Yet I glimpsed a patch of bright colour on the exposed cliff above the beach. Even as I stared at it, trying to resolve what it was, a figure emerged from it. I decided it was a tent or some sort of shelter. A man came to stand on the tip of the cliff. His black and white hooded cloak struggled and flapped around him. He lifted no hand in greeting, but only stood there and awaited us.

‘Who is that?’ Chade demanded of Peottre when the lookout’s cries to the captain had brought them back onto the deck.

‘I do not know,’ the man replied. Dread was heavy in his voice.

‘Perhaps it is the legendary Black Man of the island,’ Bloodblade suggested. He leaned forward avidly, studying the solitary figure on the bluffs. ‘I’ve always wondered if the tales were true.’

‘I don’t want to find out,’ the Narcheska commented quietly. Her eyes were huge. As we drew closer to the bay, the railing became crowded as we all stared toward our destination and the solitary ominous figure that awaited us there. It was only when we dropped anchor in the bay and our small boats prepared to ferry us and our supplies to shore that he moved. He came down to the beach, and stood at the high tide line. Even before he threw back his hood, something in my heart turned over. I felt sick with dread.

The Fool awaited me.

THIRTEEN

Aslevjal

‘Forging’ was perhaps the most effective weapon that the Outislanders turned against us during the Red Ship War. The technique for ‘Forging’ is still unknown to us, but the dreadful results are all too familiar to many. The name comes from the village of Forge, an iron-mining town that first suffered this horrendous attack. Red Ship raiders attacked in the night, killing or taking hostage most of the population. A ‘ransom note’ to Buckkeep Castle demanded gold, under the threat of releasing the hostages. This made no sense to then King Shrewd, who declined to pay. The Red Ship raiders lived up to their threat, releasing their apparently unharmed hostages and sailing off into the night.

But it swiftly became apparent that, by some arcane magic, the villagers were no longer themselves. Although they knew who they were and what families they belonged to, they no longer seemed to care. Morality and ethics had been stolen from them. They thought only of satisfying their own immediate wants, and did not hesitate to steal, murder and rape to do so. Some were ‘captured’ by their families and vain efforts were made to restore them to themselves. None ever recovered.

Forging was a tactic used repeatedly during the war. It had the effect of leaving a resident, hostile army on our soil, made up of our own loved ones, at no emotional or financial cost to Kebal Rawbread and his raiders. Killing the Forged ones was a demoralizing and dehumanizing task that fell to our own folk. The scars remain to this day. The town of Forge has never been rebuilt.

Fedwren’s History of the Red Ship War

I was in the first small boat that touched the shore of Aslevjal, along with the other guardsmen. Moments later, the boat carrying Chade and Dutiful, the Narcheska, Peottre and Arkon Bloodblade nosed into the sand. We stepped into the shallow water to seize the boat’s gunwales, and on the next rising wave, we ran it up onto the shore so that its passengers could step out onto dry sand. The whole time, I was aware of the Fool standing on the lip of the land that overlooked the beach, watching us. He was still, but the cold wind seemed to speak for him. It whipped his cloak and long golden hair with a snapping, muttering sound. He had abandoned the face powder that had lightened his skin, as well as the Jamaillian cosmetic touches that had branded him a foreigner. The rich brown of his skin over the sculpted bones of his face and his tawny mane made him a creature out of a tale. The stark black-and-white of his garb erased every trace of indolent Lord Golden. I wondered if anyone besides Chade and myself had identified him yet. I tried to exchange a look with him, but he stared through me. He spoke only when the Prince stepped out of the boat onto the shore. He swept him a bow.

‘I’ve hot tea waiting for you,’ he called down. His voice carried through the ceaseless hushing of the wind. That was all he said. Then he made a gesture toward his tent and turned his steps that way.

‘Do you know him? Who is that?’ Arkon Bloodblade demanded. His hand rested lightly on the hilt of his sword.

‘I’ve known him for a long time,’ Chade replied heavily. ‘But how he came to be here, or why, I’ve no idea.’

The Prince was trying not to gape after him. He sent me a glance but I looked hastily at the ground.

Was that Lord Golden? It was a genuine question from Dutiful. The change in the man’s appearance was enough that he was uncertain.

No. Nor is it the Fool. But they are facets of whoever that is.

Stop being dramatic. This last from Chade, grumbled in annoyance to both of us. Aloud, he said, ‘He is no threat to us. I will deal with him. Guardsmen, remain here and assist with the unloading of the cargo. I want it all carried up above the tide-line, and well secured against damp.’

So neatly Chade banished me. He’d keep me separated from the Fool until he discovered what was going on. I thought of ignoring the order and following him up to the Fool’s tent. Then Riddle gave me a nudge. ‘Looks like you’d better be ready to help them.’

Thick was coming ashore in the boat with the Wit-coterie. He had a white-knuckled grip on the side of the boat and his eyes were clenched tightly shut. Web had a hand lightly on his shoulder, but Thick was hunched against his touch. I sighed and went to take charge of him. Another small boat was putting out from the ship, bearing the warriors of the Hetgurd.

Evening was falling before all the cargo was removed from the ship and canvas securely roped over it. I’d had a quick look at the small casks that Chade had loaded at the last minute. They were not brandy. One was leaking a powdery substance. With both dread and anticipation, I recognized Chade’s experimental powder for creating explosions. Was this why he had not more strenuously objected when the Hetgurd had deprived us of our manpower? How did he intend to use this stuff?

I pondered that as our temporary home took shape. Longwick was a good commander. He kept our small force, Wit-coterie and guardsmen alike, in steady motion. He chose a location on the highest clear ground the hill offered us, with a clear view of the surrounding area. Our tents were set up in tidy rows, a waste pit was dug and the beach scoured for driftwood. Water was fetched from an icy stream of snowmelt that flowed from the glacier and past our camp. Hest, the youngest guard at about twenty, was put on general watch and Drub, a grizzled warrior muscled like a bear, was given the cooking duties. Deft and Churry were told to sleep now to relieve Hest later. Riddle was assigned to be at the Prince’s convenience, shadowing him wherever he went. And as I expected, I was assigned to keep watch over the Prince’s man, Thick. The Wit-coterie members, nominally under Longwick’s command now, were given lesser chores about the camp before he let them disperse to explore the beach. It was a strange experience for some of them, I am sure, especially for a young noble like Civil, but to his credit the lad did his work willingly and ceded Longwick the respect his position demanded. Several times I saw him cast a disapproving gaze toward the Fool’s colourful tent, but he kept his reservations to himself. Chade and the Prince had accepted the Fool’s hospitality, along with the Narcheska, Peottre Blackwater and Arkon Bloodblade.

Thick chose to sit miserably hunched in the tent he would share with Web, Swift and me. Not far away, our cook-fire burned and Drub tended the simmering kettle that held our evening’s porridge. I had set a smaller pot at the edge of the fire to heat water for tea. I foresaw that soon fuel would be a problem on this treeless island. I paced restlessly outside the tent, waiting for the kettle to boil, feeling like a tethered dog while the others roamed.

The Hetgurd warriors had set up their shelters in a separate row from ours, and brought ashore their own supplies. Each man had pitched his own small tent. I spied on them surreptitiously. These were not young warriors, but seasoned veterans. I did not know their names. I had been told that for this duty their own names did not matter, but only their clan membership, and that was proclaimed in their tattoos. The Bear, hulking and dark as his namesake, seemed to be their leader. The Owl was a thinner, older man: their poet and bard. A Raven was as dark-haired as his bird mentor, and as bright-eyed. The Seal was a short, heavyset man who was missing two fingers from his left hand. There was a Fox who was the youngest of the group. He seemed petulant and unhappy at being on Aslevjal. The Eagle was a tall, rangy man of middle years. He was their watchman tonight, standing and keeping guard while the others sat cross-legged about their fire, eating and talking quietly. He caught me staring at him and returned my gaze expressionlessly.

I sensed no animosity from any of them. They had a duty to see that we adhered to the rules the Hetgurd had set for us, yet they did not seem opposed to our task. Rather they were like men awaiting some contest of champions. On the ship, they had mingled freely with us, and their poet had struck up an amusingly competitive friendship with Cockle. Now that we were ashore, they might set stiffer boundaries, but I doubted those would last more than a night or two. There were too few of us, and the landscape was too bleak.

Two slightly grander tents had been set up alongside the Fool’s colourful one. The Narcheska and Peottre would share one, and Chade and the Prince had the other. I had seen little of any of them since we landed. The Fool had welcomed them to his tent, but I did not know what had passed there. Not so much as a Skill-hint had Chade or the Prince sent me. I’d helped to set up the larger tents beside the Fool’s, but the low murmur of conversation from inside that structure had been as tantalizing and insubstantial as the wafting scent of spice tea.

Now, as evening asserted a slow dominance over the land, the Fool and Dutiful’s Wit-coterie were all on board the ship, enjoying the farewell meal with Arkon Bloodblade. Neither he nor his Boar warriors would be staying with us. I wished I knew the logic of that. Was he disassociating the Boar Clan from a foolish Narwhal endeavour, or was it simply a matter of granting Peottre command of the quest? I scowled and kicked at the cold soil. There was too much I didn’t know. I wanted to scout the area at least but Thick had steadfastly refused to reboard the boat, even when tempted with a sumptuous meal, remaining on the island to share our plain rations and useless sentry duty.

Scuffing footsteps on the near-frozen earth turned my head. Riddle gave us a wide wave and a big smile as he approached. ‘Exciting place, this. If you like snow, grass and sand.’ He crouched down by the fire and held his hands out to it.

‘I thought you’d gone back to the ship for the night, with the Prince.’

‘No. He dismissed me, saying he’d have no need of me there. And I was just as happy to stay. Standing about watching others eat is not my idea of entertaining. What occupies you this evening?’

‘The usual. Keeping Thick company. I’m making him tea right now.’

Riddle spoke quietly. ‘If you’d like, I can stay here and make his tea when the water boils. Might give you a chance to stretch your legs and explore a bit.’

I received the offer with gratitude. Turning to our tent, I asked, ‘Would you mind if I took a short walk, Thick? Riddle will make the tea for you.’

The little man pulled a blanket closer around his shoulders. ‘Don’t care,’ he replied sullenly. He was hoarse from coughing.

‘Well, then. If you’re sure you don’t want to come? If you got up and moved around a bit, you’d soon feel warmer. Truly, it isn’t that cold here, Thick.’

‘Nnph.’ He turned his face away from me. Riddle nodded commiseration to me, and with a toss of his head, bade me leave.

As I walked away, I heard him say, ‘Come on, Thick, buck up. Play us a tune on your whistle. That’ll keep the dark at bay.’

To my surprise, Thick took his suggestion. As I walked slowly away, I heard the tentative sounds of Thick’s mothersong. I literally felt Thick’s attention focus on it, and felt an easing in the Skilled hostility he had been sending me. It was like putting down a heavy pack. Even though the tune was frequently broken as Thick stopped to catch his breath, I hoped that his interest in playing indicated he was recovering. I wished I could likewise soften the discomfort I felt hovering between the Fool and me. Not a word had we spoken, nor even stood within a speaking distance, and yet I felt his outrage like a cold wind on my skin. I wished he had stayed ashore tonight in his tent; it would have been a good time for quiet words with him. But he had been invited to share the farewell meal about the ship. I wondered who had issued the invitation: the Prince, because he was intrigued, or Chade because he wished to keep the tawny man where he could watch him.

I walked the beach in the deepening twilight, and found it much as Chade’s spy had reported it. The tide was retreating, baring more of the beach. Barnacle-encrusted pilings leaned at odd angles in a double row projecting from the swallowing water, hinting at a one-time dock. At some time, there had been stone cottages along the shore, but they had been tumbled into ruin. Knee-high walls remained, in a row like tooth-sockets in an empty skull. The rest of the stone walls were scattered both inside and around the structures. I frowned. The destruction was too complete. Had this little settlement been raided by someone intent on not just killing the inhabitants but on making it uninhabitable? It was as if someone had tried to obliterate it.

I climbed the low bluff above the shingle of the beach. A rocky meadow of tufty grasses greeted me, shadows creeping up from the roots as the colour left the day. There were no trees, only tough and twisted bushes scattered through it. It might be summer, but the glacier crouching above us breathed winter year round. I waded through the ungrazed grasses, the seed heads whispering against my leggings. Then, without warning, I came to the edge of a quarry. Had it been any darker, I would probably have tumbled right into it and taken a bad fall. I stood on the edge and looked down. A few feet down, the sod sides gave way to black stone walls, thinly veined with silver. A shiver ran over me. Memory stone had been mined here, just as it had in the immense quarry in the Mountains where Verity’s dragon had been carved from the stuff. The water that had collected in the bottom of the quarry was a second, starless night sky below me. Two large stones, the clean angles of their lines proclaiming the handiwork of men, were bare islands jutting from the water.

I backed slowly away from the edge and walked back to the camp. I wanted to speak to Chade and the Prince, but felt a greater urge to discuss this with the Fool. Standing at the edge of the bluff, I looked out over the bay at the Tusker rocking gently at anchor, the landing boats clustered around her. Tomorrow, she would depart, taking Arkon Bloodblade back to Zylig. The rest of us would remain here and begin our search for the dragon frozen beneath the glacier. The waves lapping methodically at the beach should have been soothing. Instead, the sea seemed relentless, intent on slowly devouring the land. I had never felt that way about it before.

A large animal breached briefly near the shore. I froze, trying to make out what it was. It vanished beneath the next wave, and was again bared as the wave retreated. In the moments it was exposed, it was perfectly motionless. I squinted at it, but it was a black shape against black water, and I could make out nothing save that it was as large as a small whale. I scowled at the idea of a creature that large in shallow water. It should not be this close to shore, unless it was dead and washed up by the tide. My Wit-sense told me that a low level of life still lurked in it, in a fuzzy, unfocused way. Yet I did not sense the defeat or resignation of a dying creature.

I stood on the beach, and watched as the falling waves gradually revealed not only the amorphous shape of a large animal, but several large black blocks of stone gleaming wet in the moonlight. I forgot all else as the waves slowly lost their grasp on the shore and fell back. The creature that was gradually exposed was familiar in an eerie way. Once one has seen a supine dragon, one never forgets it. My heart began to beat faster. Could this be the answer to our riddle?

I think I’ve found your dragon, Dutiful. Make an excuse to come on deck and look toward the shore. It’s being exposed as the tide retreats. There’s a stone dragon here, in the tide zone.

My Skilling had not been confined to Dutiful. It reached Chade as well. In a short time, Dutiful and the rest of the dinner gathering came out onto the deck. They stared toward shore, but I doubted they could see the creature as clearly as I did, for the lantern light on the ship now silhouetted it for me. And in that extra light, and with the retreat of the waves, I saw my error. What had appeared to be a dragon were actually several huge blocks of stone, set close together but not quite touching one another. I saw his head on his front paws, his neck and shoulders, three segments of back and hind legs and then a number of dwindling sections of tail. Fused together, they would have formed a dragon. Exposed on the wet sand, they reminded me of a child’s puzzle blocks.

Is this our dragon? Did she want the stone head taken back to her home hearth? I asked.

Linked to Dutiful, I saw him point and ask a similar question of Peottre. But it was Arkon Bloodblade who laughed and shook his head. My link with Dutiful conveyed Bloodblade’s answer as clearly as if I stood on the deck beside them. ‘No, no, what you see there was one of the Pale Woman’s follies. She had her slaves quarrying stone here. She insisted that only the black stone from this island could be ballast for her white ships. It looks as if some slaves were put to carving it, too. For what, we’ll probably never –’

‘It’s late.’ Peottre’s voice cut in abruptly. ‘And you sail with the morning tide, brother. Let us have one more good night of sleep on board, in beds, before we face the hardship of the island tomorrow. I recommend an early bed for you, too, Prince Dutiful. Tomorrow we must start early on the trail to where the true dragon is said to await us. It will be an arduous trip. Rest is wisest for all of us.’

‘A wise suggestion from a wise head. I’ll wish you good luck and good night then.’ Arkon acceded quickly to Peottre’s suggestion.

Well. That was neatly turned, Chade observed as the men dispersed from the deck. Arkon must have realized he was telling tales that Peottre didn’t wish shared. See what else you can discover there, Fitz.

How did the Fool react to that tale? I demanded of him.

I really didn’t notice. Chade’s reply was brusque.

How did the Fool get here? Why is he here? Why are you keeping him where I can’t talk to him? I could no longer suppress the questions, nor completely conceal my annoyance that they had not yet shared the answers with me.

Oh, don’t sulk. Chade dismissed my irritation. He’s told us little enough. You know how he is. Let it ride until tomorrow, Fitz, when we’re all on shore together and you can quiz him as much as you wish. Doubtless he’ll be more open with you than he is with us. As to why I’ve kept him close to us, it’s more to keep him away from the Hetgurd warriors than from you. He’s already revealed that he will do all he can to persuade us not to slay the dragon. And he’s been sufficiently puzzling, charming and mysterious to intrigue Peottre and Bloodblade, but I think the Narcheska still fears him. She does not meet his eyes.

The Prince broke in on Chade’s thoughts. Initially the Hetgurd men thought he was some kind of a cheat on our part, a secret ally we’d smuggled in. When we pointed out that we had no way of knowing the terms that the Hetgurd would set for us, they admitted that didn’t seem likely.

How did the Narcheska and Peottre react to his claim that he would help the dragon? I demanded of them both.

Chade’s thoughts seemed well considered. They reacted strangely. I expected that Peottre and the Narcheska would resent him, but Peottre seems relieved, almost glad to see him here. As for me, I am grateful he said no more than he did. And I’m asking you to keep any discussions you have with him out of earshot of Peottre or the Narcheska. If they discover how long you have been friends, they may well think that you are opposed to our quest as well.

There was a warning for me in Chade’s thought, a slight testing of my loyalty. I ignored it. I’ll wait and talk to him privately, I told Chade.

Yes. You will. His words fell between confirmation and command.

The folk on the ship were already dispersing toward their beds. I glanced back at our camp. It looked as if almost everyone had already gone to bed. The fire had burned low. I hadn’t even eaten my share of the evening rations. Hot porridge would probably seem a treat before this quest was over, but for now it did not entice me.

The sea had retreated enough now that I could walk around the entire dragon without getting more than ankle-wet. I knew I’d regret my soggy shoes in the morning, but if there was something to discover about this stone creature, now was my best opportunity. No Skill-coterie had carved this being, but the minions of the Pale Woman. I thought I knew why. I had long suspected that Regal and Skillmaster Galen had sold off portions of the Skill-library. Had Kebal Rawbread, the war leader of the Outislanders during the Red Ship War, come to possess them? Had he and his ally, the Pale Woman, attempted to create dragons of their own to battle our Six Duchies? I was almost certain it was so.

I came close to the gleaming wet stone, noticing that neither seaweed nor barnacles clung to it. It was as clean and black as the day it had been shaped. Gingerly, I set a hand to it. It was cold, wet and hard, and it hummed with Wit under my touch. Just as the drowsing stone dragons had. And yet it was different. I could not decide how until I touched the adjacent block. It, too, harboured that hidden seething of life. And yet the two were different things. Cautiously, fearing some arcane trap, I ventured toward them with my Skill. There was nothing there. I ran my hand along the wet surface where neither seaweed nor barnacle clung. And then there was suddenly something, a confusion of voices lifted in agitation, and then nothing again.

I turned my head slowly, and then realized how foolish that was. The Skill-furore I had sensed was not a conversation muffled by distance or a barrier. As gingerly as if I caressed a hot coal, I slid my fingertips over the wet stone before me. Again, I received a confused impression of many voices, all speaking at once, at a great distance from me. I wiped my hand reflexively down the front of my shirt and stepped away. Uneasily, I examined the thought that had come to me.

This was memory stone. Although quarried on this island, but it was unmistakably the same sort of stone that Verity had used to carve his dragon. All of the dragons I had encountered in the Stone Garden in the Mountain Kingdom had originally been carved from this stuff, some by Skill-coteries seeking to store permanently their memories and being; others, perhaps, by Elderlings. The dragons I had seen had been shaped as much by the memories and thoughts poured into them as by the tools the carvers had wielded. Those dragons had eventually completely absorbed the people who had created them. I had witnessed Verity’s passing into his dragon. It had demanded all of his memories and life force as well as Kettle to satiate and saturate the stone, waking it to life. The old woman had sacrificed herself as willingly as Verity had. She had been the last of her Skill-coterie, a lone woman who had outlived her time and her monarch, but returned nonetheless to serve the Farseer line. Kettle’s extended years and Verity’s passions had been barely enough to rouse the dragon. I knew that well. Verity had taken a bit of me for his dragon, and later I had impetuously fed other memories into the Girl on a Dragon carving. I had felt the pull of a stone dragon’s voracity. It would have been easy to let Girl on a Dragon take all of me; it would have been a release, of a sort.

Or perhaps an imprisonment. What happened to a stone dragon which did not have enough memories to take life and flight? I had seen what had happened to Girl on a Dragon. She had remained there in the quarry, mired in unformed stone. In her case, I did not think it had been lack of memories, but her creator’s lack of willingness to surrender individuality to the whole. The leader of the coterie who had carved her had tried to hold back, and isolate her memories into the figure of the Girl astride the dragon rather than release them into the sculpture as a whole. Or so Kettle had told me, when I asked her why that statue had not taken life and flown away. She had told me the tale to warn me away from Verity’s dragon, I think; to help me understand that the dragon would not be content with any less than all of me.

I wished Kettle stood beside me now, to tell me this dragon’s story. But I suspected I knew it. The stone had not been shaped as a whole, but worked in blocks. Nor had the carvers put their own memories into the stone. Instead, I suspected that I stood by a dark memorial to the Red Ship War. What had become of the memories and emotions of the Forged folk? The disjointed clues came together in this disjointed creature. Blocks of memory stone had been ballast in the holds of White Ships. Had the Pale Woman and Kebal Rawbread learned the magic of waking a stone dragon from a purloined and sold Skill-scroll? What had stopped them, then, from creating an Out Island dragon to ravage the coast of the Six Duchies? Had they lacked the willingness to sacrifice their own lives to give life to their creation? Had they thought they could create a dragon from the memories they had stolen from the Six Duchies folk?

Here before me was the evidence of their failure to grasp the fundamental reason why a coterie might journey to Jhaampe and beyond to create a stone dragon. They could steal the memories of Six Duchies folk and imprison them in stone forever. But they could not Forge from those memories the singleness of purpose that was required to breathe life into a dragon. Not even all the coteries that set out for the Mountains succeeded in that goal. Some had taken Mountain women as wives and settled down to end their lives in love. Others that had gone to carve their dragons had failed. It was not an easy task, even for a single-minded Skill-coterie. A dragon filled with the memories of divergent folk forced into a single stone, a dragon born of terror and anger and hopelessness would have been an insane creature if ever they’d managed to wake it.

Had that been what Kebal Rawbread and the Pale Woman had intended?

There had been a time when plunging myself into a stone dragon had been very tempting indeed. I could still recall my hurt that Verity had excluded me from the creation of his. In retrospect, as a man grown, I could understand why. Sometimes, when Nighteyes had still been alive, I had toyed with the idea. What sort of a dragon could we two have made, I had wondered. And now, willing or no, I was a part of a coterie again. Yet I had never considered that at some time Dutiful, Thick, Chade and I might wish to make a dragon of ourselves. We were a coterie born more of chance than intent. I could not imagine us finding the devotion and purpose to carve a creature, let alone the will to simultaneously end our human lives and memorialize our joining in a dragon.

I turned and slowly walked away from the shaped stone. I tried not to wonder about the Forged memories imprisoned in it. Was awareness imprisoned in the rock? If not, exactly what was it?

I reached again for Dutiful and Chade. I think I’ve found some of the memories and feelings Forged away from Six Duchies folk during the war.

What? Chade was incredulous.

When I had explained, a long moment of aghast horror lingered between us. Then Dutiful asked hesitantly, Can we free them?

For what purpose? Most of the people they belonged to are long dead. Some may have died at my hand, for all I know. Besides, I have no idea whether it can be done, let alone how. The more I thought on it, the uneasier I became.

Chade’s thought was full of calm resignation. For now, we must leave it as it is. Perhaps after we have dealt with this dragon, Peottre will be more willing to share what he knows. Or perhaps we can arrange for a Six Duchies ship to come here, quietly, and take home what is ours. I felt his mental shrug. Whatever it is.

The cook-fire near our tent had burned down to a faded red eye in the night. I poked at it a bit, pushing in the last nub ends of the firewood, and woke a pale flame or two. There was lukewarm tea in my weary kettle and a scraping of porridge in the bottom of the pot. Riddle himself had gone, either to watch duty or to his own blankets. I crawled into the tent’s low entry and found my sea chest by touch in the dark. Thick was a shape huddled beneath blankets. I tried not to wake him as I rummaged for my cup. I was startled when he spoke into the darkness. ‘This is a bad place. I didn’t want to be here.’

Privately, I agreed with him. Aloud I said, ‘It seems wild and barren to me, but no worse than many a place I’ve been. None of us really wanted to come here. But we’ll make the best of it and do what we must.’

He coughed, and then said, ‘This is the worst place I’ve ever been. And you brought me here.’ He coughed again, and I could feel how weary he was of coughing.

‘Are you warm enough?’ I asked guiltily. ‘Do you want one of my blankets?’

‘I’m cold. I’m cold inside and outside, just like this place. The cold is eating me. The cold will eat us all to bones.’

‘I’m going to warm up the tea. Do you want some?’

‘Maybe. If there was honey?’

‘No.’ Then, I gave way to temptation. ‘There might be. Here’s my blanket. I’ll put the tea on to get warm again while I see if anyone has any honey.’

‘I suppose,’ he said dubiously.

I tucked the blanket around him. It was the closest we had been to one another in days. ‘I don’t like it when you’re angry at me, Thick. I didn’t want to come here, or to bring you here. It was just a thing we had to do. To help our prince.’

He made no reply and I sensed no lessening in his coldness toward me, but at least he didn’t strike out at me. I knew who might have honey. I left the tent and headed up the hill to where the larger tents for the Narcheska and the Prince had been pitched. Between them, and slightly above them, the Fool’s multicoloured dwelling billowed softly in the wind. Amid the deepening darkness, it seemed to gleam from within.

I hesitated outside it. The flap was tied securely shut. Once before, when I was a boy, I had entered the Fool’s private chambers uninvited. I had lived to regret that intrusion, not only because it posed more mysteries than it solved, but also because it had made a small crack in the trust we had shared. Without ever uttering them, the Fool had taught me well the rules that governed retaining his friendship. He answered only the questions he wished to answer about himself, and any prying by me was regarded as an infringement of his privacy. This included efforts by me to find out anything about him other than what he had chosen to tell me himself. And so, I paused there, in the wind sweeping past me from the island’s ice pack, and wondered if I wanted to take this chance. Were not there already too many cracks in our much-tested friendship?

Then I stooped, untied the door-flap and slipped inside.

The tent was made from a fabric I didn’t know, some sort of silk perhaps, but so tightly woven that no breath of air stirred inside it. The glow had come from a tiny brazier, set in a small pit dug in the floor of the chamber. The silk walls caught the heat it generated and held it well, while the light seemed multiplied by the sheen of the fabric. Even so, it was not bright inside the tent: rather it was lit warmly and intimately. A thin rug covered the rest of the floor, and a simple sleeping pallet of woollen blankets lay in one corner. To my wolf’s nose, it smelled of the Fool’s perfumes. In another corner was a small kit of clothing and a few significant items. I saw that he had brought the featherless Rooster Crown. Somehow it did not surprise me. The feathers from Others’ Island, the ones I had thought would fit in the crown, were in my sea-chest. Some things are too significant to leave unattended.

He had a meagre supply of foodstuffs and a single cooking pot: obviously he had relied on our arrival for his long-term survival. I saw no sort of weapon amongst his things; the only knives were ones suitable for cooking. I wondered what ship he had found that had dropped him off here, and why he had not supplied himself better. Among his victuals I found a small pot of honey. I took it.

There was no scrap of paper to leave him a note. All I had wanted to say to him was that I had not wanted him to come here to die, and that was why I had done what I could to thwart him. In the end, I moved the Rooster Crown into the middle of his bed. I turned the simple wooden circlet in my hands, the dim light catching for an instant in one rooster’s sparkling gem eye. The Fool would know that I had set it there, and why. I did not want him to think, even for a moment, that I had tried to conceal this visit. As I left, I re-tied the tent flap with my knots.

Thick had almost dozed off, but when I poured tea and added sweetening to it, he sat up to take the mug from me. I had been generous with the honey. He drank off half of it, and sighed heavily. ‘That’s better.’

‘Do you want more?’ It would leave little for me, but I wouldn’t lose any opportunity to regain his favour.

‘A little bit. Please.’

I sensed a lowering of the wall. ‘Give me your mug, then.’ As I poured and sweetened the brew, I said, ‘You know, Thick, I’ve missed us being friends. I’m really tired of your being angry with me.’

‘I am, too,’ he admitted as he took the mug from me. ‘And it’s harder than I thought it would be.’

‘Is it? Then why do it?’

‘To help Nettle be angry with you.’

‘Ah.’ I did not let myself dwell on that, but only commented, ‘She probably made it sound like a very good idea.’

‘Ya,’ he drawled sadly.

I nodded slowly. ‘But she’s all right, isn’t she? She’s not hurt or in danger?’

‘She’s angry. Cause she had to leave her home. Because of the dragon. So that was scary for her, and I told her, she could come here, because we’re going to cut a dragon’s head off. But she said, don’t worry; my Papa will kill the dragon for me. So, she’s safe.’

My head swam. It was definite then. The message bird had reached Buckkeep, and the Queen had acted swiftly to take Nettle into shelter. And someone – Kettricken or Burrich – had told her that she was my daughter. Why they had done it now or how they had phrased the words suddenly did not matter. Nettle knew. And she was angry with me, but had still found a way to send me a message through Thick that told me that she knew who I was, and that I had believed I had done what I did to protect her. All the things I felt seemed to conflict with one another. I wondered if she knew all of what I was, or only that there was another man who had fathered her, and by his bloodline exposed her to danger. Had anyone explained the Skill to her? Did she know I was Witted? I had wanted to tell her myself that I was her father, if I had ever decided that she must know. Would it have been easier for her, or harder? I did not know. There was so much I did not know, and so much that she did not know about me.

Then another aspect of it washed over me like a wave. If Nettle was in Buckkeep, and if she would open her mind to our Skilling, we could communicate with the Queen and tell her all that was going on. A strange little thrill washed through me. Prince Dutiful had a working coterie now.

I came out of my reverie when Thick handed the mug back to me. It was empty. ‘Are you a little warmer now?’ I asked him.

‘A little,’ he admitted.

‘So am I,’ I told him, but it had nothing to do with how cold the night was. There are moments that leave a man’s heart pumping so strong and free that no chill can touch him. I felt alive and completed, vindicated in all I had done. Thick huddled back into his bed, my blanket still clutched around his shoulders. I didn’t mind. I spoke cautiously. ‘If Nettle comes to your dreams tonight, will you tell her –’ That I love her. No. It was far too soon to say such words, and when I spoke them, she should hear them first from me. Now they would be empty utterances from a shadow father she had never met. No. ‘Will you tell her to let the Queen know we are all well, and safely arrived at the island?’ Deliberately I kept the message a general one. I had no assurance that the dragon Tintaglia could not listen in on what passed between Thick and Nettle.

‘Nettle doesn’t like the Queen. She is too nice, with lots of pretty skirts for Nettle and pretty smells and shiny things. She isn’t Nettle’s mother! But she makes her stay close and only lets her out with a guard. Nettle hates that. And she’s had enough of lessons, thank you very much!’

Despite my worries, I smiled. I did not like to think that Nettle would clash with Kettricken, but in retrospect I saw it as inevitable. It was the way Nettle’s words came out in Thick’s voice. And it was a relief that too many skirts and lessons were Nettle’s greatest threat right now. I felt almost fatuously happy despite all the ways it would complicate my life.

Thick was going to sleep but I wished to think a while longer. I went out to the dying fire, closing the tent-flap behind me. I scraped the left over porridge from the kettle and ate it. As last man to eat, it fell to me to clean the pot for tomorrow. I scrubbed it out with sand and sea-water and never once felt the cold water or the rough sand. My thoughts were elsewhere. Would Kettricken have put her in my old room? Did my daughter now wear the jewels and garb of a princess? I poured what was left of the tea into my cup and dumped out the dregs from the pot. But when I went to sweeten my brew, I could not find the pot of honey in the dark. So I drank it as it was, thick and bitter and delicious with the change that had visited my life that night.

FOURTEEN

The Black Man

Just as a Skill-coterie may use its talents to influence the waking mind of others and persuade their target that certain things are true, so a Skill-dreamer uses his Skill upon his own sleeping mind to create a world which is, to him, as real as our waking one. The Skill-dreamer in a sense turns the Skill against his own thoughts. Whereas most of us have no control over what we dream at night, the Skill-dreamer is more likely never to have experienced random dreams and may even have difficulty in perceiving what one would be like or that other people dream in such a fashion.

Skill-Dreaming by Skillmaster Solicity

I slept well, without dreams of any kind, and woke to the sound of the waves against the beach. Dawn had barely found us, but already both guardsmen and Hetgurd warriors were up and about. I splashed my face in the icy stream. The incoming tide had covered the carved dragon, but now that I knew it was there, I could feel it as a sort of Wit-humming from beneath the waves. I glanced out toward the anchored ships. I wanted to ask Web what he thought of the dragon, and yet I felt guilty at the thought. I hadn’t kept faith with him; I hadn’t come to allow him to teach me. Did I have the right to ask him to use his knowledge for my benefit, when I would not learn it for myself? I knew how I would react to Swift behaving so. I grimly reminded myself that there was only so much time in a day, and of late every moment in mine seemed to have been spoken for.

I checked on the tent where Thick slept on. Coward that I was, I decided to leave him in peace. I wandered over to the guards’ cook-fire where the porridge was just beginning to boil. Longwick had no immediate task for me. I glanced out at the anchored ships, but saw no signs of life there. They had probably stayed up late talking. I visited the quarry again. By the light of day, I thought I glimpsed bones and the round of a human skull under the rainwater, but the sides of the quarry were steep and I had no desire to investigate. Whatever had happened there had happened long ago. My own problems were more immediate. I drifted over to where the Hetgurd men had their tents. They were gathered outside them, and at first I thought they were having breakfast from a stone table. Then, as I ventured closer, I realized that the sporadic conversation was an ongoing argument. I halted where I was, making a show of scratching and stretching while gazing seaward. Then I went down on one knee as if adjusting my shoe, all the while listening closely. They were muttering their complaints to one another, so it was not easy to understand them. When I had heard enough to realize that they had left an offering for the Black Man at the traditional spot, on this stone table, and that it had not been taken, I stood up and ventured near.

With an oafish smile on my face and using my broadest Six Duchies accent, I asked them brokenly if they knew when the Narcheska’s party might come ashore. A broad man with a stylized bear on his cheek told me that they would arrive when they arrived. I nodded pleasantly with the slightly unfocused look of a man who is not certain of what has just been said to him. Then, nodding at the stone table, I asked what they were having for dinner. I took three steps toward it before two men stepped in between the table and me to block my access to it.

The Bear explained to me that this was not a meal, but an offering, and that I should probably go down to my own fellows and eat with them, as they had no use for beggars here. I peered at him, my mouth movements echoing his as if puzzling out his words, and then smiled broadly and wished them all a good day and left. I’d had my glimpse of the stone table. On it was a clay pot, a small loaf of dark bread and a dish of salted fish doused in oil. It had not looked appetizing, even to my morning hunger, and I scarcely blamed the Black Man for leaving it untouched. Their distress over this apparent rejection was interesting to me. From their words, they had expected some island denizen to come and stealthily take the offering. That he had not worried them. These were hardened warriors, selected by the Hetgurd to be single-minded in their task. Most warriors I had been around were pragmatic about matters of religion and superstition. They might make a ‘good luck’ toss of the salt, but only a few cared much for omens such as the wind catching it and blowing it aside. My evaluation was that these men had expected the Black Man to accept their gifts, and by that acceptance, signal his permission for them to be here. He had not, and that unsettled them. I wondered how much that would affect their attitude toward our quest?

As I walked back to my tent, I reflected that this belief of theirs indicated that in the past, someone or something had accepted such offerings. Was there someone actually living on the island; or was it, more likely, some creature like the robber-rat that Swift had wanted to befriend which had taken the food?

I found Thick waking. He seemed a trifle more kindly disposed toward me this day, and accepted my aid in getting himself warmly dressed. He had one coughing spell that left him red-cheeked and breathless. It troubled me more than I let show. Lingering coughs could take down large warriors, and Thick was neither big nor hearty. He had been battling this lung ailment too long, and now faced a time of living in a draughty tent in a chilly spring. But I said nothing of my worries to him as we walked over to the fire for our share of hot porridge and tea.

Riddle and the other guardsmen were in that bitter good-humour that is typical of men facing a difficult and perhaps unpleasant task. They traded crude jests, complained about the food and made disparaging remarks about our Hetgurd ‘nannies’. Longwick sat a little apart from us, and when the food was finished, found tasks to occupy the others. He had accepted that my duties for the Crown were supervising Thick, and offered me no other chores. So I took the little man for a walk. He had no comments on the quarry or the icy stream, no observations on the blue glacier crouching above us. But as I deliberately led him on a stroll along the beach and past the submerged dragon, he shook his head and told me solemnly, ‘This isn’t a good place.’ He looked around slowly and then added, ‘Bad things happened here. And it feels like it’s now.’

I would have liked to probe that comment, but he then lifted a stubby arm to point at the ships. ‘Here they come!’ he cried, and he was right. The small boats, laden with passengers, were headed toward the shore. We stood and watched them come. Peottre, Bloodblade and the Narcheska rode in one. Chade, the Prince, Civil, his cat and Web were in the second. The Fool, Swift and Cockle were in the last one. Cockle seemed in high spirits, explaining something with much hand-waving while Swift was grinning and obviously enjoying himself. I gave a small sigh and then smiled to myself. So swiftly had my Fool won them over with his charm. I wished he had not come; I feared his prophecies concerning himself. At the same time, I could not deny that I was glad he was here. I had missed him.

By the time the boats reached shore, Thick and I were not the only ones waiting for them. Riddle and one of the other guardsmen ran Peottre’s boat up beyond the waves’ reach. Longwick and I did the same for the Prince’s, and then the Fool’s. He disembarked without even a glance that would betray he knew me. By the time everyone stood on the sand, the Hetgurd men surrounded Arkon Bloodblade. They made no attempt to lower their voices as they explained to him that the Black Man had not accepted their offering. In light of that, they suggested we should all recognize that our mission here was deeply offensive to him. The Narcheska should change her mind and release the Prince from his task.

I had known they were upset. I didn’t realize it was that important to them, I added after I had Skilled to Chade and the Prince the morning’s event at the stone table. Neither one glanced at me as I relayed my information. They waited courteously, standing well back from the discussion around Bloodblade and Peottre. The Narcheska herself stood apart from the men, staring out over the water. She looked as if she were carved from stone: determination and resignation were etched into her face.

The Black Man discussion continued, but I was distracted from it by the Fool. He had approached, chatting amiably with Cockle and Swift. The layered black and white of his garments put me so in mind of him in the days when he had been King Shrewd’s jester that I felt my throat close. He glanced my way once, a mere flicker of his brandy eyes. Then I saw his attention snag on the conversation the Hetgurd guard was having with Peottre and Bloodblade. It was like watching a hunting dog stiffen to a scent. He focused himself on them and drew near, careless of whether it would be seen as rude.

The conversation had become an argument, and the Out Island tongue they used had become so swift and guttural with anger that I could scarcely follow it. Peottre stepped back from the group and crossed his arms on his chest. He turned his head sideways and looked away from them, but as he did so, he clapped one hand loudly on his sword scabbard. It was not a gesture that would have been used in the Six Duchies, but its meaning was still plain to me. If anyone wished to argue further with him, they’d argue blade to blade. The circle of Hetgurd men turned their eyes away from him, plainly rejecting the challenge. Instead, they closed around Bloodblade, who gestured wide his helplessness and then flapped an arm at his daughter, shrugging as if to say that the ways of all women were beyond any man’s reasoning. That seemed to settle something.

The Hetgurd man with the bear tattoo stepped away from the others and advanced to the Narcheska. She did not look at him as he came though I am sure she was aware of him. Instead she looked out over the waters, past the ship to the horizon. The wind blew past her, stirring the edges of the hooded blue cloak she wore and tugging at her embroidered skirts. It lifted them enough to reveal her sealskin boots and the wool leggings tucked into them. She ignored the breeze’s liberty as easily as she ignored the waiting Bear. He cleared his throat, but was forced to speak before she turned to him.

‘Narcheska Elliania, I would have a word with you.’

Even when she turned to look at him, her look was the only acknowledgement she gave him. He accepted it as permission to speak to her. His words were clear and formal, and I think he intended that all should hear and understand them. The Owl drew closer to them as they spoke, probably to witness their words for posterity. Bards do not believe in privacy.

‘I am sure that you heard us speaking just now. But I shall state it plainly. Last night, we left out the offering for the Black Man, as is customary when visiting this place, for any reason. This morning it remained on the stone table, untouched. Long has it been said that no man can buy the Black Man’s approval with gifts, but when he takes them, he gives you permission to risk your life here. This morning, we knew that he did not even cede that much to us. Narcheska, we have come here with you, knowing already that the challenge you gave your suitor was inappropriate. You did not listen to us. Will you pay attention now to what the Black Man himself has shown us? We are not welcome here. Many of us expected him to be angry with you. We did not expect he would withhold his permission even from those who come to see that your challenge to the dragon is a fair one. You place not just your husband and yourself in danger, but all who are here. And should you achieve your end, we now fear that the displeasure of the gods will fall, not just on you, but on all who witness the deed.’

I saw her blink, and perhaps the colour in her cheeks heightened. Only her stillness proclaimed that she listened to him as she stared into the distance. He spoke on more quietly but his words carried clearly. ‘Withdraw the challenge, Narcheska. Replace it, if you wish, with one more fitting. Demand a whale’s spear from him, or the teeth of a bear, killed by him alone. Pit him against any creature that is right and proper for a man to hunt, but let us all leave this island and the dragon it protects. Icefyre is not for a man to kill, Narcheska. Not even for love of you.’

I thought he would convince her, right up to his last words. But they were uttered with such disdain that even I felt the sting of them. She did not turn her eyes toward him as she spoke. ‘My challenge stands.’ She spoke those words to the sea. But then she turned to face Dutiful and added, ‘Because it must. For the honour of Narwhal Clan.’

She spoke the last words almost as if they were an apology, as if she regretted them but had to say them anyway. Dutiful gave a single slow nod, an acceptance of the challenge and her assertion that it must stand. It was an act of faith between them, and I think I perceived then what Chade seemed to have known for some time; that if those two could learn to go in harness, they would be a powerful pair.

The Bear clenched his fists at his side, and thrust out his jaw. The Owl nodded jerkily to himself, as if to fix the moment in his memory.

The Narcheska turned to Peottre and said, ‘Should not we be preparing to leave now? It is a long and arduous journey, I am told, to where the dragon is under the ice.’

Peottre nodded gravely. ‘As soon as we have bidden your father farewell.’

To me, it sounded like a dismissal; yet Arkon Bloodblade did not seem insulted, but relieved. ‘We must sail with this tide,’ he agreed.

‘Witness!’ the Bear shouted angrily. All turned to his cry. ‘Witness that if we die here, we who have come at the Hetgurd’s request, witness that if we die here, then Clan Narwhal and Clan Boar owe our mothershouses blood-gold. For we are not here by our choice, nor do we seek this conflict. If we fall to the gods’ displeasure, then do not let our families cry in vain for justice.’

A silence fell after his words. Then, ‘Witness,’ Peottre conceded gruffly, and ‘Witness,’ Arkon Bloodblade echoed him.

I sensed an Out Island custom with which I was not familiar. Chade seemed aware of my confusion. I felt his uneasiness as he told me, He has bound them both. Whatever disgrace or bad luck may come from our actions here will belong to the Boar and the Narwhal clans. The Bear has claimed everyone here as a witness to this.

It seemed to me that the Bear was almost discomfited by how easily Peottre and Bloodblade had accepted his gambit. He clenched his fists several times, but when no one deigned to notice that, he turned and walked away from them. The Owl followed him. I suspected that they had expected a challenge that they could have settled with swords or fists, and that their concession had actually forced him and the other Hetgurd companions to proceed with their mission.

The process of bidding farewell to the Narcheska’s father proceeded grudgingly after that. The formal farewells involved the Hetgurd men, Chade, the Prince, Peottre and the Narcheska. The rest of us were left standing as informal witnesses. Thick was wandering idly about on the beach, overturning rocks and poking at the tiny crabs he disturbed there. I pretended to be manoeuvring to keep an eye on him as I edged closer and closer to the Fool. He appeared to be aware of my efforts, for he walked a little apart from Swift and Cockle. When I stood within hearing distance of a soft word, I said quietly, ‘So. Despite all my efforts, you contrived to get here. How did you do it?’

Although we are of a height, he still somehow managed to look down coolly on me. There was stillness in his face that bespoke a great anger. I thought he was not going to reply to me. Then, ‘I flew,’ he said coldly. He stood, not looking at me, breathing quietly. I felt somewhat encouraged that he had not stalked away but wondered if that was merely because he did not wish to call attention to our speaking. I ignored his mockery of my question.

‘How can you be angry at me? You know why I did it. You said that if you came here you would die here. So I arranged that you would not come here.’

For a time, he was silent. We both watched Arkon Bloodblade pushed off in a small boat. Two of his Boar warriors took the oars and leaned into them heartily. Their expressions proclaimed that they were happy to be leaving this island. The Fool gave me a sideways glance. His eyes had darkened to the colour of strong tea in a glass. Clean of powder and paint, his face was a smooth golden brown. ‘You should have respected that I knew what I had to do,’ he rebuked me.

‘If you knew that I was going to my death, would not you try to stop me?’

It was the wrong question to ask him, and I knew that almost as soon as I had asked it. He stared out at the ship in the harbour where sailors laboured with the anchor chain and the sails and spoke in a low voice, his lips scarcely moving. ‘On the contrary. Many times I have known that faith or your own stubbornness would endanger your life, but I have always respected your decisions to do so.’

Then he turned and walked slowly away from me. Swift sent me an odd glance, then hurried off to follow him. I noticed Civil looking after them with an expression of distaste. I heard the crunch of footsteps on beach gravel, and turned to find Web approaching me. It was hard for me to meet his eyes. I still felt oddly guilty, as if I had insulted him by refusing his offer of lessons. If he felt anything of the kind, he concealed it well. He gestured after the Fool and Swift with his chin. ‘You know him, don’t you?’

‘Of course.’ The question surprised me. ‘He’s Lord Golden, from Buckkeep. Didn’t you recognize him?’

‘No, I didn’t. Not at first. It wasn’t until Lord Chade called him Lord Golden that I perceived any similarity. But even when I was told his name, I felt that I did not truly know him at all. Yet I think that you do. He is an odd creature. Can you sense him?’

I knew what he meant. The Fool had never left any impression on my Wit-sense. ‘No. And he has no scent.’

‘Ah.’ That was all he said, but I suspected that I had given him much to ponder.

I looked down at my feet on the gravelly sand. ‘Web. I’m sorry. I keep intending to find time to spend with you, but I never seem to manage it. It isn’t that I’m not interested, or that I disdain what you have to teach. It just seems that so many things come between me and what I would like to be doing.’

‘Like now,’ he replied with a grin. He raised his eyebrows and looked at Thick. The little man was hunkered down beside a piece of driftwood that he had overturned. His attention on the sand fleas and small crabs he had exposed was so intense that he was ignoring the waves that were nearly lapping about his feet. If I didn’t intervene soon, he would have wet shoes and spend the rest of the day in misery. I exchanged an understanding glance with Web, and hurried down the beach toward my charge.

Even before the ship was out of sight, Longwick was issuing orders to his men. With the casual precision of the veteran soldier, he set them to breaking up our provisions into manageable loads. From the number of packs he was preparing, it was obvious he expected all to share in the task of transporting our goods to our next campsite. Thick had left off poking about on the beach and now sat disconsolately in the door of our tent, a blanket draped around his shoulders. The day was not truly that cold. I wondered anxiously if he were starting to burn with fever again. I went to confer with Longwick.

‘How far do we expect to journey today?’ I tilted my head toward Thick to explain my concern to him.

Longwick followed my gesture and scowled worriedly at my concern. ‘I’ve been told it’s a three-day journey to where the dragon is trapped in the ice. But I’m sure you know that such measurements of distance mean nothing. A one-day journey for a seasoned traveller with a light pack can be a three-day trek for a courtier with a full load.’ He lifted his eyes to scan the clear skies and then the icy peaks of the island speculatively. ‘It’s not going to be a pleasant journey for any of us,’ he opined. ‘It’s always winter when you’re crossing a glacier.’

I thanked him and left. The other men had moved to strike their tents, but Thick had not budged from ours. I tried to put on a pleasant expression, but my heart sank at the thought of the task before me. If he had hated me for putting him onto a ship, how was he going to feel about me after I had dragged him on a hike across a glacier? ‘Time to pack up, Thick,’ I informed him cheerfully.

‘Why?’

‘Well, if we’re going to slay the dragon, we have to go to where the dragon is.’

‘I don’t want to slay the dragon.’

‘Well, we won’t actually be the ones to slay the dragon. That will be up to the Prince. We’ll just be there to help him.’

‘I don’t want to go-oo.’ He dragged the word out mournfully. But to my relief, he stood and stepped out of the tent as if expecting me to take it down immediately.

‘I know, Thick. I don’t want to go hiking through all that snow and ice either. But we have to. We’re King’s Men, and that is what we do. Now, before we take down the tent, we both have to dress more warmly. Shall we do that?’

‘We don’t have a king.’

‘Prince Dutiful will be king some day. And when he is, we’ll still be his. So, we are King’s Men, even now. But you can say you’re a Prince’s Man if you like that better.’

‘I don’t like snow and ice.’ Grudgingly, he moved back into the tent and looked about it helplessly.

‘I’ll get out your things,’ I assured him, and proceeded to do so. I’ve been many things in my days, and serving as valet to the little man did not strike me as so strange as it might have at one time. I laid out his clothes and then stuffed him into them. It was like dressing a large child. He complained of his sleeves dragging up inside the second shirt I put on him, and then his boots were too tight with the extra stockings. By the time I had him dressed, I felt sweaty and smothered myself. I sent him outside, warning him to stay away from the water, as I added a layer to my own clothes and then repacked my and Thick’s belongings.

I had to smile when I realized that I was dreading the hike because of the way the cold always made my scars ache. Because of my recent Skill-healing, I had no scars now, I reminded myself; at least not the bone and muscle deep ones that seemed to twist pain deep into me. Those had been replaced with superficial markings on my skin to pretend they were still there. I rolled my shoulders, proving to myself that my flesh no longer pulled against a deep scar in my back. It was a good feeling, and I found myself grinning as I dragged our packed gear out of the tent and then dismantled the tent itself.

I hauled our things to where Longwick was supervising the parcelling out of packs. A single small tent was still pitched there. The commander had decided to establish a cache of supplies here on the beach, and was discussing with Chade whether he should leave one or two men to guard it. Chade wanted to leave only one, in order to have a larger force with us. Longwick was courteously but stubbornly holding out for two. ‘For there is an unsettling feel to this island, sir. And we both know that guardsmen are prone to superstition. The Hetgurd men have been telling tales of a Black Man, and now my own men are muttering that, yes, they might have glimpsed a mysterious shadow lurking at the edge of the camp last night. A man alone would be prey to such thoughts. Two will play dice and talk and keep a better eye on our supplies.’

In the end, Longwick won his point and Chade conceded to leaving two men behind. Churry and Drub would remain with our cache. That settled, Chade turned to me and asked, ‘Is the Prince’s Man Thick ready for the journey, Badgerlock?’

‘As ready as I could make him, Lord Chade.’ But he’s not happy about it.

Are any of us? ‘Excellent. I’ve a few extra items that we shall want when we reach the dragon. Longwick has divided them for easier carrying.’

‘As you will, Lord Chade.’ I bowed to him. He hurried off as Longwick issued me a small cask of Chade’s explosive powder to add to my pack. I groaned to myself, for it proved heavier than I had expected. We were taking only two of them with us. The other one had been entrusted to Riddle’s load. The rest would remain with our cached supplies.

One man would have been ready to leave shortly after Bloodblade’s ship had sailed. But when one readies a company of men to travel anywhere, it is a different tale. The sun had reached noon before we were all packed and assembled. I noticed that the Fool struck his elaborate pavilion rapidly, with no help from anyone. Whatever it was made from, it packed down to an amazingly small load. He shouldered it all himself, and I would have been surprised, save that I had always known that he was much stronger than his slight frame would suggest.

He moved amongst us but was not a part of either party. The Hetgurd men regarded him with the wariness that many warriors reserve for the God-touched. They did not disdain him, but felt it wiser neither to notice nor be noticed by him. The other guardsmen seemed to feel he was no business of theirs, and certainly did not want to be recruited to help carry his possessions or otherwise serve him. Cockle watched him curiously from afar, scenting a story but not strongly enough to be drawn in yet. Only Swift seemed uninhibitedly fascinated by the Fool. He dropped his own pack to the ground and perched on it while he chattered away at him. The Fool has ever had a clever way of talking, and Swift’s ready laughter seemed to feed his wit. Web watched the two interact with something like approval on his face. It was only then that it dawned on me that this was the first time Swift had shown an easy friendliness toward anyone. I wondered how the Fool had melted his reserve, even as I noticed Civil regarding them with distaste. When Civil glanced up to find my eyes on him, he looked away, but I could sense his uneasiness bubbling just under the surface. I wondered if I could find a way to have a quiet word with him and calm his fears. Plainly he recalled his first impression of Lord Golden when we had guested at his home. It was easy to divine his worries now: he thought that the Fool was easing the lad toward seduction. I wanted to intervene before Civil muttered a word of that suspicion to anyone for I suspected the Outislanders would be far less than tolerant of such behaviour, God-touched or not.

Longwick distributed metal-shod walking staves to all of us, an item I would never have thought of packing. But it soon became apparent that Peottre was the real source of this equipment when Chade summoned all of us to listen to him before we left the beach.

Both he and the Narcheska were as heavily burdened as any among us. She waited alongside three sleds, also provided by Blackwater, which were already loaded with much of our supplies. Her long outer coat was all of snowy white fox. She wore a bright little cap, woven of many colours, and her glory of black hair was tucked completely out of sight under it. Her loose boots were soled with scraped walrus-hide and the tops were of deerskin with the hair left on. Leather bindings laced them around her legs to the knee. But for the solemn look on her face, she looked as if she had been prepared as a snow-bride. Peottre was bulky as he lumbered beside her in black wolf and bearskin trousers. More than any Witted one I had ever known, he looked like a shape-changer out of a beast-tale. His many layers of clothing had enlarged him to an almost laughable size. Yet all were solemn as he spoke to us, anxious to catch every word.

‘I know where the dragon sleeps,’ he said. ‘I have been there before. Yet, even so, it will be difficult for me to lead you there. On a glacier, knowing where something is does not mean I know the way to it. Glaciers are not like stone and earth, that remain the same year after year, and the glacier we shall cross here is among the most restless in the world. Glaciers sleep and they walk, they groan to wakefulness, cracking wide their yawns. And then they sleep, and the blowing snow bridges over the gaping crevasses, hiding their danger from all but the most wary walker.

‘To fall into one is little different from being swallowed by a snow demon. Down you will go into darkness, and that is an end of you. We will mourn you, but we will go on.’

His eyes passed slowly over all of us as he said this, and I was not the only man who suppressed a shiver.

‘Follow me,’ Peottre went on. ‘Not just in where I go, but in my very tread. And even then, do not trust the ice beneath you. Once we venture out onto the glacier’s face, probe every step you take. One man, two men, three men may pass safely right in front of you, and then the crust may betray you. Probe ahead with your staff, before every step you take. You will grow weary of doing this. But stop doing it only if you have also grown weary of your life.’ Again, his measuring glance passed over all of us. Again he nodded. Then he said, ‘Follow me.’

And with no more ado, he turned and led us up the beach. The Narcheska fell in right behind him. Behind her went the Prince and then Chade. Lord Golden claimed the next spot and no one challenged him for it. Then went the Wit-coterie, entrusted with one sled and the Hetgurd witnesses and finally Longwick and Hest, pulling the second sled and Deft and Riddle pulling the third. I came second to last, with Thick stumping stolidly along behind me. I had shifted part of his pack’s load to mine, but left him enough of a burden not to hurt his pride. I soon regretted it, and vowed that on the morrow he would walk unencumbered. Even in the best of times, his stubby legs and wide girth would have made this trek difficult for him. Burdened with both a pack and a nagging cough, he simply could not keep the pace Peottre set. By the time we reached the lip of the glacier, there was a gap between the main party and the two of us. The diligent probing of each step began, and I thought that would slow them enough that we would catch up. I had not taken into account that Thick had taken Peottre’s warnings deeply to heart. He prodded the ice before him at every step as if he were spearing fish. He was soon panting with the effort, but my offers to probe for both of us were stoutly refused.

‘I don’t want to be swallowed by an ice demon,’ he told me sulkily.

Can you see our path? Dutiful Skilled back to me.

Very clearly. Don’t be concerned for us. If we need you to wait for us, I’ll let you know. At least all the probing Thick is doing is keeping him warm.

Too warm. Too much work! Thick complained.

‘Just tap with the stave. You don’t have to stab the ground.’

‘Yes, I do,’ Thick refuted my words. I decided that words were futile and let him do as he wished, though it taxed my patience to dawdle along in front of him at a pace he could match. It bored me, and gave me far too much time to ponder our situation. I did not like how events were unfolding, and yet I could not say precisely what bothered me. Perhaps it was as Thick had said: bad things had happened in this place, and it felt like they were happening now.

The wind was a constant, but the skies were clear and blue. At intervals, I saw old rods poking out of the snow, some tied with scraps of bright fabric. I judged that they marked the path that Peottre followed. He often paused to straighten one, or to attach a fresh ribbon-banner. Even so, the advance party went more swiftly than Thick and me. I watched them draw away from us and grow smaller until they had dwindled to little puppets doing an odd poking dance in a line as they ventured across the icefield. Our shadows slowly became longer and thinner, pale blue on the crystallized ice and snow. The surface we walked across did not seem like either true ice or true snow to me. There was a thin layer of real snow, but beneath that were compacted darning needles of ice and we walked upon their tips.

At some point, I realized that I had resolved I would find time to speak with the Fool that evening, and to the winds with whatever anyone else might think of it. Almost on the heels of that thought, I felt a thin tendril of Skill from Chade. Quietly and privately he asked me, Lad, are you still mine?

He should have been proud of the answer I gave him. I am sure he could not have come up with a better one on such short notice. As much as I ever was, I replied.

I felt his grim chuckle in my mind. Ah. Well, at least you do not lie to me. What did he say to you?

The Fool?

Who else?

We only spoke of why I had tried to leave him behind. To preserve his life. I gathered that he did not think that a sufficient reason.

He probably thought I put you up to it, to keep him clear of the dragon until it’s unearthed and beheaded. A pause. The Narcheska weeps as she walks. She has not looked back at us to betray the tears on her cheeks, but I hear it in how she breathes. Twice she has wiped her face with her mitten, and then loudly spoken of how the light off the ice makes her eyes water. Think this through with me, Fitz. Why would she weep?

I don’t know. The hike is arduous, but she did not strike me as a woman who would weep over heavy work. Perhaps she fears the disapproval of the Black Man, or fears that she has put her family and her father’s family into disfavour with the Hetgurd by –

Hush! Thick’s irritated Skilling cut through my thoughts. She is sad, so she cries. Now stop being loud and listen! Listen and stop breaking the music!

Chade and I instantly muffled our thoughts. Both of us had believed our Skilling was small and private. I was sure that he now wondered, just as I did, if the Prince had been aware of our conversation. Then I wondered why Chade had been keeping it private from him. I trudged on, watching the ever-dwindling figures of Peottre’s group. They were headed over the lip of a wind-sculpted ridge and would soon be out of sight. Peottre had spoken truth about the restlessness of this ice. Some stretches were swept as smooth as a sugar topped cake; others looked like the same cake after it had been dropped. The trail in the snow was plain now, but I knew that as the sun sank, uneven shadows might make it more difficult to follow them. I glanced back at Thick in annoyance. He was walking more slowly than ever.

Irritated as much by his command that we hush as by his slowness, I turned my back on him and walked briskly away. I did not neglect however to probe the snow before me at every step. I thought he would look up and realize that I was leaving him behind. But when I glanced back, he was still strolling ponderously along. I stared back at him in exasperation, and then something in his movements caught my eye. It was like a dance. He would probe the snow with his staff, prod, prod, prod, and then take a single large swaying step. Again he would probe the snow, prod, prod, prod, and then stride forward again on the other foot. I lowered my barriers to hear his ever-present music. Usually, I could recognize the elements that he incorporated into it. But today each step was made in time to a sighing sweep like wind, while the prod, prod, prod of his staff kept time to a deep and steady percussion. I sealed myself from his music, and listened with my ears, but could find no parallel sounds on this island.

While I had paused, Thick had nearly caught up to me. He looked up from his scrutiny of the snow before his feet to find me watching him. He scowled at me, and then glanced past me. His frown deepened. ‘They’re gone! Why weren’t you watching them? Now they’re gone, and we don’t know where they went!’

‘It’s all right, Thick,’ I told him. ‘I can still see their trail. And see, there’s a rod with a rag on it at the top of the rise. We’ll catch up to them. But only if we hurry.’ I tried not to betray my worry that night was coming on and the shadows deepening. I did not want to be caught out on the face of the glacier, alone.

He lifted his stubby arm suddenly, to point jabbingly at the ridge. ‘Look! It’s all right! There’s one of them!’

My gaze followed his pointing finger, suspecting that the Prince had sent someone back to stand upon the ridge and guide us. Thick was right. There was someone there. But even at that distance, and in the fading light, I knew he was not one of our party. He moved swiftly and oddly, yet in a way that I could not pinpoint, his gait was familiar. I saw no more of him than his silhouette as he hastened over the ridge. Then he was gone. I felt cold dread creep through my blood. I Skilled my frantic thought to Chade and Dutiful. The Black Man! I think the Black Man is following you!

An instant later, I regretted my panic. Dutiful could not conceal his amusement. There’s no one behind us that I can see, Fitz. Only snow and shadows. Are you nearly to the top of the ridge?

We haven’t even begun to climb it yet. Thick is distracted and moving slowly.

Not distracted! Again, I was jolted by how easily Thick had picked up thoughts I had not intended for him. Listening to the music, that’s all. Except that you keep breaking it.

Chade’s Skilling was like oil on water. I’ve asked Peottre if we’ll be stopping for the night soon and he says we will. Once you crest the ridge, you should see us easily. He has already pointed out our campsite to me. As there is no sort of shelter at all, you won’t have any difficulty spotting our cook-fires.

Cook-fires? Food soon?

Yes, Thick, food soon. Probably almost as soon as you get here. I’ve brought some sweets with me from the ship. I’ll share them with you, if you get here before I’ve eaten them all.

I had to admire Dutiful’s cunning, even as I shook my head at it. It distracted Thick from his ‘music’ and he even consented to following in my footsteps and letting me do the snow probing. I thought that Peottre’s caution was a bit exaggerated anyway. Surely if the entire party had already passed over a section of glacier, it would withstand one more crossing. And that proved to be true. We climbed the ridge in their tracks, stopping several times to allow Thick to finish coughing and catch his breath.

When we crested the ridge, I could instantly see their campsite below. The snow staves were posted at intervals around it, with bright ribbons attached to the tops. Evidently Peottre had established what he considered a safe area for the party. The larger tents for the Prince and Narcheska had already sprung up like mushrooms. In the dimming light, the Fool’s colourful one was like a blossom cast on the snow. Illuminated from within, the bright panels gleamed like stained-glass windows. What had seemed random designs suddenly resolved into dragons and serpents cavorting. Well, he had declared his allegiance clearly.

There were two small campfires for the drab tents of the rest of our group. The Hetgurd men had pitched their tents a little away from ours, and kindled their own tiny fire, as it to proclaim to the gods that they were not of our party and did not deserve to share our fate.

I saw no sign of the Black Man, or any place where he might have hidden. Yet this did not dismiss my concerns but only heightened them.

As we made out way down to the camp, we encountered our first fissure in the glacier. It was a narrow, snaking crack, no more than that, and I simply stepped over it. Thick halted, staring down at the depths that shaded from pale blue to black. ‘Come on,’ I encouraged him. ‘It’s not far to camp. I think I can smell the food they’re cooking.’

‘That’s deep.’ He lifted his eyes from his contemplation of it. ‘Peottre was right. It could swallow me and gulp me down, snap!’ He stepped back from it.

‘No, it can’t. It’s all right, Thick. It’s not something alive; it’s just a crack in the ice. Come on.’

He took a deep breath, and then coughed. When he was finished, he said, ‘No. I’m going back.’

‘You can’t, Thick. It will be dark soon. It’s only a crack. Just step over it.’

‘No.’ He shook his head on his short neck, his chin brushing his collar. ‘It’s dangerous.’

In the end, I stepped back over it and took his hand to persuade him to cross. I nearly slipped and fell when his awkward and exaggerated leap over it took me off-guard in mid-stride. As I tottered, for one breathless moment I imagined myself wedged in the crack, out of reach of helping hands and yet preserved from slipping further. Thick sensed my fear and comforted me with, ‘See, I told you it was dangerous. You nearly fell in and died.’

‘Let’s just go down to the camp,’ I suggested.

As promised, they had hot food waiting for us. Riddle and Hest had finished eating already. They were conversing quietly with Longwick as he directed a watch schedule for the night. I settled Thick on top of my pack beside the fire and fetched food that Deft ladled out for both of us. Supper was a stew made from salt meat, and it suffered from that, as well as a too-brief cooking time. I grinned briefly at myself as I pondered how swiftly I had once again become accustomed to Buckkeep’s succulent fare. Had I forgotten how to subsist on a guard’s rations? There had been times in my life when I’d had far worse to eat at the end of a long, cold day, or nothing at all. I took another bite. That thought should have made the tough meat taste better, but it didn’t. I glanced surreptitiously at Thick, expecting he would soon complain about it. But he was staring at the fire wearily, his bowl balanced precariously on his knee. ‘You should eat, Thick,’ I reminded him, and he startled as if from a dream. I caught the bowl before it tipped enough to spill and handed it back to him. He ate, but wearily, not showing any of his usual enthusiasm for food, and stopping often to cough. It worried me. I finished my food hastily and rose, leaving Thick watching the dwindling flames of the small fire and chewing methodically.

Chade and Dutiful were at the other campfire with the rest of Dutiful’s Wit-coterie. There was talk there, and even some laughter, and for a moment I envied their companionship. It took me a moment to realize that the Fool was not there. And then I noticed the other absence. Peottre and the Narcheska were also missing from the gathering. I glanced at the tent pitched for them. It was dark and still. Did they sleep already? Well, perhaps that was the best idea. Doubtless Peottre would rouse us all early to travel on.

I think Chade noticed me standing idly at the edges of the firelight. He left the circle of light as if going to relieve himself and I followed noiselessly. I stood beside him in the blackness and spoke quietly. ‘I’m concerned about Thick. He seems oddly distracted. From one moment to the next, his temper changes from irritable to frightened to elated.’

Chade nodded slowly. ‘There is something about this island … I have no name for it, and yet it tugs at me. I feel dread and worry beyond what I should feel, and then the feelings go. This land seems to speak to me through my Skill. And if it can reach one as feeble as me in that talent, how must it speak to Thick?’

I heard bitterness in the self-deprecation of his magic. ‘You grow stronger in the Skill every day,’ I assured him. ‘But I think perhaps you are right. I’ve felt nameless worry nibbling at me all day. Such, at times, is my nature. But this does seem more formless than usual. Could it have anything to do with the memories trapped in the stone?’

He made a sound of resignation. ‘How could we possibly know? All we can do for Thick is see that he eats and sleeps well at night.’

‘He is growing stronger in the Skill.’

‘I’ve noticed that. It makes my own paltry ability seem all the more meagre.’

‘Time, Chade. It will come with time and patience. You’re doing well, for someone who began so late and has not been long in training.’

‘Time. Time is the only thing we have, when all is said and done, and yet we never have enough of it. You can be calm about it; you’ve had as much of magic as you’ve ever wanted, and more, all your life. While I’ve had to claw and scratch for a tiny shred of it at the end of my days. Where is the justice of fate, when a half-wit has in abundance and values not at all that which I so desperately lack?’ He turned on me. ‘Why did you always have so much Skill, bursts of it, and never wanted with your whole heart to master it as I have longed to do all my life?’

He was starting to frighten me. ‘Chade. I think this place preys on our minds, finding both our fears and our despairs. Set your walls against it, and trust only your logic’

‘Humph. I have never been prey to my emotions. But this time would be better spent in rest than in talk, by either of us. Care for Thick as best you can. I’ll watch over the Prince. He, too, seems prey to a darker mood than is usual for him.’ He rubbed his gloved hands together. ‘I’m old, Fitz. Old. And tired. And cold. I shall be glad when all of this is over and we are safely on our way home again.’

‘And I,’ I agreed heartily. ‘But I had another bit of news I wished to share with you. Odd, isn’t it? Once I thought Skilling was private and secretive. Yet, still I must seek you out to whisper to you. I don’t think Thick is ready for me to ask this favour of him. He still resents and blames me. It might come better from you or the Prince.’

‘What?’ Chade demanded impatiently. He shifted restlessly and I knew the cold was biting his skinny old bones.

‘Nettle has gone to Buckkeep Castle. I think our bird must have reached the Queen and she sent someone to Burrich. She’s gone to the castle for safety’s sake. And she knows that the threat to her is connected to our quest for the dragon’s head.’ I could not quite bring myself to tell Chade that she now knew I was her father. I wanted to be clear on just how much Burrich had told her before that secret ceased being a secret.

Chade grasped the implications immediately. ‘And Thick speaks to Nettle in his dreams. We can communicate with Buckkeep and the Queen.’

‘Almost. I think we need to approach it cautiously. Thick is still not pleased with me, and might make mischief if he knew it would upset me. And Nettle is angry with me, also. I cannot reach her directly, and I don’t know how much heed she would give to messages from me that went through Thick.’

He gave a disgruntled noise. ‘Too late you fall in with my plans for her. Fitz, I do not relish rebuking you. But if you had allowed us to bring Nettle in as soon as we knew her potential, she would never have been in danger. Nor would quarrels between you and her have crippled us in this way. Either the Prince or I could reach her instead of you, if she had been properly prepared to use her magic. We could have had communication with Buckkeep Castle all this time.’

It was childish of me. I pointed it out anyway. ‘You would probably have brought her here with us, for the sake of mustering strength for the Prince.’

He sighed, as if confronting a stubborn pupil who refused to concede a point. Which he was, I suppose. ‘As you will have it, Fitz. But, I beg you, do not charge into this development like a bull harried by bees. Let her settle at Buckkeep for a few days, while the Prince and I consult on how much she should know of who she is and how best to approach her through Thick. It may require some preparation of Thick as well.’

Relief flowed through me. I had feared that Chade would be the one to charge in like a bull. ‘I will do as you say. Go slowly.’

‘There’s a good lad,’ Chade replied absently. I knew that his thoughts had already wandered afar to how these new playing pieces could be deployed on the game board.

And so we parted for the night.

FIFTEEN

Civil

Hoquin was the White Prophet and Wild-eye his Catalyst in the years that Sardus Chif held power in the Edge Lands. Famine had ruled there even longer than Sardus Chif, and some said it was a punishment on the land because Sardus Prex, mother of Sardus Chif, had burned every sacred grove in wild mourning and fury at the Leaf God when her consort, Slevm, died of pox. Since then, the rains had all but ceased, and that was because there were no sacred leaves for the rains to wash. For the rains only fall for holy duty, not to slake the thirst of men or their children.

Hoquin believed that his call as White Prophet was to restore the fertility of the Edge Lands, and he believed that to do this, water must come. So he made his Catalyst to study water and how it might be brought to the Edge Lands, from deep wells or dug canals or prayers and offerings for rainfall. Often he asked her what she would change to bring water to her people’s lands, but never did she have an answer to please him.

Wild-eye had no care for water. She had been born in the dry years and lived in the dry years and knew only the dry years and their ways. What she cared for were thippi-fruits, the little soft-fleshed many-seeded pomes that grow low to the earth in the shelter of the claw brambles in the ravines of the foothills. When she was supposed to be at her chores, she would slip away up to the foothills and go to the bramble thickets, returning with her skirts and hair thick with claw seed and her mouth purple from thippi-fruit. This angered Hoquin the White, and often he beat her for her inattention to her duties.

Then, around their cottage, where had been only dusty earth, the claw brambles began to grow. Their tangling thorns sheltered the soil from the sun and beneath them came in the thippi-fruit vines. In the season when the thippi-fruit died back, grey grass grew, and rabbits came to live beneath the brambles and eat the greygrass. Then Wild-eye caught and cooked the rabbits for the White Prophet.

Scribe Cateren, of the White Prophet Hoquin

Despite Chade’s suggestion, I did not go immediately to my blankets. I returned to the fire, where Thick sat staring at the remaining embers and shivering as the cold of the glacier crept up into him. I rousted him from there and saw him off to bed in the tent we would share with Riddle and Hest. The tight quarters were welcome for the body warmth that would be shared. He settled in, gave a huge sigh that ended in a coughing fit, then sighed again and dropped into sleep. I wondered if he would be conversing with Nettle tonight. Perhaps in the morning I’d have the courage to ask him. For now, I’d be content knowing she was safe at Buckkeep.

I left the tent and went out under the stars. The fires had died out almost completely. Longwick would keep a few coals going in a firepot but we didn’t have enough fuel to keep them burning constantly. There was a dim light from Dutiful’s tent; probably a small lantern still burned in there. The Fool’s tent was likewise illuminated, glowing like a jewel in the night. I walked quietly over the snow to it.

I halted outside it when I heard soft voices from within. I could not make out the words, but I recognized the speakers. Swift said something, and the Fool replied teasingly. The boy chuckled. It sounded peaceful and friendly. I felt a strange twinge of exclusion, and almost retreated to my tent. Then I rebuked myself for jealousy. So the Fool had befriended the boy. Very likely, it was the best thing that could happen to Swift. As I could not knock to announce myself, I cleared my throat loudly, and then stooped to lift the tent flap. A slice of light fell on the snow. ‘May I come in?’

There was the tiniest of pauses, and then, ‘If you wish. Try to leave the snow and ice outside.’

He knew me too well. I brushed the damp snow from my leggings, and then shook it from my feet. Crouching, I entered and let the tent flap fall closed behind me.

The Fool had always had the unique talent of creating a small world for himself when he wished to retreat. The tent was no exception. When I had visited it before, it had been charming, but empty. Now he occupied it and filled it with his presence. A small metal firepot in the centre of the floor burned near smokelessly. A smell of cooking, something spicy, lingered in the air. Swift sat cross-legged on a tasselled cushion while the Fool was half-reclined on his pallet. Two arrows, one a dull grey, the other brightly painted and obviously the Fool’s work, rested across Swift’s knees.

‘Did you require me, sir?’ Swift asked quickly. I could hear his reluctance to leave in his voice.

I shook my head. ‘I didn’t even know you were here,’ I replied.

As the Fool sat up, I saw what had made Swift laugh. A tiny marionette dangled from his hand, with five fine black threads going to each of the Fool’s fingertips. I had to smile. He had carved a tiny jester, done in black and white. The pallid face was his own, as it had been when he was a boy. White down hair floated around the little face. A twitch of one long finger set the creature’s head to nodding at me. ‘So what brings you here, Tom Badgerlock?’ the Fool and his puppet asked me. A shift of his finger made the little jester cock his head inquiringly at me.

‘Fellowship,’ I replied after a moment’s pondering. I sat down on the opposite side of the fire from Swift. The boy gave me a resentful look and then glanced away.

The Fool’s face was neutral. ‘I see. Welcome.’ But there was no warmth in the words; I was an intruder. An awkward silence fell and I perceived in full the mistake I had made. The lad knew nothing of the connection between the Fool and me. I could not speak freely. Indeed, I could suddenly think of nothing at all to say. The boy sat staring glumly at the fire, obviously waiting for me to leave. The Fool began to unfasten the marionette from his fingertips, one string at a time.

‘I’ve never seen a tent like this. Is it from Jamaillia?’ Even to me, my query sounded like a polite nothing said to a chance acquaintance.

‘The Rain Wilds, actually. The fabric is Elderling-made, I suspect, but I chose the patterns sewn into it.’

‘Elderling-made?’ Swift sat up with the avidity of a boy who senses a tale. A very faint smile played about the Fool’s mouth. I suspected that he had seen the quickening of interest in my face, too.

‘So the Rain Wild people say. Those who live far up the Rain Wild River. They say that once there were great cities there, and that the cities were the homes of the Elderlings. What exactly or who the Elderlings were is harder to tell. But in some places, buried deep in the muck of the Rain Wild swamps, there are cities of stone. Sometimes, one can find a way into them, and within whatever chambers have remained dry and intact, discover the treasures of another time and people. Some of the items they rescue are magical, with uses and abilities that not even the Rain Wilders completely understand. At other times, they find things that are just as we might make ourselves, but of a different quality.’

‘Like this arrow?’ Swift held up the grey arrow. ‘You said it came from the Rain Wilds. I’ve never seen wood such as this.’

The Fool’s eyes flickered to me and then away. ‘It’s wizardwood, a very rare wood. Even more rare than the fabric of this tent, which is finer than silk, and stronger than silk. I can crush all the fabric into a wad I could hold concealed inside my hand, yet stretched over the poles of the tent, it is sturdy, and so strongly woven that it holds warmth in and wind out.’

Swift reached out to run a wondering finger down one wall. ‘It’s nice in here. Warmer than I had thought a tent could be. And I like the dragons on the walls.’

‘So do I,’ the Fool said. He reclined on his pallet again as he stared into the firepot. The tiny flames found twin homes in his eyes. I leaned back, away from the light, and studied him. There were planes and angles to his face that had never been there when we were children. His hair had seemed to gain substance with colour. It no longer floated wildly around his face when it was loose, as it was now. Sleek as a horse’s mane but far finer, it hung to his shoulders. ‘The dragons are why I am here.’

For a fraction of a moment, his eyes flickered to mine. I crossed my arms on my chest and leaned back deeper into the shadows.

‘There are dragons in the Rain Wilds,’ he went on, speaking to Swift. ‘But only one that is hearty and strong. Tintaglia is her name.’

The boy edged even closer to him. ‘Then the Bingtown Traders spoke truth? They have a dragon?’

The Fool cocked his head as if considering the answer. Again, that ghost of a smile bent his mouth. Then he shook his head. ‘That is not something I would say. Rather, I would say that there is a dragon in the Rain Wilds, and Bingtown falls within the territory she claims as her own. She is a magnificent creature, blue as good steel and silver as a gleaming ring.’

‘Have you seen her, your own self?’

‘Indeed I have.’ The Fool smiled at the boy’s wonder. ‘And had words with her.’

Swift drew his breath in. He seemed to have forgotten my hulking presence. Yet I wondered to which of us the Fool spoke as he said, ‘This tent is one of the gifts she persuaded the Rain Wild folk to give me.’

‘Why did she ask them to give you gifts?’

‘She told them to give me gifts because she knew that I would serve her purpose unswervingly. For we have known each other, in other days and shapes.’

‘What do you mean?’ The boy suspected he was being teased. I feared he was not.

‘I am not the first of my kind to have dealings with dragon kind. And she has all the memories of her race. They cascade through her mind like bright beads sliding on a string. Back they go, past the serpent she was once to the egg that serpent came from, to the dragon that laid that egg, to the serpent that dragon was, to the egg that serpent hatched from, to the dragon that laid that egg, to the serpent that dragon –’

‘Enough!’ the boy laughed breathlessly. The Fool’s tongue juggled the words like pins.

‘Back to where she knew another such as I. And perhaps, had I a dragon’s memory, I might have been able to say to her, “ah, yes, I do recall, and that is exactly how it was. Such a pleasure to meet you again.” But I have not a dragon’s memory. And so I had to take her word for it that I was as trustworthy a fellow as she was ever likely to meet.’

His words had fallen into the artful cadence of the storyteller. The boy was enraptured. ‘And what is her purpose that you shall serve?’ Swift asked eagerly.

‘Ah!’ The Fool swept his hair back from his face, then stretched, but suddenly his long forefinger was pointing unerringly at me. ‘He knows. For he has promised to help me. Haven’t you, Badgerlock?’

Frantically, I scrambled through my memories. Had I promised to aid him? Or had I only said that I would decide when the time came for it? I smiled, and with a wittiness I did not feel, I replied, ‘When the time comes, I’ll serve my purpose.’

I knew he marked my distancing from his words, but he smiled as if I had agreed and said, ‘As shall we all. Even young Swift, Burrich’s son and Molly’s son.’

‘Why do you name me so?’ In that instant, the boy was stung. ‘My father is nothing to me. Nothing!’

‘Whatever he is to you, you are still son to him. Perhaps you can deny him, but you cannot make him deny you. Some ties cannot be severed by a word. Some ties simply are. Such ties are what bind the world and time together.’

‘Nothing binds me to him,’ the boy insisted sullenly. A little time passed. He perceived he had broken the string of the story, and that the Fool was not going to knot it back together for him. After a pause, he conceded, asking again, ‘What is the dragon’s purpose in your being here?’

‘Oh, you know what it is!’ The Fool sat up. ‘You’ve heard what was said back on the beach, and I know how swiftly gossip travels in a small group like this. You have come to slay the dragon. I am here to see that you don’t.’

‘Unless it’s a righteous battle. Unless the dragon attacks us first.’

The Fool shook his head. ‘No. I am simply here to see that the dragon survives.’

Swift’s eyes travelled from the Fool to me and back again. He spoke hesitantly. ‘Then you are our enemy here? To battle us if we try to kill the dragon? But there is only one of you! How can you think to challenge us?’

‘I challenge no one. I make no one my enemy, though some may consider me theirs. Swift, it is simply as I say it is. I am here to see that no one slays the dragon under the ice.’

The boy shifted uncomfortably. I could almost see the thought pass through his mind, and when he spoke it, he sounded so like Burrich that it near broke my heart. ‘I am sworn to serve my prince.’ He took a breath, but when he spoke his voice was still troubled. ‘If you oppose him, sir, then I must oppose you.’

The Fool had kept his eyes fixed on the boy’s face all the while. ‘I am sure you will, if you believe it is the right thing to do,’ he said quietly. ‘And if that is so when the time comes, well, that will be soon enough for us to be opponents. I am sure you will respect the duty of my heart just as I respect yours. For now, however, we travel all together in the same direction, and I see no reason why we should not share what Tom Badgerlock came to seek here. Fellowship.’

Again Swift’s eyes travelled between us. ‘Then you are friends, you two?’

‘For many years,’ I said, at almost the same instant that the Fool said, ‘Far more than friends, I would say.’

It was at precisely that moment that Civil Bresinga flung open the tent flap and thrust his head inside. ‘I feared as much!’ he declared angrily. Swift looked up at him, his mouth a round ‘O’ of surprise. The Fool gave an exasperated sigh. I was the first to find my tongue.

‘Your fears are groundless,’ I said quietly, while Swift, entirely mistaking Civil’s declaration, retorted, ‘I would never be disloyal to my prince, no matter who tempted me!’

That comment, I think, threw Civil into complete confusion. Now totally uncertain of what was going on, he contemptuously ordered, ‘Swift, come out from there, and go to bed in your own blankets.’ Then, to the Fool, ‘And don’t believe this is the end of this. I’ll be taking my concerns to the Prince.’

On the heels of his words, before the Fool or I could respond, we heard Riddle’s voice ring out in challenge. ‘Hold where you are! Who goes there?’

I thrust Swift out of the way to bolt out of the tent. I nearly knocked Civil over as I passed him, not that I would have regretted it much. I sensed him following me, and knew that Swift and the Fool would, also. By the time I reached Riddle’s sentry post, most of the camp had tumbled out of their blankets to see what the uproar was about.

‘Who goes there?’ Riddle shouted again, his uncertainty making him more angry and challenging.

‘Where?’ I demanded as I came up beside him, and he lifted a finger to point.

‘There,’ he said quietly, and then I saw the man’s shadow. Or was it the man himself? The uneven surface of the blown snow on the glacier and the feeble light of the fire quarrelled with the deep grey of the northern night, making it hard to tell substance from shade. The snowy mountains above us cast a second, deeper shadow across the reach of snow. I squinted. Someone stood at the far edge of the dwindled fire’s reach. I saw no more than his silhouette, but I was certain it was the man I had glimpsed earlier in the day. Behind me, I heard Peottre’s gasp, ‘The Black Man!’ He spoke with dread, and the spreading mutter among the Hetgurd men who had also roused was uneasy. The Fool was suddenly beside me, his long fingers gripping my forearm hard. He breathed his words, and I doubt any heard them save me. ‘What is he?’

‘Come forward and show yourself!’ Riddle commanded him. His drawn sword was in his hand as he stepped out of our circle and into the darkness. Longwick had thrust a torch into the dwindled embers of the fire. As the pitch took flame, and he lifted it aloft, however, the man simply was no longer there. Just as a shadow vanishes when light comes too close to it, so had he disappeared.

His appearance had roused the camp, but it was his disappearance that threw us into chaos. Everyone spoke at once. Riddle and the other guards ran forward to examine the place where the man had stood even as Chade shouted at them not to tread on the snow there. By the time Chade and I reached the spot, they had already trampled over whatever sign he might have left. Longwick lifted the torch higher, but we saw no definite footprints either approaching or leaving that spot. It was within the boundaries that Peottre had staked out for the camp, and our own trails crossed and over-crossed there.

One of the Outislanders was praying loudly to El. Never have I heard anything so unnerving as a hardened warrior praying to a god known for his merciless heart. It was a harsh prayer, one that promised gifts and sacrifices if El would only turn his attention elsewhere. Web looked shocked by it and Peottre’s face was pale even in the torchlight. The Narcheska looked as if she had been carved from ivory, so still and stunned were her features.

‘Perhaps it was only a trick of the light and shadows,’ Cockle suggested, but no one took him seriously. The Hetgurders offered no suggestions, but spoke low and swift amongst themselves. They sounded worried. Peottre, too, held his silence.

‘Whatever or whoever it was, he’s gone now,’ Chade declared at last. ‘Let us get what sleep is left to us tonight. Longwick, double the guard. And build up the fires.’

The Hetgurd contingent, perhaps not trusting our sentries, set a guard of their own. They also spread an otter skin on the snow at the edge of our encampment and once more set out offerings on it. I saw Peottre shepherd the Narcheska back to their tent, but doubted he would sleep any more this night. I wondered why he appeared so badly rattled, and wished that I knew more of this ‘Black Man’ and the traditions surrounding him.

I thought Chade would want to speak to me, but he only gave me an accusing glare. I thought at first that he wished that I had done more to apprehend the visitor; then realized it was because the Fool still stood beside me. I started to move away from him, then irritably checked my own action. I would determine where I wished to be, not Chade. I met his gaze levelly and kept my face devoid of expression. Nonetheless, he gave his head a small shake before he turned aside to accompany Dutiful back to their tent.

I was made aware of Swift’s fears when he spoke from beside me. ‘What should I do now?’ I heard both unadmitted fear and dread in his voice and I tried to think what would have reassured me at that age, and went back to Burrich’s wisdom. Give him a task.

‘Follow the Prince and stay at his side. I think it best if you sleep in his tent tonight, for you’ve a keen set of ears and the Wit to warn you if any should approach the tent from outside. Remind them of that, and let them know I suggested you be his guard tonight. Now go quickly, get your blankets and join them before they’re abed.’

He looked at me, mouth agape for an instant. Then he flashed me a look of pure gratitude. His eyes met mine, without resentment or restraint and he said, ‘You know I’m loyal to my prince.’

‘I do,’ I confirmed it for him. I wondered if Burrich’s face had shone like that the first time Chivalry had proclaimed that he belonged to him. I suddenly felt he was too cheaply bought, this son of Burrich. If he had half the loyalty and courage of his father, then Dutiful had acquired a jewel indeed. As Swift ran off into the darkened camp, I turned to the sound of footsteps behind me. Web approached, with Civil a scant two steps behind him. As if he could read my thoughts, he said, ‘The boy will be a good man.’

‘If he’s allowed to grow that way, without interference or the creation of unnatural appetites,’ Civil appended to his words. He stepped into the circle, and never have I seen a man more ready to fight. His cat was a snowy ghost at his heels. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want the allegations and I didn’t want the fight. I saw no way to avoid any of it. The Fool spoke before I could.

‘You wilfully persist in labouring under that misapprehension,’ he said quietly. ‘Yet if it must be said to you yet again, then I shall. I am no threat to that boy. What passed between us at your mother’s home was a subterfuge, designed to make my quick departure easily explained. You are not a simpleton. You have seen that both Tom Badgerlock and I serve the Prince in ways that no one has fully explained to you. Nor will anyone. So set that hope aside. This is as much as you get from me, and I speak it plainly. I feel no physical attraction to the boy, and I have no designs on his flesh. The same is true of how I feel toward you.’

That should have put him at ease, if that had been his true concern. But it wasn’t, of course. I could tell it by the way his Wit-cat flattened his ears. Civil spoke in a low voice. ‘And she who was affianced to me, Sydel? Will you say you felt no physical attraction to her and never had any designs on her flesh when you ruined the trust that was between us?’

The silence and cold that closed tight around us was not entirely of the glacier’s making. I had seldom seen the Fool weigh his words so carefully. I became aware that Cockle stood just outside our circle, witnessing our words; and those who had started to return to their tents had also halted to watch this play. I wondered what the minstrel would make of what he had already heard, let alone what the Fool might say next. ‘Sydel was a lovely child when last I saw her,’ the Fool said quietly. ‘And like a child, she was given to quick turns of fantasy and fascination. I took advantage of her interest in me, I admit that. And I have told you already why I did so. But I did not ruin the trust between you. Only the two of you could do that, and that is indeed what you did. Some time has passed and perhaps if you look back now, you will see that the trust she gave you was just that: the trust of a child, not the love of a young woman. I would wager that she had known few other young men besides you; she did not truly choose you, Civil. You were simply there and her parents approved. And when I came along and she perceived there might be a choice –’

‘Don’t try to blame it all on me!’ Civil’s voice was a low growl. His cat echoed it. ‘You seduced her and stole her from me. And then you cast her aside, and left her to her shame.’

‘I …’ The Fool’s shock was palpable to me. He seemed at a loss for words. But when he spoke, his voice was firm and in control again. ‘You are wrong. All that passed between Sydel and me, you saw. Such, of course, was my intent! There were no private moments between us, and certainly no seduction. I left her, certainly, but I did not shame her.’

Civil shook his head, a bit wildly. The more calmly the Fool spoke, the more agitated the lad seemed to become. ‘No! No, you ruined everything between us, with your loathsome appetites! And now you will say it was some sort of game or ruse. You shattered my mother’s dreams for us, and humiliated her father so that he cannot bear to be in the same room with her. All this for a jest? No. No, I refuse to believe it.’

I felt queasy. I had been a part of that deception. We had guested in Civil Bresinga’s home, in guise of enjoying the hunting there while actually tracking Prince Dutiful and the Piebalds who had taken him. When we needed to depart abruptly on the Prince’s trail, Lord Golden had created a reason for Lady Bresinga to welcome our departure. He had made blatant advances toward Lady Sydel, Civil’s fiancée, turning her young head with his wealth and charm and flattery. When Civil had attempted to intervene, he had drunkenly informed the young man that he, too, would be welcome to share Lord Golden’s bed. We had done it for the Prince’s sake, that we might more swiftly follow him and leave no one wondering why we departed so suddenly. But the trail of destruction we had left behind us sickened me now. I suddenly feared where this must lead. My prince, I fear I must beg your intervention between Civil and the Fool. They quarrel, and I think Civil will take it to blows.

‘I am sorry,’ the Fool said, and he put a depth of feeling into those words that could leave no one doubting his sincerity. He halted, then offered, ‘Truly, Civil, it is never too late. If you love the girl as you seem to, then go to her when you return to the Six Duchies and tell her so. Give her time to become a woman and see if she reciprocates your feelings. If she does, take joy in one another. If she does not, well, then know that it would not have lasted between you, regardless of whether I had come along or not.’

It wasn’t what Civil wanted to hear. His face went from scarlet to white, and he suddenly shrieked out, ‘I demand satisfaction of you!’ And he launched himself at the Fool.

An instant too late, Web reached for his shoulder. A moment too late, I tried to block him. He pounced on the Fool like a cat on a mouse, and together they went rolling into the snow. Civil snarled like a cat as he fought. Something Web did, I think, restrained Civil’s cat from leaping into the fray. I stepped forward to intervene, but felt the Prince inside my mind as he arrived, half-clothed, on the scene.

Let them have it out, Fitz. Better that the two of them settle it than that you become involved and we suddenly have the whole party taking sides. This has festered long with Civil and words will not suffice to settle it.

But the Fool doesn’t fight. Never have I seen him fight!

Nonetheless. This from Chade, with a grim sort of satisfaction. He will now.

I think they expected to see Civil triumph quickly. I knew the Fool better. Slight he might appear, but even when I was in fighting trim, he had always seemed able to pit his strength against mine. Once, when I was injured, he had carried me through the snow back to his home. His tumbler’s tricks had always demanded strength as well as agility. So I knew he had the power to defeat Civil if he chose. What I feared was that he would choose not to do so. And my fears were well grounded. Civil straddled the Fool. I winced to the solid sound of Civil’s fists striking him, chest and shoulder and jaw.

Stop this! I begged the Prince. Command them to stop!

Let them finish it and let it be over, Chade suggested, and I glowered at him, thinking he had other reasons why he would see the Fool defeated before the men who had so swiftly gathered.

Then I’ll stop it! But as I stepped forward, I saw that the tide of the battle had already turned. The Fool had writhed beneath Civil until he had his hip under him. He caught one of Civil’s legs in the crook of his knee. Then by some twisting trick, the Fool suddenly unseated him and reversed their positions. In the next instant, he had flung himself on top of Civil. I was shocked even as I waited to see the Fool take his revenge.

He didn’t. He caught Civil’s flailing arms and restrained them, seemingly without effort. Dark red blood was running from one of the Fool’s nostrils. It dripped down onto Civil as the lad struggled. The Fool’s grip only tightened, and I saw how reluctantly he twisted down on one of Civil’s elbows until the young man grunted with pain. Nearby, his cat snarled savagely. Web’s touch on his back looked effortless, but the cat seemed to strain against iron restraints.

The Fool held the struggling young man down. I could sense Civil’s outrage that the tawny man did so without apparent effort. When one has insulted someone’s manliness, he does not expect to be easily mastered by the man. ‘It’s done.’ The Fool spoke firmly, not just to Civil but to all of us. ‘It’s over. I won’t discuss this with you again.’

Suddenly Civil went limp. The Fool held him down an instant longer, then pushed himself up off his prone body, took a staggering step, and then drew himself up straight. Just as he began to walk away, Civil rolled to his feet and sprang at him. I leapt forward at the same instant that the Fool, without so much as a glance back, moved lithely to one side. Civil and I were suddenly chest-to-chest in the night, the boy gawking up at me as I stared him down. He stumbled back a step, then spun and hissed the insult at the Fool, ‘You say he isn’t your lover, yet he stands ready to fight your battles for you.’

Like a ship under full sail, the Fool seethed through the snowy night to stand aggressively close to the boy. He spoke flatly. ‘He is not my lover. He is far more than that to me, far more precious. I am the White Prophet and he is my Catalyst, and we are come here to change the course of time. I am here to see that Icefyre lives.’

Peottre had ghosted up to the edge of the circle. In the dimness, he shuddered as if he had just taken an arrow. The Hetgurd men, gathered for the pleasure of watching a fight, suddenly muttered amongst themselves. But I had no time to watch them. Civil was like a crouching cat with a lashing tail. All his attention was focused on the Fool as he growled, ‘I don’t care what you call yourself or him. I know what you are!’

He all but spat the final words and again he sprang. But this time the Fool met his onslaught. Civil went in swinging heavy blows but the Fool swayed around them and stepped in to seize Civil by the body. He did not push him away, but pulled him forward, increasing his momentum so that the boy slammed face first into the crystallized snow. The Fool followed him down. He pinioned him again, wrapping one arm around the boy’s throat and winding the other under Civil’s arm and up, so that Civil’s right arm was bent up behind him. Civil was cursing wildly and close to tears when the Fool hoarsely warned him, ‘We can do this as many times as you like. Struggle and you’ll dislocate your shoulder. That is true, I promise you. Let me know when you are calm and ready to give this up.’

I feared the boy would be stupid enough to hurt himself. The Fool, his weight spread flat on the snow, held him down and let him struggle. Twice Civil flung himself back against the Fool’s grip. Each time I heard him grunt with pain. Finally, having proven the Fool’s words to himself, he lay still. But he was far from calm. He panted and cursed and then shouted, ‘It was all your fault! You can’t deny it. You ruined everything, everything. And now my mother is dead and I have nothing. Nothing. Sydel is shamed and I cannot go to her and offer her marriage, for I have nothing, and her father blames my family for his daughter’s fall. He will not let me see her. If you had not come there, none of it would have happened. I’d still have my life.’

‘And the Prince would be dead. Or worse.’ Without realizing it, I had edged closer to the combatants. I wondered if anyone else heard the Fool’s low comment.

With a moan of defeat, Civil dropped his face into the snow. He lay still. The Fool did not make him speak his surrender. Instead, he released his hold from the boy and got up. I winced for the pain he must feel.

The Fool spoke between gasps for breath. ‘It wasn’t me. I didn’t kill your mother. Or shame her. That was the Piebalds. Blame them. Not me. And don’t set blame on a young girl who did nothing more terrible than flirt with a stranger. Forgive her … and yourself. You were trapped and used. Both of you.’

And the Fool’s perceptive words lanced into Civil’s soul, and his pain poured forth into the night. Wit and Skill, I felt it, like some hot, foul poison rushing out of him. When the Fool turned away, the young man didn’t spring after him, but curled on his side in the snow, gagging with sorrow. His cat gave a low rumble of distress, and, released by Web, rushed to his side. The Fool stood well clear of them both. Panting, he dragged his sleeve across his face, and then shook his head at how he had marked the snowy white of it with the deep scarlet of his blood. He took several steps away from them, and then bent over, hands on his knees, taking deep panting breaths of the cold air.

The Prince finally spoke. ‘Let this be an end to this matter now, right here. We are a small party and can ill afford divisions. Civil, you made your challenge and this will have to be your satisfaction. Lord Golden, you are here on my tolerance. You have openly avowed that you oppose my mission. I accept that, just as I accept the conscience that puts the Hetgurd watchers among us. But if you carry any ill will against Civil because of this, my tolerance will end. We will put you out of our company to make your own way.’

I felt those last words as a threat. I went to the Fool’s side and waited while he caught his breath. Web had gone to Civil and crouched in the snow beside him. He lay there, hugging his cat as if he were a child’s comforting doll. Web’s voice was a low rumble as he spoke to him. I could not catch the words. Swift stood, caught in between, staring from one combatant to the other. I took the Fool’s arm and started moving him toward his tent. Now that it was over, he seemed half-stunned. ‘Follow your prince, son,’ I told Swift as I passed him. ‘It’s over for now. We’ll talk later.’

He nodded, staring as we passed. The Fool stumbled a little and I firmed my grip on him. Behind us, I heard Longwick berating the guards for being distracted from their duty. Slowly, the camp dispersed back to their beds.

I put the Fool inside his tent, and then went back out, his kerchief in my hand, to gather up a pack of snow for him. When I returned, he had added a bit of oil to the tiny firepot, and the renewed flames danced higher, sending rippling shadows of colour across the silken walls. He set a tiny kettle upon it as I watched, and then sat back on his pallet, pinching his nostrils shut with one bloody hand. His nose had almost stopped bleeding but his face was starting to darken where Civil’s fists had landed. He leaned back gingerly as if the entire left side of his body were sore.

‘Try this,’ I told him. I sat down beside him and gently pressed the cold compress against the side of his face. He turned away from it.

‘Please don’t! It’s icy and I’m already too cold,’ he complained. Wearily he added, ‘I’m too cold all the time in this place.’

‘Nevertheless,’ I told him relentlessly. ‘Just until your nose stops bleeding. And it will keep your face from swelling too much. You’ll probably have a black eye anyway.’

‘Please, Fitz,’ he protested feebly and reached up, bare-handed, to seize my wrist in the same moment that my fingertips brushed his cheek.

The impact of that mutual touch blinded me for an instant, just as if I had stepped out of a dim stable into full direct sunlight. I twitched away from him, the snow bundle falling to the tent floor, and blinked, but the image of what I had seen was imprinted on the inside of my eyelids. I cannot say how I knew what it was I had glimpsed. Perhaps something in that closed circle of touching told me. I drew a shaky breath and reached recklessly toward his face with outstretched fingers.

‘I can heal you,’ I told him, amazed and breathless with the discovery. The knowledge of my new-found power rushed through my blood, hot as whiskey. ‘I see what is wrong, the bits that are broken and how the blood pools under your skin where it should not. Fool, I can use the Skill and heal you.’

Again he seized my wrist, but this time it was to hold my hand wide of his face. Again, I felt jolted by that sense of connection as his Skill-imbued fingertips made contact with my skin. He shifted his grip quickly to the cuff of my sleeve. ‘No,’ he said quietly, but a smile played over his swollen face. ‘Did you learn nothing from the “healing” that we put you through? I have no reserves to burn for the sake of a swift healing. I’ll let my own body mend itself, in its own way and time.’ He let go of my wrist. ‘But thank you,’ he added quietly, ‘for offering.’

A shudder ran over me, as when a horse shakes flies from his coat. I blinked at him, feeling as if I had just awakened. The temptation was slower to fade. There was, I thought wryly, much of Chade in me. Knowing that I could do a thing made me itch to do it. Looking at his bruised face was like looking at a picture hung crooked on a wall. The impulse to right it was instinctive. I sighed. Resolutely, I crossed my arms on my chest and leaned back from him.

‘You see it, don’t you?’ he asked me.

I nodded, and then he shocked me, for his mind was on something completely different. ‘Word must be sent to the Queen, somehow. Sydel, I think, is innocent. She deserves rescue, and after the misery I have helped cause her, I hope she receives it. I dare not guess which of her parents is the Piebald who worked with Laudwine. Perhaps both did. Sydel is shamed for accidentally falling in with our plans. And Civil is no longer seen as an appropriate match for her, for he has sided with the Farseers.’

Of course. The connections were all there, plain to see when the Fool pointed them out. I reconsidered her parents’ apparent reaction to ‘Lord Golden’s’ interest in their daughter. Her mother had seemed avid to take advantage of it; her father more cautious. Had they seen him as someone who could give the Piebalds access to Buckkeep society? As a benefactor whose wealth might forward their cause?

‘Why didn’t Civil just tell Dutiful, months ago?’ I felt outraged. The Prince had forgiven Civil, had welcomed him back as a comrade and friend, and he had held back from us this key piece of information.

The Fool shook his head. ‘I don’t think Dutiful realizes the full implications, even now. Perhaps some part of him suspects, but he doesn’t dare let himself see it. He is true Old Blood, not Piebald. What they did is so monstrous by his standards that he cannot imagine Sydel being connected to such a plot.’ He leaned over and picked up the snow-bag from the floor, regarded it dolefully, and then put it gingerly to the swollen side of his face. ‘I’m so tired of being cold,’ he remarked. One-handed, he opened a small wooden box at the end of his pallet, and took out a cup and a bowl that nested together. From beneath them, he took a small cloth bag and shook herbs from it into the cup and bowl. He went on, ‘It’s the only way I can make the pieces fit. Sydel is disgraced in her father’s eyes; the engagement is broken. Civil assumes her father caught her in my bed. It is the only explanation he can imagine, and so he blames me for ruining all that was between them. But that isn’t it at all. One or both of her parents are Piebalds. They used their close ties with the Bresinga household to intercept messages meant for Civil and return their own. They saw to it that the Prince was hosted invisibly within that household. The gift of the cat for Dutiful was probably delivered through them. The plan for Civil was that he’d wed their daughter, bringing his family’s wealth and position to the Piebald cause. Then she failed them, by flirting with me. And we were the mechanism for the whole downfall of that first Piebald plan. That is how she is disgraced.’ He gave a sigh, leaned back on his bedding and moved the kerchief to a different spot on his face. ‘It’s small comfort to have worked it out now.’

‘I’ll see that Kettricken knows of it,’ I promised him without telling him how I’d attempt to do that.

‘But if we have set one puzzle to rest tonight, we’ve only encountered a greater one. Who is he, what is he?’ The Fool’s voice was musing.

‘The Black Man?’

‘Of course.’

I shrugged. ‘Some recluse living on the island, accepting tribute from superstitious folk and ambushing those who don’t leave him gifts. That’s the simplest explanation.’ Chade’s teaching was that the simplest explanation was often likely to be the right one.

The Fool shook his head slowly. The look he gave me was incredulous. ‘No. Surely you cannot believe that. Never have I felt a man so hung about with portents … not since I first encountered you have I felt such a tingle of … of significance. He is important, Fitz, vastly important. Perhaps the most important person we have ever met. Didn’t you feel his consequence, hanging like mist in the air?’ He held the snow away from his face and leaned forward eagerly. A single scarlet final drop hung from the tip of his nose. I gestured at it and he wiped it carelessly on his blood-stained sleeve.

‘No. I felt nothing like that. In fact … oh, Eda and El! Why does it come to me only now? I could not see him when the sentry shouted, and when he was pointed out to me, I thought I saw but his shadow. Because I didn’t sense him with my Wit. Not at all. He was as blank as a Forged one … He’s Forged, Fool. And that means there is no predicting what he might do.’

A chill went over me despite the cosiness of the tent. It had been many years since I’d had to deal with Forged ones, but the unmerciful memories had not faded. One of my tasks as Chade’s apprentice assassin had been to kill as many of them as I could, by whatever means was most expeditious. The deaths I had dealt to Six Duchies folk haunted me still, even though I knew there had been no alternative. Forging stole all humanity from its victims and was irreversible.

‘Forged? Oh, surely not!’ The Fool’s astounded reaction broke my moment of introspection. He shook his head. ‘No, Fitz. Not Forged. Almost the opposite, if such a thing is possible. I felt in him the weight of a hundred lifetimes, the significance of a dozen heroes. He … displaces fate. Much as you do.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I said uneasily. I hated it when the Fool spoke like this. He loved it.

He leaned forward, eyes gleaming with enthusiasm. As he spoke, he lifted the kettle from the oil flame and poured steaming water into the cup and a bowl. Ginger and cinnamon wafted toward me. ‘All of time, every sliced instant of it, is rich with vertices of choices. One becomes accustomed to that, to the point at which sometimes even I have to stop and remind myself that I am making choices, even when I do not seem to be. Every indrawn breath is a choice. But sometimes one is reminded of that forcibly, sometimes I meet a person so laden with possibilities and potential that the mere existence of such a being is a jolt to reality. You are like that, still, to me. The sheer improbability of your existence took my breath away. I have discovered relatively few possible futures in which you exist at all. In most of them, you died as a child. In others … well, I do not think I need to tell you all the ways in which you have died in other times. How many times have you been snatched from the jaws of death, in the most unlikely ways? I promise you, Fitz, in other times that parallel ours, you have met your deaths at those moments. Yet here you are, with me still, defying the odds by existing. And by your existence, with every breath you take, you change all time. You are like a wedge driven into dry wood. With every beat of your heart, you are pounded deeper into “what might be” and as you advance, you crack the future open, and expose a hundred, a thousand new possibilities, each branching into another hundred, another thousand.’ He paused for breath. Noting my disgruntled expression, he laughed aloud. ‘Well. Like it or not, you do, my Catalyst. And so also did he feel to me tonight, the Black Man! So many possibilities shimmered around him that I could scarcely see him. He is even more unlikely than you are!’ He drew a black kerchief out of his sleeve and wiped all traces of blood from his face, and then his hands. Carefully enfolding the bloody side, he tucked it into his sleeve again. Then he leaned back on his cushions, his eyes staring into the dim shadows at the peak of his tent. ‘And I have not a clue of who or what he is. I’ve never glimpsed him before. What does that mean? Was it only with our coming here that his influence on the future became possible?’

He picked up the steaming bowl and offered it to me, excusing it with, ‘I only brought one cup. Travelling light, you know.’ I took it from him, welcoming the warmth against my hands. With an odd jolt, I reminded myself that in the Six Duchies it was summer. Summer seemed an impotent thing here in the Out Islands, camped on a glacier. He picked up the cup and looking around, frowned slightly. ‘You took my honey, didn’t you? You don’t happen to have it with you, do you? It brings out the flavour of the ginger and makes the tea more warming.’

‘Sorry. I left it in my tent … no, that’s not quite true. I left it outside by the fire last night, and this morning it was gone.’ I halted, feeling as if I’d just heard a key turn in a lock. ‘Or taken,’ I amended. ‘Fool, the Outislanders left gifts for the Black Man. He didn’t take any of them, but honey was one of the things offered. And yours was missing that morning.’

‘You think he took mine? You think that he supposed it an offering left by you?’

The excitement he manifested was out of proportion, I thought, to my speculation. I took a sip of the tea he had made. The ginger was heat. I felt it spread comfortingly through my belly even as his words unnerved me. ‘More likely someone in our own camp took it. How could he creep amongst our very tents, unseen?’

‘Unseen and unfelt,’ he corrected me. ‘You said he is invisible to your Wit. Likely the same is true for the other Witted ones. So. I think he took the honey. And with it, bound his fate to ours. It connects us, you see, Fitz.’ He drank from his cup, his eyes near closing in enjoyment of the warm liquid as he did so. When he set the cup down, he had nearly drained it. He reached for a bright yellow coverlet which looked as insubstantial as the stuff of his tent walls, and draped it around his shoulders, then kicked off his loose boots and pulled his narrow feet up under him. ‘It connects him to both of us. I think it might be highly significant. Do you see that it could change the outcome of our mission here? Especially if I let it be known that the Black Man had accepted our offering.’

My mind raced through the possibilities. Would such an announcement win the Outislanders to his side? Turn the Narcheska and Peottre against him? Where did it leave me, not only in relation to them but in terms of how Chade saw me? The answers were not comforting. ‘It could create a greater division in our party than there is now.’

He lifted his cup and drank the rest of the tea before answering. ‘No. It would only expose the division that already exists.’ He looked at me and his expression was almost pitying. ‘This is the culmination of my life’s work, Fitz. You cannot expect me to refuse any weapon, any advantage that fate gives me. If I must die on this cold and forsaken island, at least let me die knowing I’ve achieved my aim.’

I drank off the tea in the bowl and set it down beside his cup. I spoke firmly. ‘I’m not going to stay here and listen to this … nonsense. I don’t believe any of it.’

But I did. And it tightened my guts more than any cold or danger I’d ever faced.

‘And you think that if you refuse to believe it, it can’t come to pass? That is nonsense, Fitz. Accept it, and let’s make the best of what time we have left.’ There was such terrible calm in his voice that I suddenly wanted to strike him. If death was truly lurking in wait for him, he should not be so placid and accepting of it. He should fight it, he should be made to fight it.

I drew a deep breath. ‘No. I won’t believe it and I won’t accept it.’ A thought came to me and I tried to speak it jokingly, but it came out as a threat. ‘Remember what I am to you, White Prophet. I’m the Catalyst. I am Changer. And I can change things, even the things that you think are fixed.’

Halfway through my jest, I saw emotion transform his face. I would have halted my words, but once begun, they seemed to proceed of their own accord. The expression on his face was so stark, it was as if I stared at his bared skull-bones. ‘What are you saying?’ he demanded in a horrified whisper.

I looked away from him. I had to. ‘Only what you’ve been telling me for most of our lives. You may be the Prophet and foretell things. But I’m the Catalyst. I change things. Perhaps even what you’ve foretold.’

‘Fitz. Please.’

The words drew my gaze back to him. ‘What?’

He was breathing through his mouth as if he’d run a race and lost. ‘Don’t do this,’ he begged me. ‘Don’t try to stop me from doing what I must do. I thought I’d made you understand it, back there on the beach. I could have run away from this. I could have stayed in Buckkeep, or gone back to Bingtown, or even gone home. Or back to where home once was. But I didn’t. I’m here. I’m facing it. I’m afraid and I don’t deny that. And I know this will be hard for you. But it is what I’ve been aimed toward, all these years. You understand duty to family and king. You understand it all too well. Please see that this, now, is my duty to what I am. If you set out to defeat me, simply for the sake of keeping me alive, you will render all my life meaningless. All we have gone through up to now will be for nothing. You’ll be condemning me to live out my years knowing that I failed. Would you do that to me?’

He gave me a piteous look. I gave him a few moments to calm before I spoke quietly. ‘So. You are saying, if I see something killing you, I’m to let it happen? Even if I can prevent it?’

Suddenly he seemed confused. ‘I suppose so …’

‘What if it’s the wrong thing? What if I see a bear killing you, and you’re supposed to die in an avalanche? And I do nothing, so you die in the wrong way, and it’s still all for nothing.’

He looked at me blankly for a moment. ‘But that … No. I think you’ll know. When the time comes, I think you’ll know what –’

‘And if I don’t? If I make a mistake, what then?’

‘I don’t …’ He faltered to a halt.

I pounced. ‘Do you see how stupid this is? I cannot possibly stand by and watch you die, Fool. I know that and you know that. You’d be asking me to be profoundly different from who I am. You’d be making the change, not me. And didn’t you once tell me that precipitating the change was my task, not yours? So don’t ask it of me. If fate demands that you be dead, well, then I’ll probably be dead, too. At that point, I doubt if it will matter much to either of us.’ I stood abruptly. ‘And that’s the last that we’re saying about this. This is a discussion that I choose not to have. It’s late, and I’m tired. I’m going to bed.’

The change that came over his face shocked me. I saw naked relief in his eyes. I think then I understood just how much he truly feared what he felt he had to face. That he had not revealed it to anyone was as great a show of courage as I have ever known. As I lifted the tent flap, he spoke again. ‘Fitz. I’ve really missed you. Don’t go. Sleep here tonight. Please.’

So I did.

SIXTEEN

Elfbark

Elfbark, more accurately called delventree bark, is a potent stimulant with the unfortunate additional effect of making the user prey to feelings of despondency and fearfulness. For this reason, it is often used by slave-owners in Chalced to increase the hours that a slave can work while at the same time dampening his spirit. Taken steadily over a long period it is addictive, and some say that even taken sporadically the herb can permanently alter a man’s temperament, making him suspicious and defensive even with his closest companions, while eroding his sense of self-worth. Yet even with all these disadvantages, there are times when the risks are worth it for the stamina it may confer in times of necessity. It is less volatile a drug than either carris seed or cindin, in that those two may lead to wild surges of emotion and false euphoria that may prompt actions both foolish and dangerous.

The best quality of elfbark is obtained from the new branch tips of very old trees. Incise laterally along the twig and then around it at each end of the cut. Slip a fingernail or knife point under the bark edge and carefully loosen it from the branch. The freed bark will immediately curl into a cylinder. Store it thus in a pouch in a cool dry place until the bark has dried enough to be grated into a powder which can be infused as a tea.

If the need is immediate, a tea can be made from the freshly harvested bark, but it is far more difficult to judge the strength of the herb’s potency from the colour of that tea.

Raichal’s Table of Herbs

I emerged from the Fool’s tent very early, before the rest of the camp was astir. I had slept poorly, besieged by formless nightmares. Towards dawn, I lay awake and wished that I possessed Nettle’s skill for mastering such uneasy dreams. That put me in mind of her. I wished to speak with Chade and Dutiful privately, without even Thick listening in. I walked to the edge of our camp area to relieve myself. Deft was on guard duty, and gave me a passing nod. I went directly to the Prince’s tent, walking softly. I had forgotten that I had assigned Swift guard duty there. The boy was watchful as a fox, for as I drew close, the tent flap lifted slightly, baring not only his vigilant eyes but also the point of an arrow set in his bow.

‘It’s me,’ I said hastily, and was relieved when he eased the bow and lowered the quarrel. I cudgelled my brain for an errand to send him on, and then fell back on suggesting he fetch some clean snow to melt for wash water for the Prince, reminding him not to venture beyond the flagged boundaries of the camp.

As soon as he trudged off, bucket in hand, I slipped inside the dim tent. ‘Are you awake?’ I asked quietly.

Dutiful sighed heavily. ‘I am now. I feel as if I’ve been awake for most of the night. Lord Chade?’

A muffled grunt was his only reply. Chade had the blankets pulled up over his head.

‘This is important, and I have to talk fast, before Swift comes back.’ I warned them.

Chade lifted the covers a small crack. ‘Talk, then.’ He yawned tremendously. ‘I am too old for this camping out in the snow after hiking all day,’ he muttered venomously, as if it were all my fault.

‘I talked with the Fool last night, after he and Civil fought.’

‘Ah, yes. And we spoke with Civil. Or Civil spoke at us. For quite a long time. I had had no idea that your charade at Galekeep had been so convincing. Civil is quite distressed that we allow Swift to spend time with Lord Golden.’ Chade replied grumpily.

Dutiful snickered when I scowled. ‘The truth is that Civil would rather believe that than the truth. The Fool charted it out for me. He thinks that Sydel’s parents, or at least one of them, were the traitors who sold Dutiful to the Piebalds. I suspect that her father is the one that broke the engagement between them, and that perhaps he did so more because Civil had opposed the Piebalds than because Sydel had behaved foolishly.’

I was rewarded by Chade poking his nose out of his blankets. I watched him ponder, turning the pieces to see if they fit. After a moment, he said almost grudgingly, ‘Yes. He could be right. Sydel’s parents would have been well-positioned for all that was done. Would that I had an extra message-bird, to send these tidings to the Queen! But I have just the one for Buckkeep, and one for the Hetgurd, to bring them back to fetch us. There are no birds to spare.’

I raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Thick and Nettle?’ I asked bluntly. I wondered if he had kept the Prince in ignorance.

Chade shook his head, tangling his white hair against his blankets. ‘No. That link is not ready to bear tidings as heavy as this. Think of the consequences if the message were incorrectly interpreted, or if the girl refused to believe Thick’s tidings. No. That arrangement must be trained and tested, with simple messages, both sent and received, before we can rely on it for serious purposes.’ He sighed heavily, the sound an unuttered rebuke to me. ‘Thick will sleep in our tent tonight. Before he dozes off, Dutiful will ask him to convey greetings to Nettle, and to pass on some simple message to the Queen, one that will provoke a response from her. The creation of that will take some thought. If it goes well, then we will try a more weighty message the next night. But only when we are certain that messages are being relayed accurately will we pass on our suspicions of a traitor.’ He nodded to himself, and then rolled his head to look at the Prince. ‘Agreed?’

‘Agreed.’ Dutiful gave a small sigh of his own. ‘Let us hope that Queen I-Highly-Doubt-It will be receptive to communicating with me via the Skill.’ And he, too, gave me a pointed look that placed the blame squarely on my doorstep that he and his cousin did not already know one another.

‘I did what I thought best,’ I said stiffly.

And Chade, ever one to seize an advantage, agreed smoothly with, ‘Of course you did. You always act from high motives, Fitz. But next time it is up to you to make a significant decision based on what you “think is best”, you may remember this, and reflect that perhaps I have a few more years of experience than you do. Perhaps the next time, you will give my opinion of the matter a bit more weight.’

‘I will keep your advice in mind,’ I agreed, and this time my words were formally cool as well as stiff. Never had I thought to have my loyalty tugged between Chade and the Fool as if it were a rag desired by two puppies. Each had conceded that the decision would be mine, but apparently neither trusted me to make it without prompting. And then Swift returned with a pot packed full of snow so I excused myself and left. The Prince watched me go with thoughtful eyes but I felt no touch of his mind on mine.

By that time, the rest of the camp was well astir. Peottre had arisen early, Riddle told me, and had gone ahead to scout out the first part of our journey. He did not like the balmy breeze, heavy with moisture, that blew over the snowy ground. Even Thick was up and blundering about in the tent, scattering the contents of his pack in an effort to find fresh clothing. When I told him that we were travelling light and would both wear what we had on the day before, he looked quite displeased. I reminded him that when he first came into the Prince’s service, he had had but one set of clothing to his name. At that, he knit his brows as if thinking deeply, then shook his head and said he did not recall such a time. I did not think the point worth arguing. I bundled him into his outer clothes and got him out of the tent so our guardsmen could strike it.

I found food for us, plain porridge and a bit of salt fish. He wasn’t pleased with the breakfast and neither was I, but it was all that we had. Then I busied myself lightening his pack into mine. All the while I spoke to him encouragingly about the day’s travel, saying that now that we knew how to walk over this glacier, we would do better and keep up with the others. He nodded, but in an unconvinced way that made my heart sink.

With a casualness I didn’t feel, I observed, ‘I didn’t sleep well last night. Bad dreams. But doubtless you had Nettle for company, and soothing dreams to welcome you.’

‘Nah.’ He pulled off his mitten to scratch his nose, and then spent a few moments putting it back on. ‘Bad dreams were everywhere last night,’ he observed darkly. ‘Nettle couldn’t change them. When I called her, she just told me, “Come away from there, don’t look at that.” But I couldn’t, because they were everywhere. I walked and walked and walked through the snow, but the dreams just kept coming up to me and looking at me.’ He took off his mitten and poked thoughtfully at his nose. ‘One had maggots in his nose. Like boogies, but wriggly. It made me think I had maggots in my nose.’

‘No, Thick, your nose is fine. Don’t think about it. Come, let’s walk around and see what everyone else is doing.’

We were among those first to be ready to depart. I was anxious to be on the move, for the clear sky had filled with low clouds. The wind was damp, and the prospect of either snow or rain was daunting to me. The others seemed to be taking a very long time to get ready, even though Peottre prowled through the camp casting anxious looks at the sky and beseeching us to get an early start. Thick began to complain of being too tired to hike and too bound up with layers of clothing. To distract him, I took him with me to watch the Fool take down his tent. Swift was already there, helping him. The lad’s pack, quiver and bow were neatly stacked to one side as he followed the Fool’s instructions for dismantling the wooden poles that had supported the tent’s airy fabric. I noted in passing that the peculiar arrow I had seen him holding the day before was now in his quiver.

The tent collapsed swiftly. The poles disassembled into pieces no longer than a good arrow. I had thought his little oil pot for his fire was heavy clay, but when I picked it up out of curiosity, it felt light and almost porous. The airy coverlets crushed down into a bundle the size of a small cushion. When all had been stowed, the Fool’s pack was sizeable and probably heavier than mine, even with Thick’s belongings in it. Nevertheless, he shouldered into its harness and hefted it onto his back without a grunt. Never before had I seen a camp so neatly and swiftly stowed, and my admiration for Elderling skill at devising such things increased.

‘The Elderlings made such marvellous things, and then they vanished. I’ve always wondered what made an end of them.’ I was not trying to start a conversation so much as distract Thick. He was rubbing at his nose again.

‘When the dragons perished, the Elderlings perished with them. The one could not exist without the other.’ The Fool spoke as if he observed that leaves were green and the sky blue, as if that were a fact everyone accepted.

Before I could comment on that astonishing statement, Thick dropped his hand from his nose and asked, ‘What’s an Elderling?’

‘No one really knows,’ I told him, and then the look on the Fool’s face stopped me. He looked as if he would burst with it if I didn’t give him a chance to tell. I wondered when he had acquired the knowledge and why he chose now to share it. Swift, sensing excitement, drew closer.

‘The Elderlings were an old people, Thick. Old not just in how long ago they prospered, but old in how many years they numbered to a life. I suspect that for some of them, memory reached back beyond even the long spans of their own lives, back into the lives of their forebears.’

Thick’s brow was furrowed as he endeavoured to understand. Swift was already enraptured in the tale. I interrupted. ‘Do you know these things, or do you guess?’

He pondered this for a moment. ‘I am as sure of these things as I can be, without either an Elderling or a dragon to consult.’

Now it was my turn to look puzzled. ‘A dragon? Why would you consult a dragon about the Elderlings?’

‘They are … intertwined.’ The Fool appeared to choose his word carefully. ‘In all I have read or heard, we never find one without the other. It seems that they create one another, or are somehow necessary to one another’s being. I cannot explain it, I can only observe it.’

‘So, if you succeed in bringing back the dragons, you restore the Elderlings as well?’ I asked recklessly.

‘Perhaps.’ He smiled uncertainly. ‘I don’t know. But I do not think it would be an evil thing if that happened.’

And that was as much talk as we had time for. Peottre had returned and he wanted us on the move as swiftly as possible. The Prince called for Thick, and we hurried to him. Chade sent me a brief scowl. What was that long conversation about?

Elderlings, I replied, well aware that both Dutiful and Thick were sharing our thoughts. Lord Golden believes that if he can restore dragons to the world, the Elderlings would return as well. He feels there is some link between them, though he cannot explain what it might be.

And that was all?

Yes. The brevity of my reply let him know I resented his prying. I wondered if Dutiful’s Skill-silence meant he approved or disapproved of Chade’s attitude. Then I told myself it didn’t matter. If the time came when it was truly up to me whether the dragon lived or died, then I would decide. Until then, I refused to torment myself with it, or to sever my friendship with either of them.

Peottre formed us up for the day’s journey. Today, we took our places right behind the Prince’s company. He warned us that the mellow wind now sweeping over the glacier ahead of us could make the surface unpredictable. We would follow the old established trail, looking for the poles and banners that marked it, but should remember that conditions changed and the trail was not absolutely trustworthy. Snow could blow across recent fissures, making it look like sound ground. He cautioned us again to be sure of our every step. Then, staves in hand, we moved out in a line. For the first part of the march, Thick and I kept up well enough. He coughed, but not as much as he had and he trudged along gamely. Peottre moved us more slowly today, plunging his stave ahead of us before every step he took. He was correct about the treacherous weather. Although the warmer breeze soon had us loosening our hoods and collars, it sculpted the damp snow into fantastic shapes. The bluish shadows cast by the icy forms imparted a dream-like quality to the frozen land we traversed.

Twice, Peottre turned us aside from his chosen path. The first time, he prodded the snow, only to have the crusty surface suddenly give way beneath the pressure. The top of the snow sagged, then collapsed and fell into a deep hollow before us. The winds had sculpted an airy bridge out of the frozen crystals, too fragile to bear any creature’s weight. He turned us and took us around the revealed chasm.

Our second detour came in the afternoon. By then, Thick had grown weary and discouraged. The damp snow clung heavily to our leggings and boots and before long the main party outdistanced us, until we followed in their trodden path. We had just crested a long, low ridge when we met them all coming back toward us. Peottre had found very soft snow, his stave sinking into it to the depth of a short man, and had turned back, to seek a better route. It had been a weary climb, and Thick muttered curses as we turned and followed them back down into the trough of icy landscape.

The summer daylight bouncing off the blue and white snow dazzled our eyes. We squinted until the tears came and our brows ached with the tension. And still Peottre urged us onward.

We hiked far longer that second day, both in distance and time. The sun began its slow roll along the horizon, and still we pushed on. Thick and I followed at a substantial distance, and I soon began to wonder if Peottre would ever stop for the night. Twice Thick had stopped and refused to go on. He was tired, the damp snow was soaking through his boots and leggings, he was cold, he was hungry, and he was thirsty. He was a litany of my own complaints, and listening to him whine them only seemed to make them more unbearable. It was hard enough to talk myself into going on without prodding him along as well. His music today was a dull thudding of percussion against me, a steady and relentless rain of blows made of the crunch of our feet on the crusty snow and the keen sound of staves driving into crystalline snow.

If I walked in front of him, Thick lagged far behind, so I had to walk behind him, enduring his methodically slow poking of the snow in front of him. As the evening shadows lengthened, it became a tedious repetition of the day before. As I seethed along behind him, one slow step after another, the situation seemed to become more and more intolerable. My anger grew, slowly but steadily, like a fire methodically fed coal one lump at a time. When had I been thrust into this role? Why did I endure it? Why had Chade chosen me for this demeaning role? It had to be a punishment, a deliberate humiliation. I had been a warrior for the Farseers once. Now, in retaliation that I had taken my freedom, Chade humiliated me by making me nursemaid to a fat, smelly moron. I tried to recall all the logical reasons, to ask myself who else should be the watchdog for one so powerfully Skilled as Thick, and yet I could no longer convince myself of the necessity of my loathsome task. My thoughts spiralled down, down into an ever deeper chasm of frustration and anger and resentment. With an effort, I controlled myself. In a sugary voice, I coaxed him along. ‘Please move along a bit faster, Thick. Look. They’ve begun to set up the camp. Don’t you want to get to the camp and get dry and warm?’

He turned his head to glare at me. ‘You say nice words. But I know what you are thinking at me. Like knives and rocks and big knobby sticks. Well, you made me come here. And if you try to hurt me, I’ll hurt you back even worse. Because I’m stronger than you. I’m stronger, and I don’t have to obey you.’

Foolishly, he had warned me: I threw up my Skill-walls. In the moment before Thick’s Skill-blast hit me, I became aware that all my animosity toward him had died, like a fire suddenly smothered under a wet blanket. His attack hit me, an iron hammer on an anvil of cheese. He had not touched me, and then I felt as if he had crushed my body in his grip. I staggered and then fell into the snow, feeling that the very blood must burst out through my skin, as Thick suddenly demanded, ‘Why are we mad? What are we doing?’

It was a child’s wail of dismay. He must have thrown up his walls against me, and experienced the same loss of anger that I had. He waddled through the snow toward where I had fallen as the long-threatened rain began to pelt us. I rolled away from his touch, knowing that he meant well, but fearful that if he touched me, my walls would fall before him. ‘I’m not hurt, Thick. Really, I’m not. I’m just a bit sick.’ And stunned. And rattled. And aching as if I’d been flung from a horse. I got my knees under me and lurched to my feet. ‘No, Thick, don’t touch me. But listen. Listen. Someone is trying to trick us. Someone is using our own magic to put bad thoughts in our heads. Someone we don’t know.’ I knew it with sudden certainty. Someone was employing the Skill against us.

‘Someone we don’t know,’ he said dully. Dimly, I was aware of Dutiful trying to Skill to me. Doubtless they had felt some shadow impact of Thick’s attack on me. I ventured to drop my walls for an instant, to Skill to them, Be wary! Guard your thoughts! And then I slammed my defences tight against the insidious fingering of Skill that had attempted to once again infiltrate my mind. I knew that I should try to strike back, or at least follow the Skill-thread back to them. It took every bit of courage I possessed to drop my walls. I reached out wildly, Skilling in all directions to see who had been poisoning my mind against Thick.

I felt nothing and no one. Chade and Dutiful and Thick were there, walled against me. I thought of groping toward Nettle, and decided against it. My attackers might not know of her; I would not show her to them. I drew a shuddering breath, and then once more threw up my Skill-walls. I felt only marginally safer. We had an unknown enemy. I would not rest until I had uncovered all I could about them.

‘It’s the same ones that made my bad dreams, too,’ Thick announced decisively.

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘I know. Yes. It’s them, the bad-dream makers.’ Thick nodded emphatically.

The rain was coming down steadily, shushing against the snow around us. I hoped the others had already put the tents up and that there would be some sort of dry shelter awaiting us when we arrived. All day long, the wet had crept up me from the damp snow. Now it drenched down on me, completing my misery. ‘Come on, Thick. Let’s get to the camp,’ I suggested, and we lurched forward through the snow that packed unevenly under our feet. ‘Keep your Skill-walls up,’ I cautioned him as we slogged along. ‘Someone was trying to make us think bad thoughts about each other. They don’t know that we are friends. They tried to make us hurt each other.’

Thick looked at me dolefully. ‘Sometimes we are friends. Sometimes we fight.’

It was true. Just as it was true that I did resent always being his caretaker. They had found my resentment and irritation with Thick and fed it, just as Verity used to seek for fear or arrogance in our enemies, and feed it until our foes made some deadly mistake. It had been a subtle and well-planned attack by someone who had touched my mind enough to sense the feelings I hid from all others. That was unnerving.

‘Sometimes we fight,’ I admitted to Thick. ‘But not to really hurt each other. We disagree. Friends often disagree. But we don’t try to hurt each other. Even when we’re angry with each other, we don’t try to hurt each other. Because we are friends.’

Thick gave a sudden, deep sigh. ‘I did try to hurt you. Back on the boat, I made you bump your head a lot. I’m sorry, now.’

It was the most sincere apology I’d ever received in my life. I had to reciprocate. ‘And I’m sorry that I had to make you come here, on a boat.’

‘I think I forgive you. But I’ll get angry with you again if you put me on a boat to go home.’

‘That’s fair,’ I said after a moment. I tried to keep the dread and discouragement from my voice.

Thick shocked me when he halted and suddenly took my hand. Even through my Skill-walls, I felt the steady warmth of his regard. ‘I always got angry at my Mum when she washed my ears,’ he told me. ‘But she knew I loved her. I love you, too, Tom. You gave me a whistle. And pink sugar cake. I’ll try not to be mean to you any more.’

The simple words caught me off-guard. He stood, lips and tongue pushed out, his round little eyes peering at me from under his knit cap. He was a toadish little man, and his nose was running. It had been a long time since I’d been offered love on such a simple and honest basis. Strangely enough, it woke the wolf in me. I could almost see the slow, accepting wag of Nighteyes’ tail. We were pack. ‘I love you, too, Thick. Come on. Let’s get out of the wet.’

The rain turned colder and was sleet by the time we staggered into camp. Chade came to meet us. As soon as he was within earshot of a whisper, I warned him, ‘Keep your walls up. Someone tried to fog us with Skill, much as Verity used the Skill to confuse and confound our enemy during the time of the Red Ship War. It … they sought to turn Thick and me against each other. And very nearly succeeded.’

‘Who is behind it?’ Chade demanded, as if he thought I would actually know.

‘The bad-dream people,’ Thick told him earnestly. I shrugged at Chade’s scowl. It was as good an answer as any that I had.

Camp that night was a miserable place. Everything was either wet or damp. The tiny fires we could have allowed ourselves from our precious fuel wouldn’t burn. Peottre once more set boundaries for our camp and then risked himself to reconnoitre tomorrow’s route for us. A dim glow, as from a single candle, came from the Narcheska’s tent. The Fool’s was a gorgeous, beckoning blossom in the night, and I longed simply to go there, but Chade had demanded my presence and I recognized the need for my full report to him.

The Prince’s tent was made smaller by the spread of wet clothing. No one even pretended it would dry by morning. Chade and the Prince had already changed into fresh clothing. A fat candle in a metal cup tried sadly to heat a small kettle of snow-water. I took Thick’s coat and boots outside to shake the wet clumps of snow from them while he put on a long wool shirt and dry socks. Somehow, stepping outside again made the bite of the wet wind worse. I took Thick’s garments back into the tent and found drying space for them on the floor. Tomorrow would be a miserable hike when we had to re-don our damp garments. Well, there was no help for it, I thought bitterly. Still, ‘This is not like any quest to slay a monstrous beast for a fair damsel that I’ve ever heard a minstrel sing,’ I observed sourly as I re-entered the tent.

‘No,’ Thick agreed sadly. ‘There should be swords and blood. Not stupid wet snow.’

‘I don’t think you’d like swords and blood any better than the wet snow, Thick,’ the Prince observed glumly, but at the moment I tended to agree with Thick. One savage battle already seemed preferable to this endless slogging. With my luck, I’d probably get both before the end.

‘We have an enemy,’ I announced to them. ‘One that knows how to use the Skill against us.’

‘So you said,’ Chade observed. ‘But Dutiful and I have conferred and we’ve felt nothing of that.’ He poured the lukewarm water over tea-herbs, scowling sceptically as he did so.

That confounded me for a moment. I had expected that if anyone chose to attack us, they would make an attempt against the whole coterie. I said as much and then added, ‘Why would they target only Thick and me? We appear to be amongst the lowliest of your servants.’

‘Anyone aware of the Skill must be aware that Thick is not what he seems to be, nor you. Perhaps they realized Thick’s strength and sought to get rid of it by having you two destroy each other.’

‘But why not strike immediately against the Prince and his trusted advisor? Why not turn you against each other, and sow discord at the top of the command rather than work from the bottom up?’

‘It would be nice to know that,’ Chade conceded after a moment’s pondering. ‘But we don’t. Indeed, all we have is that you and Thick felt you were under attack. The Prince and I felt nothing, until you two turned on one another.’

‘That was rather impressive,’ Dutiful added, rubbing his temples wearily. He suddenly gave a huge yawn. ‘I wish this was over and done with,’ he said softly. ‘I’m tired, I’m cold, and I have no real heart for the task I must do.’

‘That could be a Skill-influence, subtly applied to you,’ I warned him. ‘Your father used the Skill that way, to confound the steersmen of the Red Ships and send them onto the rocks.’

The Prince shook his head. ‘My walls are up and tight. No, this comes from within me.’ He watched Chade pour some yellowish tea from the pot, scowl, and return it to steep some more.

‘It’s not a Skill-influence,’ Chade concurred bitterly. ‘It’s the damn Fool, talking to the Wit-coterie and the Hetgurd folk, stirring up sympathy for the dragon and preying on the Hetgurd superstitions. Hold to your resolve, my prince. Remember, you gave the Narcheska your word that you would lay the dragon’s head on her mother’s hearth for her.’

‘That you did,’ Peottre observed heavily as he lifted the tent flap. ‘May I come in?’

‘Yes, you may,’ Dutiful replied. ‘And yes, I recall what I promised. But I never promised to take joy in the doing of it.’

My Wit had warned me that someone had approached the tent, but I had expected it to be Swift or Riddle. I wondered why the Outislander had come, and hoped he would not hold his tidings until I had departed. But the nod he gave me seemed to concede my right to be there. Nor did he offer any ominous words of danger on the path ahead, but instead gave a hard smile as he said, ‘Today was little joy for any of us. And tomorrow will be as wearying. After such a cold and wet day, I thought I would share with you our cure for such a miserable journey.’ He sighed heavily. ‘This weather will not make our task any easier. The rain eats into the snow, weakening places that once were sound. Tomorrow, we must be wary of avalanche as well as crevasses as we cross the saddle of the island.’

As he spoke, he was unwrapping a dark cake from a stained square of fabric. I was hungry and my nose was keen. Whatever it was, it had been soaked in brandy to preserve it. He broke a piece from it, revealing raisins, bits of suet, and what was probably dried apple. The brandy smell grew stronger. Thick sat up eagerly, but warily. I was still shielded from his Skill, but his worry reached me faintly. Fish oil. Would it taste of fish oil?

Peottre seemed to notice my avid stare, for he grinned as he offered me the first chunk. ‘You look to be the one coldest and wettest still,’ he observed. It was true, since the others had already changed into drier clothing. I took it gratefully. As I bit into it, he said, ‘These cakes are what our warriors call “courage cake”. We make them with dark thick honey, dried fruits and strengthening herbs, and then all is soaked in brandy to make it keep well. A man can fight a day or travel two on but a handful of this.’

The sweetness and brandy-echo filled my mouth. As I swallowed, I caught a familiar aftertaste. The bitterness of elfbark had been cloaked by the cloying sweetness of the honey, suet and fruit. I knew I should warn Chade, even as my weary body shouted in anticipation of the surge of energy it would bring.

Then the world went dead around me.

I do not know how else to describe it. The first time I encountered Forged folk was also the first time I was aware that I had the Wit-magic. I had never realized that I had an extra sense of the kinship of all creatures until I saw living beings that made no imprint on that sense. Forging removed one from the intertwining net of life, made humans into individual unconnected things that ate and raped and existed with absolutely no empathy or sympathy for other living creatures. Only in meeting them had I discovered how the Wit connected me to all living things.

This was a similar experience, but its antithesis. I had thought of the Skill as a magic that only linked me to other Skill-users. Now I was suddenly severed from all the myriad tiny connections it made to all folk. The great voice of the human world, the constant murmur of other thoughts and minds around me, was stilled. I blinked and hastily probed an ear with my finger, wondering for a fraction of a second what had happened to me. I saw, I heard, I smelled, I touched, and the taste of the food lingered still in my mouth, but some other sense, unnamed and unknown until that instant, had been completely quenched in me by that single bite. I made a sudden prodigious effort to reach Chade and Dutiful with the Skill but it was like asking a frozen hand to grip. I remembered how once that sense had been triggered, but now it was a numbed place inside me.

Smiling, Peottre had handed Thick a chunk of the cake. The little man had his mouth opened wide and his hand was travelling toward it. I lunged to catch his wrist and pulled it away from him. He moved his mouth after it, snapping at the treat in a gesture that would have been comical if it were not such a threat to the coterie. ‘Elfbark!’ My deprivation of the Skill made me shout the word, as if mere voice alone could not convey such a warning.

I immediately moderated my tone, behaving as if my remark were intended for Thick alone. ‘No, Thick! You know the herb makes you sick. Let me have that and I promise that I’ll find you something else good to eat. No, Thick, please.’

‘What herb? I’m not sick! It’s mine, it’s mine! You said we were friends and wouldn’t hurt each other. Let go! Not fair, it’s not polite to grab!’

In his love of sweets, he struggled with me for it. I dared not let him have even a taste. Never had I had such a strong reaction to the herb. I felt the rush of its energy through me, and wondered how deeply would I fall into the inevitable trough of despair which followed elfbark use. Then I had scooped the handful of cake from his grasp. He sat down flat on the floor, gave one angry sob and then went off in a coughing fit. I handed the cake hastily to Chade with the improvised warning, ‘I wouldn’t eat this in front of him, sir. I know how he is about sweets. If he sees you having some without him, well, I’d predict a disruption that would deafen us all.’

I wondered if Chade and Dutiful reached toward me with the Skill. I wondered if Thick tried to make me stumble into the fire in revenge. But I felt absolutely nothing. No touch of them brushed against my senses. My Wit knew they were still there, and that was a comfort. But the Skill-threads that had run amongst us were all severed. Peottre scowled, looking on the verge of affront. Chade reacted more swiftly than I could have hoped, saying, ‘Ah, yes, I recall what an effect it had on you last time, Thick. It wouldn’t be good for you, now, don’t fuss, there’s a good fellow. I’m sure we can find something just as nice for you.’ He turned to Peottre with a conspiratorial wink. ‘The Prince’s good fellow stayed awake a day and a night, and then fell into such a black mood that nothing could cheer him for several days. Not the sort of thing to invite on such an expedition as ours. Come, Thick, don’t scowl like that. I think Prince Dutiful has some sugar barley sticks that he has been saving for you.’

The Prince was already rummaging in his pack and Chade hastily took the mashed handful of cake from me, deftly returned it to the rest of the cake and wrapped it up again. He tucked it immediately into his pack. ‘I’m sure the Prince and I will enjoy a bit of this later, perhaps after Thick has fallen asleep,’ he confided to Peottre in a lowered voice. ‘I, for one, will appreciate what a herb like elfbark can do for an old man. I wasn’t aware that it was used in the Out Islands.’

‘Elfbark?’ Did Peottre feign his ignorance? ‘We have no plant by such an odd name. There are herbs in the cake but each mothershouse has its own recipe for it, and the ingredients are jealously guarded. But I can tell you that this is from my own home, the same mothershouse the Narcheska shares. This “courage cake” has been a food that has sustained the Narwhal Clan for generations.’

‘Doubtless it is!’ Chade exclaimed delightedly. ‘And I look forward to trying it, later tonight. Or perhaps early tomorrow morning, to have its invigoration with me for the day after a sound night’s sleep. Poor Tom, I know what an effect elfbark has on you! You may enjoy it, but I doubt you’ll get a wink of sleep tonight. I’ve told you before not to indulge in it at evening. But, well, there’s no talking to you on that topic, is there?’

I essayed a grin I didn’t feel. ‘That’s true, Lord Chade, sir. No matter how long you might lecture me, doubtless I’d not hear a word you said.’ A tiny change in his eyes suggested he understood me only too well.

He poured weak tea for himself, sipped it, and then coughed loudly, nearly gagging, and vigorously thumping himself on the chest. In a wheezing voice, he added, ‘You are dismissed, Tom Badgerlock. Get yourself a bit of food, but please report back here before you sleep. I think Thick will wish to sleep here tonight.’

‘Yes, my lord.’ His mimed action had not been lost on me.

I left the tent and by a roundabout route, walked to the far corner of the camp. The rain had stopped, but the wind still blew. At the outskirts of camp, I thrust two fingers down my throat and tried desperately to gag up the bite of cake I’d eaten. It didn’t work. I’d fasted too long and my belly had taken it down too swiftly. What little I brought up left me shuddering with its bitterness.

I ate a handful of wet snow to try to clear the bile from my mouth, kicked loose snow over my vomit and went shaking back toward the tents. More than mere cold chilled me. I think that once a man has experienced the insidious treachery of poison, he never fully recovers from it. To know that you have taken something into your body, to be aware that it is working changes, debilitating changes, with every beat of your heart, is an excursion into horror which is hard to describe. I had tasted the elfbark and I already felt its impact. What if there had been other drugs in there, ones I had not tasted, working damage I did not yet suspect? I tried to rein my mind away from that precipice. It made no sense, I told myself. The cake had been a gift from Peottre, delivered without apparent guile. We were here to accomplish his mission of slaying the dragon; why would he attempt to poison one of us? Yet I could not quite dismiss it as a perverse twist of luck that he had fed me a form of the herb strong enough to obliterate my magic.

I was cold and wet and shaky. I didn’t want to join the guardsmen in our tent until I had finished calming myself. In a sort of instinctive retreat to safety, I found myself outside the Fool’s tent. I fumbled with cold hands at the tent flap. ‘Lord Golden,’ I called softly, belatedly recalling that he might have other guests.

There must have been some note in my voice that alerted him to my distress. He flung the flap open and beckoned me hastily in. Then, ‘Stand still. Don’t drip everywhere.’ He had already changed out of his hiking clothes. He looked warm and dry in a long black robe. I envied him.

‘Peottre fed me a bit of cake. It had elfbark in it, and I’ve lost my Skill-magic.’ The words tumbled from me, broken by my chattering teeth.

‘Take off your wet things.’ He had begun rummaging in his pack almost as soon as I entered. Now he dragged out a long coppery garment. ‘This will probably fit you. It’s warmer than it looks. How could elfbark steal all your magic in one bite? It’s never affected you that way before.’

I shook my head. ‘It just did. And someone is attacking Thick and me with the Skill, trying to make us hate each other. It nearly worked, until I thought Thick was going to attack me with the Skill, so I put up my walls and then I could suddenly think my own thoughts and I knew that I didn’t really resent having to nursemaid him all the time. It’s not really his fault, and even if I don’t like having to do it, I shouldn’t take it out on him, should I? If anything, I should be angry with Chade, not Thick. He’s the one who has put me in this position, and I think that half of it is that he’s trying to keep me so busy that I’m separated from you so I won’t be influenced by you. Because he wants me simply to follow his orders and not to think –’

‘Stop!’ The Fool exclaimed, alarmed. I halted in midword. I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong, but he held up both hands. ‘Fitz. Listen to yourself. I’ve never heard you rattle on that way. It’s … disturbing.’

‘It’s the elfbark.’ I shivered with the restless energy that coursed through me. The last of my wet clothing slapped onto the pile and I gratefully accepted the garment he held out to me, then flinched at its chill weight in my hands. ‘It’s cold. It’s cold as iron! What is this made from, fish scales?’

‘Just trust me and put it on. It warms quickly.’

I had little choice. I pulled it over my head and it slithered down my body. The long robe reached almost to my feet. I shifted my shoulders in its grip and it suddenly relaxed. ‘That’s strange. It felt tight across my shoulders and chest, and then, when I flexed my shoulders, it just settled on me. Look. It even reaches to my wrists. It’s like unimaginably fine chain metal. Is this more Elderling magic? Is this from the Rain Wilds? I wonder how they made it, and from what? Look at the way the colour shifts when I move.’

‘Fitz. Stop chattering like that. It’s unnerving.’ The Fool had taken possession of my wet clothes. As he lifted them, a fine trickle of water ran out of them. ‘I’m putting these outside to drain. It’s hopeless to expect them to dry by morning. Do you have others?’

‘Yes. In my pack, but I left that in the Prince’s tent. I left the keg of Chade’s explosion powder there, too. And Thick’s things were mostly in my pack, but that’s all right as he is there and he’ll need them. So it’s good that they are already there.’ I heard myself babbling and managed to stop talking before he commanded me to.

For a few moments longer, I shivered, and then I felt the robe returning the warmth of my body to me. With a sigh, I sank down onto the Fool’s blankets and drew my icy feet up under me. A moment later, I had unfolded myself and restlessly tried a new position. The Fool re-entered the tent and regarded me curiously as I stood and paced a turn around his tiny candle. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s like ants running under my skin.’ I pulled my straggling hair back from my face and re-fastened my warrior’s tail. ‘I can’t sit still. I can’t stop talking and thinking, and I can’t really think in any sort of order, if that makes any sense at all.’ My hands suddenly felt too large for me. I systematically popped each of my knuckles, and then shook my hands loose again. I looked up to find the Fool staring at me, his teeth gritted. ‘I’m sorry,’ I apologized hastily. ‘I can’t help it.’

‘That’s obvious,’ he muttered. Then, more clearly he added, ‘I wish I had some way to help you, but giving you herbs to calm you might not be the best solution. I fear, too, the plunge in spirits that must follow this wild flight you’re on. Never have I seen you so besieged by restlessness. If the pit of bleak despair that follows elfbark is as deep as this craze is lofty, I fear for us all.’

I saw by his face that he was serious. ‘I dread it, too. That is, I know I should dread it, but I simply can’t focus on it right now. Too many other thoughts overwhelm me. How will I dry my clothes before tomorrow, and I was supposed to report back to Chade later, yet I do not think I should wander through the camp in this robe, however warm it is. Yet I cringe at the thought of putting my wet clothing back on, even for the brief walk back to Dutiful’s tent. I left my pack there, with all my dry things in it. Thick’s things are in it, too. But that’s good, because Thick is there and he’ll need them.’

‘Hush,’ he begged me, interrupting the outpour of my thoughts. ‘Hush, please Fitz, and let me try to think. Always before, elfbark has done no more than damp your talent, and that was passing. Do we dare hope that this will wear off and your magic return?’

I shrugged wildly. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think we can judge anything about this by what elfbark has done to me before. Did I tell you how close Thick came to eating it as well?’

‘No. You didn’t.’ The Fool spoke carefully, as if I were slightly mad, and perhaps I was at that time. ‘Would you try to do this for me? Leave your hair and your mouth alone. Fold your hands in your lap and tell me what happened to you today. The whole day, please.’

I had not realized that I was tugging at my lower lip until he mentioned it. I folded my hands in my lap and made an effort to report to him as if he were Chade. I watched his face grow graver as I spoke and I knew that my words rattled out like hailstones, and that my tale was disjointed, told in bits and patches as I wove the events back and forth in my mind. Before I had finished, I was up and pacing the small confines of his tent. I could not master my agitation. A sudden inspiration came over me. ‘Here!’ I cried, advancing on him, my bared wrist thrust out to him. ‘Let us test it and see if my Skill is as gone as I think it is. Touch me. Try to reach into me with the Skill as you once did.’

He stared up at me, his face gone slack with astonishment. Then a sickly smile of disbelief spread over his face. ‘You’re asking me to do this?’

‘Of course. Yes. Let’s find out how bad it is. If you can still reach me, then perhaps my Skill will come back to me as the herb wears off. Let’s try it.’ I sat down beside him, and set my forearm, wrist up, on top of his knee. He looked at his faded fingerprints on my wrist and then gave me a sideways look.

‘No.’ He drew back from me. ‘You are not yourself tonight. Fitz. This is not something you would ordinarily allow, let alone request. No.’

‘What, are you scared?’ I challenged him. ‘Go ahead. What can we lose?’

‘Respect for one another. That I would do such a thing when you were as good as drunk. No, Fitz. Stop tempting me.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll remember, tomorrow, that I suggested this. I need to know. Is my magic dead in me?’ In some isolated corner of my soul, I felt alarm. I wanted to stop and think, but the anxiety wouldn’t let me. Do it now, do something now, do anything now. The drive to be doing, doing anything was a pressing need that could not be denied.

I reached out and took hold of his slender wrist. His hand was ungloved and unresisting. As if fitting together a wooden puzzle, I set his hand to my wrist. His cool fingertips fell into alignment with the scars he had left on me. I waited. I felt nothing. I looked at him quizzically.

He had closed his eyes. A moment later, he opened them. They were deep gold and devastated as he said in disbelief. ‘Nothing. I feel the warmth of your wrist under my fingers. I reach for you, but you are not there. And that is all.’

My heart lurched sideways in my chest. I instantly tried to deny what we had just established. ‘Well. Doesn’t prove anything, I suppose. We’ve never tried this before, so what do we know of what to expect? Nothing. Nothing at all. Tomorrow, I may awaken and find the Skill as strong in me as ever.’

‘Or not,’ the Fool suggested quietly, watching my face. His fingers still rested on my wrist. ‘Perhaps we shall never connect in this way again.’

‘Or not,’ I agreed. ‘Perhaps I shall wake just as isolated and deaf as I am at this moment. Perhaps.’ I stood up, pulling my wrist from his loose clasp. ‘Well. It’s no use thinking about it and worrying about it, is it? As well to fret over whether it will be wet or dry tomorrow. What will be will be.’ I paused, thinking I should keep still, but then the question burst out anyway. ‘Do you think Peottre did this to me purposely? Do you think he knew that elfbark can destroy the Skill? And how does he know that I have the magic at all? And, if he wants me to help the Prince kill the dragon, why would he disable me? Unless he doesn’t really want us to kill Icefyre. Maybe he’s lured us here so the Prince will fail. But that makes no sense. Does it?’

He looked battered by my onslaught of questions. ‘Can you be quiet, Fitz?’ he asked me earnestly, and after a moment’s thought, I shook my head.

‘I don’t think so.’ I shifted restively as I spoke. I was suddenly miserable. I could not find a comfortable position in which to be still. I was aware that I was sleepy but could not recall how to let go of wakefulness. I suddenly wanted all of it to go away and leave me in peace. I dropped my head into my hands and covered my eyes. ‘All my life, I’ve done everything wrong.’

‘It’s going to be a long night,’ the Fool observed woefully.

SEVENTEEN

Icefyre

Now, this is the tale of Yysal Sealshoes and the dragon Icefyre, and what befell her in the years when Wisal was the Great Mother of her mothershouse. Wisal took a dislike to a young man that Yysal had brought home to her bedding, and she gave her reasons three: he was bandy-legged and hollow-chested, and all know those are traits that may be passed on to children, and Wisal did not wish her mothershouse to be full of his bandy-legged weaklings. His hair was red, which Wisal also did not desire in her descendants; and whenever spring came to the islands and the willow trees drooped with tiny furry tails, the man sneezed and wept and coughed and was no use at all for the spring chores. And so, when Yysal went forth one summer day to gather crowberries from the upper slopes of their mountain, Wisal told the other women to gather clods of earth and rocks small enough to sting but not cause major injury and drive Yysal’s bedmate away. This her sisters and mother and aunts did with a good will, for none of them liked the way he simpered at them whenever Yysal was absent.

When Yysal returned and found her bedmate fled, she wept and she ranted and finally she vowed she would go to the dragon and ask for vengeance on her own kin. All know that is a great sin against a mothershouse, and yet she was so wroth, she would not listen to reason, nor accept the hearty, black-haired young warrior they offered her in place of her pale, scrawny stripling. And so she went to Aslevjal, and waited for the tide of the year, and then slipped under the icy shelves of the glacier to go deep within its heart and beg of the dragon her evil wish.

Deep beneath the icy cap that domes the island, she beached her tiny boat on a silty shore. She lifted her torch but did not pause to wonder at the beauties of Icefyre’s blue ice tomb. Instead, she climbed out immediately and made her way through the twisting blue tunnels to where she might look up at the dragon encased in the ice. And there she melted a hollow in the ice with the blood of the lamb she had brought with her, and begged him to make barren all the women who had driven her bedmate away from her side.

Badgerlock’s translation of an Out Island bard’s song

I recall the rest of that night and the following day and night as one recalls fever dreams. My mind shies away from remembering the misery I endured. ‘It was all in your mind,’ Chade told me some time later, and it stung that he dismissed so lightly all that I had endured. All of life, I wanted to tell him, is in our minds. Where else does it take place, where else do we add up what it means to us and subtract what we have lost? An event is just an event until some person attaches meaning to it.

I survived it. Anyone who makes a difference between such a herb and a poison has never been plunged into such depths as I sounded. At some point that night, Chade sent Riddle looking for me. He draped a blanket around me and hurried me, barefoot and clad in the ridiculous Elderling robe, back to the Prince’s tent. There, if I recall correctly, I spent several hours telling Chade just how much I despised myself. Dutiful later told me that he had never lived through such a tiresome recounting of any man’s imagined sins. I recall that several times he tried to reason with me. I spoke openly of killing myself, a fleeting notion that I had often considered but never before uttered. Dutiful was disgusted at such a maudlin fancy and Chade pointed out to me that it would be a selfish act that would not correct any of my stupidity. I think he was more than a bit weary of me by then.

And yet, it was not my fault. It was the despondency of the drug, not any rational consideration by me that kept me talking through the night and on into dawn. By morning, Dutiful knew far more of my youthful excesses than I had ever planned on divulging to him. If he had ever been tempted to experiment with elfbark or carris seed, I am sure that long evening cured him of his curiosity.

When Thick could stand no more of my over-emotional account, Riddle was summoned to escort him to the Witted coterie’s tent, where Web took him in hand and settled him for the night. Chade and Dutiful had planned to attempt to contact Nettle with the Skill that night, but my indisposition made it impossible for them to focus. Before Thick fled, they made an attempt as a coterie to reach me with the Skill. They had no more luck than the Fool had. When I told Chade about that encounter, his face darkened and I knew he disapproved that I had even attempted that experiment with the tawny man.

The next day, both Riddle and Web walked with Thick and me. I am sure that Riddle was assigned the task by Chade, but I think Web came for me. To this day, I wonder what Thick told him to make him think it necessary that he attend me. I walked in a silent black despair, through an endless torment of bright ice and gently blowing snow. Riddle and Thick walked ahead of us, speaking little. Web came right behind me, and said not a word all day. Summer had regained its grip and the wind that sculpted the dunes into fantastic forms was gentle and almost warm. I remember that Web’s bird circled over us twice, crying forlornly, and then went back to the sea. The presence of his Wit-beast reminded me savagely of the absence of mine, and sent me into a fresh pit of mourning. I did not sob but the tears ran down my face in a steady flow.

Emotion can be more exhausting than physical endeavour. By the time Peottre announced that we would set our tents, I no longer cared about anything. I was without volition as I stood and watched them put up the tents. Vaguely, I remember that Peottre apologized to Chade that his ‘courage rations’ had so incapacitated me. Chade accepted the apology in an off-hand way, replying that I had always had an unpredictable temperament and been prone to abusing herbs. I knew why he said such words, yet they struck to my heart like a dagger. I could not bring myself to eat the bowl of porridge that Web eventually brought me. I went to my blankets while everyone else was still awake. I did not sleep, but stared up at the shadows of the tent’s recesses and tried to imagine why my father had ever lain with my mother. It seemed an evil thing they had done. I heard Web playing his little instrument for Thick outside the tent, and I suddenly missed the funny little man’s Skill-music. Eventually, I must have slept, and heavily.

When I awoke, it was late in the day. All around me were the tousled pallets of the men-at-arms, empty. I wondered why they had not wakened me and why we had not struck camp and begun our day’s march. I crawled shivering from my blankets, grimaced at the robe I still wore and hastily pulled on my coat and outer trousers. I stuffed the robe into my pack, still wondering at the silence of the camp. I dreaded that some threat of the weather had forced us to delay our journey.

I emerged from the tent into a steady sweep of mild wind, laden with tiny crystals of snow swept down from the bulging shoulder of glacier that loomed over us. Around me, the camp seemed almost deserted. Web was tending a kettle of food on a tripod over a tiny fire in a clay pot. The pot was settling into the snow as its heat melted the ice around it. ‘Ah, you’re awake,’ Web said with a welcoming smile. ‘I trust you’re feeling better.’

‘I … yes, I am,’ I replied, somewhat surprised to find it was true. The unreasoning blackness of yesterday’s mood had lifted. I did not feel cheery; the loss of my Skill still weighted me heavily and the task before us daunted me, but the deep despair that had led me to wishing to end my life had lifted. Slowly, a dull anger began to rise in me. I hated Peottre for what he had put me through. I knew that Chade’s strategy with the man required me to refrain from any vengeance, but I refused to believe that those ‘rations’ held an ordinary amount of elfbark that his comrades could consume without devastating effects. I’d been deliberately poisoned. Again. I hoped that sometime before I returned to the Six Duchies, fate would afford me the chance to even things with Peottre. All my training as an assassin forbade me the luxury of vengeance. Ever since King Shrewd had first made me his, I had been taught that my talents were used at the will of the crown, not at my personal judgment or for private vengeance. Once or twice I’d strayed outside those guidelines, with devastating results. I reminded myself of that several times as I surveyed the area around me.

Our camp was pitched on a gentle slope of snow. Not far away, a ridge of black rock broke jaggedly through the snow’s crust. Above me towered a steep mountain. It was like a cup with a piece broken out of its lip. Here and there, black stone outcropped from the snow crust. Its bowl cupped ice and snow, a frozen cascade that sloped down toward us. We were camped on the final, flattest spread of the spill.

‘You’re very quiet,’ Web observed gently. ‘Are you in pain?’

‘No. Thank you for your concern. I’ve just been given a great deal to think about.’

‘And your Skill-magic has been stolen from you.’

At the glance I gave him, he held up a fending hand. ‘No one else has deciphered that secret. Thick was the one who accidentally explained it to me. He was quite distressed for you. Annoyed by you, too, but worried for you. Last night, he tried to explain to me that it wasn’t just your bleak mood and constant talking and fidgeting that alarmed him, but that you were gone from his mind. He told me a story from when he was small. His mother let go of his hand one night on a crowded street during a fair. He was lost for hours, and he could not find her, not with his eyes or his mind. From the way he told his tale, I think she abandoned him, and then thought better of it later that night and came back for him. But he took a long time to explain to me that he knew his mother was there, but she wouldn’t let him touch her thoughts. With you, he says, you are just gone. As if you were dead, as his mother is dead now. And yet you walk around and he sees you. You frighten him, now.’

‘Like a Forged one I must seem to him.’

Web winced sympathetically. I knew then that he had experienced the chilling presence of Forged ones, but then said, ‘No, my friend. I feel you still, with my Wit. You have not lost that magic.’

‘And yet what use is it to me, without a partner?’ I asked the question bitterly.

He was silent for a moment, then spoke resignedly. ‘And that is yet another thing I could teach you, if ever you have the time to sit and learn.’

There seemed little I could say to that. So I asked a question. ‘Why haven’t we moved on yet today?’

He gave me a quizzical look, then smiled. ‘We are here, my friend. This is as close a camping site as we shall find. Peottre says the dragon used to be hazily visible in the ice near here. Prince Dutiful and Chade and the others are following Peottre and the Narcheska up to the dragon. The Hetgurd witnesses have gone with them. Up there.’ He pointed.

The glacier’s polished and sculpted surface was deceptive. Where it appeared smooth and continuous, there were actually many falls and rises in its surface. Now, as I watched, our people emerged in a long line like a trail of ants higher on the icy hillside. I spotted Peottre in his furs leading them, with the Narcheska at his heels. Everyone was there, following Peottre up the hillside immediately above us. Only Web and I had remained in camp. I commented on that.

‘I didn’t want you to wake alone. Riddle said you had spoken of ending your own life.’ He shook his head sternly. ‘I believed better of you. And yet, having seen your black mood yesterday, I did not want to take the chance.’

‘I would not kill myself. That was a passing madness, the herb’s toxin speaking rather than any true thought of mine,’ I excused myself. In truth, looking back on the wild words I had uttered the night before, I was ashamed that I had even spoken such a thought aloud. Suicide has always been deemed a coward’s act in the Six Duchies.

‘And why would you use such a herb, knowing it would affect you so?’ He asked severely.

I bit my tongue, wishing that I knew what Chade had said of my debilitation. ‘I’ve used it in the past, for great pain or weariness,’ I said quietly. ‘This time, the dose was far stronger than I thought.’

Web sighed in a great breath. ‘I see,’ he said, and no more than that, but his disapproval was strong.

I ate the congealing mass in the kettle. It was Outislander food, stinking of oily fish. They made a soup from sticky dry cubes of cooked fish mashed with oil to bind it. Heated with snow water, it made a greasy chowder. Despite the foul flavour, I felt more myself after I had eaten it. There was still a strange absence all around me. It was more than Thick’s music silenced. I had grown accustomed to threads of awareness that extended to Dutiful, Chade, the Fool and Nettle. I had been torn free of that web of contact.

Web watched me eat, and then clean the kettle. I banked the tiny fire in the clay pot with small hope it would survive. Then, ‘Shall we join them?’ he invited me, and I nodded grimly.

Peottre had marked a trail with bright scraps of red fabric on sticks driven into the snow both to the left and right. Web and I followed the meandering path up the face of the glacier. At first, we spoke little. Then, as we walked, Web began to speak to me, and finally, I listened.

‘You asked what the use of the Wit is, when you do not have a companion. I understand that you mourn your wolf still, and that is only fitting. I’d think less of you if you rushed into another bonding simply for the sake of assuaging your own loneliness. That is not the Old Blood way, any more than a widowed man should wed someone simply to provide a mother for his bereaved children and someone to warm his bed. So, you are right to wait. But in the meantime, you should not turn your back on your magic.

‘You speak little to the rest of us Witted ones. Those who do not know you share our magic think you avoid us because you despise it, Swift included. Even if you do not wish to let them know you, too, are Old Blood, I think you should correct that impression. I do not understand, fully, why you keep both your magics a secret. The Queen has said she will no longer allow persecution of the Witted, and I have seen that you fall under her protection in any case. And if you have the Farseer magic, the Skill, as I believe you do, well, that has always been an honourable and well-regarded magic in the Six Duchies. Why cloak that you serve your queen and prince with it?’

I pretended that I was too winded to answer immediately. The climb was steep and steady, but I was not that taxed by it. Finally, I surrendered to his silence. ‘I’d be giving away too many pieces of who I am. Someone will put them all together, look at me, and say, The Witted Bastard lives. The killer of King Shrewd, the ungrateful bastard who turned on the old man who sheltered him. I do not think our queen’s policy of tolerance toward the Witted is ready for that yet.’

‘So you will live out all the rest of your years as Tom Badgerlock.’

‘It seems likely to me.’ I tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice and failed.

‘Do you feel that?’ Web asked me suddenly.

‘I feel it’s the wisest thing to do, if not the easiest,’ I replied reluctantly.

‘No, no. Open your Wit, man. Do you feel something, something more immense than you’ve ever felt before?’

I halted and stood silent. The Wit is like any other sense. One becomes so accustomed to the sounds of the day or the smells of the cook-fires that one ceases to pay full attention to them. Now I stood still, as if listening, but actually unfolding my awareness of the life-net around me. There was Web, warm and hearty and near. Farther up the trail, I sensed the others, a confused string of beings emanating various degrees of fatigue and discomfort. My sensation of those who were Witted was slightly sharper and clearer than for the ordinary folk of the party. I could not feel Web’s bird; I suspected she was out over the water, feeding. ‘Only the ordinary –’ I began to say, and then stopped. Had I felt something? A very large, subtle swelling of the Wit? It was as if a door had opened briefly and then closed again. I grew more still, and closed my eyes. No. ‘Nothing,’ I commented, opening them again.

He had been watching my face. ‘You felt it,’ he told me. ‘And I feel it still. Next time you sense it, hook onto it.’

‘Hook onto it?’

He shook his head regretfully. ‘Never mind. That is one of those things that “one day” you’ll have time to learn from me.’

It was the closest he had come to a rebuke, and I was surprised by how much it stung. I knew I deserved it. I found the strength to be humble and asked, ‘Do you think you could explain it to me as we walk?’

He turned his head and lifted his eyebrows in gentle mock surprise. ‘Why, yes, Fitz. I could do that, now that you ask me to. Choose someone in the party ahead of us, someone unWitted, and I’ll try to explain to you how it is done. Some Old Bloods theorize that it is how pack hunters settle on one animal in a herd and mark it out as their prey. Perhaps you’ve seen young wolves or other predators that fail to make that first step in hunting. Instead of selecting a single animal to hunt, they charge the entire herd or flock, and all prey evades them. That is, of course, one of the strengths of a herd. Prey animals cloak their individuality from the hunters, and hide in plain sight of them.’

And so, very belatedly, began my lessons with Web. By the time we had caught up with the others, I had been able to single out Chade and be aware of him, even at the moments when he was not in my line of sight. I had also felt, twice more, that immense heave of presence in my Wit-sense. But unlike Web, I had felt such a sensation before. I kept that piece of knowledge to myself, though it made my heart sink to do so. I knew a dragon when I felt one. I expected the wide shadow of wings to sweep over me, for I knew of no other way to explain how I could sense so large a creature, and then feel no trace of it. But the skies above me remained blue, clear and empty.

When we reached the others, they were standing in the scant shelter of an outcropping of rock. Outislander runes were cut into the surface of it in a wavering line that wandered back beneath the ice level. The Hetgurd witnesses stood near the rock, and their displeasure at being here was writ large on their faces. Yet most of them looked sourly amused, too. I wondered why. One of their men was on his knees, doggedly digging at the ice that had pushed up against the rock. His tool was his belt-knife, and he clashed the iron blade against the stubborn ice as if he were stabbing someone. He’d make a dozen strokes and then brush away a negligible amount of chipped ice. It seemed a futile task, but he was intent on it.

Longwick’s men had brought their tools up with them. They carried shovels and picks and pry bars, but as yet they had not put any of them to work. They stood at the ready, bored and uninterested as any good soldiers usually are, and awaited to be assigned their task. I did not wonder long why they had not yet begun. As we approached, Chade and Dutiful were face to face with the Narcheska and Peottre. The other members of the Wit-coterie stood idly nearby. Thick had sat down in the snow behind them and was humming aloud to himself, nodding his head in a rhythmic counterpoint.

‘Yes, but where?’ Chade demanded, and from his tone, I knew it was not the first time he had asked his question.

‘Here,’ Peottre replied patiently. ‘Here.’ He swept one arm wide, indicating the small plateau we stood on. ‘As the runes on the rock say, “here sleeps the dragon Icefyre”. I have brought you to him, as we agreed we would do, and the Narcheska has accompanied us to witness your task. Now, it is up to you. You are the ones who must unearth him and take his head. Is not that the task the Prince agreed to, within his own mothershouse?’

‘Yes, but I didn’t think he’d have to chip a whole glacier into shards to do it! I thought there would be some indication of where he was. There’s nothing here, just ice and snow and rock. Where do we begin?’

Peottre lifted his shoulders in a heavy shrug. ‘Anywhere you like, I suppose.’ One of the Hetgurd witnesses gave a bitter chuckle at his words. Chade glanced about almost wildly. His brief look acknowledged that I was finally present but seemed to think I would not be of much use. He tried again with Peottre.

‘The last time you were here and could see the dragon, where was he?’

Peottre shook his head slowly. ‘I’ve only been here once before, with my aunt, when I was a boy. She brought me here to teach me the way. But we never saw the dragon, only the writing that marks his place. It has been at least a generation since the dragon was visible through the ice.’

This seemed to spark something in the Owl Clan member, for he suddenly stepped forward from the huddle of Hetgurd witnesses. He smiled slightly when he spoke, nodding to himself. ‘My grandmother saw him, when she was a girl. I shall tell you what she told me, and perhaps you will gain wisdom from it. She came here with her own mother’s mother, to leave a gift for Icefyre and ask for greater fertility amongst our sheep. When they got here, her mother’s mother showed her a dark shadow, just visible through the ice when the day’s sun was strongest. “There he is,” she told my grandmother. “He used to be much easier to see, but every year the ice grows and he sinks farther away. Now he is only a shadow, and there will come a time when people will doubt he ever existed. So look well, and make sure that no descendant of ours shames us by doubting the wisdom of their own people.”’ The bard ceased his telling as abruptly as he had begun it. He stood, his cheeks reddened by the wind that blew his long hair, and nodded to himself, pleased.

‘And would you know, then, where we would begin to look for the dragon?’

The Owl laughed. ‘I do not know. And I would not tell you if I did.’

‘I am curious,’ the Prince said more gently. ‘What was the offering made to the dragon, and how did he accept it?’

‘Blood,’ Owl replied promptly. ‘They cut a sheep’s throat and let it bleed out on the ice. The mothers studied the shape of the puddle it made and where it sank in and where it pooled on the surface. They judged that they had pleased Icefyre with their gift. Then they left the sheep’s carcass here for the Black Man, and went home. The next spring, many of our sheep dropped two lambs instead of just one, and none of them were touched by the flux. We had a good year.’ Owl glanced sourly around at us. ‘That is the sort of luck we used to receive for honouring Icefyre. Dishonour and doubt him, and I dread to think of the misfortune that will befall your houses.’

‘And our houses, too, like as not, for being present,’ Seal observed sullenly.

Peottre did not look at them as he reminded them, ‘Our mothershouse has accepted all that may come from this. It will not fall upon you.’

‘So you say!’ Owl snorted disdainfully. ‘Yet I doubt you speak for Icefyre, you who would destroy him for a woman’s whim!’

‘Where is the dragon?’ Chade broke in, his exasperation complete. His answer came from an unexpected source.

‘He’s here,’ Swift said quietly. ‘Oh, yes, he is. His presence ebbs and surges like a wild tide, but there’s no denying he’s here.’ The boy swayed as he spoke and his voice was far away. Cockle set his hand to the young man’s shoulder, and Web left me to hasten to Swift’s side.

‘Look at me!’ he commanded the boy, and when Swift was slow to comply, he gave the lad a shake. ‘Look at me!’ he urgently ordered him again. ‘Swift! You are young and never-bonded. You may not understand what I’m telling you, but keep yourself to yourself. Do not go to him, and do not let him come into you. This is a powerful presence that we feel, splendid and awe-inspiring. But do not become absorbed in that. I feel in this creature the charm of a great cat, the beckoning wile that can bond a youngster whether he would or no.’

‘You can feel the dragon? He is definitely here, and alive?’ Chade was incredulous.

‘Oh, yes,’ Dutiful replied unwillingly. For the first time, I realized how pale he was. The rest of us were ruddy-cheeked with the cold. Dutiful stood very still and slightly apart from us. He looked at the Narcheska as he spoke. ‘The dragon Icefyre is indeed here. And he is alive, though I do not understand how that can be so.’ He paused as if thinking deeply, his eyes going afar. ‘I can just brush my mind against his. I reach for him, but he ignores me. Nor do I grasp how I can be aware of him one moment, and then feel him fade beyond my reach the next.’

I tried not to gape as the Prince carelessly revealed that he was Witted. I was also surprised that he seemed to be sensing the dragon with his Wit when I could barely perceive him. Some time ago, I had realized that the Prince’s Wit-ability was not as strong as my own. Had his lesson with Web sharpened it? Then an alternative shocked me. Did he speak of the Wit, or of the Skill? In my dreams, the dragon Tintaglia had touched me with the Skill. I suspected that she had used the Skill-magic to find Nettle as well. I transferred my gaze to Chade. The old man looked deeply thoughtful, and frustrated. It was Thick that decided me. He seemed completely absorbed in his humming, nodding his head in time. I wished that I could hear his Skill-music, and wished even more that I could provoke him to raise his Skill-walls. I had never seen the little man so enraptured.

‘Do not go groping after him!’ Web gave the command without regard for the Prince’s rank. ‘There are legends, very old Wit-tales, of the fascination of dragons. It is said they can infatuate the unguarded mind, inspiring a near-slavish devotion. The oldest songs warn of breathing of the exhaled breath of a dragon.’ He turned suddenly, putting me in mind of a commander ordering his troops as he said to Cockle, ‘You know the song I speak of, do you not? Tonight, it would be a good song for all to hear. In my youth, I gave little thought to such old songs, but in my older years, I have learned that much truth can be hidden in the old poetry. I would hear it again.’

‘As would I,’ Chade unexpectedly agreed. ‘And any other songs you know that may have to do with dragons. But, for now, if our prince’s Witted coterie can sense this dragon, perhaps they can guide us in where we should begin our digging.’

‘Tell you where he is, so you can dig down to kill him? No! I, for one, won’t do it!’ Swift uttered the words with sudden, wild passion. He looked more distressed than I had ever seen him. Chade rounded on him immediately.

‘Do you so quickly forget your vow to your prince?’

‘I –’ The boy could find no words. His face flushed and then paled. I watched him struggle to find his loyalty, and wished I could help him. But I knew, possibly better than anyone there, how torn he might be.

‘Stop this,’ Web said quietly as the old assassin fixed Swift with his stern stare.

‘It is nothing to do with you,’ Chade said quietly, and for the first time, I saw Web’s anger. It came as a physical bunching of his muscles and a swelling of his chest. He contained himself, but I saw how difficult it was for him. So did my prince.

‘Stop this,’ Dutiful echoed Web’s words, but he gave them the inflection of royal command. ‘Swift, be calm. I do not doubt your loyalty to me. I will not test it this way, setting one of my men to decide between what his heart says is right and what he has vowed to do. I do not judge that I can honourably lay that burden upon him. Nor is my own will certain in this.’ He swung his gaze suddenly to the Narcheska. She did not meet his gaze but gazed out over the snowy plain below us. He surprised me by going to her and standing before her. Peottre took a step as if to intervene, but Dutiful did not offer to touch her. Instead, he said quietly, ‘Will you look at me, please?’

She turned her head and lifted her chin to meet his eyes. Her face was still, save for one brief flash of defiance in her eyes. For a moment, Dutiful said nothing, as if hoping she would speak to him. All was silent save for the shushing of the wind as it stirred the old ice crystals on the glacier’s face and the crunching of snow underfoot as the men-at-arms shifted their weight in readiness. Even Thick’s humming had ceased. I spared him a glance. He looked perplexed, as if he were trying to recall something. When the Narcheska held her silence, Dutiful sighed.

‘You know more of this dragon than you have ever revealed to me. And I have never mistaken this task you have given me for a maiden’s challenge to her suitor. There is no woman’s whim in what you ask me to do, is there? Will not you tell me the greater import of this task you have laid upon me, so that I may judge what best to do?’

I thought he had won her, until he added that last phrase. I could almost feel her distress that he might flinch from doing what he had said he would. I saw her retreat from the honesty that had tempted her into a pique worthy of any court-bred young noblewoman. ‘Is it thus that you fulfil your pledges, Prince? You said you would do this thing. If it daunts you now, speak it so plainly, so all may know the moment at which your courage slipped.’

She did not have her heart in the challenge. I saw that and so did Dutiful. I think it hurt him all the more that she flogged his pride with such a merciless dare and it did not even come from her heart. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. ‘I keep my word. No. That is not the exact truth of it. I have given my word to you, and you choose to keep it. You could give it back to me and release me from this task. But you do not. So, by the honours of both my mother’s and my father’s houses, I will do what I have sworn to do.’

Web spoke. ‘This is not a stag you hunt for meat, my prince. It is not even a wolf that you slay to protect your flocks. This is a creature, as intelligent as yourself if the legends be true, that has given you no provocation to kill it. You must know –’ And then Web halted his words. Even as provoked as he was, he would not betray his prince’s secret Wit. ‘You must know what I shall now tell you. He lives, this Icefyre. How he does, I do not know, nor can I say how robust the spark that lingers in him. He flickers in and out of my awareness like a flame dying on a final coal. It may be that we have come all this way and arrived only in time to witness his passing from the world. There would be no dishonour in that. And I have travelled far enough at your side that I think it is not in you to slay any creature that lies defenceless at your feet. Perhaps you shall prove me wrong. I hope not. But,’ and here he turned to his Witted companions. ‘If we do not fulfil our prince’s request to help him locate the dragon, if we do not unearth Icefyre from this ice that grips him, I believe he will die just as surely as if our prince took his head. The rest of you may do as you will in this. But I shall not hesitate to use what magic Eda has blessed me with to discover the dragon’s prison and free him from it.’ He lowered his voice. ‘It would, of course, be much easier if you all helped me.’

During all of this, the Hetgurd contingent had held themselves apart. I stole a glance at them, and was only mildly surprised to see the Fool standing, not with them, but beside them, as if to show plainly where his loyalties lay. The Owl, their bard, had that listening look so familiar to me from my days with Starling. Every word uttered here would be fixed in his memory, to be later set in the swinging, lurching rhymes of the Outislander bard’s tongue. Speculation and dread played over the faces of the others. Then Bear, their leader, thudded a fist on his chest to draw everyone’s attention to him.

‘Do not forget us, nor forget why we are here. If it is as your wizards say, if the dragon lives but only feebly and you unearth him, we will witness that. And if this Six Duchies farmer-prince kills our dragon when he is in sickness and unwarlike, then all the wrath of every clan will fall, not just on Narwhal and Boar clans for condoning such a cowardly act, but upon the Six Duchies. If the young prince does this to make an alliance and stave off further war with the God’s Runes folk, then he must be sure that he does it in the manner agreed upon. He was to meet our dragon in fair combat, not ignobly take his head as he lies ailing. There is no honour in taking a battle-token from a warrior who is already dying and not by your own hand.’

The Fool stood silent through the Bear’s declaration, and yet something in his stance made it seem the man was his spokesman. He did not have his arms crossed on his chest, nor did he scowl forbiddingly. Instead he looked deeply at Dutiful, the White Prophet pondering the man who might be his antagonist in his quest to set the world on a better path. The look sent a chill up my back.

As if aware of my gaze on him, he suddenly turned his eyes to mine. The question in them was plain. What would I do, how did I choose? I looked away from him. I could not choose, not yet. When I saw the dragon, I thought to myself, then I would know. And a cowardly part of myself muttered, ‘If he dies before we chip him out of the ice, then all is solved, and I need never stand in opposition to Chade or the Fool.’ It was no comfort that I suspected they were both aware of that secret hope.

Peottre spoke in reply to the Bear. He said, in the weary way of a man who explains something for the hundredth time to a stubborn child, ‘The Narwhal Mothershouse accepts all consequences of this act to our own. Be it so, if the dragon rises against us and curses our descendants. If our kin and fellows turn against us, be it so. We accept we have brought it upon ourselves.’

‘You can bind yourself!’ Bear declared angrily. ‘But your words and gestures cannot bind Icefyre! Who is to say he will not rise to take his vengeance on any who came here to witness his betrayal?’

Peottre looked down at the snow in front of his feet. He seemed to brace himself, as if preparing to shoulder a heavier burden on top of what he already bore. Then he spoke slowly, clearly, as if saying his lines in a ritual, yet his words were plain as bread. ‘When the time comes to take sides, lift your weapons against me. I vow I will stand and face them all. If I am defeated, let every man of you bloody his weapon in me before I die.’

Midway through his speech, Elliania had gasped in a sharp breath and surged forward as if to stand in front of him. He thrust her aside roughly, a harsher treatment of her than I had ever seen him make, and he held her out from him at arm’s length with a firm grip on her upper arm, as if to hold her apart from whatever he had just taken onto himself. Her body heaved as if she stifled sobs or screams as she hid her face in both her hands as he spoke on.

‘If Icefyre is all the legends say he is, then he will recognize that you have championed his cause, and he will not hold you or your mothershouses responsible for what we did here. Does that satisfy you?’

When his words were finished, Peottre abruptly drew Elliania close to his side and embraced her there, muttering words into her hair as he bent over her, words I could not catch.

A terrible gravity had seized every Outislander face at Peottre Blackwater’s words. Again, I was left groping after the full meaning of some foreign gesture. I felt that somehow he had once again bound them as well as himself. Was there some shameful attachment to what he had offered them? I did not know, but could only guess.

Dutiful was a white-faced witness. Chade stood motionless and silent, and I longed to once more have the Skill in me. It seemed to me that there were suddenly too many ways the dice could fall now. If the dragon was dead when we unearthed him, if he was alive, if he fought, if he didn’t, if we slew the dragon and took his head, but Peottre died keeping his word … I suddenly found myself sizing up the Hetgurd witnesses as warriors, estimating who I could kill by fair means and who must fall to foul. A glance at Longwick showed him issuing soft-spoken commands to his men, and I suspected that the Prince would now have a shadow at every moment of the day and night.

But strangest of all, perhaps, were the actions of Web, Cockle, Swift and Civil. Ignoring all else, they walked a random, searching pattern over the snow and ice, looking intently down as if each had lost a diamond and must find it amongst the sparkling crystals of snow. Web was the first to find a stopping place. He was silent and motionless, waiting. Swift came to a halt perhaps a dozen paces away from him. A ship’s length from him, Civil scrambled down a steeper piece of ice and then stood still. Cockle was the last to choose his place. He had an uncertain look on his face. He moved slowly, hands outstretched and seeking, as if feeling for rising warmth where none could exist. Slowly he walked away from all of them until he came to a halt about fifteen paces away from Web. The minstrel appeared uncertain as he looked up for Web’s approval. Web nodded slowly. ‘Yes. I believe you are right. He is immense, larger than any creature I have ever seen. Here beneath my feet, I feel him strongest. But if that is where his slow heart beats or where his head rests, I cannot say. Perhaps it is only where his tail tip is closest to the surface. Each of you others, drop a token to mark where you stand. Then walk toward me and tell me if you judge it as I have.’

Cockle pulled off his mitten and let it drop into the snow where he stood, while Civil plunged his staff in and let it stand. Then each made his careful way back to Web. Dutiful and I exchanged a glance, and then, as if simply curious, walked toward the Witmaster. I watched Dutiful’s face, but I do not think he was as aware of the sensation as I was. It came and went, flickering like a guttering candle. Even when I stood at my prince’s shoulder near Web, my Wit-sense of the dragon was not consistent. But I agreed with Web. When I did sense him, I sensed him more strongly here.

Web and the others of the Wit-coterie had kept their eyes down, as if they could see through the snow. Now, one by one, they lifted their gazes. Dutiful waited until Web’s eyes met his. I do not know what passed between them in that stare; perhaps they measured one another. But when Web nodded slowly, the Prince dipped his head once in agreement. He turned to Chade.

‘This is where we will begin the digging,’ he said.

EIGHTEEN

Ice

My lady Queen

You know I remain your most loyal servant. I do not question the wisdom of your judgment, but ask that you temper that wisdom with the reflection that perhaps what we have endured has pushed us past the bounds of justice into retribution. I assure you that the report of a ‘massacre of Piebalds’ is a gross overstatement. If we of the Old Blood have erred, it is in that we have held back our hands so long from taking the actions that will convince the renegades amongst us that we will no longer tolerate their incursions against their own folk. This is, in a sense, a cleaning of our own house, and the filth that we must scrub out of our blood shames us. Look aside, we beg you, whilst we scour from our bloodlines those who degrade us.

Unsigned letter, following the Grimston bloodbath

And so we dug in the ice.

Longwick sent Riddle and Hest down to our camp to bring up the shovels, picks and pry bars. While they were gone, Longwick asked the Prince solemnly, ‘How big a hole do you wish, my lord?’ Dutiful and Chade drew it out on the snow, an area large enough for four men to work in without getting in one another’s way. Riddle, Hest and I were the diggers. Longwick worked alongside us, to my surprise. I suppose he felt that his reduced company of guardsmen made it essential that he take a hand as well. The guardsmen worked with a will, but awkwardly. They were fighters, not farmers, and though they knew the essentials of throwing up emergency earthworks, they had never had to work on a glacier before. Neither had I. It was an enlightening experience.

Digging ice is not like digging in soil. Soil is made of particles, and particles give way before the blade of a shovel. Ice forms alliances and holds tight to itself. The top layer of loose snow was the most annoying, for it was like shovelling fine flour. There was little weight to each load, but it was difficult to control where each shovelful landed. The next layer was not so bad. It was like digging old packed snow once we broke through the icy crust. But the deeper we went, the more difficult the digging became. We could not shove a spade in and lift and throw out a shovelful of snow. Instead, we used picks to break the ice into chunks, and in the process sent shards and chunks of it flying at one another. Once the ice was loosened, we could scoop it up and toss it up and out of the hole, where the others loaded it onto one of the sleds and hauled it away from the hole’s edge. If I kept on my cloak, my back ran sweat. Taking it off meant that frost collected on my shirt.

We did not work alone. A compromise had been reached, for the Prince’s Witted coterie were the ones to haul the ice from the hole’s edge. After a time, the two groups took turns at the picks, the shovels and the hauling. By the first nightfall, we had a hole that was shoulder-deep with no sign of a dragon in the bottom of it.

As evening fell, the winds rose, sending flurries of loose ice crystals scurrying across the surface of the glacier. As we gathered at our camp below, to eat our lukewarm food as we clustered about the tiny potted fires, I wondered uneasily how much snow the winds would sweep into our excavation.

Although our earlier division had been forgotten in the day’s labour, camp that night recalled it. We all huddled in the scanty protection of the circled tents, which broke the wind somewhat and gave an illusion of shelter on the bare and windswept ice. It was not a large space, yet within it we assorted ourselves. The Hetgurd warriors were friendlier toward the Witted and the Fool than they had been, trading rations and conversation with one another. Their skinny bard, Owl, sat next to Cockle while he performed for us. Cockle sang two songs without accompaniment, for he was not willing to risk either his hands or his instruments by exposure to the chilling wind. One was about a dragon who so charmed a man that he left his family and home and never more was seen. If there was some great truth hidden in it, I did not find it. As Web had mentioned, it spoke of the man breathing of the dragon’s breath, and in that moment giving his heart to the creature. The other song had an even more obscure reference to dragons, yet all kept silent and listened to them thoughtfully as Cockle’s solo voice battled with the sweeping winds. The only competing voice was Thick’s. He sat near Dutiful, humming and rocking to himself. Although Chade tried several times to shush him, a few minutes later, the little man would take up his music again. It worried me, but there was nothing I could do.

I had glimpsed Peottre and the Narcheska earlier in the day, looking down on our work. Both of their faces seemed very still, caught between hope and dread. Dutiful had gone to speak to them, but I had not heard his words nor any reply from them. The Narcheska had stared at him as if he were a stranger accosting her when her mind was full of other matters. Tonight, they did not join us for the evening food and fire, but went directly to their tent. The dim light of a candle glowing within it was the only reminder of their presence.

When Cockle’s song was finished and we had thanked him, I was full ready for bed. As much as I wanted private talk with Chade, Dutiful and the Fool, I longed for sleep more. My body had not fully recovered from my elfbark excess, and the afternoon of heavy work in the cold had exhausted me.

I rose, stretching, and Chade beckoned me to his side. When I went to him, he asked me to bring Thick to the Prince’s tent and help him prepare for bed. I thought at first it was an excuse to have quiet time to speak to me, but when I stood over Thick, my concern deepened. Thick rocked from side to side, humming continuously. His eyes were closed. I hesitated to touch him, just as a burned child hesitates to reach again toward the fire. Then the deadness of my Skill persuaded me that any leap of his mind to mine would actually be a relief rather than a shock. So I set my hand to his shoulder and shook him gently. Not only was there no jolt of Skill, but Thick gave no sign of rousing. I shook him again, more firmly, and finally had to drag him to his feet before he showed any sort of wakefulness. Then he blubbered like a suddenly wakened babe, and I felt like a beast as I steered him toward the Prince’s tent. As I tugged off his snow-caked boots and outer garments, all he did was mutter semi-coherent complaints about the cold. Without prompting, he crawled into his blankets and I tucked them down around him.

I had just finished when Chade and the Prince came into the tent. ‘I’m worried about him,’ I said quietly, tipping my head toward Thick. From beneath the mounded blankets, a soft humming had already commenced.

‘It’s the dragon,’ Chade said darkly.

‘We think,’ Dutiful amended wearily. He sat down on the edge of his pallet and bent over to drag off his boots. ‘We can’t be sure. We try to Skill to Thick, and it seems as if he is there, but he just ignores us.’

I delivered the news I had carried all day like a stone. ‘I’ve had no indication that I’m recovering. My Skill is gone.’

The Prince nodded heavily, unsurprised. ‘I reach for you, and it’s like you are not there at all. It’s a strange sensation.’ He lifted his eyes to meet mine. ‘It makes me realize that for most of my life, you have been a tiny presence in the corner of my mind. Did you know that?’

‘I feared that,’ I admitted. ‘Chade and I discussed it. He said that you had had strange dreams when you were small, dreams of a wolf and a man.’

For an instant, Dutiful looked startled. Then a slow smile dawned on his face. ‘Was that you? And Nighteyes?’ He suddenly took a deep breath and looked away from me. ‘They were some of the best dreams I ever had. Sometimes at night, when I was young, I would try to have the same dreams when I was falling asleep. I never had the same dream twice, but sometimes I’d have a new one. Hmm. Even then, you were teaching me to Skill, how to reach out and find you. And Nighteyes. Oh, Eda, Fitz, how you must miss him! In those dreams, you were one creature. Did you know that?’

Sudden tears ambushed me. I turned and brushed at my face before they could fall. ‘I suspected so. Nettle sees me so, still, as a wolf-man.’

‘Then you went into her dreams, too?’

Was there a note of jealousy in the Prince’s voice? ‘Not intentionally. For either of you. I never imagined that I was teaching either of you to Skill. Nettle, I sometimes deliberately looked in on, trying to see Burrich and Molly. Because I loved them, and I missed them. And because Nettle was my daughter.’

‘And me?’

For that solitary instant, I was glad my Skill was gone. I never wanted the Prince to know the role I had played in his conception. Verity might have used my body to get him, but he was still my king’s son. Not mine. Not mine in any way, save the way his mind had called to mine. Aloud, I said, ‘You were Verity’s son. I did not consciously seek you out, and I was not aware of your sharing my dreams. Not until much later.’

I glanced at Chade and was surprised to see that he was barely following our conversation. He seemed to be looking into a distance and not seeing what was before his eyes. ‘Chade?’ I asked him worriedly. ‘Are you all right?’

He drew a sudden breath, as if I’d wakened him. ‘I think it is the dragon that is fascinating Thick. I was trying to get his attention, but his music is strong and all consuming. Neither the Prince nor I can sense the dragon with the Skill. Yet, when I reach after Thick with the Skill, I can sense something there. But it’s odd … it’s like seeing the shadow of a man, but not the man himself. I cannot tell anything about him, other than that he’s there. Dutiful says that from time to time his Wit catches a whiff of Icefyre, only to have him vanish like a scent when the wind changes.’

I stood still for a moment and sent my Wit-questing. After a time, I came back to them. ‘He’s there. And then he isn’t. I can’t tell if it’s something that he is doing deliberately, some sort of Wit-camouflage, or if, as Web suggested, he’s very close to death.’

I glanced at Dutiful, but his thoughts had followed a different track. I wondered if he had heard what Chade and I had said at all. ‘I’m going to try to Skill to Nettle tonight,’ he announced suddenly. ‘We need a real link with Buckkeep and she’s our only hope of one. I also think that if any one of us can distract Thick from the dragon, if that is what is fascinating him, then she can. Even if it isn’t the dragon, she may be our best chance of reaching him.’

I was stunned. I didn’t want him to try this. I did. ‘Do you think you can reach her?’

‘Perhaps. It would be a lot easier to do if I actually knew her.’ The emphasis he placed on those last words made it plain it was my fault that he didn’t. I think he had heard my reluctance in my question, and been stung by it. I swallowed that, and let him speak on. ‘I only brushed minds with her that one time, and that was through you. Reaching her on my own is going to be difficult.’

Anxiety gnawed at me. I knew I should not ask the question of him, but I did. ‘If you do, what will you tell her?’

He stared at me bleakly before replying, ‘The truth. I know it’s a novel idea, but I thought that at least one Farseer should try it.’

I knew he was trying to provoke me. The events of the day had been difficult for him, and my prince was behaving like a petulant fifteen-year-old, trying to find someone to put the blame on. I tried again to let it go past me. ‘The truth is a large thing. Which part of the truth do you plan to tell her?’ I asked, and tried to smile as I awaited his answer.

‘For now, only the parts that belong to me. That I am Prince Dutiful and I desperately need her to pass on tidings to my mother, and then convey to me her advice. I want my mother to know about Sydel and her parents. As much to be wary of them as to rescue Sydel, I’ll admit. And if she will listen to that message and accept it, then I will tell her my fears for Thick: that a dragon is stealing what little mind he has. Then I’ll ask her to distract him from it, if she can reach him.’ He sighed suddenly. ‘I suppose I shall be lucky if I get that far in a conversation with her.’ He gave me another doleful look.

I think at that instant I felt most keenly the loss of my Skill. I did not want Dutiful to speak to my daughter out of my hearing and awareness. I feared what he might accidentally reveal. He might influence how she thought of me before I had a chance to let her know me on her own. He answered my thought as if he had heard it.

‘You’ll have to trust me, won’t you?’

I took a breath. ‘I do trust you,’ I said, and tried to make that statement not a lie.

‘I’ll be with the lad,’ Chade told me, and then laughed aloud at the dismay on my face. ‘No, don’t say you trust me. I don’t think I could stand it.’

‘But I have to trust you,’ I pointed out, and Chade nodded. Then I asked, ‘What did you think of what went on today? Do you think that the Hetgurd folk will turn on us and attack if the dragon is unearthed alive and we attempt to take his head?’

‘Yes,’ Dutiful answered me. ‘Without doubt. I think that the absence of the Black Man’s approval has inflamed every superstitious fear that they have.’

‘I think you are right,’ Chade agreed. ‘I noticed that tonight, as we were retiring, they set up yet another offering to him at the outskirts of camp.’

I shook my head at Chade. ‘I know what you are thinking. Even if I could do it, I don’t think it would be wise. If the offering was taken now, would not they interpret it as him finally approving of them, because they had spoken out against the Prince’s quest? Too late for chicanery in that area, Chade.’

‘I suppose you are right,’ he said without apologies. ‘And if you were caught stealing the offering, it might rouse them to immediate action. No. Best to wait.’ He sighed and rubbed his arms vigorously. ‘I am so tired of this cold. I’m too old to be this chilled all the time.’

The Prince rolled his eyes silently.

I changed the subject. ‘Please be careful, both of you, when you reach after Thick. And Dutiful, be very wary contacting Nettle. I am sure I did not imagine what happened to Thick and I that day. Someone was using the Skill to turn us against each other. Whoever it is, he is still out there. He found Thick’s mind once. When you Skill to Thick, you may be betraying yourselves to him. And if he follows you, Dutiful, he may find Nettle when you reach for her tonight. Or, you may attract the dragon Tintaglia to yourself.’ I suddenly felt a coward because I could no longer hope to protect either of them. ‘Be careful,’ I said again.

‘I will,’ Dutiful replied irritably, and I was sure he was not giving my warning the weight it deserved. I looked at Chade.

‘Have you ever known me to be anything but careful?’ my old mentor asked me.

Yes, I have, I nearly said. When you went after the Skill, you went after it with abandon. I fear you will do so again and risk all I hold dear in the process. But I held my tongue and contented myself with a nod to his question. ‘It feels strange to know you have so much to do tonight and there is no way I can help you accomplish it. I feel useless. If you have nothing for me here, then I’ll be seeking my bed. I’m exhausted.’ I rolled my shoulders. ‘I should have been practising with a shovel those last months in Buckkeep instead of a sword.’

The Prince gave me a grudging chuckle. Chade asked gravely, ‘Are you going to see the Fool tonight?’

‘Yes.’ I waited, on guard.

‘Will you sleep there again?’

I didn’t ask how he knew I’d slept in the Fool’s tent before. There was no emotion in my voice as I replied, ‘Possibly. I don’t know. If we talk late or if he wants company, I may.’

‘It looks odd to the others, you know. No, don’t scowl at me, that’s not my concern. I’ve known you too long to have any illusions about your preferences in bedmates. I mean only that it may appear to the others that you share his opinion on Icefyre; that we must dig down to the dragon and free it rather than fulfilling the task the Narcheska has put upon our prince.’

I stood silent for a moment, pondering that. Then I said quietly, ‘I can’t help what people think, Chade.’

‘You won’t avoid him?’

I met his eyes. ‘No. He’s my friend.’

Chade folded his lips for a moment. Then, very cautiously he asked, ‘Is there any chance that you could persuade him to our way of thinking?’

‘To your way of thinking?’ I corrected him. ‘I doubt it. This isn’t some whim he has suddenly conceived, Chade. All his life, he has believed he is the White Prophet. Part of his mission in life is to restore dragons to the world. I don’t think I can persuade him that is not a good idea.’

‘You’ve been friends for a very long time. He cares deeply about you,’ Chade observed delicately.

‘Which is exactly why I wouldn’t attempt to influence him that way.’ I pushed my hair back out of my face. The drying sweat from my digging was beginning to chill me. I ached, and not just in body. ‘Chade. In this, you will have to trust me. I cannot be your tool, and I cannot promise that I will act in a certain way regardless of what we dig up. This one time in my life, I have to be true to myself.’

Anger twitched his face, and then in a flash so swift I almost missed it, hurt. He turned aside from me, putting his countenance in shadow as he said, ‘I see. I had thought your vow to the Farseers meant more to you than that. And, foolishly, I had thought that perhaps we had been friends a long time, perhaps even longer than you and the Fool.’

‘Oh, Chade.’ I was suddenly so weary I could scarcely speak. ‘You are far more to me than friend. You have been my mentor, and my parent and my protector when many hands were lifted against me. Never doubt that I would lay down my life for you.’

‘And he is a Farseer,’ Dutiful suddenly interjected, startling both of us. ‘One whose vow to his family has already cost him many things. So, this time, as your prince, I command this, FitzChivalry Farseer. Keep your vow, to yourself. Be as true to your own heart as you were to Verity’s, and to King Shrewd’s before him. That is the command of your king.’

I looked at him, amazed, not just at the generosity of his command, a freedom that no other Farseer king had ever thought to grant me, but also at his sudden change from sulky fifteen-year-old to heir to the throne. He frowned slightly at my puzzled look, completely unaware of what he had done. I found my tongue. ‘Thank you, my prince. That is the greatest boon that any Farseer king has ever granted me.’

‘You’re welcome. I just hope that I haven’t done something truly foolish. For we must both recall that regardless of what decision you make for yourself, I must hew to my promise to the Narcheska. I am here to take the dragon’s head. And much joy may she have of a frozen skull.’ Abruptly, he was a morose boy again. I looked at him, and was newly reminded of how difficult all this must be for him. He had left stolen kisses behind on Mayle Island. I doubted he had had a private word with Elliania since we’d left her mothershouse. He shook his head to my sympathetic look. ‘I can only try to do right, and hope that this time I have truly guessed what “right” is.’

‘That makes two of us,’ Chade grumbled.

‘No. Three,’ I contradicted him. He was bent over by the little firepot and had succeeded in waking the embers to a single tongue of flame. He took a small piece of coal and added it to the tiny fire.

‘I’m too old to be doing this any more,’ he repeated his favourite complaint.

‘No. You’re not. You’ll only be old when you try to stop doing this. I think this trip has done you good.’ I hunkered down beside him. ‘Chade. Please believe this of me. This isn’t about whether you or the Fool pulls my strings. It isn’t a contest of will between you two to see who holds my heart.’

‘Then what is it?’ he demanded grudgingly.

I tried to give him an answer. ‘I need to see what is true, before I decide what stance I’ll support. We’ve all known, since before we left Buckkeep, that there is an undercurrent to the Narcheska’s request. There may come a time when you are glad I hesitated and did not blindly obey her will. Her handmaid, Henja, was connected somehow to the Piebalds. I’ll wager whatever you like on that. She and Peottre and their mothershouse defy the majority of the Hetgurd to put this condition on the Prince. Why? What do they gain? What value to them is a rotting dragon’s head?’

‘She does not seem pleased with having to ask this of me,’ Dutiful observed quietly. ‘She is hard as stone in her determination that I must do this thing for her. Yet she does not seem to regard it with anticipation or eagerness, but dread and reluctance. As if it is not of her will that she asks this.’

‘Then whose? Peottre’s?’

Chade slowly shook his head. ‘No. His interests run with hers, and she is loyal to him. I think that if she asked this to please him, she would take more pleasure in it. No. So. Fitz asks our basic question. Whose will?’

I gave my best guess. ‘Henja’s. She has power over them somehow. We have seen that. And she is connected to the Piebalds, who have no love for us.’

‘The Piebalds.’ Chade pondered this. ‘Do you discount the Fool’s Pale Woman, then?’ He asked the question keenly.

‘I do not know. What have we seen or heard of her? Nothing save what the Fool has told us. The Outislanders speak of her as an old evil, a malevolence from the past to be avoided, but not with the dread of something that lurks now. Our Six Duchies dragons killed her and Kebal Rawbread, or so I have often heard. Yet the Outislanders still connect them with this island. They say they mined the black stone here to ballast their White Ships. And there is no denying that the aborted stone dragon back at our landing spot stinks of Red Ship Forging.’ A sudden yawn ambushed me.

‘Oh, go to bed,’ Chade rebuked me. ‘At least you can rest. Tonight the Prince and I shall reach far and see if we cannot persuade Nettle to aid us. I will admit that I long to know what is passing in the Six Duchies these days. If the Piebalds have stirred to action there, it might tell us that they play a double game.’

‘Perhaps,’ Dutiful agreed with a yawn, and I suddenly pitied him. I was going to honest sleep. He had a night’s work ahead of him. Yet, as I bade them good night and left their tent, I sensed that he regarded Nettle as a challenge he anticipated as well as dreaded. I set aside worrying about that as I left the tent. It was pointless. I was out of that game for now. Perhaps for always. I felt the earth lurch under me as I considered that thought, and then forced myself to go on. Would it be so terrible to go through the rest of my life unSkilled? Could not I think of it as being free of the Skill?

I made a brief stop at the guardsmen’s tent. Longwick kept a weary watch at the opening. He nodded at me silently as I slipped inside amongst the heavily sleeping men-at-arms and then out again. He did not ask what I was about. Chade’s man. Chade’s men, I corrected myself, looking around at the sleeping forms. Every guardsman on this island with us had been hand-picked by him, for both discretion and loyalty. How ruthlessly would they obey his commands?

I was still pondering that when I paused outside the Fool’s tent. I listened for a moment to the sweep of the wind that stirred flurries of ice crystals in a storm at ankle height. Every now and then a gust would propel a stinging onslaught into my face. But wind and rustling ice was all I heard. Within the Fool’s tent, all was silent, but the bright figures on the outside of the thin, tight fabric glowed with the life of the tiny fire within. ‘May I come in?’ I asked quietly.

‘A moment,’ he replied as softly. I heard the rustle of fabric, almost indistinguishable from the wind, and after a brief wait, he untied the door-flap and admitted me. Clinging frost came with me. It could not be helped, yet the Fool still winced as I brushed it from my clothes. I took the bundled Elderling robe from inside my coat. ‘Here. I brought it back.’

He was reclining on his pallet, the covers already drawn up around him. The tiny kettle crouched hopefully over the candle-fire. He lifted his brows and smiled. ‘But I thought you looked so fetching in it. Are you sure you won’t keep it?’

I sighed. His fey levity was too much at odds with all else I felt that evening. ‘Chade and Dutiful are going to try to reach Nettle tonight. With the Skill. They fear that the dragon is stealing Thick’s mind, and hope that Nettle can distract Thick from Icefyre.’

‘And you choose not to help them?’

‘I cannot. I cannot find a single shred of the Skill inside me. I only know that Thick is troubled because of the way he hums. Always before, he Skilled out his music. Why does he hum and mutter now? It’s a change, and I don’t like changes, especially changes I don’t understand.’

‘Life is change,’ the Fool observed placidly. ‘And death is an even greater change. I think we must resign ourselves to change, Fitz.’

‘I’m tired of resigning myself to things. My entire life has been one long resignation.’ I dropped the robe on his pallet and then sat down heavily on the end of it, forcing him to draw his feet up out of the way. I pulled my mittens off and held my hands out to his feeble fire, trying to warm myself.

‘Ah, Catalyst, can it be that you do not see all the changes you have made? Some by your resignation and acceptance of circumstance, some by your wild struggles. You can say that you hate change, but you are change.’

‘Oh, please.’ I folded my arms upon my drawn-up knees and dropped my head onto them. ‘Don’t talk about that tonight. Talk about anything else but that. Please. I can’t think about choices and changes tonight.’

‘Very well.’ His voice was gentle. ‘What do you want to talk about?’

‘Anything. Something about you. How did you get here, after we left you behind at Buckkeep Town?’

‘I told you. I flew.’

I lifted my head from my arms to regard him sourly. He was smiling a small challenge at me. It was the Fool’s old smile, the one that promised he was telling the truth when he was obviously lying. ‘No. You did not.’ I spoke firmly.

‘Very well. If you say so.’

‘Kettricken must have helped you find passage, against Chade’s advice. And you came here on a ship with a bird’s name.’ I was guessing wildly, knowing that there would be some small kernel of truth at the bottom of his wild tale.

‘Actually, Kettricken counselled me to stay in Buckkeep, in our very brief meeting. I think it taxed her will to say no more to me than that. It was sheer good fortune for me that I encountered Burrich arriving at Buckkeep Castle as I left it. But, as I have agreed to tell this tale, let me tell it in order. Let us go back to the moment at which I last saw you. When I thought that you were hastening to my aid.’

I winced, but he went on evenly, ‘The Harbourmaster summoned the City Guard, who were very efficient at removing Lord Golden and his belongings. As you probably have suspected, they detained me until after the ships had sailed. Then I was dismissed, with many apologies and assurances that it had all been a terrible error. But word of the incident spread. By the time Lord Golden returned to his lodgings with his baggage, his creditors had descended, convinced that he had intended to flee the city without paying them. As indeed, he had. They were happy to confiscate most of his baggage and gear, all save one pack, containing the absolute minimum essentials for his survival, which he’d had the forethought to leave in his Buckkeep chambers.’

The little copper kettle was puffing steam. He lifted it from the small flame and poured water into a gaily-decorated teapot.

I had to smile. I gestured about the tent. ‘The bare essentials.’

He arched one golden brow. ‘For civilized adventuring, yes.’ He put the lid on the teapot. It was shaped like a rose. ‘And why should one attempt to get by with less? Now. Where was I? Ah, yes. Lord Golden, stripped of his possessions and glamour, was no longer Lord Golden, but only a fleeing debtor. Those who thought they knew him best were astonished at the way he lithely spidered down the outside of his lodgings, to land lightly on his feet and run off into the alleys. I vanished.’

He made me wait. He rubbed one eye and smiled at me thoughtfully. I bit the inside of my cheek until he finally gave in and went on.

‘I went to Kettricken, by ways and means that I shall leave to your imagination. I think she was quite astounded to encounter me waiting for her in her bedchamber. As I have told you, she urged me to stay at Buckkeep, within the castle, under her wing, until you had completed her mission. I had to decline, of course. And …’ Here he hesitated for a time. ‘I had words with Burrich. I think you know that already, or suspect it. It shocked me that he recognized me immediately, much as you had. He asked me questions, not because he needed answers, but to confirm what he had already ciphered out for himself, from an earlier interview with Kettricken.’

He paused so long that I feared he would not go on. Then he said, softly, ‘At one point he was so furious at what I told him, I thought he would strike me dead. Then, abruptly, he began to weep.’ And again he halted. I sat there, my tongue turned to ashes in my mouth. Almost I hoped he would not go on. When he did, I knew he left much unsaid.

‘Bereft of any support from the castle, I foolishly thought to return to my inn to see what rags of my fortunes my creditors might have left me to aid me in my flight. My stripped apartments looked as if a horde of locusts had despoiled them. Yet worse was to come. The landlord had seen me enter, and he had taken bribes from my creditors to contact them immediately if he heard or saw me. And he earned his greasy coins well. For a second wave of furious former friends appeared. You would have thought that they had honestly earned the money that they had won in wagers from me, so righteously outraged were they!

‘So. Once more I fled. This time, I fled the entire city, not so much in fear of my creditors as in fury at my “friends”. You had betrayed me, Fitz. And yet, perhaps, it was your turn to betray me, given that I had so badly failed you.’

‘What?’

I was astounded that he could say such a thing. But when our gazes met, I saw ancient shame in his deepening eyes, and recalled a time in the Mountains when my enemies had used him against me. ‘You know I never counted that against you. It was not you, Fool. It wasn’t.’

‘And perhaps when you betrayed me, it was more Chade than you, but the damage was done, nonetheless. And I was furious and frightened and desolated to think that perhaps I had come so far, only to be defeated by him I most trusted. I fled Buckkeep on foot, eluding my pursuers, yet knowing I could not do so for long and wondering what I might do next. How could it be, I wondered, that the Catalyst could change events so that the White Prophet was so completely defeated? And slowly it came to me that it could not be so; that there was a deeper pattern at work than I had first glimpsed. I resolved to give myself to it, though I could not guess what it might be.’

I had turned my head on my arms so I could watch him as he told the story. Now I gave a sigh, and relaxed into my hunch. He reached from beneath the covers to pour a scanty share of tea into a cup and a bowl, then gestured that I should take whichever I wished. The pot had plainly been made for one person, travelling alone, and it touched me that he still offered to share. I lifted the bowl and sipped from it. It tasted like flowers, a mouthful of summer in this land where winter always reigned. The heat of it was fleeing rapidly, briefly warming my hands as it passed through the crockery. The Fool’s long elegant fingers wrapped the cup as he drank his share.

‘Go on,’ I urged him when he had let the silence grow. I knew it was a trick of the storyteller to do so, but I did not begrudge him the drama.

‘Well. My second horde of creditors had paid heed to the tales of the first. They were soon after me. I ran, and swiftly, but Lord Golden’s dress was a bit ostentatious to blend in with a crowd and my pack encumbered me. You recall the hill outside Buckkeep, where the Witness Stones stand still?’

‘Of course.’ I was intrigued. It was the last place I would have fled to. The bare black stones stand upon the barren hillside there as they have always stood, weathered and impervious to all. The folk of the Six Duchies have long used them as an oath place. Lovers pledge to one another there. It is said that if two men duel there, the gods will see that justice is done. The righteous will win there, if nowhere else. It is an oddly solemn place, bereft of brush or clinging vines. There would be no cover there for any hunted creature to hide in. ‘But why go there?’

He lifted one narrow shoulder in an eloquent shrug. ‘I knew I could not get far. If I were captured and taken back to Buckkeep, doubtless my creditors would have not only taken my kit but put me to drudgery to work off my debt. I and my mission in the world would be completely undone. So, I resolved to rely on fate, and test an idea that I formulated long ago. The Witness Stones are gateway stones, Fitz, just like the Skill-pillars that you have used before when in dire need to flee. Except, of course, that long ago someone or something obliterated the runes from the sides of the Witness Stones. Perhaps they are so old that they wore away naturally; perhaps some ancient Skill-user decided to put an end to their usefulness. In any case, the runes that tell where they lead are gone, leaving only the weathered marks where they used to be. As I ran toward them, my pack heavy on my back, I thought back over what you had told me of your adventures on the Treasure Beach with Prince Dutiful. I knew that I might choose the wrong facet of the stone, and find myself plunged into deep cold water.’

I sat up straight in slow cold horror. ‘Fool, it is far worse than that! What if a stone had fallen face down and you were flung from it into solid earth. Or what if you chose a destination where the stone had been shattered or –’

‘All those thoughts rushed through my mind as I raced toward it. Fortunately, there was no time for me to choose, no time for me even to wonder if there was enough of the Skill left on my fingers to work the stone. I struck the stone, fingertips first, knowing only that I must, I must, I must pass through the portal.’

He paused. I was leaning intently toward him, my heart in my throat. To pass through a Skill-portal had always been difficult for me. We knew so little about them, only that some standing stones carved of memory stone and marked with runes could serve as passageways to distant places. I had used them less than a dozen times in my life, and never without dread and uneasiness. Some of Regal’s inexperienced Skill-users had lost their minds when they were forced to use the Skill-portals. Using one had jumbled Dutiful’s memory of our time on the Treasure Beach and left us both exhausted.

The Fool smiled sweetly at me. ‘Don’t look like that. You know I survived.’

‘At what cost?’ I asked, knowing there must be one.

‘Exhaustion. I emerged somewhere, I have no idea where. Nowhere I’ve ever been before. It was a city in ruins, and still as dead stone can be. There was a river near it. That is as much as I can tell you. I slept, I don’t know how long. When I awoke, dawn was all around me. And the Skill-pillar towered over me. This one shone clean of lichen or moss, with each rune standing out as clear as if they had been chiselled yesterday. I studied them for a long time, afraid and dreading, and yet knowing they offered me my only hope. I narrowed my choices down to two of them that might possibly be the one I wished. And then I entered the pillar again.’

‘No.’ I groaned.

‘Exactly how I felt. I emerged feeling as if I had taken a bad beating. But I had come to the right place.’

He made me ask the question, enjoying it. ‘Where?’

‘Do you remember the broken plaza, like an ancient market circle? The one where the forest was trying to encroach? I stood on top of a stone pillar there, and for a moment, in a dream, I wore the Rooster Crown. You saw me. You remember it.’

I nodded slowly. ‘It was on our road to the Stone Garden. Where the stone dragons slept, before we roused them and sent them to fight the Red Ships. Where they sleep again now, Verity as Dragon amongst them.’

‘Exactly. Again, I went down that forest path, and I saw him there. But he was not the one I sought. I found Girl on a Dragon there, sleeping, her arms clasping the neck of her dragon, just as you had told me. And I woke her and made her understand that I must come here, and once again I mounted behind her and she flew here with me. And left me. So, you see, old friend, I did not lie to you. I flew here.’

I sat bolt upright, suddenly wide awake. A hundred questions swelled in me but I asked the most important one. ‘How did you wake her? It takes the Wit, the Skill and blood to wake a stone dragon. Well do I know that!’

‘It did. And it does. The Skill I had on my fingertips, and blood was easy enough to come by.’ He rubbed his wrist, possibly remembering an old cut. ‘I did not and do not have the Wit. But you may remember that, foolishly, I had already put some of myself into Girl on a Dragon, when I was attempting to complete the carving of her and wake her.’

‘As did I,’ I recalled guiltily.

‘Yes. I know,’ he said softly. ‘It is still in her. You put in the memories you could not stand to recall and the emotions you would not let yourself feel. You gave her your mother abandoning you, and never knowing your father. You gave her Regal’s torment of you in his dungeons. You gave her, most of all, the pain of losing Molly and your child, to Burrich, of all people. You put into her your fury and your hurt and your sense of being betrayed.’ He gave a little sigh. ‘It is all in her still. The things you could not allow yourself to feel.’

‘I left all that behind me long ago,’ I said slowly.

‘You cut out a part of yourself and went on, less than you had been.’

‘I do not see it that way.’ My reply was stiff.

‘You cannot see it that way,’ he informed me calmly. ‘Because you cannot truly remember how awful any of it was. Because you put all of it into Girl on a Dragon.’

‘Can we leave this?’ I asked, almost frightened, almost angry, but confused over what would scare or anger me.

‘We must. Because you already left it, long years ago. And only I will ever know the full depth of what you felt about those things. Only I fully remember who and what you were before you did it. For we are bound together, not only by Skill and fate, and but also because both of us live on, inside Girl on a Dragon. Because I knew what went into her, I could reach her and rouse her. I could convey to her my desperate purpose. And so she brought me to Aslevjal.

‘It was a strange journey, wild and wonderful. You know I have ridden with her before. I was with her when she and the other dragons attacked not just the Red Ships that assailed the Six Duchies, but the White Ships that were the cruel tools of the Pale Woman. It was strange for me to be caught up in true battle. I did not like it.’

‘No one does,’ I assured him. I put my brow back down on my knees and closed my eyes.

‘I suppose not. But this time, flying with her, it was different. There was no killing to witness, no other dragons flying beside us. Instead, it was just she and I. I sat behind her and put my arms around her slender waist. She is a part of the dragon, you know, not a separate creature at all. Rather like a girl-shaped limb more than anything else. So she did not speak to me, yet, strangely enough, she did smile and from time to time, she would turn to look into my face or gesture to something on the world below us that she wished me to see.

‘She flew tirelessly. From the time I climbed up behind her and the powerful beat of her dragon’s wings lifted us through the canopy of tree limbs until the moment that we landed on the black sand beaches of Aslevjal, she took no rest. Nor did I. At first, we flew through blue summer skies of the lands beyond the Mountain Kingdom. Then higher we flew, until my heart pounded and I was giddy, over the snowy peaks and trodden passes of the Mountains, and then back into summer. We flew over the villages of the Mountain Kingdom. They nestle into the crooks and flanks of the mountains, and their flocks are scattered over the steep pastures like white apple blossoms litter the orchard meadow after a spring windstorm.’

I saw it, in my mind, and smiled faintly when he spoke of flying over a Six Duchies hamlet early in the morning, and the one lad who looked up and saw them and ran whooping into his cottage. And on he spoke, of rivers like silver seams in the land and planted fields like patchwork when seen from above, and of the ocean, wrinkling like paper tipped with silver. In my mind, I flew with him.

I must have fallen asleep, lulled by his strange story. When I awoke, night was deep all around us. The camp outside our tent was still, and his pot-fire held only a single flickering flame on a wick in the oil. I was huddled beneath one of his blankets, fallen over sideways on his bed. He slept, curled like a kitten, his brow nearly touching mine, on the other end of his pallet. His breathing was deep and even, and one long hand was palm up on the blankets between us, as if in offering, or beseeching something of me. Sleepily I reached over and set my hand in his. He did not seem to wake. Strangely, I felt at peace. I closed my eyes and sank down into a deep and dreamless slumber.

NINETEEN

Below the Ice

The Outislanders have always been raiders. In the years before the Red Ship Wars, there were raiding incidents, as it seemed there had always been. Individual ships led by the kaempra of a clan would make a quick strike, carrying off stock, harvested crops and occasionally captives. Bearns took the brunt of these clashes, and seemed to relish them much as Shoaks enjoyed its border disputes with Chalced. The Duke of Bearns seemed content that they were his concern, and made little complaint of dealing with them.

But with the appearance of the red-hulled ships of Kebal Rawbread, the rules of engagement changed. Suddenly, the ships appeared in groups, and seemed more intent on rape and ruin than on a quick acquisition of goods. They burned or spoiled what they could not carry off, slaughtering herds and flocks, torching grain in the fields and storehouses. They killed even those who did not resist them. A new malice had appeared in these raids, one that delighted not just in theft, but also in destruction and devastation.

At that time, we did not even know of the Pale Woman and her influence over Rawbread.

Scribe Fedwren, A History of the Red Ship War

In the morning, when we reached the edge of our pit, both Riddle and I groaned. Then we went to work, lifting and flinging the snow that had blown in to half-fill our excavation of the day before. This snow was lighter and unpacked, but for all that, it was frustrating work. It was like shovelling feathers, and half of what we lifted floated free to drift back to the bottom of the hole. It was nearly noon before we had cleared it all down to where we had left off the evening before. Then out came the picks, and we began to break ice and scrape it up and shovel it out again.

I ached at first, and then I didn’t, and then I began to hurt in new places. That night, I dropped into an exhausted sleep, deeper than dreams of regret. The wind blew again. Every night, the wind blew. Every morning, we began our task by clearing the previous night’s drifted snow. Yet slowly, relentlessly, we toiled and the pit deepened. When we could no longer throw the ice out of the pit, we dug a ramp at one end. After that, we shovelled the ice onto one of the sleds and two men would drag it up out of the pit and away to dump it. The task was beyond tedious. And we found no sign of a dragon in the bottom. Worse, my Wit-sense of him grew fainter, not stronger.

The work force grew after the first day. Our first addition was Prince Dutiful rolling back his sleeves and taking up a pickaxe. Chade limited his participation to supervising. He reminded me of Civil’s cat, who perched at the edge of the pit and watched us with supreme lack of interest.

When the Narcheska entered the pit, Dutiful stopped his work to warn her that the flying ice from his pick might injure her. She gave him an odd little smile, between sad and flirtatious, and cautioned him to be wary of the flying ice that her own pick might free. And then she set to work beside him, swinging her pick with a country girl’s competence. ‘She used to help dig the rocks out, when we were preparing the new fields in spring,’ Peottre observed. I turned to find him watching her with a mixture of pride and chagrin. ‘Here, give me your shovel for a time, while you rest yourself.’

I saw his aim and surrendered my tool to him. After that, both Narcheska and Peottre worked alongside us, with Peottre taking care that he was never far away from his ward. The Narcheska seemed to take care that she was never far from the Prince. It was the first sign of warmth Elliania had shown toward Dutiful in days and the Prince seemed to take heart from it. They conversed, in quiet, breathless bursts, between pick strokes, and took their rest periods together. Peottre watched over them, sometimes disapproving and sometimes wistful. I think he had come to like our prince despite himself.

The Witted coterie decided that it supported the idea of freeing the dragon, and hence had no qualms about helping with the digging. When the Fool applied his wiry strength to both digging and moving ice, the Hetgurd representatives cautiously came to watch. By the third day, they were helping to drag sled-loads of snow and ice from the pit to dump it. I suspect that curiosity to see the ice-encased dragon was as much their motivation as any other.

On the fifth day, Chade sent Riddle and young Hest back to the stored supplies on the beach. Peottre was uncertain about sending them off, and cautioned them many times to follow the flags we had posted along our route and not to wander from it. He looked grave and apprehensive as they set out. They took a sled, for they were to bring back food, and the spare shovels and picks we had brought, now that he had a larger work force. Chade also told them to bring back all the canvas, in the hopes of rigging a windbreak or cover for the excavation that might block the blowing snow that thwarted our efforts each night. I suspected they would also retrieve the rest of the little kegs of explosive powder. I wanted nothing to do with that when I thought of it in the evenings, but by day, when I was battling the ancient hard ice, I sometimes longed to discover what it might do.

We dug on. If I paused to rest and looked at the sides of our pit, I could see the layers in the ice that marked the passing winters. Every year, more snow had been deposited here, and every following year, yet another layer had blanketed it. It occurred to me that we were digging down through time, and sometimes as I looked at the layers, I wondered when the ice I stood on had fallen as snow. How long had Icefyre been down here, and how had he come to be here? Deeper we dug, and deeper, and still saw not one scale of a dragon. From time to time, Chade and Dutiful would consult with the Witted coterie. Each time, they assured the Prince and his advisor that they still, from time to time, felt the stirring of the dragon’s being. I agreed with them. Yet those consultations also made me aware that my own Wit was substantially stronger than Dutiful’s. I was not as perceptive as Web, but I thought I was at least on a footing with Swift. Cockle was probably a bit stronger than Dutiful, and Civil stronger than the minstrel, but not as sharp as I was. It was odd, to be able to perceive that the Wit might be a strong or weak talent in a man. I had always thought of it as a sense that people either had or didn’t. Now I perceived that it was like an aptitude for music or gardening. The strength of it varied widely, just as Skill-ability did.

Perhaps it was Thick’s prodigious Skill-strength that kept him latched so firmly to the dragon. The little man seemed to have become a complete idiot, staring vacantly before him and humming. Occasionally, he would pause and make small motions with his hands. Neither the tune he hummed nor his hand motions conveyed anything to me. Once, when I was taking my rest after a digging shift, I sat down next to him. Hesitantly, I set my hand to his shoulder, and tried to find my Skill-ability. I had hoped the fierce Skill-fire that always burned in him would re-ignite my own talent. But nothing happened except that after a short time Thick shrugged my hand away much as a horse might shudder a fly from his coat. Even his interest in food had waned, which concerned me most of all. Not only Galen, my first Skill-instructor, but Verity had warned me of the danger in becoming too absorbed in the Skill. It was always the first hurdle that new initiates had to leap, and for many it had been a deadly one. The Skill-instruction scrolls recounted many sad tales of promising students who were swept away in the Skill-current, losing all touch with our world as they enjoyed the unique contact that the magic provided. Eventually, such people were so enraptured that they lost interest in food and drink, in talking with their fellows and eventually stopped caring for themselves at all. One warned that such a Skill-user would become ‘a great drooling babe’ and Thick seemed poised on the brink of such a decline. I had always supposed the danger was the fascination with the Skill itself, for I had often felt that pull myself. But if Chade and Dutiful were correct, then Thick was being seduced not by the Skill but by the attraction of another, more powerful mind. I made several fruitless attempts to engage him in conversation, which drew minimal responses from him until finally, in annoyance, he told me to ‘Go away! Bothering a busy person is not polite!’ And then he went back to his staring and rocking.

The Skill remained dead in me.

It was all the more frustrating in that Dutiful had made contact with Nettle. Twice he had touched minds with her, trying to persuade her of who he was and what he needed. The first time, she slammed her walls against him, saying she was in no mood for silly stories and why would a prince be trying to contact her in a dream? The second time, she was more receptive, for I think he had piqued her curiosity. She even tried, with little success, to distract Thick from his preoccupation, though I think she did so more out of concern for him than to please the Prince. Dutiful accompanied her on that mission, but could make little sense of the dream imagery she used. He could explain only that Thick seemed to have gone to a place where his little song was an essential part of a far grander piece of music, and he could not be lured away from it. It was a frustrating analogy. As for conveying the Prince’s messages to the Queen, Nettle said she would make mention of her ‘odd dreams’ to Kettricken, if chance afforded her a private moment with Her Majesty, but that she would not risk making a fool of herself before the ladies of the court. She had done that several times already, with her lack of court manners, and had no wish to give them any more amusement than she already had.

That gave me a pang. If I had consented from the beginning to letting her know her history and to her visiting the court, she would have grown up in the company of ladies and gentlemen and would not have been shamed by her country ways. I wondered if Kettricken now groomed her, in both studies and manners, so that she might take up a role as secondary heir to the throne. I longed to be able to talk to Nettle, to find out how much they had told her of her heritage, and to give her my explanations for why she had been raised as she had. But my lack of the Skill silenced me, and I could only nightly beg of the Prince that he be circumspect in what he told her.

Daily we continued to dig. The work was backbreaking and the food both limited and boring. Nights were cold and windy, and we looked forward to the men returning with canvas. But they did not. Chade gave them an extra day, and then two. The Hetgurd men claimed to have glimpsed the Black Man circling our camp at night, but their offerings were never taken, and the flowing snow erased any tracks he might have left. In one of our nightly talks, the Fool said that several times he thought he had felt the Black Man’s presence and suspected that we were observed. I, too, had experienced that uneasy sensation of being watched, but could never see anyone spying on us. I suspected that Web did, too, for twice he summoned Risk from her shoreside scavenging and asked her to fly over our camp. He told me that she saw nothing out of the ordinary, just snow, ice and a few protruding rocks.

In the brief times when we were not digging, eating or sleeping, Web would find moments in which to work on my Wit with me. He said, without cruelty, that it was actually good that I was currently unpartnered, as it gave me more focus on the magic without making it specific to one creature. He added that Swift, too, seemed to be benefiting from studying while unencumbered, from which I gathered that the lad’s lessons continued as well as mine. When he was with me, Web focused on making me see how the Wit connected all living things, not just those of Old Blood, but all. He showed me how he could extend his Wit and wrap it around Thick, to become more perceptive of his needs and feelings, even though Thick remained unaware of him. It was not an easy discipline to master, for it involved surrendering my own needs and interests to subservience to his. ‘Watch a mother with an infant, any kind of a mother, human or beast. There you will see this done on the simplest and most instinctive level. If one is willing to work at it, one can extend that same sort of perception to others. It is a worthwhile thing to do, for it conveys a level of understanding of one another that makes hate almost impossible. Seldom can one hate a person if one understands that person.’

I doubted that I would ever achieve that level of understanding, but I tried. One evening, as I was eating with Dutiful and Chade in their tent, I tried extending my Wit to include Chade. I let go of my own hunger and aching back and anxiety about my lost Skill and focused myself on the old man. I saw him as clearly as if he were prey. I studied how he sat, his back straight, as if he were too stiff to even slump, and how he kept his gloves on while he spooned up the pallid mush that was our evening repast. His face was a study in contrasts, red nose and cheeks, while his forehead was pale with the cold. Then, as if I suddenly saw his shadow for the first time, I glimpsed an aloneness that trailed back behind him to his earliest years. I suddenly felt his years and the strangeness of a fate that had sent him, in his old age, to camp on a glacier alongside the boy he would make king.

‘What?’ he demanded suddenly of me, and I startled, realizing that I’d been staring at him.

I scrabbled for an answer and then replied, ‘I was just thinking of all the years and times when I’ve sat across from you, and wondered if I’d ever truly seen you at all.’

His eyes widened, almost as if he feared such a thought. Then he scowled and said, ‘And I’d hoped you had something useful in your mind. Well, this is what I’ve been pondering. Riddle and Hest haven’t returned with the supplies. They should have been back by now. Today, I asked Web if his bird could seek for them. He said it was difficult to convey to her that we wanted news of two specific men, rather as if I asked you if you had seen two specific gulls. He asked her to look for two men with a sled; he said she did not see them.’ Chade shook his head. ‘I fear the worst. We need to send someone back, not just to look for Riddle and Hest, but also to bring back the supplies we need. Longwick told me tonight we have food for four more days, five if he cuts the rations again.’ He rubbed his gloved hands together wearily. ‘I never thought it would take this long to dig out the dragon. All the reports we had seemed to say he was near the surface, even visible years ago. Yet we dig and dig and find nothing.’

‘He’s there,’ the Prince assured him. ‘And every day we get closer.’

Chade snorted. ‘And if I took one step southward every day, I’d be getting closer to Buckkeep, but no one could tell me how long it would take me to get there.’ With a groan he got up. Sitting on the cold earth, even with several layers of bedding beneath him, was obviously uncomfortable. He moved slowly around the cramped tent, cautiously stretching his legs and back. ‘Tomorrow, I’m sending Fitz to see what became of Riddle and Hest. And I want you to take Thick and the Fool with you.’

‘Thick and the Fool? Why?’

It was obvious to him. ‘Who else can I spare from the digging? Removing Thick from the dragon’s vicinity may restore him. If it does, then leave him with Churry and Drub on the beach with our supplies. Have him Skill to us from there whatever news he has.’

‘But why the Fool?’

‘Because it takes two men to pull the sled when it’s loaded, and I don’t think Thick will be of much use to you at that. I suspect you’ll have to put Thick on the sled to get him to move from here. And you are one of the few people who can manage Thick at all, so you have to be one of the ones who goes. Fitz, I know it’s not an assignment you would choose, but who else can I send?’

I cocked my head at him. ‘Then you aren’t just trying to send the Fool and me away from the digging area before the dragon is uncovered?’

He sighed. ‘If I sent you and not the Fool, you would ask if I were trying to separate you. If I sent the Fool and not you, I’m sure you’d say the same. I suppose I could ask Web to take Thick and another man for this errand, but he does not understand Thick’s Skill-ability. And if something has befallen Riddle and Hest, well, I think you more capable of dealing with a threat than …’ He suddenly threw up his hands and said in defeat, ‘Do what you will, Fitz. You will anyway, and the Fool will only go if you ask him. I’ve no power to send him anywhere. So you decide.’

I felt a bit sheepish. Perhaps I had been looking for motivations that truly didn’t exist. ‘I’ll go. And I’ll ask the Fool to go with me. To be honest, I’ll welcome the change from digging. Make a list of what you want brought back.’ Privately, I resolved that I’d scavenge any driftwood I could find on the beach and bring it back with me, regardless of how much weight it added to the load. Chade could do with a good roaring blaze, I decided, even if it only lasted one night.

‘Be ready at first light, then,’ Chade advised me.

The Fool was not as pleased to leave the digging as I was. ‘But what if they reach the dragon while we are gone? What if I am not here to defend him?’

‘The Hetgurd guardians and the Witted coterie oppose killing him as much as you do. Don’t you think they’ll be enough?’

We were bedded down together, sleeping back to back for the body warmth just as we had in the Mountains so many years ago. Truth to tell, I gained little from it, for the Fool’s body had always felt cool to the touch. It was rather like sleeping alongside a lizard, I thought. Yet if he did not give off much warmth, the solid feel of his back against mine was a reassurance of camaraderie that I had not felt since Nighteyes had died. There is security in knowing that a friend has your back, even if he is sound asleep.

‘I don’t know. I’m too close to where all my visions stopped.’ He paused, as if he expected me to ask a question, but that was a topic I did not wish to explore. Then, ‘Do you think we ought to go?’ he asked cautiously.

I shifted in the bed, groaning as my aching muscles complained. ‘I don’t think I thought much about it. Chade has been telling me what to do for so long that I simply accepted I should go. But I would like to know what has happened to Riddle and Hest. And I’d like to see if Thick recovers himself when he’s moved away from the dragon’s influence. And –’ I shifted and groaned again, ‘I wouldn’t mind a few days of doing anything other than shovelling.’

He was quiet. I was too, pondering his silence. I wondered what was making him take so long to make up his mind. Then I laughed aloud. ‘Ah, yes. I nearly forgot. I am the Catalyst, the one who makes changes. And this would be a change in what you think you should do. So, you cannot decide whether to oppose it or not.’

The silence stretched so long I thought he had fallen asleep. The day had been the warmest we had had so far, making sodden work of our task. I listened to the wind, and hoped the night’s cold would crust the surface of the glacier and keep the wind from blowing snow into our excavation. I had almost dropped off to sleep myself when he said, ‘You frighten me, sometimes, when you give voice to my thoughts. We will go, tomorrow. We’ll take this tent for shelter, shall we?’

‘That sounds fine to me,’ I said as I drowsed off.

And so the next morning we set off. Longwick issued us three days of supplies which, he told us, should be ample for us to reach the beach. We struck the Fool’s elegant tent and packed it on the sled while Longwick gave us last-minute directives. If we reached the beach without encountering the others, we should warn the guard there of our sightings of the Black Man. If we encountered evidence that the others had met with foul play, we should return to the camp immediately and report. If we met the others coming back, we should simply turn around and come back with them. Web’s bird would check on us, from time to time. I nodded as I arranged the Fool’s tent and bedding for three onto the sled. As predicted, we had to load Thick onto the sled. He could not be persuaded to walk. It was not that he resisted; he simply didn’t co-operate. He would take a few steps, and then become lost once more in his musings. Dutiful and Chade both came to bid us farewell. Dutiful snugged Thick’s cap down around his ears. I know that he tried desperately to stir Thick with the Skill. I could not feel it, but I saw the intensity in Dutiful’s face. Thick turned his head slowly to look at the Prince. ‘I’m fine,’ he said sluggishly. And then he stared off in the distance again.

‘Take care of him, Tom,’ Dutiful told me gruffly.

‘I will, my lord. We’ll try to make a quick trip of it.’ And so saying, with Thick sitting on the great sled bundled up like a cocoon, I took up the lines and began to pull.

The heavily-waxed runners moved easily over the snow. Almost too easily, for we were now going downhill rather than up. I had to stop and set the drag to keep the sled from running over the top of me. The Fool went ahead of us, his pack riding high on his shoulders, prodding the snow to make sure our path was sound, even though we were following the line of stakes that Peottre had set up to mark our path for us.

The day was warm, and snow collected, heavy, on my boots. When our path levelled for a time, the runners of the sled began to stick. The sled was cutting a deeper path upon our old one, and as the runners sank into the snow, heavy damp snow began to ride on the tops of the runners. But the day was pleasant and pulling Thick on the sled was still less strenuous than shovelling ice out of a pit. The gaudy sword the Fool had given me tapped against my leg as I strode along, for Longwick had insisted that I, at least, should go armed. We were traversing the trail much more swiftly than we had before, for the path was clearly marked with Peottre’s stakes, and there was at least a slight downhill slope for all of it. Thick’s humming, the squeak of the runners and the crunch of our footsteps on the softened crust of the glacier were not the only sounds. The warmth had wakened the glacier. We heard one distant fall of ice, a thunder that went on for some time. It was followed by lesser creakings and crashes, but always at a distance.

The Fool began to whistle, and I was much cheered when I saw Thick sit up and take notice of the music. He still hummed breathlessly to himself, but I began to make comments on the scenery, uniformly white as it was, and occasionally elicited a response from him. That cheered me unreasonably, but also left me pondering. The Skill was not a magic bounded by distance, and yet Thick seemed to be recovering more of his own awareness of the world the farther we got from the buried dragon. I had no answer to why that might be so, and wished I could discuss it with Dutiful and Chade.

Several times I attempted in vain to reach out with the Skill. A legless man trying to jump would have had more success. The magic was simply gone. If I dwelt on that, I felt a cold pit in the bottom of my belly. I pushed the thought aside. There was nothing I could do about it now.

The daily cycle of warmth and chill combined with the nightly wind had smoothed all the edges of our previous passage’s trail. I made a few vain attempts to read it, trying to discern if Riddle and Hest and their sled had passed this way, with no success. We had a wide view of the snowy lands below us. Nothing moved on them, certainly nothing so large as a sled and two men. It was possible that they had lingered at the beach, I told myself, or that some mishap had delayed their return. I tried not to stack their disappearance with the theft of my Skill and the sightings of the Black Man. I had too few facts to make them add up to anything. Instead, I tried to enjoy the freshness of the day. At one point, I heard the high cry of a seabird, and looked up to see a gull describe a wide circle over us. I lifted a hand and waved a greeting at Risk, wondering if that acknowledgement would be relayed to Web. We passed our previous campsite while we still had plenty of daylight and energy to continue, so we did. That night, we pitched the tent on the trail behind the sled. Thick still periodically hummed to himself, but also expressed both an interest in and then dismay at the simple dinner I prepared. The little tent was a bit more crowded with the three of us, but also warmed more quickly. The Fool told simple children’s stories that night until we were all more than ready for sleep. With every passing tale, Thick hummed less and asked more questions. At one time the constant interruptions to the story would have annoyed me. Now they filled me with relief.

‘Would you tell Chade and Dutiful goodnight for me?’ I asked Thick as he settled into his blankets.

‘Do it yourself,’ he suggested grumpily.

‘I can’t. I ate some bad food, and now I can’t find them in my mind.’

He sat up on one elbow and stared at me. ‘Oh. Yes. Now I remember. You’re gone. That’s too bad.’ He was silent for a time, then said, ‘They say, “goodnight, and thanks for letting us know. And maybe I should stay at the beach, but they’ll decide later.”’ He drew a deep, satisfied breath and dropped back into his blankets.

It was my turn to sit up. ‘Thick. You aren’t coughing any more. Or wheezing.’

‘No.’ He rolled over, managing to kick me in the process. I nearly complained but then he said, ‘He told me, “mend yourself. Don’t be stupid, mend yourself, don’t be annoying.” So I did.’

‘Who told you that?’ I asked, even as I was stricken with guilt. Why hadn’t Chade and Dutiful and I thought of trying to heal Thick? It now seemed obvious. I was ashamed we hadn’t done it.

‘Huh,’ Thick sighed out consideringly. ‘His name is a story, too long to tell. I’m sleepy. Stop talking to me.’

And that was that. He went off into a deep sleep. I wondered if Icefyre had another name, a dragon name.

I woke once in the night, thinking I heard cautious footsteps outside our tent. I crept to the doorflap, and then reluctantly stepped outside into the clear cold. I saw nothing and no one, even when I had made a full circuit of the tent.

When morning came, I made a wider circuit of the camp while the Fool tried to heat water for tea for us. I brought my news back to them. ‘Someone came to see us last night,’ I said, trying to keep my voice light. ‘He walked all around our camp in a big circle. Then he lay down in the snow over there for a while. Then he went away, that way, the same way he came. Do you think I should go see where he went?’

‘Why?’ Thick asked, even as the Fool said thoughtfully, ‘I think Lord Chade and Prince Dutiful might want to know about that.’

‘I think they would, too.’ I looked at Thick. He sighed wearily, and then turned his gaze inward.

A few moments later, he said, ‘They said, “Go to the beach.” Dutiful says he thinks he left maple candy in a bag there. They say we should hurry there, and come back with the stuff, and tell the guards there to come back with us. “Don’t go looking for where the footprints go right now.”’

‘Then that is what we’ll do.’ How I wished to be able to hear Chade’s thoughts on this for myself.

We packed up the tent and loaded it on the sled. Thick matter-of-factly climbed onto it. I thought it over and decided it was the simplest solution to travelling with him. Dragging him was easier than matching his slow pace. As before, the Fool went on before us, testing the trail while I pulled. The day was fine, a warm wind blowing across the snowy face of the world. I expected that we might reach the beach by the next afternoon if we held our present progress. Thick suddenly spoke.

‘Nettle said she missed you. She asked if you hated her.’

‘I hated – When? When did she say that?’

‘At night.’ Thick waved his hand vaguely. ‘She said you just went away and never came back at all.’

‘But that’s because I ate the bad food. And I couldn’t reach her.’

‘Ya.’ Thick dismissed this casually. ‘I told her you can’t talk to her any more. She was glad to hear it.’

‘She was glad?’

‘She thought you were dead. Or something. She has a friend now, a new girl. Will we stop and eat soon?’

‘Not until tonight. We don’t have much food, so we have to be careful. Thick, did she –’

My words were interrupted by a whoop of dismay from the Fool. His sounding post had suddenly plunged deep in the snow. He picked it up, took two steps to the left and shoved it in again. Again it sank deep.

‘Sit still,’ I told Thick. I took one of the extra poles from the sled and walked forward to stand beside the perplexed Fool. ‘Soft snow?’ I asked him.

He shook his head. ‘It’s as if there’s only a crust, and then nothing. If I hadn’t held tight to the pole, it would have dropped right through.’

‘Let’s be very careful.’ I took hold of his sleeve. ‘Thick, stay on the sled!’ I reminded him again.

‘I’m hungry!’

‘The food is in the sack behind you. Sit still and eat something.’ It seemed the easiest way to keep him busy. Tugging the Fool to move with me, we took three steps to the right. This time, I plunged in my pole. I felt what he had told me I would. The crust of snow resisted the pole, and then it shot through into nothingness.

‘Peottre’s stakes go right across it,’ the Fool pointed out.

‘It wouldn’t be that hard to move the stakes,’ I pointed out.

‘Whoever moved them would have had to walk right across, though.’

‘The crust would be more solid at night. I think.’ I couldn’t decide if we confronted the natural danger of the glacier or if we had followed the line of stakes into a trap. ‘Let’s move back to the sled,’ I suggested.

‘Seems like a very good idea,’ the Fool agreed.

So it was that as I led him back from the hidden chasm, we plunged downward through the crust. We sank, me to my knees, the Fool to his hips, both yelling in terror. Then, as we stuck there, I laughed out loud at our fright. It was no more than a soft spot in the snow. ‘Give me your hand,’ I said as he floundered, trying to get back onto the top of the crust. He took my proffered grasp, and then, as he floundered toward me, we both broke through the second crust below us and went down.

I had a single glimpse of Thick’s face contorted in terror. Then his wail of dismay was drowned in the downpour of snow and ice that fell with and after us. I clung to the Fool’s hand as I floundered for any sort of solidity anywhere else in the world. There was none. All was white and wet and cold, and we fell in a terrible unending slide of loose snow and ice chunks.

Snow seems a light and fluffy thing when it is falling on a sunlit day. But when it thickens the air to porridge, you cannot breathe it. It flowed inside my clothes like a living thing craving my warmth. It became heavy and relentless. I fought my free hand up to crook my elbow uselessly over my face. We fell still, a slow sliding, and in some part of my mind, I knew that more snow slid down after us. Yet through it all, I held fast to the Fool’s hand, and knew that his free hand did not protect his face but clung in a death grip to the shoulder of my coat. There was no free air to breathe.

And then, as if we had passed through the neck of a funnel, we were suddenly falling and sliding more swiftly and freely. I kicked my feet, making vague swimming motions, and felt the Fool likewise struggling alongside me. I felt us sliding to a halt, in cold wet darkness. It terrified me, and I made the final struggle that our bodies demand we make when death clutches us. Then, somehow, against all odds, I was breaking free of the snow. I gasped a breath of almost clear air and floundered toward it, dragging the Fool with me. He came limply and I feared he had already smothered.

All was darkness and cold and cascading snow and ice. I was hip-deep, pulling the Fool behind me, and then suddenly the snow let go of me. I waded out of the knee-deep stuff and then blundered clear of it. I heard the Fool take a wheezing gasp of air. I found a breath myself, and then two. Tiny settling crystals of ice still filled the air we breathed, but even so, it seemed such an improvement. We were in darkness.

I shook snow from my hair and dug handfuls of it out of my collar. My hat was gone, and one boot. All was black around us, and the only sounds were the indescribable creaks of settling snow and our own harsh breath. ‘Where are we?’ I gasped, and my little human voice was the muffled squeak of a mouse in a bin full of grain.

The Fool coughed. ‘Down here.’ We had let go of one another, but still stood close enough for our bodies to touch. He was huddled at my feet, and I felt him doing something, and then a pale, greenish light opened out from his hands. I blinked, at first seeing no more than the glow, and then realizing that it came from a small box in his hands. ‘This won’t last long,’ he warned me, his face ghastly in the corpse-light. ‘At most a day. It is Elderling magic, of the most expensive and rare sort. Not all of my fortune went for gambling and brandy. A good portion of it is right here in my hand.’

‘Thank the gods for that,’ I said heartily. For a fleeting instant, I wondered if that was the sole true prayer that Web had once referred to. Dim as the light was, it was still an immeasurable comfort to me. It was just enough to light both our faces as we looked at one another. The Fool’s hat had stayed on his head. His pack dangled from one strap, the other torn free from him. I was shocked it had stayed with him at all. My sword belt and sword were gone. As I watched him, he strapped his little pack shut again. We did not speak for a moment or two as we shook snow from our clothing, and then lifted our eyes to peer at our surroundings.

We could see nothing of them. Our light was too dim to show us more than the slide of snow we had emerged from and ourselves. We were in an under-ice hollow or cavern, but the Elderling lantern could not reach the walls of it. No light trickled down from above. I decided that the flood of snow that had followed us had re-sealed whatever crack we had fallen through. Then, ‘Thick! Oh, Eda, give him the sense to Skill to Dutiful and Chade what has happened. I hope he just stays where he is on the sled. But when night and cold comes, what then for him? Thick!’ I suddenly bellowed the word, thinking of the vague little man left sitting alone on a sled in a world of ice.

‘Shush!’ The Fool reprimanded me sharply. ‘If he hears you shout, he may get off the sled and come toward the crack. Be quiet. His danger is less than ours, and I’m afraid you must leave him to face it alone. He’ll Skill out, Fitz. His mind is not swift, perhaps, but it works well enough and he will have plenty of time to think what to do next.’

‘Perhaps,’ I conceded. My heart felt squeezed. Of all the times to be deprived of my Skill, this was the worst. And then in the next instant, the loss of Nighteyes gutted me again. I missed his instincts and survivor’s outlook. My heart caught in my chest. I was alone.

And drowning in self-pity. The thought was as acid as if it had truly come from Nighteyes. Get up and do something. The Fool’s survival depends on you, and possibly Thick’s.

I took a deep breath and lifted my eyes. The fickle green light of the little box showed me nothing, but that did not mean there was nothing to see. If there was no other way out, then we must risk causing another cascade of snow by trying to dig up through it. It there was a way out, then we should find it. It was that simple. Standing here whining like a lost cub would not avail me anything. I reached down and pulled the Fool to his feet. ‘Come. There is no going back up. Let us see where we are. Moving will keep us warmer.’

‘Very well.’ He spoke the words so trustingly that they nearly broke my heart.

I would have welcomed one of our snow poles, but there was no guessing where they were buried now. So, the Fool held his little box of light out in front of us, and we groped our way forward.

We encountered nothing. If we stood still and held our breaths, we could hear water dripping and the bone-deep slow breath of the ice around us. Under our feet, the ice was gritty. We could not see a ceiling above us. We were in a starless night, and our only contact with the world was the solidity under our feet and each other. We did not even see the blackness of a wall before us until we blundered against it.

We both stood touching it for a time, saying nothing. In that stillness, I became aware of the Fool shivering and the shuddering of his breath. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were that cold?’ I demanded of him.

He sniffed, and then laughed weakly. ‘Aren’t you? It seemed a useless thing to speak of it.’ He dragged in another chattering breath and asked, ‘Is that ice or rock?’

‘Lift the light and we’ll see.’ He did. But then said, ‘I still can’t tell. But it’s something we can’t pass. Let’s follow it.’

‘It may take us right back to where we came.’

‘It may, and there’s no help for that if it does. If we go all the way round and come right back here again, at least we’ll know there is no way out. Here. A moment.’ I set my hand to shoulder height on the wall, and then reached for my belt-knife. It was gone. Of course. The Fool still had his, and I borrowed it to scratch a rough mark on the wall. It seemed a futile gesture.

‘Left or right?’ I asked him. I had no sense at all of north or south.

‘Left,’ he said, flapping a hand vaguely in that direction.

‘A moment,’ I said gruffly, and unfastened my cloak. He tried to fend me off when I put it around his shoulders.

‘You’ll get cold!’ he protested.

‘I’m already cold. But my body has always warmed itself better than yours. And if you drop from cold, it will not benefit either of us. Don’t worry. If I need it back, I’ll let you know. Just wear it for now.’

I only realized how cold he was when he immediately surrendered. He dropped his pack to the floor and handed me the Elderling light while he fastened the cloak. He was shaking as he held it close around him. I lifted the box and decided it was not just the greenish light that made him such an odd colour. He gave me a very small smile. ‘It’s still warm from your body. Thank you, Fitz.’

‘Thank yourself. That’s the one you gave me when I was acting as your servant. Come on. Let’s get moving.’ I lifted his pack before he could. ‘What else is in here?’

‘Nothing of much use, I’m afraid. Only a few personal things I wouldn’t wish ever to lose. There’s a little flask of brandy in the bottom. And I think a few honey cakes. I brought them for an emergency, or perhaps a treat for Thick.’ He gave a strangled laugh. ‘Emergency. But not this. Even so, I think we should save them as long as we can.’

‘Likely you’re right. Let’s go.’

He did not move to take the light, but kept his arms wrapped around his body. So I held the light and led the way as we followed the black wall beside us. I could tell by the way he walked that his feet were going numb. Despair threatened to engulf me. Then the wolf in me dismissed it. We were still alive and moving. There was hope.

We trudged on. Endlessly. Time became motion, steps taken in the dark. Sometimes I closed my eyes to rest them from the unnatural light, but even then, I seemed to see it. At such a moment, the Fool asked shakily, ‘What’s that?’

I opened my eyes. ‘What’s what?’ I asked him. Blue afterglows danced before my vision. I blinked. They didn’t go away.

‘That. Isn’t that light? Shut the box. See if it’s still there or if it’s some sort of reflection.’

It was hard to get the box to shut. My fingers were cold, and my one un-booted foot was a cold aching lump at the end of my leg. But when the box was closed, a blue shard of light still beckoned to us. It was irregularly shaped and oddly edgeless. I squinted at it, trying to make it assume some familiar aspect.

‘It’s very strange, isn’t it? Let’s go toward it.’

‘And leave the wall?’ I asked, oddly reluctant. ‘There’s no way to tell how far away that is.’

‘Light has to come from somewhere,’ the Fool pointed out.

I took a breath. ‘Very well.’

We set out toward it. It did not seem to grow larger. The floor became uneven and our pace more shuffling as we groped ahead with numbed feet. Then, in the space of a few steps, our perspective on it changed. A wall to our left had been blocking our view, allowing us to see only a reflection in an icy wall. As we moved past that projection, the blue gleam opened out and became a beckoning corridor of blue-and-white ice. Hopes renewed, we increased our pace. We hurried around a bend in our black chamber, and suddenly a luminous vista spread before us. The closer we approached, the more my eyes could resolve what we saw. As we angled back toward the illumination, it increased, and after a narrowing in the passage, we emerged into a world of light suffused ice.

The beam seemed sourceless, as if it had wandered through windows and mirrors and prisms of ice before it found us. We entered into a strange maze of cracks and chasms in a world of palely gleaming walls. Sometimes our way was narrow and sometimes broad. The floor under our feet was never level. Sometimes it seemed we walked in a sharp crack in the ice that had happened yesterday and sometimes it looked as if melting water had slowly sculpted the wandering path we followed. When we came to ways where the passage branched, we always tried to choose the larger way. Often enough, it narrowed shortly after we had made our choice. I did not say to the Fool what I feared; we followed random crackings in the ice of the glacier. There was no reason to expect that any of them led to anything.

The first signs I saw that others had passed this way were subtle. I thought I tricked myself into hope; there seemed to be a scattering of sand where the floor of the passageway was slick. Then, that perhaps the walls had been squared off. My nose caught the scent first: fresh human excrement. In the same instant I was sure of it, the Fool said, ‘It looks as if steps have been cut into the floor ahead of us.’

I nodded. We were definitely ascending, and broad shallow steps had been cut in the icy floor. A dozen steps later, we passed a chamber cut into the ice to our right. A natural fissure had been enlarged into a waste pit, a place to throw rubbish and dump chamber pots. And a grave for the ignominious dead. I saw a naked foot, obscenely pale and bony, projecting from the midden. Another body sprawled face down upon it, ribs showing through tattered rags. Only the cold made the stench bearable. I halted and asked the Fool in a whisper, ‘Do you think we should go on?’

‘It is the only path,’ he said tremulously. ‘We have to follow it.’

He stared and stared at the discarded body. He was shaking again. ‘Are you still cold?’ I asked. The passages we were in seemed slightly warmer to me than when we had been in darkness. Light seemed to come from within them.

He gave me a ghastly smile. ‘I’m scared.’ He closed his eyes for an instant, squeezing unshed tears onto his golden lashes. Then, ‘On we go,’ he said more firmly. He stepped past me to take the lead and I followed him, full of dread.

Whoever was responsible for dumping the slops and chamber pots was a careless fellow. Splotches and splashes marred the icy walls and mottled the ice underfoot. The farther we went, the more obviously man-made or at least hand-modified the passages became. The source of the blue light was revealed when we passed an exposed pale globe that was anchored to the wall overhead. It was larger than a pumpkin, and gave off light but not heat. I halted, staring up at it. Then, as I reached toward it with curious fingers, the Fool caught at my cuff and dragged my hand back down. He shook his head in silent warning.

‘What is it?’ I asked in a whisper.

He shrugged one shoulder. ‘I don’t know. But I know it’s hers. Don’t touch it, Fitz. Come on. We have to hurry.’

And we did, for a time. Until we came to the first dungeon.

TWENTY

Corridors

It is said that at one time there was a seer or oracle who resided on Aslevjal Island. This tale seems to be very old. Some tell it that there was only one, and she lived for many generations, but remained young, raven-haired and black-eyed. Others say that there was a mothershouse of oracles, with a Great Mother who passed on her seer’s duties to her elder daughter in turn, so that a succession of oracles served there. All speak of them as having lived beyond their Great Mother’s day. There remains no living witness to the truth of this tale. It was said that the seer lived within the glacier and emerged only to accept offerings that visitors brought to Icefyre. If a seeker of truth brought animals to sacrifice, the seer would do the bloodletting and then fling the entrails into the air and let them fall smoking to the ice. The future of the visitor was spelled out in the curling of the guts. After the reading, in the name of the dragon, she would claim the sacrificed animal.

Cockle’s collected Outislander tales

The door was nearly invisible. The Fool had passed it before I perceived what it was and halted him with a touch to his shoulder. Either the door was made of ice, or was so thickly coated with ice that its original material was unseen. The hinges were vague bulges in the wall, and I saw no sort of handle or lock. It baffled me. There was a narrow slit in the door at about waist height. I stooped to peer into it, and was shocked to see a ragged and battered man crouched in the far corner of a cell. He stared in my direction, mute and expressionless. I staggered back from the sight with an inarticulate cry.

‘What?’ the Fool whispered and stooped to look in himself. He remained crouched by the door, his face a mask of horror. Then, ‘We have to let them out. Somehow.’

I shook my head wildly, and then found my tongue. ‘No, Fool. Trust me, please. They’re Forged. However heartless it seems to leave them in there, it would be a danger and a cruelty to let them loose. They’d turn on us, for our cloaks or for sport. We don’t dare let them out.’

He stared up at me incredulously. Then he said quietly, ‘You didn’t see them all, did you? Riddle is in there. And Hest.’

I didn’t want to look. I had to. Heart thundering, breath coming fast, I crept to the door and peered in.

The inside of the cell was dimly lit with the same blue glow as the corridors. I let my eyes adjust to the light until I could see the entire cell. The room was a cavity chopped into the glacier. The floor was crusted with waste. There were five Forged ones inside, and nothing else. Four of them had taken positions in defensible corners, backs to the walls. Hest, weakened with injuries, sprawled on the floor in the centre of the cell. Plainly none of the Forged ones dared venture forth to attack him, for that would leave their own backs exposed. The three strangers in the cell were Outislanders, starved and scarred and dressed in rags. Their captors had stripped Hest and Riddle of their heavy fur coats, but even so, they were better off than the others. They still had their boots. I quested toward them desperately with the Wit, willing with all my might that I feel something from them. But there was nothing. They crouched, staring with brutish animosity at one another, less than animals. Their connection to the world and society had been stripped from them.

I sagged away from the door, sitting down flat on the icy floor. Misery and sickness flooded through me. Evil memories I had thought long banished clawed at me with scabby fingers. I do not think the Fool could have understood the depth of my horror. He could not feel their absence of connection as I could.

‘Is there nothing we can do for them?’ he asked softly.

A smile like blight came to my face. I clenched my teeth, refusing to feel the emotions that threatened me. I would not think about this too deeply. I had already thought this through, long ago, and I knew all the final answers. No sense in agonizing my way through lessons I had already learned. I spoke flatly. ‘I could kill them. Maybe. There are four of them on their feet, and though three of them look starved and weak, I’ve known Forged ones to pack up and fight together. For a time, until there were spoils to claim. I don’t know if I could kill them all before they pulled me down. Riddle’s a good fighter. And he’s still healthy.’

‘But … Riddle and Hest?’ He pleaded with me.

He should have known better. ‘Fool. That isn’t Riddle or Hest. Their bodies are there, and all the things they knew are there. But that’s all. They no longer care about anything or anyone. The only things they’ll consider are their own physical appetites. Would Riddle let Hest lie there on the floor, injured and unguarded? No. That isn’t Riddle. Not any more.’

‘But … we have to do something!’ His whisper was agonized.

I sighed. ‘If we open that door, I have to kill them. They’ll make me, unless I’m willing to let them kill me.’

‘Then we have no choice?’

I smiled bitterly. ‘There are always choices. But sometimes there are no good ones. I kill them, or they kill us. Or we walk away.’

For a long time, the Fool stood silent. Then he turned away from the cell door and walked slowly away. I followed him.

The ice corridors began to show more signs of use. The floor looked trodden and grubby, the icy walls scarred. We passed more dungeons, identical to the first. I peered into each one we passed, sick with horror, but we did not speak of the people we glimpsed inside them. The ones with the woman and the girl in them were the most heart-rending for me. The floor of those cells had a layer of straw on it and there were pallets in each corner. Evidently the lives of these captives were to be prolonged. It seemed a crueller fate than Riddle, Hest and their companions endured. Death would not be swift for the men, but cold ate a man just as steadily as starvation did. They would not suffer long. From the length of the woman’s unkempt hair and filthy nails, she had been in there for a long time. Huddled in a filthy bear rug, she crouched in the corner, staring at the wall. In the next cell, a girl of about seven picked at scabs on her ankles. Her eyes flicked once to meet mine as I stared through the crack in the door. The only emotion they showed me was wariness.

Eventually, the corridor of dungeons came to an end. The hall grew wider, and the pale light globes were spaced more frequently. The passageway had been carved rather than chopped out of the ice, and there were grace notes of frozen beauty in the arched walls. The floor was clean and sprinkled with sand for traction. It seemed older to me, as if it had been built to accommodate a greater flow of people, but we had still not glimpsed a soul.

Then we came to a junction that offered us three choices. The main corridor continued before us. To our left, a wide passage descended in shallow steps that wound down and out of sight. To our right, a stairway was cut in the ice, and led steeply upwards. Both looked older and far more worn than the path we had been following. The Fool and I halted and exchanged glances.

From the opening on our left, my ears caught a faint shushing sound. It came at distant but regular intervals. I cupped my ear to it. After a short time, the Fool whispered, ‘It sounds as if something huge is breathing down there.’

I widened my nostrils and drew in a deep breath. What I smelled inspired me with hope even as it made the sound instantly recognizable. ‘No. It’s waves, it’s the sea. This way leads to a beach. Come on.’

His face lit like a man suddenly reprieved. ‘Yes!’ he prayed, and hastened down the broad, wide steps. I followed him and catching his shoulder, moved him to the inside curve of the steps. ‘Stay by the wall,’ I instructed him in a low voice. ‘If we hear someone coming up, it will give us that one moment to surprise them.’ Our only weapon, his belt-knife, was already in my hand.

We were already weary, with no idea of how long we’d been exploring the ice maze. The steps were shallow and maddeningly irregular. They were gouged, too, as if heavy objects were often dragged up or down them. As we went deeper, the sea smell came stronger, and the air grew damper. The steps became more slippery, and soon we were negotiating our way down ice steps sheened with water. Someone had thrown sand on them, but it had melted unevenly into the surface, leaving knobs of glistening and slippery ice when least expected. We were forced to go more slowly. Soon the walls were gleaming with slow water, and drops fell from overhead. The smell of the water grew stronger, but the light did not vary from the witchglow of blue that suffused us.

Then we reached the pitted bottom step and saw the futility of our hope. Beyond the ice was a slope of worn black stone that gave onto a beach of black sand. Several metal pegs were driven into it, as if small boats were sometimes moored there. Waves shushed in and out over it, lapping relentlessly higher. And overhead in the cavern, barely visible in the blue glow of the last of the pale globes, was a high ceiling of glistening ice.

‘If we had a boat, and if the tide was going out, I’d chance it,’ I said.

‘If,’ said the Fool, and snickered. I looked at him in shock. He looked terrible, and it was not just the blue light. He took his pack from my arm and sank down on the wet steps with it. For a moment, he hugged it to him as if he were a child hugging a beloved doll. Then he opened it and rummaged to the bottom for the flask of brandy. He opened it and offered it to me first.

I took it, weighed it in my hand, and then drank no more than a quarter of it. It was the same apricot brandy that he had brought to the little house that Hap and I had shared. I swallowed the warmth of a summer day, and then breathed out through my open mouth, tasting apricots and friendship as I held the flask out to him. He took it from me, exchanging a square of black bread for it. It was half the size of my palm. I sat down beside him, and ate it slowly. There were raisins and nuts in it. It was dense and sweet and small, making me more aware of the hunger I’d been ignoring. We ate slowly in silence. After I’d licked the last crumb off my palm, I looked at him. ‘Up?’ I said.

‘It won’t lead out,’ he told me softly. ‘Think about where we are, and the legends we’ve heard from the Outislanders. This is where they came in under the ice to see the dragon. That little winding staircase must go up to Icefyre. Why else would it be there?’

‘Maybe it goes up and out,’ I said stubbornly. ‘We won’t know until we try it. Maybe that other, wider way goes to the dragon. That would make more sense.’

He shook his head. ‘No. The dragon must be above us, if you could sometimes see him from the surface. The staircase goes to the dragon. Not out.’ He was adamant. He leaned his head against the icy wall. ‘There is no way out for me. And I’ve always known it.’

I heaved myself to my feet. The seat of my trousers was wet. Oh, good. ‘Get up,’ I told him.

‘There’s no point to it.’

‘Get up!’ I insisted, and when he didn’t move, I seized him by the back of his collar and hauled him to his feet. He did not resist, but only gave me a doleful glance. ‘We’ve come this far together, through the years and over many a path and by-way. And if we are going to end here, under the ice of Aslevjal, then I’m going to see this damnable dragon that made us come all this way. And so are you.’

Is there anything more wearying than shallow steps? Perhaps slippery shallow steps. Nevertheless, we ascended them, and as before, we stayed close to the inner wall and kept our ears perked for sounds of anyone coming our way. We heard the waves growing ever fainter behind us and the random plops of falling drips. Eventually, we reached the place where we intersected with the carved corridor. We halted there, listening, but heard nothing.

I was tired. I was sure we’d gone far past a time when we deserved a night’s sleep. My head felt stuffed full of felt and buzzing flies. The Fool looked worse. We crossed the corridor and entered the stairwell. He followed me slowly up the narrow steps. The staircase wound as it climbed. As soon as its curve took us out of sight of the main corridor, I stopped him. ‘You. Drink the rest of the brandy now. It will warm you and give you a bit of heart, perhaps. In any case, it will do you more good inside your belly than inside the flask.’

‘Can I sit down?’ he asked.

‘No. I might not be able to get you up and moving again,’ I replied heartlessly, but he had already sunk down onto the step. Again he took the brandy flask, opened it, and offered it to me. It wasn’t worth an argument. I wet my mouth with it, and then told him, ‘You finish it.’

And he did, in a single deep swallow. He seemed to take a long time to cap the empty flask and put it away. ‘This is hard,’ he said, but he did not seem to address his words to me. ‘I’m too close to the end. I’ve had glimpses of this, but never clear ones. And now all I know is that I must go on, and that every step I take leads me closer to my death.’ He met my eyes and said without shame, ‘I’m terrified.’

I smiled. ‘Welcome to human existence. Come. Let’s go see this dragon you came so far to save.’

‘Why? So I can tell him I’ve failed him?’

‘Why not? Someone should tell him we tried.’

It was the Fool’s turn to smile. ‘He won’t care. Dragons care nothing for good intentions or failed attempts. He’ll only despise us. If he notices us at all.’

‘Ah! And that will be such a new experience for both of us.’

Then he laughed, and I did, too, not loud, but in the way men laugh when they know it might be the last opportunity to share a joke with a friend. We were not drunk, at least, not on brandy. If the Fool was right, we were drinking the dregs of our lives. I think that whenever a man realizes that, he tries to find every last bit of pleasure in it.

Up we went. The stair wound narrow, and I wondered what madman had carved it. Had there once been a natural feature that someone had ordered into a stairway, or was all of this a sculptor’s icy fancy? We went up. At one time, the walls had been decorated with bas-relief ice carvings, but they had been defaced, probably deliberately. All that was left were bits of legs or a hand in a fist, and once a woman’s lips and chin. I grew to hate the unevenness of my gait, one foot booted and one in an ice-coated sock. When we stopped to rest, I let the Fool sit down. He leaned against the wall, and I thought that he dozed. When I saw the tears creeping down his cheeks, I roused him. ‘There’s no good in those. Get up. We’re moving on now.’

My voice was kinder than my words. He nodded to them and hauled himself to his feet. We continued our climb. Like an unending nightmare, the winding steps went on and on. The pale globes could not light every corner of the twisting steps. Every shade of blue and white that could be expressed took a turn. It was a cold and wearying beauty that we traversed. We climbed more slowly, and then rested together, and went on. It seemed that eventually we must break out of the ice, that it could not go on much longer. Then we came to a level gallery carved in the ice. And the dragon.

A thick layer of ice remained between him and us. We saw him through the distortion and haze, yet even so, he was breathtaking. We walked slowly the length of the gallery, paralleling Icefyre. He was bigger than two ships. His wings were folded to his sides and his tail curled back around him. His head was turned back on his long neck, coiled away from us. We gazed at him in awe. The Fool’s aching heart was in his eyes. The immense sense of the dragon’s life almost overwhelmed my Wit. Never had I been so close to a natural living creature of such great size. Then we came to a crudely-bored tunnel that wormed through the ice toward the dragon’s breast. I stooped and peered into it. It ended in the darkness of the black dragon. I took a breath. ‘Lend me your Elderling lantern,’ I asked the Fool.

‘Are you going in there?’

I nodded slowly, unable to say why I must.

‘I’ll come with you, then.’

‘There isn’t room. Stay here and rest. I’ll tell you what I find.’

He looked torn between weariness and curiosity. Then the Fool lowered his pack to the floor and opened it. As he gave me the lantern-box, he said, ‘I have two more pieces of bread. Shall we eat them now?’

‘Go ahead. I’ll have mine when I come back.’ Even the mention of food made my mouth suddenly water. Thick came suddenly into my mind. Had he Skilled to Chade and Dutiful, or did he sit woefully awaiting our return? Had he remained safe on the sled, or had it, too, followed us down in the crush of snow? I pushed the useless questions away. The Fool handed me the little box and I opened it, releasing its peculiar green light.

‘Don’t be long,’ he cautioned me as I entered the tunnel. ‘I want to know what you find there.’

The tunnel was not tall enough to stand in. I crawled along it, pushing the box of light before me. The blue light of the gallery faded behind me and soon I travelled only in a pale green light that echoed weirdly in the mirroring ice. The reek of dragon slowly grew until I tasted him as much as smelled him. It strongly recalled the stink of garter snakes when as a curious boy I had captured and handled them. The tunnel became narrower as I went, as if whoever had dug it had been so intent on reaching the dragon that they could not be bothered to keep it a uniform size.

It ended in a wall of dragon, tiled with gleaming black scales, the smallest as large as my spread hand. A neat row of tools rested on a roll of leather on the floor ice before it. Various blades, mallets, drills and metal picks were there. Two tools, blades broken or blunted, had been discarded. I held the Elderling light closer to the dragon, my gorge rising as I confirmed my suspicion. Someone had crawled along this tunnel to the beast’s side, and then attempted to burrow into his heart.

It looked as if his plated scales had defeated the attacks. Some of them were scored, but it looked as if none of the metal implements had managed to penetrate the flesh beneath. A sort of metal wedge was still in place, driven under the overlapping black scales to lift them and create a vulnerable place. I held the light closer. The lifted scales revealed a second layer of creamy scales beneath them, overlapping in a pattern perpendicular to the first layer. A pick like an ice pick had been shoved in under one creamy scale. It had penetrated the leathery hide beneath, but no blood or fluid flowed. I judged that it had been like driving a blade into a horse’s hoof. Nonetheless, the sneaking cruelty of such an attack disgusted me.

The dragon lived. Someone had burrowed in here like a maggot, trying to hack a way into his heart while he was held immobile.

I appreciated the density of his natural armour when it took all my strength to pull the pick from his flesh. I had to hammer sideways at the wedge to get it out of him. The instant it fell free, the scales in that area rippled and writhed and closed up. For a moment, my Wit-sense of his life surged. Then, just as abruptly, it vanished. The scaled wall of flesh before me might have been something pieced together from metal. I hesitated, and then boldly ran a hand over the layered scales. I could not even get a fingernail under the ridged edge of one, so tightly did they clamp, one over another. They were cold too, cold as the ice that encased him.

I gathered the evil tools into their roll of leather and took them with me as I retreated. I had to crawl backwards; there was no room to turn around. By the time I reached the gallery, I was sweating, and the reptilian stink of dragon was making me ill.

I found the Fool sound asleep at the end of the gallery closest to the dragon’s hidden head. He was seated, his knees drawn up to his chest and his golden head drooped over them. His loosened hair veiled his face. Exhaustion had overcome his curiosity. I sat down on the floor by him and leaned back against the icy wall. In his sleep, he muttered something and shifted closer to lean his weight against me. I sighed and let him be. I wondered why the dragon’s assailant hadn’t chosen to tunnel into the wall here, closer to the creature’s head. Had he feared that even viced in ice, the dragon would have found a way to defend himself?

I looked up at the icy ceiling above me. It was a deep bottomless blue, like staring into deep water. Somewhere up there, I promised myself, Prince Dutiful dug alongside his Wit-coterie. I wondered what thickness of ice separated him from us. How long would the Fool and I have to sit here before we heard and then saw the progress of their shovels? An age, I decided. I could hear no sound of shovels or voice, saw no flawing of ice giving way to their efforts. They might as well have been on the other side of the world.

I shifted closer to the Fool. His body trapped my warmth on that side of me. I was so terribly tired and hungry. With one of my new weapons, I chiselled a bit of ice from the wall and sucked on it for water. I put the Elderling light-box back in the Fool’s pack. I found the piece of bread he had left me and ate it. It was very good and very small. Then I rested my head on top of the Fool’s and closed my eyes for a moment. I suppose we slept.

My own shivering wakened me. I felt as if my bones were trying to rattle themselves out of their sockets. It hurt to unfold myself. The Fool slowly slid down to lie on the ice as I beat my arms and stamped my feet, trying to find feeling in them again. I knelt beside him and pawed at him with hands that were too stiff to work well. He was an awful colour. When he groaned softly, I sighed with relief. ‘Get up,’ I told him. I kept my voice down, cursing us for having slept so foolishly in such an exposed place. If anyone had come up those stairs, they would have found us unaware and cornered. ‘Come on. We have to move. We still have to find a way out of here.’

He whimpered and curled up more tightly. I prodded at him, feeling both anger and despair. ‘We can’t give up now. Get up, Fool. We have to go on.’

‘Please.’ He breathed the word. ‘A quiet death. A slide into it.’

‘No. Get up.’

He opened his eyes. Something in my face must have told him I would not leave him in peace. He unfolded himself, as stiff and wooden as the puppets he had once carved. He held his hands up before him and looked at them stupidly. ‘I can’t feel them.’

‘Get up and moving. They’ll come back to life.’

He sighed. ‘It was such a good dream. I dreamed that we both died here and it was all over. There was nothing more we could do, and everyone agreed that we had tried and it wasn’t really our fault. They spoke kindly of us.’ He opened his eyes wider. ‘How did you stand up?’

‘I don’t know. Just do it.’ I did not feel patient.

‘I’m trying.’

As he made his efforts, I told him what I had discovered at the end of the tunnel. I showed him the tools I had taken, and he shuddered. With every word I spoke, he came back to himself a bit more. Finally, he got to his feet and took a few shuffling steps. We were both shaking with the cold but I had recovered some feeling in my hands. I chafed his roughly, despite his gasps of protest at the pain. When he could open and close his hands again, I handed him a knife. He clutched it awkwardly, but nodded when I told him to keep it ready.

‘Once we get down the stairs,’ I said, blithely ignoring how difficult that might be, ‘we’re going to have to follow the main corridor. It’s our only hope now.’

‘Fitz,’ he began earnestly, and then at my look, he stopped. I knew he had been going to tell me how hopeless it was. I took a long farewell look at the dragon. He was dormant again, beyond the reach of my Wit to detect his life. Why? I silently asked him. Why are you here and why must Elliania have your head? Then I turned my back on him, and the Fool followed me as we began our long descent of the stairs.

It was, if anything, more miserable than the ascent had been. We were still tired, hungry and cold. I lost count of how many times I slipped and fell. The Fool, bereft of his usual grace, stumbled alongside me. I kept expecting that we would encounter someone coming up to torment the dragon, but the stairway remained blue, cold and silent, and completely indifferent to our suffering. When we grew thirsty, we chipped bits of ice from the wall to suck on. It was the only creature comfort we could offer ourselves.

Eventually we reached the bottom. It seemed almost sudden when we turned that part of the spiral that exposed the waiting corridor to us. Breath bated, we crept down to peer around the last corner. I sensed no one, but our discovery of the Forged ones in the dungeons had reminded me that there were dangers my Wit could not make me aware of. But the passageway was wide and empty and silent. ‘Let’s go,’ I whispered.

‘It won’t lead us out.’ The Fool spoke in a normal tone. There was an unhealthy duskiness to the gold of his skin, as if life were already retreating from him, and his voice was dead. ‘This hall leads to her. It has to. If we follow it, we are going to our deaths. Not that we have many alternatives. As you pointed out before, sometimes all your choices are evil.’

I sighed. ‘What do you suggest then? Go back down to the water’s edge and hope someone comes with a boat and we can kill him before he kills us? Or go back to the Forged ones and give ourselves to them? Or go all the way back to the ice fissures and the dark?’

‘I think,’ he began uncertainly, and then stiffened. I whirled to see what he pointed at behind me. ‘The Black Man!’ he gasped.

It was he, the same person Thick and I had glimpsed before. He stood at a turning in the wide corridor before us, his hands crossed on his chest as if he were waiting for us to notice him. He was dressed all in black: tunic and trousers and boots. His long hair was as black as his hair and eyes and skin, as if he had been made of all one substance and clad in it, too. And as before, he made no impression on my Wit. For just a moment, he stood and stared at us. Then he turned and swiftly strode away. ‘Wait!’ The Fool cried after him and sprang to the chase. I do not know where he found the energy or agility to run. I only know that I thudded after him, my numb feet shocking me each time they jolted on the icy floor. The Black Man glanced back at us, and then fled. He seemed to run without effort, and yet he did not outdistance us. His feet made no sound.

The Fool ran fleetly for a time and I pounded along behind him. Then his last burst of energy left him, and he suddenly lagged. Still the Black Man did not outdistance us. He remained ahead of us, in sight but unreachable, a taunting phantom. Despite the deep breaths I took as I staggered along beside the Fool, I caught no scent of him.

‘He’s not real! He’s a magic, a trick of some kind.’ I gasped the words to the Fool, but I didn’t believe them.

‘No. He’s important.’ The Fool’s breath was ragged and he more stumbled than ran now. He caught at my sleeve and leaned on me briefly, then forced himself up and on. ‘I’ve never felt such significance in a man. Please. Help me, Fitz. We have to follow him. He wants us to follow him. Don’t you see that?’

I saw nothing save that we could not catch him. We went panting and reeling after him, never catching up yet never losing sight of him. The corridors where he led us grew wider and more elaborate. Vines and blossoms decorated the frozen lintels of the arched entryways we passed. The Black Man did not look to left or right, and gave us no time to do so. We passed a garlanded basin of ice that cupped a sculpted fountain, an arched spray of water trapped in stillness. We traversed the spacious and elegant corridors of a magnificent palace of ice, and saw not a soul nor felt a breath of warmth.

We slowed to a lurching walk, interspersed with a few charging steps to keep him in sight each time the Black Man turned a corner. Neither of us had breath for questions. I do not think the Fool thought of anything except catching him. Useless for me to ask why. Even if I’d formed the question, the Fool would not have answered it. My mouth was dry, my heart thundering in my ears, and still we pursued him. He seemed to be sure of himself as he threaded the warren of passageways. I wondered where we were going and why.

Then he led us into the ambush.

So it seemed to me. He had again chosen a turning, and as the Fool and I hastened our lagging steps to keep him in sight, we turned a corner and ran full tilt into six men-at-arms. I caught one last glimpse of the Black Man, far down the hall. He halted, and then as the men-at-arms yelled in surprise and fell upon us, he vanished.

There was no question of defending ourselves. We had run too far, on too little food, water and sleep. I could not have fended off an angry rabbit. As they seized the Fool, all life seemed to go out of him. His knife fell from his nerveless hand. His mouth sagged open but he did not even cry out. I plunged my blade into the wolf-hide tunic of the first man who leapt on me. There it stuck as he bore me down.

The back of my head bounced off the icy floor in a flash of white light.

TWENTY-ONE

In the Realm of the Pale Woman

The religion of the White Prophets has never had a strong following in the north lands, yet for a time it afforded a most amusing pastime to the nobility of the Jamaillian court. Satrap Esclepius was quite enamoured of the books of prophecy, and paid great sums to traders who could bring him copies of those rare manuscripts. These he entrusted to the priests of Sa, who made yet more copies of them for him. It was said that he often consulted them in this fashion. He would make an offering to Sa, pose his question and randomly select a passage from one of the manuscripts. He would then meditate on that passage until he felt he had resolved the question.

The nobility of his court, ever anxious to mimic their ruler, soon procured copies of the White Prophecies for themselves and began to use them in like fashion. For a time, the pastime enjoyed great popularity until the head priest of Sa began to decry it as being a portal to idolatry and blasphemy. At his insistence, most of the scrolls were gathered and either destroyed or consigned to the restrictive care of the priesthood.

It is rumoured, however, that the Satrap’s fondness for the writings was instrumental in winning the aid that he offered to a young boy of strangely pale mien who wrangled his way into a hearing with the Satrap. Impressed by the lad’s ability to quote from the sacred writings, and persuaded that his help to the boy had been foretold by several verses the lad interpreted for him, the Satrap responded by granting him a free passage on one of the slaving ships then bound for Chalced.

Cults of the Southlands, author unknown

I came back to consciousness twice before I could hold fast to it. The first time I was being dragged, one man to each arm, down an icy hallway. The second time, I became aware that I was on my belly and someone was firmly binding my wrists behind my back. The third time, I was again being dragged by my two guards. This time, I clung stubbornly to wakefulness, however painful. We had entered a palatial throne room. It had been hewn from the icy interior of the glacier, and the fat fluted columns that had been left to support its lofty ceiling were blue. On the walls carvings in bas-relief celebrated a woman repeatedly, in one lofty tableau after another. She was shown with a sword in her hand, on the bow of a ship with her hair streaming in the wind; she stood over her crushed enemies, her foot upon one man’s throat; enthroned, she pointed a finger of judgment at the wretches who cowered before her. All of the figures were many times life-sized, towering above us, wrathful and implacable. We had entered the realm of the Pale Woman.

Yet even here, in the heart of her kingdom, she had a rival. In the glassy ceiling of the chamber, behind the blue blurring of thick ice, I glimpsed finally the complete outline of the one I had come so far to see. Our winding path through the corridors had taken us beneath the dragon. I thought I could even glimpse a brighter rectangle of light that might have been our feeble excavation efforts. I wondered if, above us, our friends still laboured to chip through the ice to the trapped dragon. Useless to scream out to them; it would have been like trying to scream through not one, but three or four castle walls.

Scores of the Pale Woman’s followers had gathered to watch us brought before her. Immense white globes, suspended from frost-encased chains, lit the hall with an unnatural blue-white light. Heavily clad in furs and skins, her Outislander warriors seemed like dwarves in the overwhelming immensity of the ice palace. They were silent, their faces stoic as we were dragged past them. Their clan tattoos had been obliterated by black blotches. A few wore some sign of regard for their new liege, in the form of dragon or serpent tattoos. They regarded us without pity or hatred or even much curiosity. They did not seem fired with hatred or passion of any kind. The deadness I saw in them went beyond resignation to the beast-like tolerance for suffering that is usually attributed to abused animals. Even my Wit-sense of them was dampened. I wondered if she had discovered some lesser form of Forging, one that tore away their connections to humanity but left them enough fear of her to make them obedient. One of them I recognized. The woman Henja, who had been the Narcheska’s servant at Buckkeep, was as uninterested as the rest of them. I turned my head to confirm it. Yes, it was her. Since she’d left Buckkeep Castle, I’d glimpsed her once in Buckkeep Town when the Piebalds nearly killed me, and again when she had spied on the Prince and the Narcheska riding ponies on the hillside of Mayle Island. How did she fit into all of this? I could not make her role clear to myself, but I knew with sudden certainty that she had always been the Pale Woman’s tool. Danger threatened my prince as surely as it did me.

I managed to get my feet under me, but I could not keep up with the quick step of my guards. I stumbled between them, and when they finally halted and forced me onto my knees before her, I did not resist. My head was still spinning. I would rest in whatever posture I could, and find my strength in blessed stillness. I tried to turn to look at the Fool, but had only a glimpse of him, head lolling as his guards held him in a limp obeisance before their ruler. Then a stinging slap from one of my wardens brought my eyes back to my captor.

She was white, as the Fool was once white, and her hair floated unbound around her shoulders. Her eyes were colourless, just as the Fool’s had been when he was a boy. Her face was his, softened to a woman’s countenance. Her beauty was unearthly, cool as the ice that surrounded her. She sat on overlapping furs, white bear, white fox and ermine with dangling black tails, on a throne chiselled from ice. Her robe of purest white wool did not conceal the womanly curves of her body. About her throat she wore a necklace of flowers carved from ivory. Diamonds sparkled in their centres. Her long-fingered hands rested in idle relaxation on the fur-draped arms of her throne. Her fingers were ringed with silver, all set with glistening white stones. She looked down at us, held on our knees before her, and appeared neither pleased nor surprised. Perhaps, like the Fool, she had always known it would come to this.

Her throne nestled in the coil of a curved and sleeping carved dragon. The black-and-silver memory stone of his body gleamed in a mountainous arch behind her throne and his folded wings were thick and heavy against him. He was not one single piece of stone, but rather blocks of it, probably painstakingly hauled here from the quarry at the other end of the island, and then fitted tightly together to form a continuous sculpture. The fine seams in the carefully matched stone were barely visible. The dormant dragon was immense, larger than Verity as Dragon had been, and yet still not as big as Icefyre. And he was incomplete, soft and slumped and without details, an unformed suggestion of a dragon rather than a reality. His blocky head on his curved long neck rested before the Pale Woman’s elevated throne like a step. His eyes were lidded. Even so, I shuddered at his cruel countenance. My Wit clamoured with conflicting emotions, fear, hatred, pain, lust and vengeance. All were trapped within the crudely-worked stone.

The source of the dragon’s developing essence was plain. Several Outislanders, nearly spent, were chained against his flanks. The captives bore the marks of torture and privation; that would be how the Pale Woman wrung sufficient emotion from them to make them useful to her. Emotions and memories were what a Skill-coterie fed into a stone dragon as they created it to hold their joined awareness. I could not understand how she could imagine a creature fed by the discordant memories of tormented wretches could become a sentient creature. What would unite them and give purpose to the dragon’s flight? The stone dragons I had seen had been works of single-minded devotion, the crowning glory of the coteries that had created them. Beauty had infused them, no matter how odd the shapes each coterie had selected to represent it. Even the Winged Boar had gained grace in flight. This creature of hers was a mosaic of stolen pain. What temperament would such a creature have? It was obvious to my Wit that the prisoners’ humanity had already been Forged away from them, stripped from their souls and forced into the dragon. What she fed it now was the dumb torment of creatures less than beasts. What sort of a dragon would he be, founded on pain and hatred and cruelty?

Between the sleeping dragon’s forepaws was another throne, also of ice and also draped with furs. The ice and coverings of that throne were corroded with filth and human waste. A caricature of a human was chained to it, manacled at ankles, wrists and throat to rings sunk deep in the ice of the royal chair. The black crown he wore looked painfully tight, as if locked to his brow, and his royal robes were stained and tattered. He wore chains of silver about his neck, and the chains that restrained him had been set with jewels, mocking his captivity. His beard and hair were grown long and matted; his nails were yellow and crusted. The ends of his bare toes and fingers were black with frostbite. Discarded bones, picked clean of meat, littered the floor near his feet. Perhaps one was a human arm-bone. I looked away, unwilling to know what they fed him. He was Forged, but not completely. I could still feel his hate, and how it burned. Perhaps that was the only feeling left to him. And then, like a numbed limb returning to life, I felt an odd tingling of my Skill. I turned my head as if I could capture it, like a man straining after a sound. It came no more clearly to me, but I discerned the source of it. The mad king Skilled at me. His teeth were set in a yellow snarl and his sunken eyes were fixed on me. For an instant, I felt the full force of his Skilled hatred and it struck me like a blow. Then it was gone, not because I shielded myself, but because my ability to feel it faded again. I heaved in a panting breath, shocked at his Skill-strength. Perhaps Thick could have matched him in Skill-power; I knew I never could have.

I managed to lift my head and look back at the woman, and was startled to find her smiling at me. She had been waiting for me, letting me look my fill and reach my own conclusions. A long, graceful hand gestured at her captive king. ‘Kebal Rawbread. But I’m sure you guessed that only my failed Catalyst could be worthy of such a punishment, FitzChivalry Farseer. Oh, you need not look so aghast. I am only finishing what your Six Duchies dragons began. He foolishly ventured out, to draw his bow and fire at a flight of dragons overhead. But their mere passage above him sapped much of his intelligence. Not that he had much to begin with. He was a useful tool, for a time. He had cunning, ambition, and he knew the ways of war.’

She stood, and then descended the dais of her throne, treading on the dragon’s head in passing. She strolled over to the soiled throne and the squalid monarch upon it and considered her prisoner. ‘Nonetheless, he failed me.’ She stretched out a slender hand to him. His nostrils flared and he bared his teeth as if to snap at her. She shook her head, almost fondly, as a man might over a stallion too spirited to be trusted. Her voice was sweet as she asked him, ‘Shall I give a bit more of you to the dragon, my pet? Would you like that?’

The muscles around the mad king’s deep-set eyes twitched as if he desperately tried to recall something. Then he cringed away from her, raising one shoulder as if that could shelter him. A low moan of ‘Nooooooo!’ oozed from him.

‘Not now, perhaps. Eventually, of course, he will have all of you. When there is nothing else to wring from you, I shall fling you on top of him and watch you melt into him. That is how it happens, is it not?’ She turned suddenly to confront me. ‘At the final quickening, are not the sacrifices to the dragon completely absorbed? When your Skill-coteries are given to a dragon, do not they vanish completely into its body?’

I held my tongue, as much from shock as from a desire to withhold the information from her. She spoke as if coteries were forced into a dragon, rather than entering one willingly. I would not take her ignorance from her. One of my guards growled and lifted a fist to menace me, but she shook her head and flicked her fingers at him, dismissing my silence as inconsequential.

Instead, she transferred her gaze to the Fool, dangling insensible between his captors, and for the first time, a frown marred her sculpted face. ‘You have not damaged him, have you? I warned you that I wished him brought to me intact. He is the greatest curiosity in the world, that most rare creature, a false White Prophet. Though he scarcely deserves such a title now. Look at him, gone all brown as a withered flower. Is he dead?’

‘No, Lady Most High. He has but fainted.’ The guard who spoke sounded nervous.

‘I don’t believe it. Shake him a bit. He has the tenacity of a cat, and I’ll wager he’d be just as hard to kill as one. Open your eyes, Beloved. Greet me again, with a smile and a little bow, as you did once when you were a pale wisp of a child. Oh, how sweet a creature he was, as if made all of whipped egg white and milk and sugar crystal, a confection of a child. With the tongue of a viper!’ She leaned forward suddenly, venom in her voice. As if her hatred warned him of its poison, the Fool gave a sudden gasp and stirred. He wobbled his head upright, and stared blindly about. Then comprehension crashed down around him. I thought he would scream as every muscle in his face went taut. Then he went suddenly still. He looked at me and spoke to me only. ‘I am so very sorry. So very sorry.’

The Pale Woman turned abruptly away from us and remounted her throne. She took her time settling herself into her throne, snuggling into her furs. When she was comfortable, she issued her orders. ‘This day has been long in coming. I see no point in either hurrying or delaying my enjoyment of it. Truth to tell, I had expected that you both would stand before me almost a year ago. The Piebalds had been promised much gold, but only if they delivered both of you, intact. And that they could not seem to do. Some silly personal scheme of vengeance overturned all our arrangements with them. They were unreliable allies, with all their dirty little animals traipsing around after them, tainting their minds with animal thoughts like men fornicating with sheep! No wonder they failed me. I should never have wasted my time with them. Well. It matters not now. I have you here, by my own manoeuvring, and that makes it all the sweeter.’ She leaned back, steepling her slender hands as she regarded us with satisfaction.

‘I have long had quarters prepared for you. Guards, escort each of my guests to his proper accommodations, and see that they take full advantage of them. Rest and relax, FitzChivalry. I shall come to call upon you soon. Until then, do you have any questions for me? No? A pity. I do not often offer to answer questions, but for you, I would have. For I think that, the more you know, the more you will see how you have been deceived and misled by our darling little pretender. Take them off, but gently, gently. Harm not a hair of their heads.’

At the door of her grand hall they parted us, the Fool’s captors taking him in one direction and mine jostling me along in the other. ‘Fitz!’ His sudden shout startled me and made me strain against my guards’ grip. One gently twisted my arm higher behind my back. I set my heels to the ice and skidded as they dragged me relentlessly on. The Fool’s shout came faint to my ears. ‘I knew my fate! I chose to meet it! Stay your course and do not doubt! All will be as –’ His shout ended in a muffled cry, and then they staggered me around a corner and down yet another icy hall.

‘Where are they taking him?’ I demanded, and received another example of the Pale Woman’s guard’s idea of gentleness as a gauntleted fist doubled me over. I could almost take a full breath again when they paused at one of the icy doors. One of the guards produced a long tool and thrust it into a small opening in the ice. He jigged it until I heard a catch give, and then pulled the door open with it. They threw me inside and I landed face down on some patchy deerskins on the floor. One followed me, and I rolled, trying to escape the punishment sure to come, but he only caught at my bound wrists, pulled them up high and screamingly tight, and then suddenly released them. The knife he had used to cut the bindings nicked my hand in passing. He was not concerned. ‘Don’t make noise!’ he warned me. ‘She doesn’t like it, and I don’t like having to come and make you be quiet.’

The icy door closed behind him before I could think of a reply. The earlier blow to my head had left me woozy. I lifted my head just enough to be sure I was alone in the chamber. As soon as I was reassured that no Forged ones lurked there, I let my head drop, closed my eyes and tried to think.

I opened them again. A minute, a day, a week had passed. The light in the chamber remained the same. I had had no useful thoughts, and perhaps I had slept. I got up slowly, feeling various aches. They were washed from my awareness by the tide of anxiety I felt for the Fool. Where had they taken him and what was his fate? It suddenly seemed incomprehensible to me that we had not struggled harder to keep from being separated.

My cell was quickly explored. The bed was a wooden box of straw with several blankets over it. A bucket in the corner for waste. Another bucket held water, skimmed over with ice. A rag by it suggested that perhaps it was for washing. The deer hides on the floor. I patted my clothes. My guards must have taken the dragon-tools while I was unconscious. I had no weapons, not even the Fool’s little knife. No windows except the low slit in the unyielding door. A light globe stuck to the ceiling, far out of my reach. No food. No way to measure the passage of time. I moved from the floor to the bed, such as it was. I considered Nighteyes’ old advice: when sleep is the only comfort you can take, take it. It will leave you better prepared for whatever might come next.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. It didn’t work. I tried to Skill. Nothing. I quested out with my Wit. I could vaguely sense other humans nearby, but the prevailing presence was that of the dragon. And then Icefyre was gone again. I sat up and leaned the bruised back of my head against the icy wall of my chamber. It eased the throbbing. I must have dozed, for I woke with my hair frosted to the wall. I pulled free slowly, groaning irritably at myself.

I had explored the slit in the door and the crack that outlined the edges of the door several times when the guard came back. I was sitting on the floor, peering out of my cell. I wondered if I should be flattered that she sent three guards for me. They were different men from the ones that had captured us. ‘Lie face down on the floor!’ one of them ordered me through the door slit.

I obeyed. Fighting three men would not improve my physical condition. I heard them come in, and one of them matter-of-factly dropped a knee into my back to hold me still while he roped my wrists behind me again. They used the rope and my hair to haul me to my feet. They were a practised team, with no need to speak as they marched me out of my cell and down the corridor.

‘Where is my companion? The tawny man that was with me?’

A punch to my left side, just below my ribs answered me. They marched on, dragging me until I got my feet under me again. We passed no one else, and I realized that I had lost my bearings. The icy corridors were all too much the same. Even if I had been released that instant, I would not have known where to begin searching for either the Fool or a way out. For now, my only option seemed to be to go with them.

Then we came to an arched portal of ice with doors of polished wood. One of my guards knocked. A woman’s voice bade them bring me in. The doors opened and we entered the Pale Woman’s bedchamber.

The white orbs that gave off light were placed oddly, on the floor and on a low table, illuminating only the centre of the room. An iron brazier burned smokelessly adding a slight note of warmth. The rest of the chamber softened off into shadow. I glimpsed a large bed crouching at the edge of the light, and a row of servants standing silently, waiting to be summoned. I could not tell how large the chamber was. The Pale Woman had just emerged from a tub of steaming water. The tub itself seemed to be made of very thick glass. The water within it was a cloudy white, and the fragrance of summer flowers rose with its steam. She stood naked on a lush white bearskin, calmly regarding us as two dispassionate maids patted and rubbed her dry. She seemed to feel no discomfort at baring herself to our gaze. She was an even white all over, a woman of snow or marble. Her white hair was painted flat to her skull with water that dripped off the pointed tips of her tresses. The faintest hint of rose showed in the standing nipples on her globular breasts. The tuft of hair at her loins was as white as that on her head. Like the Fool, she was long-limbed and limber-waisted, but lush of hip and breast. No man could have looked at her and not felt a stirring of lust. She knew that. Yet she showed herself to us, captive and guards alike, as if her ability to flaunt her body and yet remain safe from undesired attentions emphasized her power over us all. Her stony-faced guards made no reaction to seeing their mistress thus. They stood, one on each side of me and one behind me, and waited.

Her handmaidens brought her soft fur boots and draped her in a robe of fine silk, followed by a second, heavier pelisse of wool trimmed with white fur. She took her time seating herself in a low-backed throne of dark wood. A third Outislander woman entered, and I recognized her suddenly as Henja. She carried a fresh towel and brushes and pins. She moved behind the Pale Woman and began to dress her damp hair for her. And all this while, the lady had not spoken a word. She leaned back in the chair, and gave herself over to Henja’s attentions with evident pleasure, for her eyes closed to narrow slits as Henja’s ivory brush moved slowly through her white mane. When her long hair had been combed out and then braided in a multitude of long plaits and pinned to her head, she opened her eyes and looked about the room. She gazed at me as if noticing for the first time and gave a small frown.

‘He is unwashed! Did not I tell you to provide washwater for him before you brought him to me?’

The guards cowered and one said hastily, ‘We did, my lady. He ignored it.’

‘I am not pleased.’ These simple words to my guards made them pale.

She shifted her gaze to me. ‘You reek like Kebal Rawbread. I had thought Six Duchies men were cleaner.’ Her eyes flicked toward the tub. ‘Remedy it now. There is water in the tub.’ She lounged back in her throne, challenging me. ‘Wash, FitzChivalry. You will dine with me, and I desire to smell the food, not you.’

I did not move nor allow my expression to change. She smiled lazily.

‘Do you fear to lose your dignity by undressing and washing? I assure you, most of my servants do not remember what “human dignity” means, let alone care for yours. You cling to your stench as if it were your pride. I promise you this: you will lose far more than your dignity if you must be forced to bathe. Choose swiftly. I am not patient, and I will not smell such a smell at my table.’ In an aside to her servants, she observed, ‘You would think that a king’s son, even a bastard, would have more pride in himself.’

‘My hands are bound,’ I pointed out stiffly. My mind searched for escape, for advantage in the situation and found none. Her words had made me aware that I did stink. I felt a moment of shame and then recognized her tactic. Chade had long ago explained the usefulness of breaking a man’s pride and self worth before interrogating him. For some men, it was more effective than torture. Take a man’s dignity, imprison him like a beast, and when you offer him back the small comforts of civilization, his gratitude is often disproportionate. Sometimes a man can be won over simply by a small display of kindness. Kept in a cold cell in the dark with no food, a man will perceive a candle and a hot bowl of soup as an offer of amnesty. It is far less work to break a man that way than with torture.

She smiled at me. ‘Ah, yes. Bound hands would make your task more difficult.’ She gestured to the guard. ‘Take him to the tub and cut him free.’

I was propelled to the tub in a way that left no doubt that they would force me to do anything she desired. Refusing would give the guards further excuse to beat me. Complying might yield me some advantage, if only that of having my hands free. I gritted my teeth and surrendered my dignity. Once my hands were free, I turned my back to her and stripped. I managed to palm my fox pin from inside my shirt as I did so. I entered the water. I washed quickly, refusing to let the warm water offer me too much comfort. One of her women brought me soft soap in a bowl. Somehow I found myself gravely thanking her. She made no reply. The water was grey when I stood up from it. Two women advanced on me with towels. I took both towels and turned away from them to dry myself. A moment later, they were back, offering soft shoes of felted wool and a clean white wool robe. My weary Buck garb had vanished. I put on what they offered, concealing my pin inside the collar of the robe as I did so, and turned back to my audience. The Pale Woman had had her chair turned so that she could watch me. She smiled a cat’s smile now, and observed, ‘You have some interesting scars. And the body of a warrior. Shave him, Henja. I would see the full face of the man who was almost a king.’

It shocked me to hear such words. I had never thought of myself that way. For a moment, the title almost seemed true. Then I rejected it as another tactic of hers. The two women were back, bearing a chair and Henja appeared with a bowl, soap and shaving blade. ‘I’ll do it myself,’ I said hastily. The idea of that woman flourishing a knife near my throat was unbearable.

‘That you will not,’ the Pale Woman informed me, smiling faintly. ‘I do not underestimate you, FitzChivalry. I know what you were trained to be. Your family made you a killer, not a prince. They never let you see what they cheated you out of. But I will. I will show you the rightful heritage they stole from you. Yet, until I know that you perceive all that I offer you, no weapon will I put in your hand. Sit still now. Henja is a skilled body-servant, but I shall not hold her responsible if you twitch.’

I do not think I have ever been more uncomfortable in my life. While Henja shaved my face and then combed back my damp hair, the other women inspected my hands, cleaned my nails and trimmed them. And all the while, the Pale Woman watched me like a cat watches a bird. No one had ever administered to me in such a way before, yet I found this luxury humiliating rather than comforting. I opened my mouth once, to ask, ‘Where is the Fool?’ Henja’s blade immediately nicked me. I felt the trickle of blood start from the side of my neck. Henja placed a towel firmly against the cut to staunch it while the Pale Woman replied, ‘I do believe we are looking at him, are we not?’

At that point, I could scarcely argue with her evaluation. Her guards chuckled dutifully, but a glance from her restored their composure. As her maids fussed over me and her guards stood and stared coldly, other servants brought in a table. They set it with a white cloth and heavy silver implements and dishes. They placed a candelabrum upon it and lit the six tall white candles. Then they brought in covered plates and tureens. Steams and rich odours of food escaped to taunt me. Wine and glasses were brought as well, and finally two cushioned chairs were set at either end of the table. Henja wiped my face and stepped aside to bow to her mistress. The Pale Woman came closer to me, but remained out of arm’s reach. She cocked her head and studied me coldly, from head to foot, as if I were a horse she was considering buying. ‘You are not ill-made,’ she offered me. ‘Before your family allowed you to be abused, you might have been handsome. Well. Shall we dine?’

She walked to her chair, which one of her guards drew out for her. I rose and followed her to the table, aware that one of her guards shadowed me. A wave of her hand indicated that I should seat myself opposite her. Once I was seated, she waved again. The guard at my back retreated to the shadowed depths of the room. At her command, the pale globes in the room suddenly dimmed. Only the candlelight remained, isolating us in an island of yellow light. It gave a false air of intimacy to the setting, yet I knew that her guards and maids lingered unseen in the dimness, watching us from outside the circle of the candlelight.

The table was small. She ladled soup into a bowl and placed it before me before serving herself from the same tureen. ‘So you do not think I will poison or drug you,’ she explained as she took up her spoon. ‘Eat, FitzChivalry. You will find it very good, and I know you must be hungry. I shall not trouble you with talk just yet.’ Nonetheless, I waited until I had seen her take two mouthfuls before I picked up my own spoon.

It was very good, a rich and creamy white soup with bobbing chunks of root vegetables and tender meat. It was the best thing I had tasted since I’d left Buckkeep, and I would have wolfed it down if my manners had not stayed me. My self-control seemed to be the only shield I had left, and so I forced myself to eat slowly, to take bread from the basket she offered and butter from the plate. She poured white wine for us, and when the soup was gone, offered me slices of tender pale fowl from a platter. It was delicious, and the food comforted my body despite my desire to stay on guard against her. There was a white pudding for desert, redolent of vanilla and speckled with warm spices. We spooned it away, and all the while she watched me, silent and speculative. The wine hummed in my blood, relaxing me. I struggled against it, then recognized what I was feeling. I took a deep breath and relaxed into it. Now was not the time to struggle.

She smiled. Had she sensed that surrender? I became more aware of her. She was wearing a perfume, a scent like narcissus.

When we had finished, we stood. A wave of her hand notified the unseen servants. As they emerged from the shadow to clear the table away, the fire in the brazier blazed up as a man set fresh fuel on it. A cushioned couch, curved in a half-circle, had been placed to face it. The Pale Woman walked to it and seated herself, patting the pillows beside her. I followed her and sank down into its comfort. Her kindness was disarming my wariness. Food and wine had filled me and taken my edges away. She would try to get information from me with innocent questions. I kept my thoughts small. My task would be to remain on my guard, and to get as much information from her as I could while giving her as little as possible. She smiled at me, and I feared that she sensed my ploy. But then she curled her legs under her just as the Fool would have and leaned toward me. Her round knees pointed at me. ‘Do I remind you of him?’ she asked suddenly.

It seemed pointless to dissemble. ‘Yes. You do. Where is he?’

‘In a safe place. You are very fond of him, aren’t you? You love him?’ She replied for me before I could answer. ‘Of course you do. He has that effect on people, when he chooses to use it. He is so intriguing, so charming. Do not you feel flattered that he offers you even the chance to know him? He dances at the edges of your understanding, offering you tiny hints of who he truly is like feeding bits of sugar to a dog. With each little bit he offers you, you feel valued that he trusts you so. And all the while, he extracts from you every bit of knowledge that he needs, plunges you into danger and pain for his own ends, and takes from you everything you have to offer.’

‘He is my dearest friend. I would like to see him and know he is well treated.’ My words sounded stiff. My heart sank. Her description of the Fool was cruelly accurate. It demoralized me and I saw that she knew it.

‘I am sure you would. Perhaps later. After we have talked. Tell me. Do you believe he is truly the White Prophet, come to set the world in a better course?’

I lifted one shoulder. I had never come to a firm answer on that. Yet I felt disloyal to the Fool as I said, ‘So he has always told me.’

‘Ah. But he could just as easily tell you that he was the Lost King of the Island of Tales. Would you believe that, also?’

‘I’ve never had reason to doubt him.’ I tried to speak stoutly, but felt the doubt she sent me creeping into my heart.

‘Haven’t you? I see. Well, I shall have to give you some, then.’ She reached down, and from an unseen vessel on the floor, took a handful of something. She tossed it onto the flames and a sweet scent rose as it burned. I leaned away from it, and she laughed. ‘Do you fear I’ll try to intoxicate you? I do not need to. You own logic and common sense will convince you. So. Our friend has told you he is the White Prophet. Even though he is, undeniably, no longer white. Surely he has told you that true White Prophets remain white, all through their long lives? No? Well, then, I do tell you that now. We are descended, as he may or may not have told you, from the true Whites of legends. They were a wonderful folk, long vanished from this and all other worlds. Pale as milk and wise beyond telling. For they were prescient.

‘Now, anyone with two thoughts in their mind can see that no future is set in stone. An infinite number of futures bud at the end of every moment, and each one of them can be changed by a falling rose petal. Even so, some are more likely than others, and a few so likely that they are like fierce channels for time to thunder through. In ancient days before your people’s telling, we saw this, we Whites, and began to see also that by our actions, we could influence which of those futures would come to be. We could not guarantee them, of course, but we could use what we knew to set other, lesser folk onto paths that would gradually divert the flow of time into quieter, safer waters, where all could prosper. Do you understand what I am telling you, FitzChivalry?’

I nodded slowly. Despite her words, the fragrant smoke from the brazier was inclining me toward her. I was aware of her scented skin and of her fine white hair, so sleekly braided. Awareness of her body was slipping into my skin like spring sap moving into buds. I sighed, and she smiled. She seemed to have come closer without moving.

‘Yes. That is right. Consider how you came here, walking into my stronghold, delivering yourselves into my hands. I knew that one day I would possess both of you. And yet the devices by which you came into my power were unclear. And so I set out to sway the future, by setting into motion every device that might bring you to me, or make an end of you. My agents traded with Regal, oh yes, to be sure that some tools that might have been useful to you were sent out of your reach. Many that were Forged were given a purpose as well, to find you or Verity, and kill you. All of them failed, but still I laboured on. I sent Henja to Buckkeep, and we bribed the Piebalds to capture you both and deliver you. Yet they failed. Again I cast my nets, sending you a cake with delvenbark in it, to quench your magic. But only you partook of it, and that sent that plan awry. I captured the men Chade sent for supplies, knowing well you must come after them. But before I could take you, you vanished from my knowing. Only to walk right into my power. That is the power of the flow of time, FitzChivalry. It was almost inevitable that you would come to me. I could have trusted to luck to bring you here. But it is the White way to try to assure the future we wish to see. And even when we knew our race was vanishing from the world, we tried to reach forward in time to assure that we would not lose all our influence.

‘You see, the prescience of the Whites warned them that they would one day perish, and that the world would have to blunder on without them. But one among them, a woman with truer vision even than the rest of her race, knew that their influence could go on, if she would willingly mingle her blood with that of an ordinary mortal. And so she did. She roamed the world, and whenever she found a worthy hero, she bore him a child. Six sons and six daughters did she bear, and each looked as human as could be. But when she went on from the world, she was well satisfied. For she knew that whenever the descendants of her children met and mingled in lovemaking, a White child would be born. Their wisdom and gifts of prophecy would not be lost to the world. Isn’t that a lovely tale?’

‘The Fool said that only one White Prophet is born at a time.’

‘The Fool, oh, that is such a charming love-name for him.’ She smiled, her pale lips arching like an ivory bow. ‘And so apt, I’m surprised that he lets you call him that.’ She gave a little sigh. ‘I suppose I should be pleased that he was that honest with you. Yes. Only one White Prophet can reign. And for this age, that one is, of course, me. He is a freak of breeding, a throw-back born out of his time. I suppose that is why he is darkening. Had he been kept at the temple until he darkened, he could have done no harm. But his keepers were always too soft with him, too trusting of such a charming little fellow. And so he wriggled away from them and went off into the world, working his mischief. Let us see if we can undo a little of it, you and I. Tell me. What is the terrible fate that he so fears for the world, that he must pit his paltry influence against mine?’

I was silent for a time then admitted, ‘I don’t exactly know. A time of darkness and evil.’

‘Rrm.’ She made a pleased sound, like a settling cat. ‘Well, I shall speak more plainly to you than he has. He fears an age of man, when the strongest shall rule and bring the wildness and disorder of the earth under their dominion. Why he sees that as an evil, I have never understood. For me, it is my goal. Let us have order and productivity, let us see the strong beget strong children to come after them. If I succeed, I shall see that power is balanced in the world. My poor Outislanders lack all good things. They have stony soil to till in their weak and chilly summers, and wring their living from the unforgiving sea. Despite this, they have grown to be a strong people, deserving of better things. I came to try to help them. You cannot deny that would be a great good for the world. But your tawny friend thinks he has finer ideas. He thinks, among other silly things, that he must restore dragons to the world, that the dominion of humanity must be checked by competition. Has he told you that?’

‘He has spoken somewhat of it.’

‘Has he? That surprises me. What great good did he say would come of restoring an immense predator that regards the entire world as its hunting ground? A predator that respects no boundary, concedes no ownership, and regards humanity as, at best, useful and more often as a food source? Tell me. Do you relish the idea of your people becoming cattle for great scaled beasts?’

‘Not particularly.’ It was the only possible answer to such a question, but again I felt traitorous. Her careful words were sending streamers of uncertainty unfurling through me.

She laughed, delighted with my response, and settled herself more closely to me. ‘Of course not. None of us do. I may be a White, but my parents were human.’

I struggled a little. ‘But you set the Outislanders on my people, to raid us in their Red Ships. They burned and despoiled and Forged my people. That was not a good.’

‘And you think I incited them to that? Oh, what a twisted view. I held them back, dear friend. I restrained them, and did not allow them to claim the lands they had conquered. You have seen Kebal Rawbread. Does he look like a man who carried out his dreams of conquest and plunder? Of course not. Who put him where he is? I did. How can you look at that and think I am the enemy of your people?’

I did not have an answer to that. I turned from her to stare at the brazier. I felt again the tickle of my Skill-magic, and heard, or thought I heard, Thick’s distant music. I told myself I imagined it for the Skill was dead in me. I felt the touch of her cool hand on my cheek and she turned me back to meet her eyes. I considered the white column of her throat. How soft it would be beneath my touch.

She held my eyes, speaking. ‘Your Fool did not lie to you when he said the White Prophets come to divert history from its set course. I’ve done my best. I could not completely change the course of events, but I tried. The Red Ships raided your coast, but they did not claim your lands.’ She spoke simply and reasonably. I felt her words close around me like a net. ‘When traitors within your own land sold Kebal’s merchants books of your magic, I could not prevent him from learning it and attempting to turn it against your folk. But some of the blame for that must fall on your own people. They sold the Skill-scrolls, did they not? And why? Because a younger son, of undeniably royal lines, desired more power for himself. I know you did not like Regal. He did not care for you. Some part of him recognized how unlikely a creature you were, how rare the occurrence of your birth in all the braided lines of time that might be. Almost instinctively, he tried to do away with you, so that time might flow in its allotted channel. Think of this. Regal traded secretly with the Outislanders. Had he come to power, that trade would have been more open. The Outislanders would have been welcomed to your shores, in trade, not war, for the mutual enrichment of all. Would that have been so terrible? It might have come to be, were it not for the machinations of your Fool. I will be honest with you. Such peace and prosperity would have demanded that your life-spark wink out early. But can you honestly say that the price would have been too high? Time and time again, you have been willing to lay down your life for your family. Was not Regal your family, as much a Farseer as you? If you had died but once, swiftly and mercifully, for him, would not that have been an honourable sacrifice?’

She had taken my view of the world and my family and the Six Duchies and twisted it into an unrecognizable form. The silky thread of her telling wrapped around me inexorably, becoming a new truth that bound me. I groped after all I had known but a moment before, and found a flaw in her logic. ‘If I had not been born, my father would have reigned.’

She laughed lightly, but her smile was gentle. ‘Oh, you quibble, and you know it. Your father would have died, childless, in a hunting accident while he was still a young man. Over and over, I have seen it happen in my visions. Verity would never have wed, and would have perished from a fever the next winter. If you had died, at the right moment, then in time the throne would have passed smoothly to Regal. He would have had his father’s favour and guidance, and he would have become a great ruler. Yes, the line would have ended with him, but it would have ended splendidly, in peace and plenty, for the Six Duchies as well as the Out Islands. I have no reason to lie to you about any of this. It is far too late for that future to be, so what could motivate me to lie to you?’

I did not know, and yet I did. My Skill again fluttered at the edges of my awareness. It was a flighty, untrustworthy magic. I knew that; I had always known that. I felt her assure me of it. Pay no mind to it. ‘You’re deliberately confusing me. You contradict yourself, and twist my knowledge of truth. You’re mocking me.’

She laughed, throaty and delighted. ‘Of course I am. Just as your beloved Fool does. And you love it when he dances his words all around you, offering you a hundred ways to see the world. And so shall I delight you, now that you are mine. For I am taking you. I must. We must work together to put the world back in its true course. Not by your death this time, but by the life I shall give you. You will be my Catalyst now, a Catalyst a thousand times more powerful than Kebal Rawbread. And I shall delight you a thousand times more than your pitiful Fool did. For we are, at last, the perfect fit for one another. We shall be not just Prophet and Catalyst, but male and female, making the whole that turns the world. I will be to you everything that he secretly longed to be to you and could not. Except that I will be perfect, as he was flawed. You will come to see that you are not betraying him, but being true to the world and all that was meant to be. Taste the sweetness of the world as it was meant to be. Taste.’ Her face had come ever closer to mine as she spoke, and then her mouth touched mine. Her lips were all softness, her tongue a teasing coolness that bade my lips part. And she spoke true. A giddy sweetness, wilder than anything I had ever known, spread through me at her cool touch. I shivered as I put my hands on her shoulders, holding her mouth against mine.

Lust flooded me and the Tightness, the inevitability of the moment pushed aside all other thoughts. I cared not that her guards and maids watched us from outside the circle of candlelight; I cared for nothing except the gleaming white perfection of her body. Only one thing was still lacking in the future she offered me. I let my thoughts stray to it.

‘Our child will be beautiful,’ she assured me as she released me and stood up. ‘You will delight in our son. I promise you this.’

I could feel the truth of her words and they went thrilling through me, like ice and silver in my blood. A child, she would give me a child whom I could hold and cherish. A child who would never be taken from me. She knew all that I most desired and offered it all to me. She created in my thoughts the future that I had always most longed for, tailored to my every need. How, why could I resist that?

She stood and lifted her robe over her head and let it drop to the floor beside the couch. The silken shift followed it. She stood before me, letting the yellow light of the brazier play over her body. Golden light touched her whiteness, gilding the curves of her body and face. Her white breasts were round and heavy. She lifted them to show me, weighing them in her hands, inviting me to taste them. Slowly she sank down beside me, and then leaned back, opening her arms and her thighs to me. ‘Come to me. I know everything that you have ever wanted, and I will give it all to you.’ She lolled her head back against the arm of the couch. Her colourless eyes looked through me and beyond me.

The truth of her words thundered through me with my pounding blood. I stood and fumbled my garments out of the way. She dropped her eyes to see what I would offer her.

And in that instant, I slammed up my Skill-walls tighter than ever I had before, blocking her insidious tendrils of influence. I flung myself on her, as she had expected, but my hands closed on that milky throat as I brought my knee down sharply onto her gently rounded belly. I felt her Skill batter at me along with her fists. I knew well I had one chance to make good my grip on her, and I knew the icy instant when I had missed it. I should have known that just as she mirrored the Fool in appearance, so also she possessed his uncanny strength. She had no need of her guard as she tucked her chin down tight to thwart my strangle. Her clasped hands came up between my elbows, and then she flung her arms wide, breaking my grip on her throat. She flung me backwards off her, and as I fell against the brazier, sending it and hot coals flying in every direction, she lifted her hands. The white globes of light blazed suddenly, flooding the room with illumination. Guards surged at me from all directions, a flood of armed men. It was inevitable that they would take me down, and I would have been wise to let them, to offer them my sudden surrender. Yet my glimpse of the Fool, gagged and spread like a trophy hide on one icy wall, roused in me an anger I had not felt since the days when I had battled Red Ship raiders with an axe.

The tumbled brazier burned my hands as I seized it and flung it at my attackers. I fought them, expecting them to kill me, and thus holding back nothing. I think that is why it took them so long to subdue me. They were more restrained than I was and rendered less damage to me than I did to several of them. I know I broke one man’s collarbone, for I heard it crack, and I recall that I spat out a piece of ear, but as with all battles when such a mood is on me, my recollection is disjointed and vague.

I recall clearly that I lost the struggle. I knew it was over when I was down on my belly with three men kneeling on me. There was blood in my mouth, some of it my own. I have never scrupled against using my teeth in a brawl, not since I first bonded with the wolf. My left arm no longer obeyed me. As they hauled me to my feet, that arm flopped and flailed against my side. Wrenched out of its socket, I thought sickly, and waited for that pain to find me.

I had almost made it to the Fool’s feet. I lifted my eyes to look at him. He was pinned to the icy wall like a butterfly, his arms spread wide, and even his head held against it with a metal band around his throat. The gag was tight enough to cut his mouth. Blood had leaked in a line from the corner of his mouth to drip down his shirt. They must have ransacked his pack, for he wore the Rooster Crown, the wooden circlet jammed down on his head to the top of his ears. His eyes were open, and I knew he had witnessed all that the Pale Woman had staged for his torment, that that had been the whole point of her attempted seduction of me. I knew, too, as our eyes met, that he understood that I had never betrayed him. I saw the feeble twitch of the Skilled tips of his fingers on one pinioned hand. He, too, had sensed her subtle attack on me through my reviving Skill-sense.

‘I tried!’ I cried out to him as his head bowed as much as his binding would allow it and his eyes began to sag shut. The guards had had their sport with him. Patches of blood seeped through his clothing and streaked his sweaty hair. Now he was held immobile and silenced against the ice, tormented with the cold he had always so hated. Had he foreseen this slow and icy end for himself? Was that why he had always so dreaded the cold?

‘Bring them both to my throne room!’ The Pale Woman’s voice was like ice cracking. I swung my head to look at her. She had retrieved her garments and donned them. Her lower lip was beginning to swell and several loosened plaits dangled by her face. Such were the fruits of my deadly attack upon her. Yet I felt small amusement as my guards seized me roughly, careless that one of my arms hung limp and useless. The piteous cries of the Fool followed me as they tore him from his bindings.

The halls seemed longer and whiter than they had been, as if the lights burned brighter with the anger of the woman who strode ahead of us. We encountered few people, but all we passed cowered or shrank to the side of the corridor as she swept by them. I tried to make note of how we went and what turns we made, telling myself that if the Fool and I escaped, we must know in which direction to run. It was useless, both the effort to memorize the way and the effort to fan hope in myself. It was finished, we were finished and that was the end of it. The Fool was going to die, and I would die alongside him, and all he had worked for would come to a bloody and useless end. ‘Just as if I had died the very first time that Regal looked at me and proposed to Verity that I meet a discreet end.’

I did not know I had spoken aloud until one of the guards gave me a rough shake at the same time he bade me, ‘Shut your hole!’

On we went. It was hard to focus, and harder still to overcome my fear, but I lowered the walls I had raised against the Skill. I gathered my small strength and tried to Skill out to Dutiful, to warn them and to beg for help. I was like a man patting his clothes, trying to find a misplaced pouch. My magic was gone again and I could not muster it. Even that last weapon was lost to me.

The Pale Woman had already resumed her throne by the time we entered the hall. A few of her retainers lined the walls. They watched dispassionately as the Fool and I were dragged before them. There we were halted and pushed to our knees as before. For a long time, she looked down on us in silence. Then she gestured at the Fool with her narrow chin. ‘Give that one to the dragon. He can have Theldo’s place. Let the other one watch.’

‘No!’ I cried before a fist to my ear sent me sprawling on the ice. The Fool made not a sound as they dragged him forward. When they were close to one of the chained captives, the guard matter-of-factly drew his blade and plunged it into the wretch. The man did not die swiftly, but neither did he make much noise or fuss about it. I think most of him had already gone into the dragon, and there was little left of his spirit to mourn his body’s passing. He fell against the dragon as he died, and slid down the creature’s stony flank. For a few moments, his blood was a vivid red smear down the stone. Then, as sand takes in water, the blood was sucked away from the surface, leaving the scales in that area more clearly defined than they had been.

Two guards moved efficiently, careful not to touch the dragon-stone as they unshackled the hapless wretch. One glanced at their queen, and at a nod from her, he cut and disjointed one of the man’s arms from his shoulder as neatly as if he were preparing a fowl for the pot. He did not look as he tossed it in Kebal Rawbread’s direction. I wished I had not. The mad king lunged the length of his chain, seized the flopping, bloody arm and fell upon it as hungrily as a dog on a joint of fresh meat. He was a noisy eater. I turned aside, sickened.

But a worse sight awaited me. My guards tightened their grips on me, and a third man stepped up to seize my head by my warrior’s tail and grip me tight. The Fool’s guards moved forward with him. He did not resist. His face looked like that of a man near bled to death, as if he could no longer feel horror or pain, only the encroachment of death. They shackled him, ankle and wrist, to the dragon. By standing in a half-crouch, knees and elbows held out, the Fool could avoid contact with the thirsty stone. It was a posture that was a torment in itself, and one that no man could hold for long. Sooner or later, he must tire, and when he did, he must fall against the dragon and yield something of himself to it.

The Fool faced a slow death by Forging.

‘No,’ I breathed as the reality seeped into me, and then, ‘NO!’ I roared at the Pale Woman. I twisted my head to look up at her, heedless of the hair torn from my head. ‘Anything!’ I promised her. ‘Anything you want from me, if you let him go!’

She leaned back on her furs. ‘How tedious. You capitulate much too easily, FitzChivalry Farseer. You didn’t even wait to witness the demonstration. Well. I shall not deny myself that pleasure. Dret! Introduce him to my dragon.’

The named guard stepped forward, drawing his sword. ‘No!’ I roared, twisting helplessly against my guards as Dret set the point of his blade to the small of the Fool’s back and urged him against the stone dragon.

He held him there for only an instant. The Fool did not scream. Perhaps it did not cause pain to his body. But as the man took back his sword, the Fool recoiled from the stone as a hand does from a hot ember. He leaned against the brief length of his chains, trembling but soundless. On the dragon’s skin, I saw for an instant the outline of my friend’s body as the dragon drank in his memories and emotions. Then his silhouette faded into the stone.

I wondered what the Fool had lost in that brief kiss of stone. A summer’s day from his childhood, a moment of watching King Shrewd and Chade talking by the firelight of the hearth in the old king’s room? Had it been some moment he and I had shared, now snatched from him and gone forever? He would know such things had happened, but Forging would erase their significance to him. Our friendship and all we had meant to one another slowly would be erased from his mind before he died. When he died, he would not even have memories of having been loved to ease his passage. I lifted my eyes to the Pale Woman. I think she drank in my misery as the dragon had sucked down the Fool’s stolen moments.

‘What do you want of me?’ I asked her. ‘What?’

She spoke calmly. ‘Only that you take the easiest path and play the most likely role in the days to come. It will not be difficult for you, FitzChivalry. In almost every future I have foreseen, you accede to my request. Do your prince’s bidding, do Chade’s bidding, do the Narcheska’s bidding. And mine. Take Icefyre’s head. That is all. Think of the good you will do. Chade will be pleased, and your queen will win her alliance with the Out Islands. You’ll be a hero in their eyes. Dutiful and the Narcheska can consummate their love for one another. I ask nothing difficult of you, only that you do what so many of your friends hope you will do.’

‘Don’t kill Icefyre!’ The Fool’s low-voiced cry begged me.

The Pale Woman sighed, as exasperated as if interrupted by an ill-mannered child. ‘Dret. He wishes to kiss the dragon again. Assist him.’

‘Please!’ I shouted as the man again slowly drew his sword. I pulled my head free of my captor’s grip to bow it in subservience before her. ‘Please don’t! I’ll kill Icefyre. I will.’

‘Of course you will,’ she agreed sweetly as the tip of the sword sank into the Fool’s back.

He resisted, even as fresh blood soaked his shirt. ‘Fitz! She has the Narcheska’s mother and sister captive here. We saw them, Fitz. They are Forged! Elliania and Peottre do her will to buy their deaths!’ And then, the Fool screamed wordlessly as he surrendered to the sword’s bite and sagged against the dragon. He twitched all over and the press of the guardsman’s blade seemed to hold him there for an eternity. I would have covered my eyes if my hands had been free. I did shut my eyes tightly against the unbearable sight. When the scream ceased and I opened my eyes, my friend’s body was outlined in silver on the dragon. More precious than blood, the experiences that made him who he was seeped away into the soulless stone. The Fool stood, muscles taut, straining against his chains to avoid contact with the stone. I heard the gasp of his breath, and prayed he would not speak again, but he did. ‘She showed them to me! To show me what she could do to me. You can’t save me, Fitz! But don’t make it all for nothing. Don’t do her –’

‘Again,’ she said, between weariness and amusement at his stubbornness. Again Dret stepped forward. Again the sword, again the slow, relentless push. I bowed my head as my friend screamed. If I could have died at that moment, I would have done so. It would have been easier than listening to his torture. Far easier than the terrible, soulless relief that it was not me.

When the echoes of his cries had faded, I did not look up. I could not bear to. I would say nothing more to her or to the Fool, nothing that might tempt him to speak and bring more punishment on himself. I watched the drops of sweat that dripped from my face fall onto the ice and vanish. Just as the Fool was vanishing into the dragon. Beloved. I tried to Skill the thought to him, to send him something of my strength but it was a futile effort. My erratic magic, poisoned by elfbark, was gone again.

‘I think I’ve convinced you,’ the Pale Woman observed sweetly. ‘But I’ll make it very clear. You choose now. Icefyre’s life, or your Beloved’s. I’ll set you free, to be on your way to kill the dragon. Do my will, and I give your friend back to you. Or as much as is left of him. The more swiftly you go, the more of him there will be for you to reclaim. Delay, and he may be Forged completely. But not dead. I promised you that. Not dead. Do you understand me, FitzChivalry Farseer, little assassin-king?’

I nodded, not lifting my eyes to her. I got a fist in the short ribs for that, and managed to lift my head. ‘Yes,’ I said softly. ‘I understand.’ I feared to look at the Fool.

‘Excellent.’ Satisfaction burned in her voice. She lifted her eyes to the ceiling of her glassy chamber and smiled. She spoke aloud, ‘There, Icefyre. He understands. He will deliver you to your death.’

She looked back at my guards. ‘Turn him out from the north chimney. Let him go there.’ Then, as if she could feel my confusion, she met my eyes and smiled kindly. ‘I don’t know how you find your people again. I only know that you do. And that you kill the dragon. All is so clear before me now. There is no other path. Go, FitzChivalry. Do my will, and buy your Beloved back. Go.’

I called no word of farewell to the Fool as they marched me from the room. I feared he would somehow acknowledge my departure and earn another kiss from her stone dragon. They took me through the icy labyrinth of her lair at a quick march, and up an endless flight of stairs that eventually emerged into a sort of ice cave, a space between the rock and the glacier. Two held me, kneeling, as the third cleared the ice-blown snow and frost that blocked the entry. Then they stood me up and cast me out.

TWENTY-TWO

Reunion

… that our King-in-Waiting Chivalry is not at all the son whom King Shrewd supposed him to be. As you can well imagine, this has grieved my good husband beyond telling, but as ever, Prince Regal has done all in his power to be a comfort to his beloved father. It was my sad duty to inform both my lord and our wayward prince that in light of his besprinkling the countryside with bastards (for where there is one, can we doubt there are others?) my dukes of the Inland Duchies have expressed doubt as to Chivalry’s worthiness to follow his father as king. In light of that, Chivalry has been persuaded to step aside.

I have been less successful in persuading my lord that the presence of this by-blow at Buckkeep Castle is an affront to myself and every true married woman. He maintains that if the child is restricted to the stable and the stableman’s care, it should not concern the rest of us that this physical evidence of Lord Chivalry’s failing is ever flaunted before us. I have begged in vain for a more permanent solution …

Letter from Queen Desire to Lady Peony of Tilth

We had emerged from a crevice that overlooked a steep slope. My guardians laughed. Before I could deduce the reason, I flew through cold darkness, then hit frozen snow. I broke through the crust, found my balance and rolled to my feet. Darkness surrounded me and when I took a step, I stumbled, fell, slid, regained my feet, fell and slid some more. I was clad only in the wool robe and felted shoes the Pale Woman had given me. It was small protection. Snow found me and clung to me, melting on my sweaty face and then cooling swiftly. My left arm was a thing that flopped and flailed against me. I finally found my footing and looked up and back whence I had come. Clouds obscured the night sky and the usual wind was blowing. I could not see any sign of an entry to the Pale Woman’s realm. I knew that the blowing snow would very soon obscure all trace of my tracks.

If I did not go back now, I’d never find it again.

If I went back there now, what good could I do? My left arm hung useless and I had no weapons at all.

But a stone dragon was slowly devouring the Fool.

I stood and staggered up the hill, trying to find my own trail where I had slid. The slope became too steep. I felt I was treading in place, making no uphill progress and all the while getting colder. I swung wide of my trodden trail and tried again to force my way up through the snow. The wool of the robe grew heavy with clinging snow and was no protection at all to my bared legs. I lost my balance, and holding my injured arm tight to my chest, fell and rolled downhill. For a time, I just lay there, panting. Then, as I struggled to my feet, I saw a tiny yellow light in the vale below me.

I stood and stared at it, trying to resolve what it was. It bobbed with the rhythm of a man walking. It was a lantern, and someone was carrying it. It could be one of the Pale Woman’s people. What worse could they do to me than what had been done? It might be someone from our camp. It might be a total stranger.

I lifted my voice and shouted through the wind. The lantern halted. I shouted again, and again, and suddenly the lantern began moving again. Toward me. I breathed a prayer, addressed to any god who would help me, and began a staggering slide down the hill. With every step I took, I slid three, and soon I was running, trying to leap through the snow to avoid sprawling face down in it. The lantern had halted at the bottom of the slope.

But, when I was almost close enough to make out the shape of the man holding it, the lantern resumed its bobbing motion. He was walking away and leaving me. I shouted, but he did not pause. A terrible sob welled up in me. I couldn’t go on any further by myself, and yet I must. My teeth were chattering, my whole body aching as the cold stiffened the bruises from my beating, and he was leaving me there. I staggered after him. I shouted twice more, but the lantern didn’t pause. I tried to hurry, but I could not seem to get any closer to it. I reached the place where the light-bearer had briefly paused, and after that I followed his broken trail through the snow, finding the going a bit easier.

I don’t know how long I walked. The dark, the cold and the pain in my shoulder made it seem an endless trudge through night and wind. My feet hurt and then grew numb. My calves were scalded with the cold. I followed him across the face of a hill, and along a ridge, down into a dip, ploughing through deeper snow, and then began a long, slow climb across another slope. I could not feel my feet and did not know if my flimsy shoes were still on them or not. The robe slapped against me as I walked, whipping my calves with its frosty burden of clinging snow. And with every step I took, I knew the Fool was still shackled to the dragon, hunching wearily away from the stone that would, at a touch, plunder him of his humanity.

Then, miraculously, the swinging of the lantern stopped. Whoever my guide was, he was now awaiting me at the top of the ridge we had gradually ascended. I shouted again from my raw throat and redoubled my efforts. Closer I drew, and closer, bowing my head against a wind which was angrier along the ridge top. Then, as I again lifted my eyes to mark my progress, I saw clearly who held the lantern and awaited me.

It was the Black Man.

A nameless dread filled me, and yet, having followed him that far, what else was I to do but go on? I came closer, close enough that when he lifted the lantern, I could briefly make out the aquiline features inside his black hood. Then he set the lantern down by his feet and waited. I clutched my arm to my chest and staggered uphill doggedly. The light grew brighter, but I could no longer see the Black Man standing beside it. When I reached the lantern, I found it resting upon an outcrop of rock that protruded through the shallower snow on the windswept ridge.

The Black Man was gone.

I used my right arm to lower my left hand to my side as gently as I could. My shoulder screamed when my left arm dangled its full weight, but I gritted my teeth and ignored it. I picked up the lantern and held it aloft and shouted. I saw nothing of the Black Man, only blowing snow. I trudged on, following his trail. It ended in a wind-scoured ridge of rock. But in the next valley, not far below me, I saw the dimly lit tents of our camp and I immediately abandoned all thoughts of the Black Man. Below were friends, warmth and possible rescue for the Fool. I staggered through the snow toward the tents, calling out Chade’s name. At my second shout, Longwick roared a challenge up at me.

‘It’s me, it’s Fitz. No, I mean, it’s Tom, it’s me!’ I doubt that he deciphered anything I said. I was hoarse from shouting and competing with the wind. I well recall my deep relief when I saw the other men stumbling from their tents and lanterns being kindled and held aloft. I staggered and slid down the hill toward them as they fanned out to meet me. I recognized Chade’s silhouette and then the Prince’s. There was no squat Thick amongst them, and I felt a sob build in my chest. Then I was finally within hearing of the line of men, breathlessly calling, ‘It’s me, it’s Tom, let me through, let me in, I’m so cold. Where is Thick, did you find Thick?’

From their midst a broad-shouldered man stepped forth, past Longwick who tried vainly to motion him back. He ran three strides toward me, and I took a deep, unbelieving breath of his scent just before he enfolded me in a bear hug. Despite the pain to my shoulder, I didn’t struggle. I dropped my head on his shoulder, and let him support me, feeling safer than I had in years. Suddenly, it seemed as if everything would be all right, as if everything could be mended. Heart of the Pack was here and he had never let us come to harm.

Over my bent head, Burrich spoke to Chade angrily. ‘Just look at him! I always knew I never should have trusted him to you. Never!’

In the chaos that had erupted, I stood still on my icy feet, ignoring the shouted questions around me. Burrich spoke by my ear. ‘Easy, lad. I’m here to take you home, both of you, you and my Swift. You should have come home years ago. What were you thinking? Whatever were you thinking?’

‘I have to kill the dragon,’ I told him. ‘As soon as possible. If I kill the dragon, she’ll let the Fool live. I have to cut off Icefyre’s head, Burrich. I must.’

‘If you must, then you will,’ he said comfortingly. ‘But not right this moment.’ Then, to Swift, ‘Stop gawking, boy. Fetch dry clothes and make food and hot tea for him. Quickly.’

I gratefully surrendered myself to the steady hands I had always trusted. He steered me through the cluster of staring men to the Prince’s tent, where my heart nearly broke with relief at the sight of Thick sitting up sleepily on his pallet. He looked none the worse for wear, and even seemed glad to see me until he was told he’d have to move his bed for the night to make room for me. He went off with Longwick in charge of him, but not graciously. Thick had Skilled to Chade and the Prince as soon as we’d vanished in the crevice and Chade had immediately sent Longwick and Cockle to fetch him back. He’d spent a miserable night sitting on the sled in the cold, with only his Skill-contact to sustain him. When his rescuers had reached him the next day, they’d found no sign of Lord Golden and me except for the sunken snow that had filled the crevasse.

I sat down, dazed with cold and exhaustion, on Chade’s bedding. Burrich spoke to me as he built up the little fire in the pot. His deep voice and the rhythm of his speech was a familiar comfort from my childhood. For a time I heard his voice without paying attention to the words, and then I realized he was reporting to me just as I had once reported to him. Once he had decided he must fetch Swift and me home, he had come as swiftly as he could, and he was sorry, so sorry that he had taken so long to find us. The Queen herself had helped him hire a boat to Aslevjal, but no man of the crew would willingly set foot on the island. When he had landed, he had tried to persuade Chade’s guards to guide him to us, but they had righteously refused to leave their tent on the beach and the supplies they guarded. And so he had come on by himself, following Peottre’s pennanted poles. He had reached Thick’s sled at almost the same time as Cockle and Longwick. Only their shouts of warning had prevented him from plunging into the same abyss that had claimed the Fool and me. Once he had found a safe crossing point, he had come back to the camp with Cockle and Longwick, bearing the news of the loss of Tom Badgerlock and Lord Golden. Chade had brought him to the privacy of the Prince’s tent, and quietly told him that those names also belonged to the Fool and me. Burrich had journeyed all the way to Aslevjal, only to hear yet again of my death. His voice was impassive as he related this to me, as if his own pain at hearing such words were of no consequence. ‘I am glad to see they were wrong. Again.’ His hands were busy chafing my hands and feet back to painful life.

‘Thank you,’ I said quietly when I could flex my hands again. There was too much to say to Burrich, and no privacy to say it in. So I looked at Chade and asked my most burning question. ‘How close are we to killing the dragon?’

Chade came to sit beside me on his bed. ‘We are closer than when you vanished, but not close enough,’ he said bitterly. ‘We were divided when you left. Now it’s worse. We’ve been betrayed, Fitz. By a man we had all come to trust. Web sent his gull to Bingtown, bearing a message that tells the Traders everything, and bids them send Tintaglia to keep us from killing Icefyre.’

I shifted my gaze to Dutiful and stared in disbelief. ‘You let him do this?’

Dutiful sat on the end of his pallet, his dark eyes large in his face as he watched us. There were new lines in my prince’s face, and his eyes were swollen as if he had wept freely in recent days. I scarce could bear to look at him.

‘He did not ask my permission,’ Dutiful said painfully. ‘He said no man needs permission to do what is right.’ He sighed. ‘Indeed, much has happened in the few days you were gone. In your absence, we continued to dig down into the ice. We reached a point where we could see a huge shadowy body below us. Realizing we had dug down to the torso of the creature, we began to tunnel out from the side of our pit, following the line of his back towards his head. It has been cramped work, but less difficult than excavating the entire area. We believe that what we can see below us now is the dragon’s neck and part of his head. But the closer we came to him, the stronger grew the feeling of the Wit-coterie that this is a creature which is not ours for the killing; that he harbours both life and intellect, although none of us can reliably sense him. My Old Bloods still dig alongside us each day, but I fear that they will side with the Hetgurd if I attempt to kill Icefyre.’ He looked away from me, as if shamed that his trust had been betrayed. ‘Tonight, just before you came into camp, Web admitted to me that he had sent Risk. The contention was hot,’ he said quietly.

My hope for a swift end to the dragon waned. It required every bit of discipline I had ever been taught to recount my misadventure in detail and in order. Irrational shame burned me as I spoke of how I had walked away from Hest and Riddle. When I told them of the Fool’s fate, and of his words about the Narcheska’s mother and sister, Dutiful swayed where he sat. ‘At last, it all comes clear. Too late.’

I knew he was right and despair claimed me anew. Even if I knew the way back, even if I could persuade them to muster our entire force and march on the Pale Woman’s stronghold, we were too few. She could kill or Forge him in moments, and doubtless would. Nor could I hope to kill the dragon quickly and win his release. Clear the ice, and we must still get past the Hetgurd, our own Old Bloods and perhaps Tintaglia.

The Pale Woman’s promise that he would not die was a thinly-disguised threat. The Fool would be Forged. To me would fall the task of taking what remained of his life. I could not contemplate it.

‘If we went by stealth to the pit, could we kill Icefyre? In secret? Tonight?’ It was the only plan I could think of.

‘Impossible.’ The Prince said. His face and his voice were grey. ‘The ice between him and us is too thick. There are days of pick- and shovel-work ahead of us before we reach his flesh. And before then, I fear Tintaglia will be here.’ He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘My quest has failed. I put my trust in the wrong place.’

I looked at Chade. ‘How much time do we have?’ How much time does the Fool have?

He shook his head. ‘How fast can a gull fly? How swiftly will the Bingtown Traders react to Web’s message? How fast can a dragon fly? No one knows those things. But I think the Prince is right. We have lost.’

I gritted my teeth. ‘There is more than one way to move ice,’ I said and looked at Chade meaningfully. The old man’s eyes lit. But before he could reply, Swift’s voice was lifted outside the tent.

‘Sir! I’ve brought Tom Badgerlock’s pack, and food will follow. May I come in?’

Dutiful nodded at Burrich, and he moved to beckon his son inside.

The boy came in. His bow to his Prince was stiffly formal and he did not look at his father or me. It pained me to see how the division between the Prince and his Wit-coterie tore the boy. At Burrich’s command Swift dug through my pack to pull out dry clothing for me. The lad did not seem well disposed toward his father, but he obeyed him. Burrich saw me observing them, and after the boy had left, he said quietly, ‘Swift was not exactly glad to see me when I got here. I didn’t give him the thrashing he merited, but he’s had the length of my tongue several times. He’s not said much in reply, for he knew he deserved it. Here. Take off that wet robe.’

As I struggled to pull up my leggings, Burrich suddenly leaned into the light, peering at me with his clouded eyes. ‘What’s the matter with you? What’s wrong with your arm?’

‘It’s pulled out of the socket,’ I choked out. My throat had closed up at the sight of his eyes. I wondered how much he could see any more. How had he come to find us here, walking with clouded eyes across the snow?

He closed his eyes and shook his head. Then, ‘Come here,’ he said tersely. He turned me, and sat me down on the floor at his feet. His fingers walked my shoulder, and the pain they woke was oddly reassuring. He knew what he was doing. I knew it would hurt, but that he would also mend me. I could sense that from his fingers, just as I had when I was a boy, just as I had felt when he restored me after Galen had nearly killed me.

‘We’ve brought the food. May we come in?’

The voice outside the tent was Web’s. The Prince nodded curtly, his mouth a flat line, and again Burrich lifted the door flap. As Web entered, he greeted me with ‘It’s good to see you alive, Tom Badgerlock.’ I nodded gravely, not trusting myself to find words. He met my eyes and accepted my hostility. The Prince looked aside from the man, his hurt plain in every line of his body. Chade glowered at him. Web’s expression remained as kindly and calm as ever.

The small kettle he carried smelled like good beef rather than the fish I’d been expecting. Swift was behind him with a pot of tea. They crowded into the tent to set their burdens down within my reach.

Burrich continued to investigate my shoulder as if they were not there. He ignored Web, but the Witmaster watched Burrich intently. When Burrich spoke, it was to Dutiful. ‘Prince Dutiful, my lord. You could be of great help to me right now, if you would. I’ll need someone to hold him firmly round the chest and brace him while I do what must be done. If you would sit there, and lock your arms around him … Higher. Like so.’

The Prince came to Burrich’s request and sat behind me. When Burrich had arranged the Prince’s grip around me to his liking, he spoke to me. ‘This is going to take a sharp tug. Don’t look at me while I do it. Look straight ahead, and be as loose as you can. Don’t tighten in fear for the pain to come or I’ll only have to jerk it harder the second time. Steady. Hold him firm, my lord. Trust me, now, lad. Trust me.’ As he spoke calmingly, he’d been slowly lifting my arm. I listened to his words, letting them drown out the pain, his touch filling me with calm and trust. ‘Be easy, be easy, and … Now!’

I roared with the sudden shock, and in the next instant, Burrich was on his knee on the floor beside me, his big calloused hands holding my arm firmly to my shoulder. It tingled and it hurt, but it hurt the right way, and I leaned against him, weak with the relief of it. Even as I panted, I noticed how he held his game leg out at an angle, the knee scarce bending. I thought of what it had cost him to come all this way, near blind and half lame, and I felt humbled.

He spoke quietly into my ear as he embraced me. ‘You’re a man grown, all these many years, but when I see you hurt, I swear, you are eight years old and I’m thinking, “I promised his father I’d look after his son. I promised.”’

‘You did,’ I assured him. ‘You have.’

Web spoke quietly, his voice deep. ‘I stand amazed. That is a bit of Old Blood magic I thought was lost to us. I saw that kind of healing done on animals a few times when I was a lad, before old Bendry died in the Red Ship War. But I’ve never seen it used that way on a man, nor so smoothly. Who taught you? Where have you been all these years?’

‘I don’t use beast-magic,’ Burrich said emphatically.

‘I know what I just saw,’ Web replied implacably. ‘Call it by any dirty name you like. You’re a master of it, in a way that is near lost to us. Who taught you, and why have not you passed on the teaching?’

‘No one taught me anything. Get out. And stay away from Swift.’ There was dark threat in Burrich’s words, and almost fear.

Web remained calm. ‘I’ll leave, for I think Fitz needs quiet, and a time for private speech with you. But I’ll not let your son walk in ignorance. He gets his magic from you. You should have taught him your skills with it.’

‘My father has the Wit?’ Swift looked shocked to his core.

‘It all makes sense now,’ Web said quietly. He leaned toward Burrich, looking at him in a way that went beyond the touch of eyes. ‘The Stablemaster. And a master in the Wit as well. How many creatures can speak to you? Dogs? Horses? What else? Where did you come from, why have you hidden yourself?’

‘Get out!’ Burrich flared.

‘How could you?’ Swift demanded, suddenly in tears. ‘How could you make me feel so dirty and low, when it came from you, when you had it, too? I’ll never forgive you. Never!’

‘I don’t need your forgiveness,’ Burrich said flatly. ‘Only your obedience, and I’ll take that if I have to. Now both of you, out. I’ve work to do and you’re in my way.’

The boy set down the teapot blindly and stumbled from the tent. I could hear the sobs that wracked him as he ran off into the night.

Web rose more slowly, setting the kettle of soup down carefully. ‘I’ll go, man. Now isn’t our time. But our time to talk is going to come, and you’ll hear me out, even if we must come to blows first.’ Then he turned to me. ‘Good night, Fitz. I’m glad you’re not dead. I mourn that Lord Golden did not return with you.’

‘You know who he is?’ The words were torn from Burrich.

‘Yes. I do. And by him, I know who you are. And I know who used the Wit to pull him back from death and raise him from the grave. And so do you.’ Web left on those words, letting the tent flap fall behind him.

Burrich stared after him, then blinked his clouded eyes. ‘That man is a danger to my son,’ he observed tightly. ‘It may come to blows between us.’ Then, he seemed to dismiss that concern. Turning his head toward Chade and Dutiful, he said, ‘I need a strip of cloth or a leather strap or something to bind his arm to his shoulder for the night, until the swelling goes down and it holds firm on its own. What do we have?’ Dutiful held up the robe the Pale Woman had given me. Burrich nodded in approval and Dutiful began cutting a strip off the bottom of it.

‘Thank you.’ And then, to me, ‘You can eat with your right hand while I’m doing this. The hot food will warm you. Just try not to move too much.’

Dutiful gave Burrich the strip of fabric and began dishing the soup from the kettle to a bowl and pouring tea for me as if he were my page. He spoke as he did so, and yet I do not think the words were addressed to any one. ‘There is nothing more I can do here. I try to think what I am to do, but nothing comes to me.’ A time of quiet followed his words. I ate and Burrich worked on my shoulder. When he had finished strapping my arm to my body, he sat back on the pallet, his game leg stretched out awkwardly before him. Chade looked as if he had aged a decade. He had been pondering the Prince’s words, for he said slowly, ‘There are several paths you can take, my prince. We could simply leave tomorrow. That tempts me, I’ll admit, if only for the prospect of abandoning all those who deceived and betrayed us. But it would be a petty vengeance, and in the end would win us nothing. Another choice is that we could fall in with Web’s plan, and do all we can to free the dragon, abandoning our hopes of an alliance with the Out Islands and hoping instead to win the goodwill of Tintaglia and the Bingtown Traders.’

‘Deserting the Fool,’ I added quietly.

‘And Riddle and Hest. Abandoning Elliania’s mother and sister, and breaking the word that I gave. Breaking my word, before not just my own dukes, but before the Outislanders as well.’ He crossed his arms on his chest, looking ill. ‘A fine king I shall make.’

‘Abandoning the Fool cannot be helped,’ Chade said. He spoke the words as gently as he could and yet they stabbed me. ‘Leaving behind Elliania’s relatives and breaking your word can be forgiven, for they used deception to win your promise. As in so many things, much will depend on how it is presented.’

Dutiful sounded subdued. ‘Deception. What would we have done? Elliania’s mother and her little sister. No wonder there is so much sorrow in her eyes. And that is why our betrothal ceremony at her mothershouse was so odd, and why her mother has been absent through all our negotiations. I thought Forging was an evil in the past. I never thought it would reach out and touch my life today.’

‘But it has. And it explains much of Peottre’s and the Narcheska’s behaviour,’ Chade added.

I flung all discretion to the winds. There was too much at stake for me to sit still through Chade’s laborious plotting of possible courses. ‘We go now, tonight, Dutiful and I only, in secrecy. Chade has created an exploding powder, one that has the force of a lightning bolt. We use it to kill the dragon. We will get our people back, one way or another from her. And when they are safe,’ dead I thought to myself coldly, ‘then I will find a way to get to her and kill her.’

Chade and the Prince stared at me. Then Chade nodded slowly. The Prince looked as if he wondered who I was.

‘Think!’ Burrich barked at me suddenly. ‘Think it through for yourself, with no assumptions. There is much here that makes no sense to me, questions that you should answer before you blindly do her wishes, regardless of what threat she holds over you. Why hasn’t she simply killed the dragon herself? Why does she bid you do it, and then cast you out of her stronghold, when it would be easier for her to assist you in reaching him?’ In an aside to no one, he muttered, ‘I hate this. I hate thinking this way, the intrigue and the plotting. I always have.’ He stared blindly into the recesses of the dim tent. ‘All these intricate balances of power, ambition, and the Farseer drive to set forces in motion and ride them out. All the secrets. That is what killed your father, the finest man I ever knew. It killed his father, and it killed Verity, a man I was proud to have served. Must it kill yet another generation, must it end your whole line before you stop it?’ He turned his gaze, and suddenly seemed to see the Prince. ‘End it, my lord. I beg you. Even at the cost of the Fool’s life, even at the cost of your betrothal. End it now. Cut your losses, which are already far too high. Death is all you can buy for the Narcheska’s family. Walk away from all of it. Leave here, sail home, marry a sensible woman and have healthy children. Leave this woeful cup to the Outislanders who brewed it. Please, my prince, blood of my dearest friend. Leave this. Let us go home.’

His words shocked all of us, not least the Prince. I could see Dutiful’s mind racing as he stared at Burrich. Had it ever occurred to the youngster that he could take such a step? He looked at each of us in turn, then stood up. Something changed in his face. I had never seen it happen, never suspected that perhaps a single moment could carry a boy to manhood. I saw it then. He stepped to the door of the tent. ‘Longwick!’

Longwick thrust his head inside. ‘My prince?’

‘Fetch me Lord Blackwater and the Narcheska. I wish them to come here, immediately.’

‘What do you do?’ Chade asked in a low voice when Longwick had withdrawn.

Prince Dutiful did not reply directly. ‘How much of this magic powder do you have? Can it do what Fitz has said it can?’

A light kindled in the old man’s eyes, the same light that had used to terrify me when I was his apprentice. I knew that he didn’t know completely what his powder could do, but that he was willing to gamble that it would work. ‘Two kegs, my prince. And yes, I think it will be sufficient.’

I heard the crunch of footsteps on the ice outside the tent. We all fell silent. Longwick lifted the flap. ‘My prince, Lord Blackwater and the Narcheska Elliania.’

‘Admit them,’ Dutiful said. He remained standing. He crossed his arms on his chest. It looked forbidding but I suspect he did it to keep his hands from trembling. His face looked as if it had been chiselled from stone. When they entered, he did not greet them nor invite them to sit, but merely said, ‘I know what the Pale Woman holds over you.’

Elliania gasped, but Peottre only inclined his head once. ‘When your man returned, I feared that you might. She has sent me word, saying that she did not intend to divulge that secret, but that now it is known, I may beg you freely to help us.’ He took a deep breath and I thought I knew what it cost that proud man to sink slowly down on his knees. ‘Which I do.’ He bowed his head and waited. I wondered if he had ever before knelt to any man. Elliania’s face flared from white to sudden crimson. She stepped forward and put a hand on her uncle’s shoulder. Slowly she sank to her knees beside him. Her proud young head drooped until her black hair curtained her face.

I stared at them, wanting to hate them for their intrigues and betrayal. I could not. I knew too well what Chade and I would be capable of, were Kettricken taken as hostage. I thought the Prince would bid her rise, but he only stared at them. Chade spoke. ‘She has sent you word? How?’

‘She has her ways,’ Peottre said tightly. He remained on his knees as he spoke. ‘And those I am still forbidden to speak about. I am sorry.’

‘You are sorry? Why could you not have been honest with us from the beginning? Why could you not have told us that you acted under duress, with no interest in an alliance or a marriage? What makes you guard her secrets still? Forbidden to speak! What worse thing could she have done to you than what she has already done?’ The hurt and outrage in the Prince’s voice went beyond anything mere words could convey. He knew now, as we all did, that he had been only a tool for the Narcheska, never anyone she could care about. It humiliated him as much as hurt him. I knew then that he had let himself fall in love with her, despite their differences.

Peottre clenched his teeth. His voice grated when he replied. ‘Exactly the question that keeps me awake at night. You know only of the most recent and vicious attack she has made against Narwhal Clan. For a long time, we stood firm before the blows she dealt us, thinking, “she has done her worst and we have withstood it. We will not bend to her.” And each time she proved us wrong. What worse can she do to us? We do not know. And that ignorance of where her next blow will land is her most fearsome weapon over us.’

‘Did you never think that you could have told me that there were hostages involved? Did you think it would not have moved me to help you?’ Dutiful demanded.

Peottre shook his head heavily. ‘You could never have accepted the bargain she made us. You had too much honour.’

The Prince ignored the strange compliment.

‘What was the pact?’ Chade asked sternly.

Peottre answered in a flat voice. ‘If we made the Prince kill the dragon, she would kill Oerttre and Kossi. Their torment and shame would end.’ He lifted his head and looked at me with difficulty, but then spoke honestly. ‘And if we delivered you and the tawny man to her, alive, she promised to give us their bodies. To return to our motherland.’

I groped for my anger and felt only sickness. No wonder they had been so glad to see the Fool awaiting us on Aslevjal. We had been sold like cattle.

‘May I speak?’ Elliania lifted her head. Perhaps she had always carried that grave sorrow in her, but I had never seen the shame she bore plainly now. She looked younger than I recalled, and yet she had the eyes of a dying woman. She looked at Dutiful and then lowered her eyes before the hurt he did not hide. ‘I think there is much I could make clear for you. It is long since I had any heart for this vicious sham. But my duty to my family means that first I must speak of this to you. My mother and my sister … it is imperative that … that we –’ She choked for a time. Then she flung up her head and spoke stiffly. ‘I do not think I can make you understand how important it is. That they must die, and that their bodies must be returned to my mothershouse. For an Outislander, for a daughter of Narwhal Clan, no other choice was ever possible.’ She clasped her shaking hands in front of her. ‘There was never an honourable choice,’ she managed to say before her voice died.

Dutiful spoke quietly. ‘Sit down, if you can find the space. I think we have all come to the same place now.’ He did not mean the tent.

We all shifted, trying to make room in the small shelter. Burrich grunted as he tried to move his stiff leg out of the way. As Peottre and Elliania found places to sit, Burrich shook out my shirt and then draped it around me. It almost made me smile. No matter what else might be going on, he still would not let me offend a lady by sitting bare-chested in her presence. The grandson of a slave, he had always been far more aware of the social niceties than I had.

Elliania’s voice was shamed and weary. She held her shoulders tightly hunched. ‘You ask what else she could do to us? Much. We do not know, with certainty, who belongs to her. She has preyed on our men and boys for years. Our warriors go forth and do not return. Young boys vanished while shepherding our flocks, on our own clan lands! Child by child, she has reduced our family. Some she killed. Others went out to play and returned home as soulless monsters.’ She glanced sideways at Peottre, who stared at nothing. ‘With our own hands, we have killed the children of our clan,’ she whispered. The Prince made a small sound at her words. She stopped speaking, then took a ragged breath and went on. ‘Henja had been in our household for years before she betrayed us. We still do not know how my mother and little sister were snatched so effortlessly from our midst. Just as those two were taken, so others are vulnerable. Our Great Mother is elderly, and her mind flickers like a dying candle, as you have seen. All her knowledge should have been passed on to my mother by now. Yet my mother is not there to receive it. So, she lingers, trying her best to mother our house despite the burden of her years. Perhaps you think her pathetic. Nonetheless, if she were taken from us, the centre of our mothershouse would be completely destroyed. My family would cease to be. As it is, we have suffered greatly from my mother’s absence and the discord it has created. What is a mothershouse, with no mother in it?’

She asked the question as if it were rhetorical, but the Prince suddenly sat very straight. Stiffly, he asked, ‘But then, if you came to Buckkeep to be my wife, would not you be leaving your mothershouse – that is, who would be the Great Mother when it was your turn to take that role?’

A tiny spark of anger kindled in Elliania’s eyes. She spoke disdainfully. ‘My cousin already fancies herself in that role, as you have seen. She seeks to make others think it is hers by right rather than by default.’ For a second, I saw the spitfire I had glimpsed on her home island. Then she gave a small sigh and waved her hands helplessly. ‘But you are right. I gave up all hope of becoming what I was born to be when I agreed to marry you. That loss is the price I pay to buy the deaths of my sister and mother, and end their torment and degradation.’ She dwindled back into herself, her shoulders rounding. She clenched her hands, and I saw the sweat start on her brow.

‘Why didn’t she ask you to kill the dragon? Or why doesn’t she do it herself?’ Chade asked them.

Peottre spoke up. ‘She believes she is a great prophetess, one who can not only see the future, but one who determines what the future will be. During the war, she said that the Farseer line must perish entirely, or that they would bring the dragons to descend on us, just as they did of old. Some believed her, and tried to do her will. But they failed, and her words came true. You Farseers brought the wrath of the dragons upon us, smashing and destroying our ships and villages.’

‘But, if you had not attacked us with your Red Ships …’ Dutiful began, outraged.

Peottre spoke over him. ‘Now, she says there is still a chance to redeem ourselves. She says our dragon deserves to die, for he failed to rise and protect us. Moreover, she says he deserves to die at a Farseer’s hands, since you are the foe that he failed to protect us from. But most of all, she says a Farseer must kill Icefyre because that is what she has seen in her visions of the future. For it to go as she wills it, a Farseer must do this deed.’

‘Which seems to me to be a very good reason to consider not doing it,’ Burrich remarked under his breath to me.

The Prince’s ears were keen. He spoke bitterly. ‘But the best reason to consider not killing the dragon is that it may be impossible. You’ve been aware that some in my group had begun to doubt my mission. The closer we came to Icefyre, the clearer we could sense him, not just his life that lingers in him still, but his power. His intellect. Now, I discover that my friends have acted against me. Lord Blackwater, Narcheska Elliania, I have failed you. My own trusted friends have sent a message to the Bingtown Traders. They will send their dragon to oppose us. She may already be hastening here.’

‘I do not understand,’ Peottre broke in. ‘I knew there had been resistance in your group to killing the dragon. But what is this talk of “sensing” him?’

‘You are not the only one with secrets, and this I will reserve to myself for now. Just as you reserve the secret of how the Pale Woman has been in contact with you. She prompted you to poison Fit—Tom with the cake you brought to us, did she not?’

Peottre sat up very straight, lips folded. Dutiful gave a sharp nod to himself. ‘Yes. Secrets. If you had not seen fit to hold yours so tightly, we might have acted as one from the beginning, not against the dragon, but against the Pale Woman. If only you had spoken to me …’

The Narcheska suddenly collapsed. She fell onto her side, moaning and then shuddered into stillness.

Blackwater knelt by her. ‘We could not!’ he exclaimed bitterly. ‘You cannot even guess what price this little one has paid tonight to speak this plainly to you. Her tongue has been sealed, and mine, too.’ He looked suddenly at Burrich. ‘Old soldier, if you have a thread of mercy left in you, will you fetch snow for me?’

‘I will,’ I said quietly, not knowing how much or how little Burrich could see. But he had already risen, taking up an empty cooking pot and going out of the tent. Blackwater rolled Elliania onto her belly and without ceremony, dragged up her tunic. The Prince gasped at what was revealed and I turned aside, sickened. The dragon- and serpent-tattoos on her back were inflamed, some oozing droplets of blood, others puffed and wet like freshly-burst burns. Peottre spoke through clenched teeth. ‘She went for a walk one day with Henja, her trusted handmaid. Two days later, Henja brought her stumbling home to us, with these marks on her back and the Pale Woman’s cruel bargain for us. Henja spoke it, for Elliania cannot say anything of what befell her without the dragons punishing her. Even the mention of the Pale Woman’s name does this to her.’

Burrich came back with his pot of snow. He set it down beside the prone woman and peered at her in horror, trying to discern what it was. ‘An infection of the skin?’ he asked hesitantly.

‘A poisoning of the soul,’ Peottre said bitterly. He lifted a handful of the clean snow Burrich had brought and smoothed it across Elliania’s back. She stirred slightly. Her eyelids fluttered. I thought she had hovered at the edge of consciousness, but she did not make a sound.

‘I free you from all agreements between us,’ Dutiful said quietly.

Peottre looked at him, stricken. But the Prince spoke on.

‘She will not be held by me to any promises she made under duress. Yet I will still kill your dragon,’ the Prince said quietly. ‘Tonight. And after we have won clean death for our people, when no one but myself is at risk, then I will do all within my power to finish the Pale Woman’s evil forever.’ He took a great breath, and as if fearing mockery, said, ‘And if any of us survive, then I will stand before Elliania and ask her if she will have me.’

Elliania spoke. Her voice was faint and she did not lift her head. ‘I will. Freely.’ The second utterance she added more strongly. I do not think Peottre or Chade approved, but they held their tongues. She motioned away the handful of snow that Peottre held. Instead, she took his hand and managed to sit up. She was still in pain. She looked as if she had taken a death wound.

Chade swung his gaze to me.

‘Then we act. Tonight.’ He looked around at each of us in turn, then almost visibly threw caution to the wind. ‘We dare not wait, for who among us knows how swift a dragon can fly? If we act together and swiftly, then perhaps the deed can be done and we can be gone from here before this Tintaglia even arrives.’ A flush, almost a blush, suffused the old man’s face suddenly. He could not keep down the small smile that came as he announced, ‘It is true. I have created a powder that has the force of a bolt of lightning. I brought some of it with me, though I do not have as much of it as I had hoped to apply to this task. Most of my supply remained behind on the beach. But perhaps what I have is enough. When cast into a fire in a sealed container, it explodes violently, like a lightning strike. If we were to place it down our tunnel and set it off, it would definitely blow up much ice. By itself, it may kill the dragon. Even if it doesn’t, it will give us swifter access to him.’

I heaved myself to my feet. ‘Have you a cloak I can use?’ I asked Burrich.

He ignored me, looking only at Chade. ‘Is this like what you did the night Shrewd died? Whatever you treated the candles with they did not behave as reliably as you had expected. What do we risk here?’

But Chade’s enthusiasm for an immediate trial of his wonderful powder had already grown beyond all caution. He was like a boy with an untested kite or boat. ‘This isn’t like that at all. That was a fine measurement, and it had to be done in more haste than I liked. Have you any idea what was involved in treating all those candles and the firewood supply for that evening, with no one the wiser? Nobody has ever appreciated that, no, nor any of the other wonders I’ve worked for the Farseer reign. But even so, this is different. It is on a much larger scale, and I will use as much of the powder as we think necessary. There will be no half measures this time.’

Burrich shook his head at me as I freed my arm from its binding and carefully threaded my left hand into my shirtsleeve. It was sore, but I could use it. Carefully. The prospect that the dragon might be slain tonight had fired me. A calm part of me knew that all I had was the Pale Woman’s word that she would release the Fool as soon as Icefyre was dead. It was scarcely reliable, and yet it was the only chance I had. And if Chade’s powder did slay the beast, but did not win the Fool’s release, then a second dose might very well open up a passageway into the realm under the ice. I kept that thought to myself for now.

‘What are the dangers?’ Dutiful asked, but Chade waved a dismissive hand.

‘I made extensive tests. I dug holes on the beach, built fires in the bottom of them, and when they were burning well, put in the box of powder and retreated. The explosion created a pit on the beach proportionate to the amount of powder in the sealed container. Why should ice and snow be any different? Oh, I’ll grant you that they are heavier and thicker, but that is why we’ll use a larger container of powder. Now as for the fire –’

‘Easily done,’ I said. My mind was already racing. I had found Chade’s cloak. I settled it around my shoulders. ‘A container of some kind, a large cooking pot. That kettle we use for stew and melting snow for water. That will do. Kindling to start a small fire in the bottom of it, and then the Fool’s burning oil from his tent. I will crawl down the tunnel, get the fire going, and then put in the powder and crawl out. Hastily.’ Chade and I grinned at one another. I was already infected with his enthusiasm.

Chade nodded, then knit his brows. ‘But the kettle’s not big enough to hold the whole cask. Ah, let me think, let me think. I have it. Several layers of cured leather under the kettle. When you have the fire going well in the kettle, tip it over onto the leather. It will contain it well enough for the short time it will take. Then thrust the cask into the fire. And come out of the tunnel. Quickly.’ He grinned at me as if it were all a fine jest. Peottre looked alarmed, the Narcheska confused. Burrich was scowling, his face gone black as a thundercloud. Prince Dutiful looked torn between a boy’s desire to make things happen and a monarch’s need to consider all decisions carefully. When he spoke, I knew which side had won.

‘I should do it, not Fi—Tom Badgerlock. His arm is all but useless. And I said I would do it. It’s my task.’

‘No. You’re the heir to the Farseer throne. We can’t risk you!’ Chade forbade it.

‘Ah! Then you admit there is a risk!’ Burrich growled as I dragged Chade’s boots on to my feet. They were too big for me. I had never realized the skinny old man had such long feet.

My mind churned with plans. ‘I need the kettle, the oil from the Fool’s supplies, kindling and tinder, a tinderbox, two treated hides. And the keg of powder.’

‘And a lantern. You’ll need light to see what you’re doing down there in the dark. I’ll bring the lantern.’ Dutiful had ignored Chade’s warning.

‘No. No lantern. Well. Perhaps a small one. We go now and we go silently. If the rest of your Witted coterie gets wind of what we’re up to … well. We just don’t need that to happen.’ As I had struggled with the boots, I had realized I’d need someone to help me. My shoulder was still twinging at the slightest demand on it. The Prince would be that person. I’d send Dutiful out of the tunnel as soon as I had the fire started. He could stand beside me on the edge of the pit while we waited for the powder to burst. Surely that would be enough to fulfil his word as a Farseer that he would take the dragon’s head.

‘Witted coterie!’ Burrich exploded.

I sorted through Chade and Dutiful’s clothing and selected Chade’s fur hat. I felt impatient. ‘Yes. The circle of Witted ones who serve the Farseer king. Did you think the Skill was the only magic that could be employed that way? Ask Swift about it. He’s close to being a member of it. And despite Web’s betrayal of our plan, I do not think it a bad idea.’ Then, as Burrich stared at me, both dumbfounded and insulted, I reminded Chade, ‘Send Longwick to gather those supplies himself. He’s tight-lipped and loyal; he won’t let a rumour start.’

‘I’ll go with him,’ Dutiful said. He did not wait for anyone to agree, but snatched up his cloak. He paused briefly near Elliania. His eyes did not meet hers but he offered, ‘I give you my word. If I can find clean death for your mother and sister, it will be theirs.’ Then he was gone.

‘The Farseer prince uses magic?’ Peottre demanded as he stared after him.

Chade hastily devised a lie. ‘That was not what Tom said. The Prince has a circle of friends here who can use the Wit, which is sometimes called Old Blood magic in the Six Duchies. They came with him to help him.’

‘Magic is dirty stuff,’ Peottre opined. ‘At least a sword is honest and a man sees his death coming. Magic is the way the Pale Woman has enchained our folk and shamed us of them. Magic is how she binds us still, to do her low tasks.’

Burrich nodded slowly. ‘Would that the magic of the sword could be worked on her. It is never fitting that a strong man falls to guile, especially the guile of an evil and ambitious woman.’ I knew he thought of my father then, and how Queen Desire had plotted his death.

The Narwhal Clan kaempra stood slowly, as if some thought were uncurling uncomfortably in his mind. He nodded, as if to himself. Beside him, the Narcheska came to her feet also. ‘Please tell Prince Dutiful that I said farewell,’ she said quietly, to no one in particular.

‘And I,’ Peottre said in his deep voice. ‘I am grieved that it has come down to this. Would that there had been a better path for all of us.’ They left slowly, Peottre moving as if heavily burdened. Dutiful returned quickly, carrying some of the supplies for our mission. A few moments later, Longwick brought the rest and lingered after he had been relieved of the objects, plainly wishing to ask questions, but no explanations were offered to him before Chade dismissed him with thanks. He left, looking worried. Obviously Dutiful and I were preparing some sort of foray. Little or no explanation of my return had been offered to anyone. Yet, like any good soldier, Longwick accepted the lack of explanation as reasonable and returned to his post outside the tent.

There was some little delay, for Chade had decided that a fire on hides over ice might not burn hot enough to set off his powder. Chade experimented with the kettle to see how large a container of powder would fit into it. This demanded a hasty comparison of packed items to find a container that would both fit within the kettle and sufficiently seal in the powder. At last he settled on a small crock with a pottery stopper that had been full of tea herbs. I suspected the tea was one of his special blends from the way he grumbled over dumping it out. That done, he opened the cask I had carried from the beach and carefully transferred a coarse powder from it into the crock. He did this well away from the tiny candle-fire, tamping the powder down with his fingers and muttering to himself as he worked. ‘It’s a little damp,’ he grumbled as he turned back to me with the sealed crock. ‘But, well, the flask that we put in your hearth was a bit damp inside, too, and it still worked. Not that I had expected it to blow up like it did, but, well, that is how we learn these things, I suppose. Now, keep this well away from the kettle until the fire is going very well, as hot as you judge you can get it. Then put this into the kettle, centred, so it doesn’t extinguish the fire. Then get out as quickly as you can.’

These directions were for me. To the Prince he said, ‘You are to get out as soon as the fire is started in the kettle. Don’t wait for Fitz to put the powder in, get out and away and wait for him well back from the excavation edge. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes, yes,’ Dutiful replied impatiently. He was packing our fire-making supplies into a sack.

‘Promise me, then. Promise me that you’ll leave as soon as he starts the fire in the kettle.’

‘I said I would kill the dragon. I should stay at least to see the powder go into the kettle.’

‘He’ll leave before the powder goes into the kettle,’ I told Chade as I took the sealed crock. ‘I promise you that. Let’s go, Dutiful. We don’t have much of the night left.’

As we moved toward the door flap, Burrich stood up. ‘Want me to carry some of that?’ he asked me.

I looked at him blankly for a moment. Then I understood him. ‘You aren’t going, Burrich.’

He didn’t sit down. ‘We need to talk. You and I. About many things.’

‘And we will. For a long time. There is much I wish to say to you, also. But as it has kept this many years, so it will keep until this task is done. And then we will have time to sit down together. Privately.’ I emphasized the last word.

‘Young men are so confident that there will always be more time, later.’ He made this observation to Chade, then reached over casually to take part of Dutiful’s armload. ‘Old men know better. We remember all the times when we thought there would be more time, and there wasn’t. All the things I thought I would say to your father, some day, remain in my heart, unsaid. Let’s go.’

I sighed. Dutiful was still standing there with his jaw slightly ajar. I shrugged at him. ‘There’s no use arguing with Burrich. It’s like arguing with your mother. Let’s go.’

We left the tent and moved quietly into the darkness. We moved as silently as Witted ones can, even when one of them won’t admit he’s Witted. Burrich set a hand lightly on my good shoulder. It was his only concession to his failing vision and I made no comment on it. I glanced back once to see Chade standing in the tent flap in his night robe, peering after us. He seemed embarrassed to have been caught at it; he let the flap drop down into place. But now I knew that he was worried, and I tried not to wonder how well he had tested his exploding powder. Longwick, too, stared after us.

The path to the excavation was uphill. It had not impressed me as a difficult climb, but the events of the last few days were making themselves felt to me. Now it seemed difficult, and I was panting by the time we reached the ramp that led down into the pit. We stopped there, and I took the oil from Burrich, wincing a little at the weight of it.

‘Wait for us here.’

‘You needn’t worry I’ll follow you. I know my vision is gone, and I won’t put you in danger by going with you. But I’d have at least a word or two with you before you go. Alone, if you don’t mind.’

‘Burrich, every moment that I dally, the Fool may lose more of himself to the dragon.’

‘Son, you know in your heart that we’re too late to save him. But I know also that you must go on and do this.’ He turned his head, not looking at the Prince, but ‘seeing’ him. At a pleading look from me, Dutiful retreated several steps to give us the privacy Burrich sought. He still lowered his voice. ‘I’m here to bring you and Swift home. I promised Nettle I’d bring her brother home, safe and sound, that I’d kill a dragon to do it if I had to, and that everything would be as it used to be. In some ways, she’s still a child, believing that Papa will always be able to keep her safe. I’d like her to go on believing that, at least for a time.’

I wasn’t sure what he was asking me, but I was in too much of a hurry to quibble. ‘I’ll do my best to let her keep that,’ I assured him. ‘Burrich, I have to go.’

‘I know you do. But … you know that we both believed you were dead. Molly and I. And that we only acted as we did in that belief. You know that?’

‘Of course I do. Perhaps we’ll talk about it later.’ I suddenly knew, by both the anger and pain that his words woke in me, that I wanted to talk about it never. That I did not want even to think of talking about it with him. Yet I drew a breath and said the words I’d told myself so often. ‘You were the better man for her. I slept well at night, knowing that you were there for her and Nettle. And afterwards … I didn’t come back. Because I never wanted you to feel that, that …’

‘That I’d betrayed you,’ he finished quietly for me.

‘Burrich, the sun will be coming up soon. I have to go.’

‘Listen to me!’ he said, suddenly fierce. ‘Listen to me, and let me say this. These words have been choking me since I was first told what I’d done. I’m sorry, Fitz. I’m sorry for all I took from you, without knowing I had taken it. I’m sorry for the years I can’t give back to you. But – But I can’t be sorry I made Molly my wife, or for the children and life we had together. Have. I can’t be. Because I was the better man for her. Just as Chivalry was better for Patience, when all unknowing he took her from me.’ He sighed suddenly, heavily. ‘Eda and El. What a strange, cruel spiral we’ve danced.’

My mouth was full of ashes. There was nothing to say.

Very, very softly, he asked me, ‘Are you going to come back and take her from me? Will you take her from our home, from our children? Because I know that you can. She always kept a place in her heart for the wild boy she loved. I … I never tried to change that. How could I? I loved him, too.’

A lifetime spun by on the whirling wind. It whispered to me of might have been, could have been, should have been. Might yet could be. But would not. I finally spoke. ‘I won’t come back and take her from you. I won’t come back at all. I can’t.’

‘But –’

‘Burrich, I can’t. You can’t ask that of me. What, do you imagine that I could ride out to visit you, could sit at your table and drink a cup of tea, wrestle your youngest boy about, look at your horses and not think, not think –’

‘It would be hard,’ he cut in fiercely. ‘But you could learn to do it. As I learned to endure it. All the times I rode out behind Patience and Chivalry, when they went out on their horses together, seeing them and –’

I couldn’t bear to hear it. I knew I’d never have that sort of courage. ‘Burrich. I have to go. The Fool is counting on me to do this.’

‘Then go!’ There was no anger in his voice, only desperation. ‘Go, Fitz. But we are going to talk of this, you and I. We are going to untangle it somehow. I promise. I will not lose you again.’

‘I have to go,’ I said a final time, and turned and fled from him. I left him standing there, blind in the cold wind and he stood there alone, trusting that I would return.

TWENTY-THREE

Mind of a Dragon

The Elderlings were a far-flung race. Although few writings have survived from their time, and we cannot read their runes in full, several of our own seem descended from the glyphs they chose to mark on their maps and monoliths. The little we know of them seems to indicate that they mingled with ordinary humans, sometimes residing in the same cities, and much of our knowledge may have come from that association. The Mountain folk have ancient maps that are almost certainly copies of even more ancient scrolls and seem to reflect a familiarity with a much greater territory than those people now claim. Roads and cities marked on those maps either no longer exist or are so distant as to be mythical. Strangest of all, perhaps, is that at least one of those maps shows cities that would today be as far north as Bearns and as far south as the Cursed Shores.

Fedwren’s Treatise on a Lost Folk

I didn’t say a word as I rejoined Dutiful and he didn’t ask. He led the way, small lantern swinging, down the ramp into a pit that had grown substantially deeper and narrower since I had last dug in it. I could see how they had concentrated their efforts once they had glimpsed the shadow of the beast trapped in the ice below them. Again, like being drenched by an unexpected wave, my Wit-sense of Icefyre swelled, and then collapsed and vanished. It unnerved me to be so aware of the one I was coming to kill.

I followed Dutiful as he led me toward the corner of the pit that became a tunnel scratched and scraped into the ice. It started out as taller than a man and two men wide. But it did not go far before it narrowed, and soon I was hunched over which made my shoulder ache more.

As I followed him, something Burrich had said suddenly rearranged itself in my mind. Burrich had come here to slay a dragon, if he had to, anything to bring Swift home. Nettle had told Thick that her father had gone off to kill a dragon. The two together meant that Nettle didn’t know about me being her father. I was torn between relief that I had not said anything to enlighten her and a sick foreboding that I would never really exist in her life. Suddenly the blackness and the ice and cold seemed to close in on me, and for one dizzying instant, I felt squeezed inside the glacier, trapped and wishing I could die, but unable to do even that much for myself. Shame choked me as I tried to will my own death.

Then the suffocating darkness passed and I staggered on. I set Nettle and Burrich and Molly aside, pushed away my past and looked only at the immediate thing that I needed to do: kill this dragon. I followed Dutiful deeper into the ice, telling myself that perhaps I could still save the Fool. Lying to myself.

Dutiful’s little lantern showed me nothing except the slickly gleaming walls of ice and Dutiful’s silhouette in front of me. The tunnel came to an abrupt end. Dutiful turned to face me and squatted down. ‘That’s his head, down there. We think.’ Dutiful pointed down at the scuffed ice below us.

I stared at ice he crouched on. ‘I don’t see anything.’

‘With the bigger lantern and daylight behind you, you could. Just take my word for it. His head is below us.’ Awkwardly, he unshouldered his sack onto the floor in front of him. I hunkered down facing him. There would just be room for him to step over the kettle and squeeze past me once we got the fire going.

The cold had crept into my shoulder, stiffening it, and my battered face was a cold, sore mask. It didn’t matter. I had my right hand still. How hard could it be to build a fire and put a crock into it? That was something even I could do.

The hides went down first. Dutiful arranged them between us, as if we were soldiers preparing for a dice game. The hides were thick ones, one of ice bear, and one of sea cow. They both stank. I settled the kettle in the middle of them and set the flask of oil carefully aside from it. I put the crock of powder next to it. We had shaved bits of wood for tinder and some scorched linen. I made a tiny nest in the bottom of the kettle. I had struck three futile showers of sparks from the firestone into the kettle before Dutiful asked me curiously, ‘Couldn’t we just light it from the lantern?’

I lifted my eyes and gave him a baleful stare. In response, he grinned at me. The light emphasized his reddened cheeks and cracked lips. I didn’t have a smile left in me, but somehow I shaped one for him. I remembered, briefly, that his young shoulders bore burdens, too, not the least of which was that killing this dragon was a betrayal, of sorts, of his Old Blood and his Old Blood coterie. Nor would it buy him his own dream. The girl he had come to love was his only as a lure to get him to do the Pale Woman’s bidding. She had offered herself to him, not for love, not to secure an alliance, but only to buy her mother’s and sister’s death. It did not seem a promising foundation for a marriage, and yet, here we were. I rocked back onto my heels. ‘You do it,’ I told him. ‘And then get out of here. Oh. And guide Burrich away from the edge of the excavation for me. He doesn’t see well.’

‘No, really? I thought he was blind.’ It was a young man’s humour, the dark sarcasm that has no fear of ever meeting the fate he mocks. I could no longer smile about it, but perhaps Dutiful didn’t notice. He claimed a bit of the scorched linen from the kettle and offered it to the lantern’s flame. It licked it hungrily and immediately the fire took. Dutiful hastily dropped it into the kettle on top of the other tinder. It went out.

‘Nothing is ever easy for us,’ I observed after our third try had failed.

I had to turn the kettle on its side, and then Dutiful burnt his fingers poking the last bit of flaming linen under the shaved bits of wood. We held our breaths, waiting, and the tiny flame gripped and clambered over the tinder. I nursed it stronger with curls of wood, deciding that I would not turn the kettle upright and risk dislodging the heart of the fire, but would instead slide the powder into the kettle as if I were putting a loaf of bread into an oven’s mouth. I coughed in the gathering smoke from our tiny fire.

‘Time for you to go,’ I told the Prince.

‘Just do it and then we’ll both go.’

‘No.’ I would not say I wanted to be sure he was safely away before I loaded the powder. Instead, I said, ‘Burrich is very important to me. And very proud. He’ll want to wait until I’m with him before he flees. Take his arm and tell him that I’m coming, that you can see me. And get him well away from the pit. We both know that Chade’s concoctions sometimes work far better than he expects them to.’

‘You want me to lie to him?’ Dutiful was scandalized.

‘I want you to get him to safety. He has a bad knee, and he can’t move as swiftly as you or I. So get him started. I’ll give you a moment or two to do that, then I’ll load in the powder and get out of here.’

It worked. The Prince would not have left me if only his own safety had been at risk. He would for Burrich’s. I thanked Kettricken for the heart she had instilled in her son as he stepped gingerly over the hot kettle and clambered past me. I listened to his footsteps in the icy tunnel, trying to gauge when he would leave the pit, reach Burrich and escort him away. No hurry, I told myself. No need to risk anyone just yet. In a few more minutes, the dragon would be dead. And perhaps the Fool would be safe.

I lay flat on the floor of the tunnel, to avoid the smoke hanging above me and to feed my fledgling fire. I wanted a good bed of coals. Then I’d put in the powder. Reluctantly, I decided I should add the oil at that time, too, enough to coax the flames up around the side of the powder container. I opened the flask of oil and set it to hand. It would be safe. It had taken quite a long time before the powder in the flask had exploded in my hearth fire. Of course, that had been before Chade had perfected the powder.

Don’t think about that. Don’t think about dying here, burnt and crushed. No. I could be trapped and still in the ice, with cold taking me deeper and deeper into blackness, until I was finally gone. I thought of that easing into death. It almost seemed cowardly. And yet what other way was there to go? Alone, mateless, was a death by ice so cruel a fate?

A cold drop from the ceiling fell on the back of my neck, pulling my thoughts back to what I was supposed to be doing. I wondered how my mind had wandered so far. The hides around the blazing kettle were scorching and stinking as it got hotter. I burned my fingers, tipping the lip of the kettle a bit higher so it would hold the oil when the moment came. I cursed and set my burnt fingers against the ice to ease them. And then, like a flood tide, the dragon rushed into me.

I do not believe he intended to. I think he was like a man who holds his breath, thinking he will be able to extinguish his own life. But at the last moment, the body overpowers the will of the mind, and takes that great gasp of air that forces the mind to go on. In that instant when he lost control, we touched. It was not the Wit nor the Skill, but something else, and in recognizing it, I knew it was intrinsic to dragonkind. I had felt it before, when Tintaglia invaded my dreams through Nettle. I had thought it was her own peculiar sending, but no. Icefyre echoed it. Tintaglia was better at it, or perhaps having dealt mostly with humans, she had learned to tailor her thoughts to our minds. The dragon swept through my mind and drowned me in his being. It was not phrased in human words or concepts; it was not an attempt at communication with me. In his eruption of thought and emotion and knowledge, I learned far more of him than I wanted to. When the dragon receded from my mind, leaving me beached in my individuality, my elbow gave out, and I found myself belly down on the ice, my face uncomfortably close to the hot kettle.

That brief time of sharing Icefyre’s memories seemed more real than my entire life had been. Icefyre was definitely alive. And aware, but his awareness was focused deep within himself. He desired death. He had come here to seek it, deliberately. Death does not come easily to dragons. They may die of disease or injury or in battle with their own kind, but other than those fates, no one knows how many years one may number. Icefyre had been a strong and hearty creature with many years before him. But the skies had become empty, bereft of his kind, and the serpents that should have returned to renew the ranks of the dragons were gone, too. The dragons and most of their Elderling servants had perished when the earth shook and split and the mountains belched forth smoke and flame and poisonous winds. The blast had spewed the trees flat and scorched all green from the earth.

Many of the dragons and their attendants had died in the first few days of that cataclysm, burned or choked or smothered in the raining ash. Others had perished in the harsh days that followed, for spring did not come that year, and the previously wide and swift river was a trickling thread groping its way to the sea through a choke of fine ash. The game died off, for the meadows were buried in ash and clinkers and what foliage survived was thin and dusty.

It was a harsh time. Of the dragons that lived, some said they must leave their ancestral lands. A few did, but what became of them, no one knew, for they never returned again. Competition for food weakened many, and resulted in death for others as dragons battled over the scrawny game that remained. Ash lay thick and acid over the once verdant land: no seed unfurled there and few plants pushed up through it. The human folk died off, and even their Elderling kin surrendered to slow death. The herds and flocks of the humans perished beside their two-legged tenders. The few cities that had not been buried stood empty and cracked, broken and licked dry like a nest of raided eggs.

Yet even then, none of them had feared it was the end of the dragons. Humans and Elderling might perish, trees die and game fail, but not dragons. Five generations of serpents remained in the sea. There would be five seasons of migration, and five successions of cocooning. Serpents would emerge as dragons and eventually, the land must heal. So Icefyre had believed. Even when season after season passed, and he alone spread his wings in the sky, he waited and watched for the serpents to return. But none appeared at the cocooning grounds. He had awaited them, often going without food for fear they would arrive and find no dragons to help them spin their cocoons from the black sand of the cocooning beach and their own saliva. His saliva and venom should have mixed with it, to give to them his memories, the memories that reached back beyond his own lifespan. The new dragons would be lost without them. Only if he helped them would they gain their full memories of all dragonkind when they emerged from their cocoons in the strong heat of summer.

But the serpents never came.

And when he knew that they would not come, would never return, when he knew he was the last of his kind, he gave thought to how he would end. Not in ignominy, starving to death from a hunting injury, his body becoming carrion for low animals. No. He would choose the hour and place of his death, and would die in such a way that his body would be preserved intact.

Such were his plans when he came to icy Aslevjal. I saw it as he had, as an island almost completely locked under the ice. I recalled his disappointment that it was so, but did not grasp the cause. Perhaps the seas had been lower then, or perhaps the winters colder, for the waters around the island were frozen so that he more felt than saw the sea beneath the ice. He flew over it, as gleaming black as it was white, but could not find the entry he sought. He contented himself at last with a crack in the ice, crawled into it and gave himself over to sleep, knowing that from cold sleep to death was scarce a step for his kind.

But the body always chooses life. It is not swayed by logic or emotion. He passed out of life into a suspension of being, but he could not part from his body. Try as he might, there were moments when awareness seized him again, and clamoured that he was cold and stiff and famished with hunger. The closing ice squeezed him and bent his body, but could not break him. He could not break himself.

He longed to die. He dreamed of dying. Again and again, he dived into death, only to have his traitorous body gasp in yet another slow breath, only to have his foolish heart squeeze out a pulse. Humans came and flitted about him, flies drawn to a dying stag. Some tried to seek his mind, others strove to pierce his flesh. Useless, all of them. They could not even help him die.

I felt myself draw a breath and wondered when I had last taken one. It was as if someone had opened the shutters on a tavern window, to show me all that went on inside and then as abruptly closed them. I was dazed with all that I suddenly knew about dragons. So completely had the dragon engulfed me that it was as if I had been him. I sprawled on the ice, drenched in my unwelcome awareness of the intellect of the frozen creature trapped below me.

I seized his death wish with relief. I was granting him mercy. I heaved myself up onto my knees, groaning as my injured shoulder took more weight than it wanted. I peered into my kettle oven, then crouched low to blow into it. Red coals glowed. I added a few more small sticks of wood, and carefully arranged the fuel I would tuck in around the powder container.

I knew what it was to long for death. I had tried to die when Regal had me in his power. Tormented, cold, alone, hungry, I would have welcomed a swift death then, by any means. I had come here determined to kill the dragon and now I knew he would welcome that kindness. No reason to hesitate. I picked up the crock of powder and used a stick to make a nest for it in the coals. What difference could one dragon make in the world? He was likely too feeble to survive now, even if we did release him.

Of course, if I had died in Regal’s dungeon, as I had hoped, then likely Kettricken would never have found Verity nor roused the stone dragons to defend the Six Duchies. No. I took too much significance to myself. She would have gone alone to find her King. But could she have wakened the dragons, if Nighteyes and I had not been there? If we had not gone with her, if Nighteyes had not killed game for her, would she have succeeded? Would Kettle have survived, to aid Verity in carving his dragon? Did, as the Fool had so long insisted, the fate of the whole world hinge on the actions of each man, every day?

The coals in the kettle oven waited and the powder was in my hands. Somewhere in the Pale Woman’s hall below me, the Fool strained to hold himself away from the memory stone that continued to Forge him at each touch. I should hurry.

I could not.

I groaned and yet again, weighed my choices in the balance. Free the dragon, and what did we win? Nothing. Perhaps Icefyre would rise to mate with Tintaglia; perhaps there would once again be dragons in the world. The Fool had never promised us any great good from that, except for his conviction that dragons and Elderlings were somehow connected. Freeing the dragon guaranteed me nothing except the Fool’s slow Forging and the continued degradation of the Narcheska’s mother and sister. But if I killed the dragon, Dutiful would win Elliania’s love and gratitude. They would consummate their marriage, and reign long with many children and we’d be at peace with the Out Islands …

‘Think it through for yourself,’ Burrich had said to me. ‘With no assumptions.’ Blind as he was, he had still seen more clearly than Chade and I had. We had been so fixed on securing the betrothal, so fixed on killing the dragon. But now, almost too late, I applied what Chade had taught me years ago. ‘Ask yourself, what happens next? Who benefits?’ I pushed my thoughts out of their rut as if I were levering out a stuck wagon. Kill the dragon. The Pale Woman grants death to the Narcheska’s mother and sister, and releases the Fool to me. And then what? Who benefits?

A Farseer kills the Outislander dragon. What happens next? I saw it as clearly as if I had been granted the Fool’s prescience. That insult to the Outislanders would not only eliminate all chance of dragons returning to the world, it would become the incident that united the Outislanders against the Six Duchies. Far from guaranteeing a marriage that would secure a lasting peace, it would be the spark that set off the conflagration of war again. Chade, Dutiful and I were the last male members of the Farseer line; I doubted that any of us would leave the island alive. And Nettle? If Kettricken revealed my daughter’s bloodlines and proclaimed her the Farseer heir, would the Outislanders let her reign in peace? I doubted it. The uncertain peace we had achieved in the last fifteen years would be swept aside. The slaughter would begin here on Aslevjal and spread. There would be no one to rouse the stone dragons this time, no Elderling allies to come to our aid. Destruction and Forging would return to our shores. The Pale Woman would reign, unchallenged, for the future she had made.

My heart was pounding in my chest with what I had nearly done. As the Fool had predicted, the choice had passed to me. I had come so close to fulfilling the Pale Woman’s dreams. I set my own fingertips to the marks the Fool had left on my wrist. ‘Forgive me,’ I begged him. ‘Forgive me for doing what you hoped I would do.’ Then I threw myself flat on the ice and with every bit of strength I had, I flung my awareness, Wit and Skill, at the dragon.

My Skill was a flapping, fluttering moth, but my Wit was strong. I felt Icefyre become aware of me. I felt the danger of his regard, just as prey lifts its head abruptly, knowing that a predator has focused on it. But I did not quail before him, but roared with my body’s strength, like one predator challenging another for territory. With my Wit, I could not convey my thoughts to him, but perhaps he would reach for me. Perhaps if he touched his mind to mine, he could know what I knew. That there was another dragon, a female, and she was even now winging her way toward us guided by a gull.

I know he sensed me, but to him I was a crow, neither prey nor pack, unworthy of his attention. His thoughts rolled over and away from me, and he made another dive into death and oblivion.

I flailed in panic. Just when I needed the Skill most, it had faded to a flickering ember in me. I was not strong enough to reach the dragon’s mind on my own. He was too determined to seek his own oblivion. I tried again, honing my Skill to an arrow’s point, and jabbing it toward the dragon.

There you are. I thought you were dead! I’ve been seeking you every night for days now. What is wrong, why did you vanish? Nettle’s powerful sending caught my weak Skill like strong hands clutching at a drowning man. She held my thoughts to hers. I pushed her away.

Nettle, not now. Go away. I have no time for you now.

And then, just as she fled in affront and hurt, my stupidity broke over me, and I cried out, No, come back, wait, I need you!

She halted at the edge of my awareness. I saw fluttering rags of her dream. She was a hunter, her hair tied back and a game net held at the ready. I lunged at her, pleading, No, come back! Please! I need your help!

For what? she demanded coldly.

I’d hurt her by my brusque dismissal after so long an absence. I doubt that she recollected that she was the one who had first barricaded her thoughts against mine. I wished I had time for explanations, but I did not. Already my Wit-sense of the dragon was starting to subside. In moments, he’d be beyond my reach. Help me wake a dragon! I pleaded with her. He dives down deep into his dreams, seeking death. But if you can reach down into sleep, perhaps you can reach down into his death dream and pull him back from there.

But … Shadow Wolf? Changer? Is it truly you, bidding me do this? Always before, you cautioned me of the dragon, warning me not to even say her name. Now you would have me wake her for you?

It’s a different dragon. And then, knowing how little time there was, I trod heavily where I had never ventured to go before. Please. If you would only do this thing for me, trusting me, without asking why. There is so little time. I would tell you all if we had time, I will tell you all when it is over. Only, for now, I ask you to trust me. Wake this dragon for me. Help me speak to him.

What dragon?

This one! I pointed frantically, Wit and Skill, but Icefyre was gone again. Wait, wait! I begged her. He dives deep right now, but he is here, I promise you. Wait and watch with me. In a moment, he’ll be back.

Are you all right? Why haven’t you come out yet? Have you placed the powder? It was a panicky Skilling from Dutiful, breaking into my desperate thoughts to Nettle.

A moment or two longer, my prince. There is something I must do here. Then, as the dragon suddenly surged back into existence below me, I frantically summoned Nettle with, There! There he is. Wake him, reach him! Tell him he is not the last of his kind, tell him of Tintaglia. Tell him that she comes for him, to wake him and restore dragons to the air and earth.

Then, like a roll of doom, Chade burst in with, Fitz, what do you do? Would you betray us? Would you betray me, after all these years? Would you betray the Farseer throne and your own blood?

I do what I must! I Skilled it out wildly, feeling the strength of my magic wobble and fail. I could not tell if anyone heard me. I found I was lying flat on the ice in the tunnel. The dragon had receded again. By my head, the kettle glowed red. The container of powder was by my hand. I summoned my magic, hammered it like red iron and thrust it out into the world. I begged, hoping Nettle heard my thought. Tell him to turn away from death and choose life. Choose struggle and toil and pain and lovely, lovely life. Speak to him and tell him that Tintaglia still lives. Speak to him for me.

I will try, she agreed dubiously. She had held our link. I felt her thought but could no longer see her. I do not perceive this dragon that you speak of. But if you can show him to me, show me his dream, perhaps I can enter it and find him there.

I held a feeble Skill-wall against Chade’s threats, imprecations and pleas and Dutiful’s confusion while I pressed myself against the floor of ice and sought for the dragon that had no awareness of me. I could not reach him. Time both raced and dragged for me. I needed to reach him soon, before Chade could act against me, physically or with the Skill. I did not doubt that he would stop me if he could.

I recalled there had been a place where our spirits had touched, the dragon’s and mine, and I had entered his dream. I did not want to return to that time and that memory. It had been a turning point in time, not unlike this one, I suddenly realized. It had been one of the Fool’s crossroads; a place where a decision made by one had altered all that had followed. Burrich had chosen, for love of me, to use a magic he found hateful. I had chosen to trust the wolf and embrace a death that was not a death. In doing so, I had unwittingly chosen to go on living.

I found the place where my experience matched Icefyre’s. I found the cold and the dark and the despair, I found the longing for a death that I could not reach on my own. I returned my soul to Regal’s dungeon of beatings and isolation.

It was one thing to know I had been in a place like that. It was another to reach for it, to taste again old blood around my loosened teeth, to smell the stink of my own festering wounds, and feel the numbing cold of the stone walls that was still not enough to dull the aching of my battered flesh. I put my soul back into that trapped body and knew again the despair of reaching for a death that would not come to me. I pushed the life from my body and held it at bay, only to have it flow relentlessly back into my flesh the moment I relaxed my guard against it.

Sweet Eda, was that really you, trapped like that? I thought it but one of your nightmares!

Nettle’s horror nearly ripped me from my despair, but in that moment, I felt the dragon once more surge back to the edge of life’s shores. In that instant, we touched and duplicated one another. My nightmare and his were the same, and I felt Nettle’s awareness flow from my nightmare into the dragon’s dark dream.

An instant later, I grasped the fullness of my error. His dream closed around her and took her down as he submerged his life again. I heard Nettle’s fading wail at the complete foreignness of the consciousness that now enmeshed her.

I had time only to gasp. Then she was gone, fallen into a tarry darkness that engulfed her.

I Skilled uselessly after her. It was like groping in cold black water. And then even my awareness of the dragon was snatched from me, and my daughter was carried down with him, into the death he so avidly sought.

Once, I had seen a motley-fish leap from the water and seize a sea bird in its jaws and bear it down. So had it been. One moment Nettle had been with me, poised at my request to plunge in where I bid her go. And she had and now she was gone, carried down to a place I could not even imagine. I had risked her, weaponless, untrained in the Skill. She had gone at my request. The magnitude of my stupidity gutted me. I could neither blink nor breathe.

I had fed my daughter to a dragon.

I tried to unbelieve that it had happened, to force time back by sheer effort of will. It was impossible that such a terrible thing could have happened so instantaneously, impossible that so dreadful an error could be irreversible. The injustice of it alone would have seemed to make it impossible. She had done nothing to deserve such an end. It was my fault; it should have fallen upon me. Horror hollowed me as I scratched my claws against iron-hard reality. I could not unmake that moment of foolishness. What had possessed me, why hadn’t I paused to think before I flung her into the dragon’s dream?

Dimly, I was aware of the others.

Where did she go? What happened? This from Dutiful.

She went in the dragon. I been there. The music is big, but he doesn’t let you go. He doesn’t find you and he doesn’t care. You have to be his music, down there. No room for your own music. Thick’s Skilling was full of awe and fear.

But worst was Chade’s woeful, Oh, Fitz, what have you done? What have you done?

I wanted to die, if dying could undo my shame and remorse. I needed to die, because I could not live through feeling those things.

And in that horrid place, I again touched the dragon. Touched him, and knew that he had taken my message from Nettle. Taken it and demanded more of her, to know more of things that she did not know. He had torn her wide and emptied her out, a useless juvenile human female, full of their trivial fancies. And so he had discarded her, coughed her out into the Skill, a useless indigestible bit of waste. Like a thoughtless child would wipe the scales of a dead butterfly’s wings from his grubby hands, he disposed of her. Unprepared, she dispersed, a drop of pale ink in a rush of water.

And now the dragon found me, wordlessly, roaring into my being, tearing me open to the Skill as if he ripped the scar from an old wound. It was not the Skill that linked our minds, but it was kin to it in some strange way. And in that instant, it was all out of my hands. For I had the knowledge that he wanted, and he took it. He tore my mind open like an old purse, upended my memory as if it were a crock of oddments and sorted my life impatiently for whatever he wished to know. And even before he was finished, our fate, the fate of all humans, was sealed. For Tintaglia, roaring like a storm wind, suddenly rushed through me, using her awareness of me to find Icefyre. It was as if they converged inside my body; I was the conduit for them, briefly, until they recognized one another. After that, they locked their minds together and cast me aside, unneeded, unnoticed, and unimportant. But their use of me had torn me wide and turned me inside out, emptied me into the wild currents of the Skill. I could no longer find myself, and did not much care to try.

I lay like a flayed fish and the Skill swept past me, carrying off bits of me. It suddenly seemed as if all my walls had not been protection but barriers that had confined me and cut me off from all that was best. It was not even that the Skill-flow was heady and intoxicating; it just seemed inevitable now, the ending I had always been destined for. It would obliterate me and let me forget what I had been and what I had done. That seemed an impersonal kindness, but one I longed for.

Verity was here, somewhere. I could sense him like a fragrance that had almost been forgotten until a sly waft of wind brings a hint of it to the nose. Verity, yes, and others, older and wiser and calm. So calm, the Elders of the Skill-stream. All was peaceful. Then there was a frantic stirring and someone nattering to someone else, speaking so swiftly that I could scarcely follow the thoughts. They were seeking for someone who was lost, a girl, no, a man, no, a girl and a man, carried off by the tide. Such a shame, but nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with me. I wished they would stop their worrying of it and let themselves go and join us. Why did they struggle against such peace and oneness as they could know here?

Shame on you. He set his teeth in me and worried me wildly. Shame on you, letting the cub drown. You would have come after me, and I would have come after you. Shame upon you, letting her go. Are we not pack? If you do this, you leave me behind. Do you know that? Do you care? Were you ever a wolf at all?

And that question stabbed me sharper than fangs and woke me to the struggle. Chade and Dutiful and Thick were there, linked as a coterie, searching for us. They were doing it all wrong, like a man bailing the sea with a sieve in hopes of catching a fish. Chade made a random search for Nettle, for none of them save Thick knew well the shape of her in the Skill-current, and neither Chade nor Dutiful had thought to ask the little man to locate her. I struggled to find enough of myself to reach them. It was like working in a dream, where the sequences of events make no sense and every moment the reality changes. I touched Thick at last, a touch like a thread settling on his sleeve and whispered, ‘Find the woman who helped the kitten. That is what she looks like here. Find her!’

And he did. We had known he was strong, but we had never measured him here, where his navigation of the Skill was all that mattered. He sang the song that was Nettle, and she coalesced around the notes. He did not seek her so much as summon her to fill the shape that he had made for her. And then, as if he were restoring a glass figurine to a shelf, so he carefully restored her to his dream of her. Had ever a woman been regarded as so precious? For a moment I glimpsed the inside of the travelling wagon and then the kitten on the bed told the limp woman sprawled beside him, ‘It’s all right. Rest for now. You know the way home from here. Rest for a time, and then go home. You are safe, now. You know I love you.’

I had only an instant to wonder at what he had done, and so effortlessly. Then he seemed to sense me there and flung me out of his dream. I did not belong there. But even that act of his was a recognition of my shape. He had fixed me into myself again to expel me from their world, and suddenly Dutiful was clutching at me. Fitz! There you are! We thought you were lost.

Why did you betray us? What have you done? Where is the girl? Chade demanded.

Nettle is fine. I mended her. Now I’ll mend him back together, too, Thick suggested pragmatically.

And he slammed me back into my body with no more ceremony than that.

I lay panting on the floor of the ice tunnel. When I found my eyes and opened them, the world was red and black. Then I realized I was looking into the glowing contents of the kettle. I felt the container of powder under my fingers. It rolled under my hand as I scrabbled away from the heat. Thinking about anything seemed like too much trouble. Somewhere, around me and inside me and below me, the dragons spoke to one another. Their communication felt like thunder rolling in my lungs. I did not wish to be a party to that communion. Already I had nearly died of it. I gathered all my strength and managed to pull my knees up under me. Crawling would work, I told myself. I could crawl out.

Three things happened simultaneously. I heard Dutiful shout to me from the entrance of the tunnel. I felt a sudden crack start in the ice beneath my hand. It raced off in a jagged line toward the dawn light that was now seeping into me. And the Pale Woman invaded my mind.

She had the Skill. I had known and should have been more careful. Now she looked through my soul with her colourless eyes and pierced me with her hate. Her words slapped me. You chose, bastard king. You chose a dragon over your Beloved. And you will live with that choice. As will he. At least, for a short time. Until I let you see what you have chosen!

And then she was gone, leaving me wretched and soiled from that contact with her mind. Such hate and virulence knows no bounds, and I knew that I had won for the Fool every coin of pain she could wring from him before his mind was gone. My spine turned to jelly, and I sprawled on the ground with neither the will nor the strength to move any further. Again, I felt that vague stirring beneath me, and heard the oddly shrill sounds of complaining ice. Then all was stillness again. I longed to plunge into it as Icefyre had, seeking my death in it, but Dutiful was kneeling by me, shaking me frantically.

‘Get up, Fitz. Get up! We have to get out of here. The dragon is stirring and the ice is cracking. He could bring it all down on us. Get up.’

And when I could not, he grasped me by the collar and dragged me, out of the tunnel and into the excavation and up the ramp into the world of light and men.

TWENTY-FOUR

Tintaglia’s Command

And when the shepherd turned warrior had wearied himself with whetting his blade on the dragon’s impervious hide, he fell back from him, sweating and panting. Yet the moment he had breath to curse him, he did so again, saying he would take vengeance times three on the creature that had eaten his entire flock.

At those words, the dragon seemed to waken from his sated sleep. Slower than a sunrise, he lifted his head and opened his eyes. He looked down at the man and his blade, and his great green eyes swirled and whirled. Some say they were like whirlpools in the deep, and that they sucked Herderson’s soul down into their depth and made it the dragon’s servant. Others say that Herderson stood firm before the dragon’s gaze, and it was only when Herderson breathed in the dragon’s outblown breath that he became subject to the creature. It is a hard thing to bear true witness to, for those who had gathered to watch Herderson attempt to slay the dragon had come no closer than the edge of his pasture.

Be it his gaze or his breath, it took the man’s heart. He suddenly flung aside both shield and sword and cried out, ‘Forgive me, emerald one, oh creature of jewel and flame and truth. I did not perceive what glory and might was yours when I first approached you. Forgive me, and allow me ever after to serve you and sing your praise.’

The Tale of the Dragon’s Slave

The world was a bright white place and cold. I found my feet, got them firmly under me and remembered how to make them work. From somewhere, Burrich came, to grab my other arm. Then Dutiful, Burrich and I were staggering and sliding through the dawn light toward the huddled tents. I saw Chade all but running up the hill toward us. At a considerable distance behind him, Thick trudged along. Longwick and his remaining guardsmen were following them. The Wit-coterie had tumbled half-dressed from their tent, and stood in the snow, pointing up the hillside and shouting to one another as they pulled on their coats and boots. The Hetgurd warriors stood apart and staring, nodding to one another as if they had expected a doom like this all along. Icefyre’s first try at breaking free had felt like a small earthquake, and he continued to make efforts as we hastened away from the excavation. Behind us, we felt as much as heard the dragon shuddering to break free of his icy prison. The cracking ice squeaked and popped and groaned as he fought it. Even so, it seemed to me that each effort was feebler than the first one. Then, when we were halfway down the hill, the creaking of the ice ceased. My Wit-sense of Icefyre remained as strong, but that awareness told me of a creature that had expended tremendous effort and was now on the verge of collapse.

‘It would be ironic,’ I panted to Burrich and Dutiful, ‘if after all these years of longing to die, he finally perished in an attempt to live.’

Burrich snorted. ‘We all perish in our last attempt to live.’

‘What went wrong?’ Dutiful demanded. ‘Why did you wake him instead of just killing him? Did the powder fail? What changed your mind?’

Before I could answer, Chade was upon us. My old mentor stalked toward me, trembling with his outrage. His questions were harsher.

‘How could you?’ he demanded, his voice shaking with passion as soon as he was within range. ‘How could you betray your own blood that way? You were sent to kill the dragon. What right do you have to decide against that? How could you turn on your family?’

‘I haven’t turned on my family. I’ve let the Fool be Forged for the sake of the Farseers,’ I said. Speaking that harsh truth aloud, under the bright morning light, suddenly made it real. I had to take a breath. In a quieter voice, I went on. ‘She’s had us watching the puppets, Chade, until we forgot that she was up there, pulling the strings. The Pale Woman wishes the dragon killed, yes. Perhaps if we killed him, she even would have given us back the Fool, but only so that he could witness the destruction of all he’d hoped for. Only so he could witness the end of the Farseer line.’

Heedless of the men who were drawing into hearing range, I lined out my logic for Dutiful and him. In their prolonged silence, I heard them trying my reasoning and finding it sound. Into the silence, I said to Dutiful, ‘I’ve broken your promise, and lost you your bride. But I cannot tell you I am sorry to have done so. I fear it would have been a marriage founded on death, and death would be the only fruit of it. For now, at least, we’ve chosen life. Life for the dragon. And possibly a stronger peace between the Six Duchies and the Out Islands than we could have built on the dragon’s death.’

‘Fine words!’ Chade fumed. ‘Grand words, but you’ve no idea what you’ve chosen. And neither do I! If that thing breaks out of there and is hungry, will he “choose life” for us? Or a hearty meal? I admit I’ve been short sighted. Perhaps you were wise not to kill him. But that does not mean you were wise to wake him. Who will thank you for this, FitzChivalry, when this long day is done?’

‘FitzChivalry?’ I heard Civil say, striding up behind Chade. ‘FitzChivalry? Is that who he means? Tom Badgerlock is FitzChivalry, the Witted Bastard?’ He turned to clutch Web’s arm incredulously, demanding an answer. His eyes were wide, and he was breathless with shock. Dutiful’s friend stared at me as if he had never seen me before, but there was no admiration in his eyes. He was a man cheated of a legend, shown common earth when he had expected the gleam of gold.

‘Hush.’ It was Web, silencing a secret that had outgrown its shroud. ‘Not now. Later, I’ll explain. There is no time now. He has wakened Icefyre. It’s up to us to free him.’ Web measured me with his eyes and seemed pleased with what he saw. He gave me a nod that was almost a bow, and then strode past us.

For the first time, I noted that the Witted coterie carried their digging tools, shovels and pry bars. A new purpose animated them all. Swift and Cockle were bringing up the sled to haul away the ice. Swift did not look at Burrich or me as he passed. Nonetheless, Burrich was aware of him and undeterred by his son’s cold silence. ‘Be careful, son,’ he admonished him as the boy passed us. ‘No one knows what Fitz has wakened up there, or what his feelings toward us will be.’ Then Burrich turned his gaze to me, and I had not known till then that clouded eyes could still pierce a man. ‘What did you do up there? And why?’

Perhaps it was time for that truth, too. ‘It wasn’t me. Not completely. I knew the dragon was alive, but I couldn’t reach him with my Skill, only my Wit. My Skill wasn’t strong enough. But then, Nettle found me. And –’

‘And Nettle waked him up!’ Thick announced happily as he finally trudged up to us. ‘And I saved her and put her safe. She loves me.’

‘What?’ This burst from Burrich, a cry of outrage and pain. ‘Nettle, my Nettle? Witted? It isn’t possible, it cannot be!’

‘No. Not Witted. Skilled.’ Chade sounded impatient. ‘But untrained. Dangerously untrained. Another consequence for which we must thank Fitz and his whims. We nearly lost her in the Skill-current, but Thick knew her well enough to find her and take her out of it. She’s safe now, Burrich. Probably very confused as to what happened to her just then, but safe.’

‘This is too much. I cannot deal with this.’ Burrich had been holding my arm, but now I was suddenly supporting him. He shuddered out a breath. ‘I suspected she had a touch of Chivalry’s magic. I suspected for a long time and when she told me of her wolf dream … that was when I knew I must go to Kettricken, to find out what it meant and to arrange for Nettle to be taught.’ He gave me a strange smile, torn between pride in her and fear for her future. ‘She was strong enough to wake a dragon?’

Then all of us were rocked by a blast of thought that sent Chade tottering, and then sinking to his knees. It was dragon speech, reaching into our minds. Tintaglia had found us.

Go and help him! Dig Icefyre out, and harm not a scale upon him. I come swift as flame, for by touch of our minds, I know where he is and no longer need the guidance of a bird! I warn you, I am not far away, and when I arrive, I expect to see him standing to meet me. If he is not, woe upon you all!

It was neither the Skill nor the Wit, and yet it struck my mind with the force of a strong Skill-sending. Icefyre’s recent use of my mind had left me raw to the Skill, and the force of Tintaglia’s thought physically staggered me. I suspect that those of us versed in the Skill were more susceptible to her thoughts than the others. Certainly it staggered Dutiful’s entire Skill-coterie. Those of his Wit-coterie reacted in a variety of ways, some seeming to take the full import of her words, others looking about as if puzzled and Cockle showing no awareness of it at all. Civil raised a shout. ‘You all heard her! Tintaglia commands that we dig Icefyre out! Let’s do it!’ He raced up the hill as if leading a charge against an enemy.

Among the Outislanders, at least one prostrated himself, believing that a god or demon had spoken to him. Two of the others stared off at the distance, as if questing after something they might have heard. The others gave no reaction. Burrich, long sealed off to the Skill by my father in order to protect him, looked puzzled for a moment, as if he had almost recalled something. I suspect his Wit made him vaguely aware of a sending without comprehending the thought that had accompanied it.

An instant only I had to absorb all this. Then Thick, with a wide and joyous smile, went racing away from us, up the hill, his short legs pumping as hard as they could. ‘I’m coming!’ he shouted. ‘I’m coming to dig you out, Icefyre!’

I put his enthusiasm down to Icefyre’s earlier influence over his simple mind and his recent success at rescuing Nettle, which must have been a heady experience. I strode after him, Dutiful at my side and Chade at our heels. It was only when I heard Dutiful mutter, ‘We have moved much of the ice above his back. Surely that is where he will break through first. We have not much more work to do!’ that I wondered at his sudden enthusiasm for the task.

‘Then you do not share Chade’s hope that we could simply leave the dragon where he is, as he was?’

‘Yes. I do. I did. But that was … before. Before Nettle woke him. No. Before … but Tintaglia commands this. Tintaglia …’ His pace slowed and he looked at me in consternation. ‘This is, this was, almost like when you commanded me with the Skill. But it isn’t. I can set this aside. I think.’ He caught at my arm and halted me alongside him, an odd expression on his face. ‘She commanded, and for a moment, I could think of nothing but obeying her. Strange. Is that what they mean by the charm of a dragon?’

Burrich startled me when he spoke. I had almost forgotten him, and yet he had somehow kept pace with us. ‘The old tales speak of the charm of a dragon coming from its breath. What have I missed? Some sort of Skill-sending?’

‘Something like that,’ Dutiful pondered. ‘Almost a Skill-command, I think, but I do not know. I think I wanted to help Icefyre before she commanded it. It seems my own thought to me. Yet –’

And then Chade passed us, muttering, ‘The powder. The powder will do it; the powder will blast him free. We only have to change where we set it. Or perhaps set it in smaller vessels –’

Dutiful and I exchanged a glance and then caught up with him. I seized his sleeve, but he shook me off. I grabbed hold of him again.

‘Chade, you cannot kill him now. It’s too late. Tintaglia is nearly here, and too many of our people are intent on digging him free. It won’t work.’

‘I … kill him?’ He looked shocked at the thought. ‘No, not kill him. Blast him free, you fool.’

I exchanged a worried look with the Prince. ‘Why?’ I asked Chade gently.

He looked as if my ignorance mystified him. Then, for just a moment, I saw another look pass over his face, one that frightened me. He groped. But however Tintaglia had fogged his mind, Chade had long been an expert at fabricating reasons to have me do whatever he decided I should do. ‘Does it escape you that an angry female dragon is on her way here, one that has been alerted to our presence thanks to you? What have you left us to do? If we kill him now, she’ll kill us all. She as much as said so. Unfortunately, that means we must make ourselves useful to a dragon. If we extricate Icefyre before Tintaglia arrives, she may see it as a sign of good intentions on our part. You yourself said we might use her goodwill to build an alliance with Bingtown. Until we know her strength, I judge it best to placate her in any way we can. Don’t you?’

‘And you think the best way to free him is with your powder?’

‘One blast can do the work of ten men with shovels. Trust me on this, Fitz. I know what I’m doing.’ He now seemed as enthused to blast Icefyre free as he had earlier been to blow him up. How hard had Tintaglia’s command hit him? With the force of a Skill-command, that one must unquestioningly obey, regardless of one’s own judgment? Was the Fool Forged yet? Dead? The sudden thought broke abruptly over me like a wave of cold water, dashing me from my present worry. I staggered with the impact of it. I had done what the Fool had hoped I would do. I had wakened the dragon and now all our forces were turned to freeing him and uniting him with Tintaglia. It had even felt like the right thing to do, at the moment when I did it. But now my soul scrabbled at the remorselessness of time. I could not go back and change the decision, yet it suddenly seemed far too heavy and sharp a thing to carry for the rest of my life. His fingerprints burned briefly cold on my wrist.

Still my feet carried me on with the rest of them. When we reached the excavation, we discovered that all the dragon’s struggles had done little. The ice over his back was cracked and starred from beneath, and he had collapsed part of the tunnel that had been dug above his neck and head. The Wit-coterie had already attacked the cracks in the ice with much enthusiasm and little manpower. As I arrived, the Hetgurd men joined them. For the first time, every man at the camp was united in the task of unearthing the dragon alive. But no amount of excitement could make the work any less arduous.

Chade berated me for being an idiot when we all discovered I had left the powder pot behind when I had fled the tunnel. He put two men to work re-opening the tunnel, and then completely confused the suspicious Wit-coterie by putting them to work digging deep, narrow holes alongside the dragon. ‘We’ll put smaller loads of powder along the edge of that crack he’s made. It won’t be enough to harm him, just enough to break the ice up so we can haul it away in larger chunks. Fitz, I’ll need you with me to help me measure and package the powder. Dutiful, you too, and bring Longwick. We’ll need more vessels suitable for holding the fires. It will be tricky to set them off, but I’m convinced that near-simultaneous blasts will serve us best.’

Chade was in his element, organizing and improvising. He burned with a fierce joy at putting his thoughts into action. I realized then that in his own way, he would have been a fine soldier and strategist, much as Verity had been. The times in my life when he had seemed most alive had been when he had finally flung aside all constraints to transform his thoughts into deeds.

Burrich had come with us when we returned to Chade’s tent, for he could be of little help with the digging. It was sad to know that he realized that. He reminded me somewhat of an old dog that knows he can no longer keep up with the pack on the scent, and so holds his place at his master’s stirrup in faith that he will be there for the kill. I glanced up at him as he sat attentively on Chade’s pallet. Chade was opening another small cask of his powder. I knelt on the floor, a clean hide stretched out before me, measuring powder into piles that were approximately the same size as the example that Chade had heaped for me. The consistency of the powder troubled me; it was not a uniform colour, and some seemed ground finer than the rest, but Chade had already shrugged aside my questions. ‘In time I will perfect it. But for now, it will work, and that is all that counts, boy. Where is the Prince? I sent him to scavenge tight containers from any of the tents. He should be back by now. And Longwick, with the kettles. It’s going to be a mix and match that we must do, and the sooner we begin, the better.’

‘I’m sure he’ll be here soon,’ I said, and then to Burrich, ‘You’re very quiet. It is because you came here to kill the dragon, and now we all struggle to save it?’

He knit his dark brows at me. ‘You thought I came here to slay a dragon?’ He gave a snort of amazement and then shook his head. ‘I didn’t believe in this dragon. I thought it a girl’s bad dream, and so it was easy for me to assure Nettle that I’d protect her from it. I took her to Buckkeep and there I learned that there might be some vestige of a dragon here. But when I came here, I came to bring you home, you and Swift. Because, regardless of what it might cost you, or me, that is where you belong.’ He gave a sudden sigh. ‘I’ve always been a simple man, Fitz, seeking simple answers to my problems. And here I am, trying to see how to untangle the mess you and I have made of things, and how to protect Nettle from a dragon that knows her name and how to talk sense to Swift about beast-magic. I’d thought that you had died of the Wit, you know. The Queen tried to give me what she knew of that tale, how a Forged one came to be wearing a shirt I’d sewn for you, with King Shrewd’s pin still in the collar … When I think of the anguish I felt as I buried that wretch …’

But his thoughts were interrupted abruptly by Dutiful bursting into the tent. ‘They’ve gone! I can’t find them anywhere!’

‘Containers to put the powder in?’ Chade demanded single-mindedly. ‘What, all gone?’

‘No! The Narcheska and Peottre! They are gone, their beds left empty. I do not think they returned to them after we spoke last night. I think they left then and if they did –’

‘Then there is only one place they could have gone.’ Despite Chade’s earlier assurances that it didn’t matter, he was now scowling and poking at the piles of more finely ground powder. ‘They went to the Pale Woman. And told her that Fitz had come back to us, and that we now knew the true stakes of the game.’ He suddenly scowled. ‘And we spoke of Web’s gull in front of them, and Tintaglia coming here. They will have told her. She will now know of our thoughts of her, and what our vulnerabilities are. The Pale Woman will know that if she wishes to move against us, she must act swiftly. Our only recourse is to be even swifter than she is. We must get that dragon out of the ice.’

‘But why would Elliania and Peottre do that? Why would they turn on us, when they knew I was willing to kill the dragon for them?’ The Prince was agonized.

‘I don’t know.’ Chade was implacable. ‘But it’s safest for us to assume treachery, to assume that everything we spoke of last night is now being told to the Pale Woman. And we must now see how that leaves us vulnerable.’

‘But it’s all changed since last night! Last night, Fitz and I plotted to do her bidding, to give way to her will. Why go to the Pale Woman to tell her that, why not wait until the deed was done?’ Dutiful scowled. ‘When they left us last night, Peottre did not look like a man about to cower before an enemy.’

‘I don’t know.’ Chade’s concentration didn’t waver. ‘Make the piles only this size when the powder is this fine, Fitz.’ Then, ‘I don’t know, Dutiful. But it is my duty to assume that they mean you harm, and try to think of what move we could make to forestall them.’ With a scraper, he corrected one of my piles. ‘After the dragon is freed,’ he added, almost to himself. He lifted his eyes back to Dutiful. ‘We still need those containers.’

‘I’ll get them,’ the boy replied faintly.

‘Good. Set the girl and Peottre out of your mind for a time. If they slipped away last night, they are long gone, and too far away for us to be able to do anything about it. Let us deal with the crisis at hand, and then move on to the next one.’

Dutiful nodded distractedly and left. My heart was heavy for him. ‘Do you really believe they went to report to her?’

‘Perhaps. But I don’t think so. As I told Dutiful, we must assume the worst, and there draw our lines of defence. And our best defence may be to free the dragon that you have wakened.’ He knit his brows, pondering it, but then seemed to find his piles of powder more interesting. ‘We will think more on it when Icefyre is freed.’

I feared that Tintaglia’s command had sunk deep into his mind. I wanted to believe Chade was thinking clearly, but I was not confident of it.

Longwick came first with the kettles, and then Dutiful with the containers of varying sizes. As soon as he had what he wanted, Chade sent them back to the excavation site, with orders to be sure the six holes he had ordered dug alongside the dragon were progressing. I wondered if he merely intended to keep the Prince busy. Chade seemed very picky to me as he sorted through the containers, first selecting the vessels to hold the powder, making sure of the tightness of the stoppers or lids, and then matching them to their fire pots. I offered to help him but he refused. ‘Eventually, I will devise the perfect container for my powder. It must be one that will yield to fire, but not too swiftly, for whoever sets fire to it must have time to move away. It should be tight enough to keep out moisture, if the powder is to be safely stored in it. And it must be one that can be filled cleanly, with no residual powder clinging to the outside. Eventually, I will fashion a better way to ignite it …’

He was now completely focused on what he was doing, a master still puzzling out his new invention, unwilling to trust it to his journeyman’s hands. I withdrew from him a small way, sitting on Dutiful’s pallet next to a silent Burrich. He seemed deep in his own thoughts. I still felt a terrible sense of urgency, a desire for it all to be over. I could not decide if Tintaglia had imprinted me with a command, or if it was my agony over the Fool. I could not keep my thoughts from turning to him. I tried not to wonder what he might be enduring, or if he was past enduring anything. The dragon’s touch seemed to have restored my Skill, yet when I groped for my silk-thin Skill-bond with the Fool, I could not feel him. It frightened me. ‘I’m doing what you wanted me to do,’ I promised the Fool quietly. ‘I’ll try to get the dragon free.’

Chade, absorbed in his sorting and loading of the powder vessels, did not appear to hear me, but Burrich did. Perhaps it is as they say, and his fading sight had sharpened his other senses. He set his hand to my shoulder. Perhaps if Web had never spoken of it, I would never have noticed it. But he was right. I felt Burrich’s calm flow into me. It was not his thoughts that reached me, but a sense of connection with his being. It did not match the strength of a Wit-bond between man and animal, and yet it was there. He spoke quietly. ‘You’ve been doing that for a long time, boy. Doing what others wanted you to do. Taking on tasks no one else wanted.’ It was a statement, not a judgment.

‘So did you.’

He was quiet a moment. Then, ‘Yes. That’s true. Like a dog that needs a master, I believe someone once told me.’

The cutting words I had once flung at him now brought bitter smiles to both of us. ‘Perhaps that has been true for me as well,’ I admitted.

We both sat still and silent for a time, finding a moment of respite in the eye of the storm all around us. Outside, I could hear the muffled noises of the working men. Their voices came distantly through the cold. I heard the dull ring of metal tools against ice, and the deeper thuds of chunks of ice flung into the wooden bottomed sleds. Closer to hand, Chade muttered to himself and scraped his powder into precise loads. I felt for the dragon, and he was there, but my Wit-sense of him was dimmed as if he conserved his strength and now would do no more for himself than remain alive and await rescue. Burrich’s hand was still on my shoulder. I suddenly suspected that, just as I did, he quested out toward the dragon.

‘What will you do about Swift?’ I asked Burrich, before I was even aware I was going to speak.

Burrich spoke almost casually. ‘I’ll take my son home. Try to raise him to be an upright man.’

‘You mean, not to use his Wit.’

Burrich made a noise that might have been an assent or a request to drop the topic. I couldn’t.

‘Burrich, all those years in the stables, all your gift for healing and calming and training animals. Was that the Wit? Did you have a bond with Vixen?’

He took his time answering me. Then, he gave me a question instead. ‘What you are really asking me is, did I do one thing and demand another of you?’

‘Yes.’

He sighed. ‘Fitz. I’ve been a drunk. It was nothing I ever wished to see you or my sons become. I’ve given in to other appetites, knowing well that no good could come of it. I am a man, and human. But that doesn’t mean that I would condone or encourage those things in my boys. Would you? Kettricken told me that you had a foster son. I was glad to hear that you had not been entirely alone. But did raising him not teach you something about yourself? That the faults you find abhorrent in yourself are even more horrifying when you see your son manifest them?’

He had summed it up too neatly. But I still took him round to the jump again, asking him, ‘Did you use the Wit when you were Stablemaster?’

He took a breath and said shortly, ‘I chose not to.’ I thought that was all he would say, but a short time later, he cleared his throat and said, ‘But it is as Nighteyes said long ago. I could choose not to reply, but I could not choose to be deaf to them. I know what the hounds called me. I’ve even heard it from your own lips. Heart of the Pack. I knew what they called me and I was aware of their … regard for me. I could not conceal from them that I was aware of them, when they cried back to me of the joy of the hunt as they gave tongue to the chase. I shared that joy, and they knew it.

‘Long ago, you told me you did not choose Nighteyes. That he chose you and bonded to you and gave you little choice in the matter. So it was with Vixen and me. She was a sickly pup, the runt of an otherwise hearty litter. But she had … something about her. Tenacity. And a mind to find a way around every obstacle. It was not to her mother that she whimpered when her brothers pushed her aside from the nipple, but to me. What was I to do? Pretend I could not hear her plea for a fair share, for a chance at life? So, I saw that she had a chance at the milk. But by the time she was large enough to fend for herself, she had attached herself to me. And in time, I admit, I came to rely on her.’

On some level, I had known it. I don’t know why I wanted him to admit it. ‘Then you did forbid me what you yourself did.’

‘I suppose I did.’

‘Have you any idea how unhappy you made me?’

He didn’t flinch. ‘About as unhappy as you made me when you didn’t obey me. But, then, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. Doubtless you never forbade anything to your Hap that you yourself were guilty of. And I’m sure he always listens to your wisdom.’ He was very good. The sarcasm was there only if I looked for it.

That silenced me, for a time. But there was still one more question. ‘But why, Burrich? Why did you, why do you still so despise the Wit? Web, a man I much admire, sees no harm or danger in his magic. How could your own magic disgust you?’

He smoothed his hair back from his face and then rubbed his eyes. He spoke reluctantly. ‘Ah, Fitz, it’s a long, old tale. My grandmother, when she discovered I had the taint, was horrified. Her father had it. And when he was faced with the choice of saving his wife and small children from slavers or getting his Wit-partner out of a burning stable, he chose his Wit-partner. And because of that, slavers took them. My great-grandmother lived a short, miserable time after that. My grandmother said she was a very beautiful woman. There are few worse traits for a slave to have. Her masters used her and her mistresses abused her out of jealousy. My grandmother and her two sisters witnessed it all. And grew up as slaves, used and abused. Because the man who should have made his primary bond to his wife instead chose a horse over her and his children.’

‘One man, Burrich. One man making a bad decision. Or who knows what went through his head? Did he think that if he got to the horse, it could carry his wife and children to safety? Or help him battle the slavers? We can’t know. But he was only one man. That seems a small foundation upon which to condemn all the Wit.’

He exhaled a short breath through his nose. ‘Fitz. His decision condemned three generations of his family. It did not seem small to anyone who bore that burden. And my grandmother feared that if I were allowed to go on as I had begun, I would do the same. Find an animal, bond to it, and put it above all other considerations. And after she died, for a time, she was right. I did exactly that. As did you. Have you never looked at your own life and said, “take the Wit away, and what changes?” Think on it. If Nosey had not come between you and me, would not we have been closer when you were a boy? If you had not bonded to Smithy, would you have done better with your Skill-lessons? If Nighteyes had not been in your life, could Regal have found excuse to condemn you?’

For a moment, I was stymied. Then I replied, ‘But if the Wit had not been held a shameful thing, none of that would have been true. If you had spoken of it as Old Blood and taught me why I must not bond, if the Wit had been held in esteem as the Skill is, then all would have been well.’

His face darkened with rising blood, and for a moment I glimpsed Burrich’s old temper. Then, with a patience that only time could have taught him, he said quietly, ‘Fitz. It is a thing I was taught from the time my grandmother first discovered the taint in me. The Wit is shameful magic, and it shames a man to practise it. Now, you talk of people who practise it openly and find no disgrace in it. Well, I have heard of places where men marry their sisters and have children, where women go about with their breasts showing, where it is not accounted shameful to discard your mate simply because her youth has faded. Yet, would you teach your children that these behaviours are good? Or would you teach them to live as you yourself were taught?’

Chade startled me when he spoke. ‘There are unspoken rules to every society. Most of us never question them. But surely, Burrich, you must have some time wondered about what you were taught. Did you never decide that you would determine for yourself if the magic was worth having?’

Burrich turned to regard Chade with his clouded eyes. What did he see? A shape, a shadow, or only his Wit-sense of the old man?

‘I always knew it was worth having, Lord Chade. But I was an adult, and I knew the cost of it. Your prince out there; what price would he have to pay for his useful, worthwhile magic if it became known that he was Witted? You deny he has it to shield him from hatred and prejudice. Do you fault me that I tried to shield Chivalry’s son?’

Chade looked down at the work of his hands and didn’t answer. He had finished. Six containers, everything from flasks to saltboxes, were filled with his explosive powder and resting in kettles or pots. ‘I’m ready,’ he said. He lifted his gaze to me and smiled a strange smile. ‘Let’s go and free the dragon.’

I could not read his green eyes. I could not decide if he truly intended to free the dragon from the ice or meant to blast it to pieces. Perhaps he himself didn’t know. But as if his resolve were contagious, I suddenly felt tight with the need to end this.

‘How dangerous is this?’ Burrich asked.

‘Just as dangerous as it was last night,’ Chade replied testily.

Burrich put out a hand and ran his fingertips lightly across the pots. ‘Not six times as dangerous?’ he asked. ‘How will you do it? Will one man set them all, or six?’

Chade thought a moment. ‘Six men, each to get a kettle fire going. And then Fitz, to go down the line putting the containers in each pot.’

I nodded to the wisdom of that. Six men each judging their own time to put the powder in and flee might end up running into one another. ‘I’ll do it.’

I carried three of the pots and Chade carried the other three. Burrich brought the sack of fuel and a smaller kettle of coals from the guards’ hoarded night fire. The day seemed very bright to me as we walked up the hill. It was warm, for that place, and the sun glinted off the glistening ice. As we walked up the hill together, Burrich asked me, ‘Are you sure Nettle is safe now? I do not understand the risk she took, but it seems to have frightened all of you.’

I swallowed and admitted my guilt. ‘I asked her to go into the dragon’s dream and wake him. Her strongest Skill-talent is the manipulation of dreams. I never paused to consider that it might be dangerous, that the dreams of a dragon might be a far different challenge than the dreams of a man.’

‘Yet still she went?’ There was quiet pride in Burrich’s voice.

‘Yes, she did. Because I asked her. I’m ashamed that I risked her.’

He was silent for several strides then said, ‘So. She knows you, and knows you well enough to trust you. For how long?’

‘I’m not sure. It’s a hard thing to explain, Burrich.’ I felt a flush rise but forced myself to speak on. ‘I used to … look in on you. Not often. Only when it got so … It was wrong of me.’

His silence was long. Then he said, ‘That must have been a special torment for you. For the most part, we have been happy.’

I took a deep breath. ‘Yes. It was. Yet I never realized I was involving Nettle to do it. She was my … I don’t know, my focus point, I suppose. After a time, she became aware of me. She knew me through her dreams of me, as a, as a wolf man.’ I halted, flustered.

Burrich almost kept the amusement out of his voice as he said, ‘Well. That accounts for some very odd nightmares, when she was small.’

‘I didn’t know I was doing it. Then, after a time, I became aware of her. In my dreams. We talked there, in the dream worlds she made. It took me a while to realize that she was manifesting the Skill, in a way I’d never seen it used before her. But I never … She doesn’t, that is, she doesn’t know –’ And suddenly I couldn’t go any further. My throat had crushed the words unsaid.

‘I know. If you had told her I wasn’t her father, I’d have known.’

I nodded wordlessly. It was strange to see how he would perceive such a telling. I thought only of telling her who her father was; Burrich saw it as telling her who was not her father.

He cleared his throat and changed the subject. ‘She will have to be taught how to manage her magic, or the Skill can steal her mind. I know that is so, from what Chivalry taught me of it.’

‘Nettle should be taught,’ I conceded. ‘It has become dangerous for her to go further without being taught. But she will, if we don’t intervene. She must be taught.’

‘By you?’ he asked quickly.

‘By someone,’ I amended. And there we left it. I listened to the sound of tools crunching into snow and ice and the ever present whooshing of the wind over the glacier. It was like a strange music, one interspersed with the upraised voices of the workers as they exhorted one another. But when we arrived at the lip of the ice quarry, work ceased almost immediately.

Chade stood at the edge of our excavation and spoke to them all, explaining his exploding powder and what he intended to do with it. I felt oddly apart from all of it. I looked from face to uplifted face, seeing concern on Web’s and intrigue on Cockle’s. Some of the men reverted to being boys immediately, with boyish enthusiasm for testing the unknown. Chade went down the ramp with his kettles and I followed with mine. He inspected the holes that Dutiful and Longwick had caused to be dug. One he wanted deepened and another he declined, requesting that a new hole be dug close to the mouth of the caved-in tunnel. All would be in a row, along the deepest fractures that the dragon had made in the ice. Here Chade judged the ice to be weakest and that the powder would have the most efficacy. He chose six men to build the fires in the pots, and Burrich walked slowly down the line of them, giving each kindling and fuel and coals from his fire kettle. Then Chade sent him out of the pit. Chade remained, moving slowly from fire pot to fire pot, making sure that each was set well in its hole in the ice and that the fire would have a deep foundation of coals for the powder vessels to nestle into. Several times as his chosen men were kindling the fires in their pots, he repeated how these were actually rather small doses of the powder, not enough to do harm to the dragon, only enough to further crack the ice around him so that we might move it more swiftly.

Each man stood as he judged that his pot was burning well enough. In each case, Chade moved down the line, added more fuel, and then sent the man up to stand with the others at the edge of the excavation. Each container of powder was left sitting on the ice, two spans away from the fire. When Chade and I alone remained in the hole, he came to me and spoke quietly. ‘I will join the others at the edge of the pit. When I nod to you, move swiftly down the kettles. Drop each container of powder into the kettle that matches it. Then come quickly to join me. It will take some little time for the fire to burn through to the powder, but I judge it best that you do not linger here.’

‘And I.’

He paused as if he would say something more, then shook his head wordlessly at me. I wondered again if his will warred with his action. Then I watched him climb up the ramp and join the row of men standing at the edge of the pit looking down at me. It struck me that the walls that had first divided us were gone. Hetgurd, guardsmen and Wit-coterie mingled. Burrich stood beside Chade. Swift was next to Web. Civil’s Wit-cat was belly down on the ice, peering down at me curiously.

I took a deep breath, walked to the end of the row, and lifted the first powder vessel. I dropped it into the first burning kettle and sparks flew up around it. The second likewise; the third landed badly and had to be nudged deeper into the flames. I heard the watchers mutter as I did so. The fourth was easy. The fifth stuck to the ice and it seemed to take a year before it gave way to my tugging. Its lid came loose as it did so, and a small quantity of powder leapt from the mouth of it. I put the top back on and brushed it clean. As I set it into its firepot, the flames licked eagerly at the powder-smeared side, sparking and burning white. I reminded myself that quite a lot of time had elapsed before Chade’s original flask had exploded in my fireplace. The sixth was as easy as the first, and then I gave in to my impulse and burst into a run. I fled up the ramp and joined the others on the edge of the pit. The fifth pot suddenly burst into a fountaining roar of flames, sparks and sulphurous fumes. I heard gasps of amazement and fear from the watchers, but as I gained the lip of the pit, the leaping white fire grew less and subsided. The pot that had held it cracked loudly and we heard a hiss as melted water met fire.

When I reached Chade’s side, he was shaking his head. ‘That is one wasted,’ he said tersely. ‘El’s balls! I wish I’d had more time to test the powder and devise the right sort of container for it. But again, consider how the flame travelled up the powder to reach the main dose of it. Could we use that? I had believed that the powder had to be inside a vessel for it to …’

And then the first explosion went off. It wasn’t in the first pot. I think it was the second, that perhaps that container had burned through more swiftly. It was hard to tell, for as shards and lumps of ice burst up from the floor of the pit and rained down around us, one of the other pots, or perhaps two, burst simultaneously.

The second blast was much louder than the first, deafening me. I had never experienced anything like it. The very air seemed to slap my skin and my ears felt as if they had been boxed. Fine ice stung my face. I blinked, thinking I’d been blinded, but it was a mist of impossibly fine snow hanging in the air.

Around me, men were yelling, deep-voiced cries of anger and dismay as they retreated from the lip of the pit. Civil’s terrified cat bolted past me, his master in frantic pursuit. From the buried dragon, I felt a wave of outrage. We’re trying to free you! I Skilled at him, but felt no response. Beside me, Burrich gripped my shoulder and stared about frantically, his face twisted with panic.

I seized Burrich’s arm to guide him back from the lip of the pit but he twisted free of me, crying, ‘Swift! Where is my son?’ as the next explosion slapped the earth against our feet. I found myself driven to my knees and Burrich prone beside me. The air was thick with drifting crystalline ice, and Burrich choked and spat and shouted out, ‘Swift! Swift, where are you, boy?’

‘I’m here, Papa!’ the boy cried out, and he came bounding to us through the hanging fog, hurtling into Burrich’s embrace. His eyes were huge.

‘Thank Eda, you’re safe! Stay close by me, now. Damn my eyes. Fitz, what is happening? I expected flame and sparks and smoke, not this! What has that mad man done?’

‘It’s like a log bursting apart in the fire, Burrich, no more than that. The powder has burst, breaking the ice that surrounded it. I did not think it would be like this, but it’s over now. Be calm.’ But even as I spoke the words, seeking to reassure myself as much as him, the earth heaved a second time under our feet. At the same moment, I felt a furious mental onslaught.

You will pay, you puny treacherous grubs! Your blood will be shed, a bucket for every loosened scale on his flesh. I come! Tintaglia’s wrath is upon you! All of you will die!

‘We’re trying to help him, not harm him!’ I flung the words wide, voice, Wit and Skill. She made no reply.

But as I blinked the clinging mist of ice from my lashes and peered down into the pit, something stirred there. The settling flurry of ice crystals concealed it, but within that haze, something dark bucked and heaved, showing above the settling mist like a breaching whale. I heard the squeal and crack of breaking ice, and a smell came to me, a stench of trapped and scabrous flesh, a reptilian stench. I scrabbled to my feet and then ventured closer to the edge of the pit, peering down.

A slow and mammoth struggle was taking place down there. Parts of the dragon’s emaciated back were exposed. His tail humped and twitched, almost a separate creature as it strove to free its lashing tip from the ice. One immense hind leg was free, the overgrown claws of the long-captive dragon scoring deep gashes in the ice as it strove to free the rest of his body. Then a wing unfolded, clumps of ice flung wide as it lifted like the tattered canvas of a derelict ship. It flapped desperately, and the waft of unhealthy animal gagged me. Icefyre struggled there, his head and neck still encased in ice. As the mist of ice crystals settled, the humans straggled back to the edge of the pit and stared down, some gawking, some transfixed with horror. Chade’s face was a picture. I could not decide if his awe was for the destruction his powder had wrought or for the size of the creature he had partially bared.

Burrich spoke first. ‘That poor beast.’ He lifted both his hands, the fingers wide, and pushed gently at the air before him. So often I had seen him gesture as he approached an uneasy horse. Now I wondered if quelling calm emanated from his hands. He raised his voice suddenly. ‘He needs our help. Shovels and picks, but I want you all to go carefully. It would be as easy to harm him now as to help him. Don’t encourage him to struggle.’ One hand clamped onto Swift’s shoulder, and the other stretched out a little before him as he stumbled toward the edge of the pit. ‘Easy, easy down there,’ he was already calling, and his words, freighted with soothing Wit, were for the dragon. ‘We’re coming. Still your struggles, you’ll only hurt yourself. Or us. Be easy now. We’ll help you.’

Again, I was aware of the flow of comfort that went with those words. The dragon, too, seemed affected by them. Or perhaps it was exhaustion that made his struggles slow and then cease.

‘Mind the edge of the pit, man. The ramp is this way. Swift, guide your father down there. We’ll need him.’ Web’s brow was bleeding from a glancing blow from a chunk of flung ice. He strode past us, unmindful of his own hurt, shovel in hand. For the first time, I became aware that the blast had injured some of us. One Hetgurd man was down, unconscious in the snow, blood trickling from his nose and ears. One of his fellows knelt by him in bewilderment. Civil had caught his hissing cat and held him in an awkward hug, trying to calm the struggling animal. I looked around for Dutiful, and saw him already hurrying down the ramp toward the trapped dragon, using a pry bar as a stave as he descended. The floor of the pit had been broken, reminding me of ice floes on a restless sea.

‘My prince! Be careful! He may be dangerous!’ Chade bellowed after him, and then he went hastening down the ramp and into the pit. Witted and unWitted alike converged on the trapped creature and began removing the loosened chunks of ice. It was hazardous, for the dragon continued to buck and heave as he struggled to free himself.

The stench was terrible. Starvation and dormant snake fouled the air. Burrich seemed unfazed by it as he stepped forward and then set his hands calmingly on the creature’s black and scaly hide. ‘Be easy. Let us clear away the loosened ice before you struggle any more. Breaking a wing now will not help you.’

He stilled. It was not Skill but Wit that carried to me the dragon’s panicky suffocation. I sensed Icefyre’s attention was focused elsewhere now, and suspected that he communicated with Tintaglia. I hoped he would tell her that we were trying to help him.

‘We need to get his head free. He can’t get enough air to struggle,’ Burrich told me as I came closer.

‘I know. I feel it, too.’ I tried not to smirk as I added, ‘I am Witted, you know.’

I had not realized that Swift would overhear me. Perhaps, because my ears were still ringing, I had spoken more loudly than I thought. But he stared at me, avid and intent. ‘Then you are FitzChivalry, the Witted Bastard. And it’s true that my father raised you in the stables?’ There was a strange lilt in his voice, as if he had suddenly discovered a link to fame and legend in his own family. I suppose he had, but I did not think it was healthy.

‘We’ll discuss it later,’ Burrich and I said at almost the same instant. Swift gaped at us and then gave a strangled laugh.

‘Clear that loose ice from around his left shoulder,’ Web called as he strode by, and men hastened to obey him, Swift among them.

But Web halted beside us, pick in hand. A sharp motion of his hand halted Swift beside him. Quietly he observed to Burrich, ‘Later will not wait forever, for either of you. A time will come when both of you will have to explain yourselves to this lad.’ Yet his words were not a rebuke, and I almost thought that a small smile played across his face when he spoke to us. He bowed to Burrich and went on, ‘Forgive me if I offend. I know that your sight is failing you, but your shoulders and back still look strong. If your son guided you, you could be most useful helping to pull the sleds full of ice chunks away from the work site. Would you help us, Burrich?’

I thought Burrich would refuse. I knew he still wished to avoid Web and all he stood for. But the request had been made courteously, and it was a way in which Burrich could be genuinely helpful. I could guess how it chafed him to stand by a trapped animal while others laboured to free him. Web’s offer was also putting Swift right at Burrich’s side, under his paternal authority. I saw Burrich make a difficult compromise. He spoke, not to Web, but to Swift, saying, ‘Guide me to the sled, lad, and let’s put our backs into it.’

I was left standing alone as Swift and Burrich, father and son, departed to do Web’s bidding. I watched them take up the hauling lines alongside Civil and Cockle. They leaned into their work, and despite Burrich’s bad leg, his brawn was much the greatest there. The laden sled moved steadily up the ramp and out of the pit. It had been neatly done, that throwing together of them, and I think Burrich welcomed it as much as Swift did not. Did Web try to mend the rift between them, even as he sought to mellow Burrich’s attitude toward the Wit?

I was still pondering the permutations of that when the final blast went off.

I now believe that the little kettle I had carelessly left burning when I retreated from the dragon’s head had continued to burn. Did it eventually ignite the hides it rested upon, spreading fire to the oil flask and to the powder container? Or had the flask of oil spilled when the earlier, smaller blasts overset it on the hides near the powder and kettle? I have spent far too much time wondering about such useless questions.

It was a larger charge of powder, intended to kill. The explosion from it burst the icy roof of the tunnel up into the air at the same time that it blew loose chunks of ice out of the tunnel’s mouth and into the pit where we all worked. Men and ice were flung in the slamming concussion of that blast. I myself was thrown across the excavation. In the wake of that blast, ice sharper than arrows rained down and pierced some of us. I felt the falling chunks, but all was white before me. I thought I had been blinded as well as deafened. Then the fine ice mist began to settle, revealing a soundless chaos. I saw Web stumbling past me, his hands clasped over his ears. I saw Eagle crumpled in a broken heap under immense chunks of ice. I saw men screaming but did not hear them. I wondered if I would ever hear anything ever again.

I lifted my eyes and saw Chade and Dutiful looking down in horror. They had not been in the pit, and an instant later I realized that the men dragging out the sleds would also have escaped the worst effects of the blast. But just as I found my feet and decided that none of my bones were broken, a second trembling shook me. The ground beneath me shifted, pieces of ice heaving beneath my feet, and new cracks gaped wide and then suddenly gave way. Black flesh heaved to the top through broken fragments of ice.

Free!

It was the most coherent thought I had received from Icefyre, and it was more a sensation of triumph than a word.

His immense black head lifted on a serpentine neck. His wings, half opened, served him as additional limbs as he levered his way up out of the clinging ice. The sight of his long trapped body woke pity in me, even in the midst of my horror at what had befallen my fellows. His flesh barely coated his bones, and his scaled skin was tattered and sagging like badly-sewn garments. When he opened his wings, there were rents and gaps in them, a fine cloak snagged by brambles.

He wallowed up from the ice, pausing several times to roar and struggle to free a leg and then a wingtip. He was heedless of the men who lay dazed about him, but that did not reassure me, for his sudden great hunger radiated like heat from him. For the first time, I knew on an instinctive level that I was prey to this far larger predator. My words to him would have no more effect on his thoughts than the wild frenzy of a rabbit had on a wolf’s thoughts. Nighteyes and I had never tried to speak to our meals while they were alive; neither would this creature. ‘Fool, what have you turned loose on this world?’ I groaned.

The dragon gave another lurching heave and emerged more fully from the tumbled ice. His size only became more impressive as he did so. As Icefyre gained footholds on the shifting wreckage of his tomb, he drew his tail up and out of the ice. It just kept coming, impossibly long, until it lay around him on the broken surface like a whip’s curled lash. He threw back his head suddenly and let out a wild cry that began as a deep roar and then climbed until it was beyond reach of my hearing. It was my first perception of sound since the blast, and it seemed a new sense to me as the creature’s trumpeting shook the lungs inside my body.

Then I saw his nostrils flare, and his wedged head dipped down toward Eagle’s body. Even though the man was dead, what was about to befall him appalled me. Icefyre nosed the body, dislodging it from the ice boulders that had crushed it. He lipped it carefully, and then lifted Eagle up and shook the remaining ice fragments from him, like Nighteyes worrying dead leaves from a fish. The dragon ate like a gull, tossing the meat that had been a man up into the air and opening his maw wide so that the falling body was halfway down his gullet before he gulped. Then Eagle was no more than a lump sliding down that long throat.

The wolf in me was non-judgmental: a dead man might as well be meat as anything else, and the dragon had done no more than eat carrion. I myself had done it in times of great hunger, and had been glad to steal a share of a bear’s kill while the owner slept off his gluttony. But Eagle had been a man and a leader of men, someone who had eaten beside me and met my eyes over a fireside. It upset my order in the world that he could suddenly be no more than food for this creature we had wakened.

In that instant, I dimly grasped the immense scale on which our actions had reordered the world. This was no dragon of stone, imbued with the souls of heroes, awakened to save us. This was a huge creature of flesh, with appetites and drives and the will to sate them for the sake of his own survival, with no regard for what it might cost us humans.

I lifted dazed eyes to look for escape. I was not immediately in front of Icefyre, but I was among his closest available prey. I was shocked to see the bleeding men who had staggered forward to line the edges of the pit and stare down in amazement at what we had freed. Burrich was there, his hand clamped on Swift’s shoulder, and Cockle with his greedy minstrel’s eyes and Civil. His cat by his knee was twice his normal size, every hair on his body standing up. I looked in vain for Chade and Dutiful and feared they had perished. I saw one booted foot not far from me, and hoped a body was still attached to it under the flung snow. Who was it? I saw Swift’s arm lift, his finger pointing at me urgently as he spoke to Burrich, and then that great fool moved his mouth and I knew the words he shouted out, ‘Fitz! Fitz, get out of there, flee!’

And the dragon’s head turned toward that shout. I saw his whirling eyes of silver and black focus on the man who had raised me, I saw his head lift at the end of that long neck, and ‘No!’ I roared out, my own words little more than a whisper to my ears.

He seemed to know he had drawn the dragon’s attention to himself, for Burrich turned and gave Swift a savage shove that sent him flying to sprawl face down in the snow. He turned, weaponless, to face the dragon.

And then a second shock threw me from my feet. Suddenly the earth seemed to be giving way under me. Icefyre was also abruptly struggling to keep his footing. He spread his tattered wings wide and clawed at the edges of the pit. Men fled before him as he scrabbled at the edge of it and then hauled himself up out of it. As he did so, the ice beneath him fell away into a gaping hole. Even as I clung to the edges of the pit, some part of my mind recognized what had happened. His struggles to free himself and perhaps Chade’s exploding powder had weakened the ceiling of the Pale Woman’s grand throne room. It was caving in on her.

I savagely hoped she would be crushed under the fall. I looked down at the collapsing ice chunks, draining in ponderous boulders into the palace below. I wondered if some opening to the chamber below would suddenly be revealed, wondered if I could enter that way and survive such a fall amid the cascading ice and somehow free the Fool while he still lived. More likely was that the collapse of the ice ceiling into the chamber below would fill and obliterate it. A quick end for him, some part of me suggested, but I roared out, ‘No! No, no, no! Beloved Fool! No!’

As if in answer to my cry, something shifted in the ice below me. I stared at it, unable to comprehend the strength of whatever bucked and heaved beneath that avalanche. The movement subsided.

I clung to the icy ledge, and cried out in shock as Dutiful’s hand suddenly gripped my wrist. ‘Come up!’ he bellowed at me, and I suddenly knew he had been calling to me before this, trying to get my attention away from the fall of ice and the struggling dragon. Icefyre was almost free of the pit. The others seemed to have fled, save for two limp bodies that I could not identify.

I gave Dutiful my weight and he grunted as he took it, bracing to allow me to scrabble up the edge of the pit and out. ‘Where is Chade? We must flee!’ I bellowed at him. He made a wide gesture that seemed to indicate that the others had fled downhill, toward the camp. Then he opened his mouth wide and then wider as his eyes popped from their sockets in terror. I twisted to look back over my shoulder, for he was staring down into the pit. In the bottom of the collapsed pit of ice, churning his way to the top like a toad emerging from an icy hibernation was the Pale Woman’s dragon. Life had imparted no grace to him. He was still a creature crudely carved and fashioned of many discordant lives, a murky grey colour like unfired clay. My Wit sensed his roaring hunger. He was hollow with appetite and I knew he would devour anything within his reach. Then the blast of his Skill-thrust hit me, and I quailed before it. It was not just the hunger of a ravenous beast. One personality had come to dominate the dragon that wallowed and roared beneath us. I knew that she must have flung him to her stone dragon in a last wild effort to wake it. And the Pale Woman had succeeded.

Rawbread comes! I come to conquer and kill and devour. I hunger for farmers’ flesh. Revenge shall be mine today! His gaze snagged on Icefyre. Six Duchies dragon, today you die! The stone dragon lunged, his great jaws closing on the base of Icefyre’s tail. He braced his stubby legs and began to drag the black dragon back into the pit with him.

TWENTY-FIVE

Dragons

During the Red Ship Wars, many of the mothershouses paid unwilling tribute to Kebal Rawbread and the Pale Woman, in the form of a sacrifice of the males of their clans. Those who refused Rawbread’s forced muster of their warriors were punished by what is called here in the Six Duchies ‘Forging’. The Forging was mainly carried out against the women and female children of the clans. This left the males in an untenable position. The Forged females were a shame and a disgrace to the clan, yet no mothershouse could allow a male of the house to slay a female without exacting the same fate against him. It was better for the men to embark as warriors for Rawbread than to risk the complete destruction of their clan. The men who did eventually return to their mothershouses were changed creatures. Many of them apparently died in their sleep after the war. Some say their own mothershouse women poisoned them, for they no longer had the spirits of righteous sons.

Cockle’s Brief History of the Out Islands’ Red Ships

A blue-and-silver lightning bolt fell from the cloudless sky. She plunged directly into the pit, all lashing tail and darting head, her wide-held jaws revealing rows of dagger-like teeth. She landed on the dragon that had been Kebal Rawbread like a furious cat and her jaws closed on his neck just behind his blocky head. Her claws screeched and clattered over his scales as she sought to make good her grip on him and stay on top of his back. His shock at the attack broke his concentration on Icefyre. He opened his jaws to roar, and Icefyre jerked away from him.

‘Get clear of him. Clamber away, take flight. Do not seek to battle this one on the ground!’

Sounds came from Tintaglia. It was not language, but meaning rode with the sounds and I perceived it as speech. I do not think that all humans there grasped that she spoke. Certainly Icefyre knew that she spoke to him, and he bugled back to her, but I did not grasp his meaning fully. Perhaps my earlier exposures to Tintaglia had increased my comprehension of her. Whatever the reason, I saw the ragged dragon clamber to the edge of the pit, away from the lashing tangle of true dragon and stone dragon below him. I knew Tintaglia could not hold Rawbread long. She was a female, and I suspected it was a disparity of gender that made her so much smaller than Icefyre.

The stone dragon was massive and blocky, thick where Tintaglia was slender and flexible, heavy where she was light. In comparison to Rawbread, she was an attacking falcon pitted against a bull. She was quickness itself, yet she could not seem to damage him. Her teeth had sunk into his neck, but I saw no flow of blood. The scoring of her powerful clawed hindquarters down his flanks left only white scratches, as if a boy had scraped one stone down another. He did not appear to take hurt from them. He shook himself heavily, trying to dislodge her, but she gripped him fast, futilely battling him with weapons that did him no harm. Her claws were a woman’s fingernails pitted against a warrior’s leather armour. I wondered, did he have blood to shed? Or was he all stone animated by will?

And what could kill such a stone dragon? If his hide was impervious to a powerful creature like Tintaglia, what could stop him?

Wave after wave of Skilled hate emanated from Rawbread. I sensed his confusion and frustration as he tried to adapt to his unwieldy but powerful body. Quickened he might be, yet he was still somehow incomplete. His legs churned beneath him in the broken ice without propelling him from the pit. He unfolded one wing awkwardly but could not seem to flap it or even to tuck it back to his body. It remained outflung and useless. He whipped his heavy head ponderously from side to side in a futile effort to loosen the determined female.

Tintaglia’s silver eyes rolled to watch Icefyre’s progress. It was pitiably slow. He heaved himself out of the pit. When he rocked back onto his hind legs, the ravages of his long encasement in the ice were made even plainer. I could see his keeled breastbone through the sag of his scaly hide. He reminded me of a bird’s carcass, all eaten away by ants. He lifted his ragged wings wide. When he shook them experimentally, a waft of stinking sickly animal washed past me. He limbered his long neck and lashed his tail several times, like a man settling himself into clothes he had long outgrown. He seemed to take his time to do all this, as if the struggle in the pit did not concern him at all. He nosed over his wings, almost like a bird preening. Then he extended his wings and rattled them like a beggar crow settling his feathers back into place. He flapped them once, slowly, and again, and then the third time he drove them down with a force that sent snow whisking away from him and wind whistling through the rents in them. Suddenly he leaned into his wings, his muscled hind legs driving him forward and up. He lifted from the ice heavily like an awkward sea bird, but once his claws left the ground, it was as if he were released from its bonds. He rose steadily.

I caught a glimpse of Risk, circling high above us, and wondered how she must feel to see such an immense being rising toward her. Tintaglia, apparently deciding that Icefyre was now safely away from the awkward stone dragon, abruptly released her grip on Rawbread. She leapt, light as a lizard, into the air. Her silvery blue wings spread gracefully wide and in two beats of them she began to climb toward the sky.

Belatedly, Rawbread seemed to realize the attack on him had ceased. He threw back his head, roaring his hatred at us, then craned his neck to turn a mud-coloured eye toward the sky. His neck was shorter and thicker than that of the true dragons. A rolling, viscous rumble came from his throat.

The Pale Woman’s Skilling to him carried the force of fury. I was not the target of her thought and I felt but the brush of its passage yet had no problem discerning the message. Her power of Skill seemed less than it had been, as if the freeing of the dragon had exhausted her. She forced her thoughts through a quagmire of pain.

Kill the dragons, one of them, or both of them, but kill at least one! Never mind the humans. They cannot harm you. Later, you can devour them at your will. But for now, take your revenge on the Six Duchies. Kill their dragons, Rawbread!

And in that instant, he turned his heavy head and snapped at Tintaglia’s tail, closing his rocky jaws on its lashing tip. It jerked her from the grace of flight into a wild fall. She cried out and I saw Icefyre tip his wings and felt his gaze sweep over the struggle on the ground. He tilted and then dived sharply. The stone dragon had finally mastered how to spread his wings and he sought at first to brake Tintaglia’s flight, but in that awkward effort some vague idea of how to use them seemed to come to him. Never relinquishing his hold on Tintaglia’s tail, he beat his wings savagely, making abortive lunges into the air. The struggling queen dragon was jerked about like a kite on a string. She screamed, shrill as a sword being drawn, and suddenly coiled back to attack her attacker. It was a mistake. For all her size, she was a butterfly battering herself against a lizard. The wind of her wildly fluttering wings sprayed icy snow into my face and drove me down, but did not impress Rawbread at all. He buffeted her with his heavy wings, slamming blows that sounded heavy slaps like a slaughterhouse hammer against her flesh.

He would kill her.

An instant later, the consequence of that thought came to me. The Pale Woman would still have won. Despite all, she would have put an end to dragons in the world. And no man could stop it from happening now. If Tintaglia’s claws had not even scored the stone dragon’s flesh, what could any weapon of ours do against him?

A lifetime had passed in a heartbeat. I became aware of the Prince standing frozen beside me and cursed my foolishness. I shook him and bellowed, ‘Get out of here! There’s nothing we can do. Run!’

And still he stood and gaped, transfixed by the battle before us.

Then Icefyre struck, a bolt of black lightning. The force of that immense body striking the stone dragon shook the earth like one of Chade’s explosions. Dutiful and I were flung to the earth. When I managed to get to my knees and clear my eyes, Tintaglia was clear of the battle. She crawled away from it, wings and feet dragging her across the snowy ground. Where her thick blood fell on the snow, it smoked. My Wit sensed the waves of pain that flowed from her. I do not think she had ever felt such agony; the outrage and horror of it stunned her.

Impossibly, the two battling males rose, clawing and flapping, from the pit of tumbled ice. The battering force of their wing beats drove the Prince and me to our knees over and over again as we stumbled and fought to get clear of their combat. I dragged Dutiful back, shouting, ‘If a stone dragon overshadows you for long, he can Forge you! We must flee!’ Then the force of the wind from their wings lessened. Dutiful stumbled as I thrust him away from me, but I halted and looked back. And up.

Locked in battle, yet still they rose, wings beating almost in unison. It appeared a strange and twisting dance they performed, claws seeking grips and their heads repeatedly striking like darting snakes. But it was the strength of Icefyre’s battered wings that bore them up more than the stone dragon’s efforts. Clenched together, they rose screaming, until they were black silhouettes in the blue sky.

‘Fitz! Look!’ Dutiful’s shout was a whisper to my damaged, ringing ears, but I could not ignore the way he shook me. The idiot had come back. He was pointing down into the pit full of collapsed ice. There was a small opening at one end of it where the sliding ice had not quite filled the palatial chamber beneath it. A small gap remained open. Coming up that tumbled and shifting slope of ice was Elliania. She gripped a shrieking, struggling girl by the chains about her wrist and dragged her behind her as she determinedly ploughed her way up toward us. The girl’s hair was matted to her head with filth and a ragged shift barely covered her, but for all that, the family resemblance was strong. Elliania had captured her sister. Peottre was behind her, half-crawling as he emerged from the hole. A drawn and bloody sword was in his hand, and he towed a limp and emaciated woman behind him. Blood from a scalp wound sheeted one side of his face. As soon as he could stand, he seized the woman and tried to race up the slope, but the treacherous chunks of ice shifted and slid under his feet. He gained a span or two and then went down on one knee. He was breathing in gasps as if he were nearly at the end of his strength. As we watched, he suddenly dropped his sister to the ground and turned to face his pursuers as they emerged on their hands and knees from the hole. Oerttre Blackwater fell limply, unconscious or dead, and began to slide back down toward the gap.

Elliania had reached us. She glanced back and shrieked as she saw Peottre brought to bay. ‘Hold this!’ she commanded Dutiful, and flung the chain at him. He caught it by reflex, gaping at his dishevelled intended. Blood had run from one of her nostrils, outlining that side of her mouth in a caked line, and her wild hair hung loose around her face. Then she spun from him, short sword in her hand and charged back toward Peottre. Dutiful was left gripping the Forged girl’s chain.

‘Hold this!’ Dutiful suddenly echoed her and flung the chain at me. It fell to the earth before I could catch it, but I stepped forward to trap it under my foot before she could flee. But she didn’t wish to flee. Instead, she flung herself at me, mouth gaping wide. To my Wit, she wasn’t there, but as I caught her and tried to fend off her attack, my flesh felt the impact of her blows. I have fought many men, but never had I reckoned on dealing with an emaciated ten-year-old girl with absolutely no fears or concerns for her own survival. Teeth and nails and knees, she sought determinedly to rip or pound my flesh from my bones, and made some fair headway at doing so, clawing my face and sinking her teeth into my wrist before I managed to fling her down in the snow. I covered her with my body, pressing her to the ice until I could roll her onto her belly. I reached under her and seized her elbows and then jerked her back against me, so that her arms were crossed on her own chest. She continued to kick at me, but she was barefoot and the heavy leather of my trousers muted those blows. She ducked her head then and seized my sleeve in her teeth, worrying it as if it were prey, but good wool was all she gripped, so I let her chew at it. When her biting did not bring her release, she flung her head back, thudding it against my chest. It was not pleasant, but as long as I kept my chin up, I could withstand it.

Having so bravely immobilized my scrawny opponent, I craned to see what was happening below me. In the pit of sliding snow, Elliania had reached her mother. She crouched over Oerttre, blade ready, her last line of defence as Peottre fought two of the Pale Woman’s dead-eyed guards. I did not know if Elliania was poised to hold off attackers or deal her mother’s death blow before she could be taken again. For a heart-stopping moment, I could not see Dutiful. Then I caught a glimpse of him past Peottre. He stood squarely in the mouth of the hole from which the Narcheska and Peottre had emerged. His knife was red and whoever was down there was not getting past him.

We are attacked! Chade’s Skilled warning reached me at the same moment that shouts turned my head. I looked down toward our camp. From somewhere, the Pale Woman’s minions had appeared, to fall upon our reduced and rattled party. It looked as if they were trying to prevent anyone from going to Tintaglia’s aid, though none of them were yet brave enough to attack the fallen dragon. I had a glimpse of my old mentor as I had never before seen him. Feet braced, blade in hand, Chade stood beside Longwick. Thick crouched behind them, wailing, his arms wrapped protectively over his head.

Thick! Push at them, like you push at me! Not all of them will give way, but some will. Fight back! Tell them, Go away, and don’t see us! Please, Thick! Despair washed over me as I gripped the still struggling girl to me. I dared not let her go, but while I held her, I was useless to do anything else.

Thick had not reacted to my suggestion, I thought. And then, I saw the little man lift one of his arms and peer out like a fearful child. Then, face set in a grimace, I felt a faint wash of the Skill he directed at their attackers.

Go away, go away, go away, go away!

I saw at least two of the Pale Woman’s warriors do just that, abruptly turning their backs on the battle and striding away as if they had suddenly remembered urgent business elsewhere. Several others seemed to lose the momentum of their attacks, reduced to defending themselves as they suddenly wondered why they were there and attacking us.

Do it again, Thick! Help me! I could feel Chade’s failing wind in that Skilling. His sword weighed as much as the earth, and he had never liked seeing a man’s eyes when he killed him. Then I felt a red wash of pain as a blade slipped up the top of his forearm. I saw Thick spring back, gripping his own arm.

Chade! Block your pain! Thick is feeling it. Thick! Tell the pain to go away. Give it to the bad men. You can do it!

Then a buffet of wind from above me made me crouch like a field mouse that feels the wash of an owl’s wings above him. The dragons were back, fighting in terrible silence save for the battering rush of their wings and the dull impacts they dealt to one another. They had soared high, locked in their frenzy. Cowering, I stared up at them and thought I knew Rawbread’s strategy. He clung to Icefyre, his jaws clenched on the back of the other dragon’s neck. Icefyre was expending most of his energy in an effort to stay aloft. Well he knew he could not hope to defeat the stone dragon on the ground. The frailer dragon twisted and writhed, trying to escape the stone dragon’s deadly grip.

They could come down on top of us!

‘Get out of there!’ I roared down at Dutiful. ‘The dragons are falling!’

Dutiful looked up, startled, and then leapt back to avoid his opponent’s blade. The Prince shouted something toward Peottre and the Narcheska. Peottre had finished one of his men and the other was retreating from him. The Narcheska seized her mother’s ankle and began to drag her out of the pit, all the while keeping her blade at the ready. I reached a hand to her as she got closer to me, then seized her by her sword wrist and hauled her up and over the edge of the pit. She dragged her mother gracelessly behind her. An instant later, I had to make good my grip on her little sister again as she spat and struggled. Elliania dragged her mother away from the edge and then screamed, ‘Get out of there! They’re falling!’

She was right. The dragons were a struggling knot that was plummeting larger and larger toward us. Dutiful and Peottre both fled their battles, the treacherous ice tumbling and sliding under their feet as they struggled to move uphill and out of the collapsed pit. Elliania, dragging her mother by her ankles, was beating her own retreat, desperately shrieking at Dutiful and Peottre to hurry, hurry. I stooped, seized the little girl, and followed her. I knew there was nothing else I could do and yet I felt a coward as I ran. Then, his boots pounding the ice, Dutiful passed me. He reached the Narcheska and stooping, scooped up her mother and threw her across his shoulders. A moment later, Peottre’s hand fell heavily on my shoulder, pushing me faster as we fled together. The shadows of the falling dragons spread wider around us. I felt stupefied and dizzy for a moment, and then staggered on. We caught up to Dutiful and the women. Elliania pointed upward wordlessly.

Icefyre had shaken free of Rawbread. His frantically beating wings bore him higher and higher as Rawbread plummeted gracelessly back toward the earth, his outspread wings able to do little more than break the force of his heavy body’s descent.

The crash of his impact shook the icy earth. He had landed half in the pit and half on the edge where I had been standing but moments before. I hoped he was dead, but he slowly rolled to his feet and shook out his wings. His blunt head quested on his thick neck, turning this way and that. Then like a squat lizard digging his way out of mud, his powerful limbs moved and he crawled out of the pit on his belly, his tail lashing angrily as it churned the snow behind him. He seemed to stare right at me and my entrails turned to ice in that glare.

Then, like a sharply-reined horse, he flung back his head and shook it in frustration. His eyes, lacklustre in contrast to Tintaglia’s whirling silver, looked past me and fixed on the downed female dragon. He diverted from us and lumbered toward her, snorting angrily. I became aware of the Pale Woman’s Skilled exhortations to him to kill the female and all would be well, that he then could sate his anger and hunger as he pleased. But first, kill the female. Nothing stood between him and triumph now. She could not fight him.

But the Pale Woman was wrong. My heart fell as I perceived that Tintaglia still had two defenders. Blind Burrich stood next to the dragon, his folded cloak pressed hard to her neck as he sought to quell her bleeding. The smoking of the fabric made me wonder of what stuff dragon blood was made. Burrich was intent on his task, and Tintaglia’s head on her long neck was coiled back protectively toward her body. They both seemed unaware of the lumbering death that made his ponderous way down the hill toward them.

But Swift was not. He stood before her, an ant protecting a castle. The Fool’s brightly painted arrow flew from his bow, to splinter uselessly against the stone dragon. Undaunted, he drew another from his quiver, nocked it and drew it back. From some reserve of courage that seemed too large for such a small boy to contain, he took two steps forward, toward the dragon. He let fly again, with as futile a result. Still, he stood his ground as he pulled out yet another arrow. To reach Tintaglia, Rawbread would have to trample him. I saw Swift call a warning back to his father over his shoulder. An arrow was set to Swift’s bow. And all I could do was watch helplessly as the stone dragon’s relentless gaze fixed on the boy. Abruptly, Rawbread broke into a clumsy gallop. Swift looked up at his death and his mouth stretched wide in a scream that was both terror and defiance. His bow shook in his hands, the head of the grey arrow wobbling wildly, but he stood his ground.

Burrich lifted his head. He turned. Even now, I recall every instant of that moment. I saw him draw breath and heard through the ringing of my ears the deep roar of his outrage that anything would threaten his son.

I had never seen him move so swiftly. He threw himself toward Swift and the dragon, his boots throwing up clumps of snow as he ran. Tintaglia lifted her head slightly, feeble witness to his charge. Then Burrich was between his boy and the dragon, drawing his belt-knife as he ran. It was the most ridiculous and the most courageous attack I’ve ever witnessed. As he sprang to meet the suddenly-bewildered dragon’s charge, he drew back his knife. I saw the blade splinter as he drove it against the stony flesh. At the same moment, I felt the blast of Wit repel that he levelled at the creature. It was like one of Chade’s explosions. It was the fierceness of a stallion defending his herd, the savagery of a wolf or bear that protects its cubs, compounded more from love of what he protected than hatred of what he battled. It was targeted at the dragon, and the prodigious force of that blast dropped the stone beast to his knees.

But as Rawbread fell, a wild flap of his heavy wing swatted Burrich, flinging the man to one side as if he were nothing. His body spun as he flew. ‘No!’ I cried, but it was done. He hit the frozen snow badly, bending like a flung rag-doll, and then skidding away across the ice, spinning as he went. Rawbread lumbered back onto his clawed black feet. He shook his heavy head and I saw him gasp for breath. Then he advanced, open-mouthed, on both Swift and Tintaglia.

Swift had turned his head to watch the shattering of his father’s body. Now he turned back to the dragon, and the roar that stretched his mouth wide was hatred, pure and simple. With that strength, he drew his bowstring back and back, until I thought the bow itself would splinter. I saw him become his arrow as he locked eyes with the dragon lumbering toward him.

He let his shaft fly.

True as a father’s love, the shining grey missile flew. It struck the dragon’s eye and sank in, nearly vanishing. I saw Rawbread begin to lift a forefoot to paw at it. Then he halted abruptly, as if listening to someone. I was aware of the Skill the Pale Woman directed at him, as she hysterically commanded him to finish it, kill the bowman, kill the she-dragon, and then he could do whatever he wished, whatever he wished at all. I thought Rawbread paused to listen to her. But he did not move again. The drab colour of life fled his skin, as a dull patina of stone settled over him. He remained as he was, wings half lifted, forepaw about to claw the arrow from his eye, jaws agape. A silence of disbelief settled over the whole battle. The stone dragon was dead.

An instant later, the girl in my arms came back to life. My Wit-sense of her blossomed into full bloom. She had stopped struggling at the moment of the dragon’s death. Now she suddenly curled into my arms. ‘I’m so cold. I’m so hungry,’ she wailed, and then, as I looked down in astonishment at her, she burst into childish tears.

‘A moment, a moment,’ I told her, and hated that I had to set her little bare feet down on the snow. I tore Chade’s cloak from my body and settled it around her. It came all the way down to her toes, and as I picked her up again, she pulled her feet up into it gratefully, huddling into a shivering ball in my arms. ‘Give her to me, give her to me!’ Peottre demanded. Tears were streaming down his face, cutting through the blood.

‘Oh, little fish, oh my Kossi! Elliania, look, look, our Kossi has come back to us. She is herself!’ The old warrior turned to his niece, and then as if joy had drained his strength from him, he fell to his knees, holding the child to his chest and murmuring over her.

Elliania looked over at us, her heart in her eyes, and then looked down at the woman who sprawled in the snow at her feet. She dropped to her knees by her mother and her tears came as she said, ‘We saved one of them. At least we saved one of them. Mother, I did my best. We tried so hard.’

Dutiful looked over at her from where he knelt on the other side of the woman. Gentle as a nurse, he pushed the filthy hair back from her emaciated face. ‘No. You saved both of them. She’s unconscious, Elliania, but she’s back, too. I can feel her with my Wit-sense. Your mother has come back to you, too.’

‘But … how can you know this?’ She stared down at the woman’s face, not daring yet to hope.

Dutiful smiled at her. ‘I promise you, I know this is so. It’s an old Farseer magic, a gift of my father’s lineage.’ He stooped again to take up the lax woman. ‘Let’s get her to warmth and shelter. And food. The battle seems to be over, for now.’

They all just stopped fighting when the dragon died, Chade confirmed for me as I stood and peered out over the battlefield below us. It was as if they all just suddenly lost heart.

No. They regained it. It’s hard to explain, Chade, but I feel it with the Wit. Her servants were partially Forged, but with the dragon’s death, all that was taken and put into him came back to them. The same thing happened to the Narcheska’s mother and sister. They’re no longer Forged. Have the Outislanders speak to those we fought. Offer them food and welcome. And comfort them. They may be very confused.

I allowed my eyes to wander over the battlefield below me, and saw the truth of my own thought. The Pale Woman’s soldiers, to a man, had dropped their weapons. One man stood, his hands clapped over his ears, weeping. Another had seized one of his fellows by the shoulder and was laughing wildly as he spoke to him. A small group of men stood clustered around the stone dragon. Lifeless, it had settled unevenly into the glacier, an ugly statue set awry.

But strangest of all was that Tintaglia had come to her feet. She walked stiff-legged as a stalking cat toward the stone dragon. Cautiously, she extended her head on her gracile neck. She sniffed the monster, nosed it cautiously, and then without warning, struck it a ringing blow with her clawed forepaw. The stone dragon rocked stiffly in the snow but did not fall over. Nonetheless, Tintaglia lifted her head high on her long neck and trumpeted her triumph over her foe. Blood might still ooze from the bites and scratches he had dealt her, but she claimed victory as hers. And around her, men raised their voices to join their cries of triumph to hers. If ever there had been a stranger sight than this dragon celebrating amidst human cheering, than no minstrel has ever told it.

From high above, a trumpeting call echoed hers. Battered and tattered, Icefyre circled in a wide spiral above us. He banked his wings and slid down the sky, swooping over us in a lower circuit. On the ground, Tintaglia threw back her head and bugled again. Around her throat, panels of her scales suddenly stood up like a mane and a crest on her head, scarcely noticeable before, stood erect and silver like a crown. A wash of colour went over her, from deepest blue to brightest silver. The men who had gathered around her drew back. When she leapt from the ground to the air it was effortless in the manner of a cat floating from the floor up to a tabletop. Her wings opened as she sprang, and with three beats of them she was climbing.

Icefyre immediately tipped his wings and stroked them frantically, but the female easily outdistanced him as they climbed. He trumpeted after her lustily, but she did not bother to reply. Her wings carried her up and up, until to my straining eyes she might have been a silver gull winging overhead. Icefyre, almost twice her size, starved and tattered, battered his way through the sky in pursuit of her. I blinked as they passed before the sun.

Then they were spiralling together. His deep cries were a challenge to all the world, but her higher calls were a defiance and mockery of him alone. He was above her for a moment, and then she tipped her wings and slid away from him. So I thought. Instead he clapped his wings to his body and fell upon her, his wide-open jaws so scarlet that even at that distance I perceived it before his teeth clamped onto her outstretched neck. Then his larger wings overshadowed hers, and suddenly their beating synchronized. He pulled her tight against him, his longer tail wrapping hers as he arched around her.

I knew what I witnessed. By that mating flight, there would be dragons in our skies again. I stared up at that wonder, at their casual flaunting of their return to life, and wondered what we had restored to the world.

‘I do not understand!’ The Narcheska exclaimed in horror. ‘She came all this way to save him and now he attacks her. Look at them fight!’

Dutiful cleared his throat. ‘I don’t think they’re fighting.’

‘Then … Yes they are! Look how he bites her! Why does he seize her like that, if not to hurt her?’ Elliania shaded her eyes with one hand as she looked up in wonder at them. Her dark hair fell tangled down her shoulders and back and her uplifted chin bared the long straight column of her neck. Her tunic strained over her breasts. Dutiful made a small sound in his throat. He lifted his eyes from looking at her and his gaze went from me to Peottre. Her uncle had one arm around his sister’s shoulders and held Kossi in his other. I think the Prince decided that our opinion of the matter no longer concerned him. He stepped closer to Elliania and took her in his arms. ‘I’ll show you,’ he said to her astonishment. He clasped her firm and close, and lowered his mouth to hers.

Despite all that had befallen me that day, despite every loss I had sustained, I found myself smiling. That which surged between the dragons above must affect any man sensitive to the Skill. The Narcheska broke the kiss at last. Lowering her brow to his shoulder, she laughed softly. ‘Oh,’ she said. Then she lifted her face again to be kissed. I looked aside.

Oerttre did not. She was scandalized. Despite her rags and filth, her reaction was regal. ‘Peottre! You allow a farmer to kiss our Narcheska?’

He laughed aloud. I was shocked to realize it was the first time I’d ever heard the man laugh. ‘No, my sister. But she does, and she allots to him what he has earned. There is much explaining to do yet. But I promise you, what happens there is not against her will.’ He smiled. ‘And what is a man that he should oppose the will of a woman?’

‘It is not proper,’ Oerttre replied primly, and despite her stained dress and caked hair, her words were that of a Narcheska of the Out Islands. It struck me how completely she had come back to herself.

Abruptly it came to me that if the Fool still lived, then with the dragon’s death, whatever Forging had been done to him would have come undone as well. Wild hope leapt in me and the world lurched around me. ‘The Fool!’ I exclaimed, and then when Peottre looked at me in disapproval, to see if I mocked the Prince, I clarified, ‘The tawny man. Lord Golden. He might yet live!’

I turned and ran over the crusted snow. I reached the edge of what had been our pit and tried to find a safe way down into it. The upheaval of the dragons had made it a treacherous place. The opening that Peottre and the Narcheska had emerged from was gone. Rawbread’s final landing in the side of the pit and his struggles to get out of it had obscured that gap into the Pale Woman’s palace. But I knew where it had been and surely, surely, it could not be buried that deeply. I set out down the unstable slope, trying to hurry and yet keep my footing as the broken ice crunched and then cascaded past me. I halted and forced myself to walk more carefully. I picked my way down the sliding slope, hating the delay. Every chunk of ice I dislodged now was yet another I must move. The opening had been at the deepest end of the pit. I was nearly to it when I heard someone call my name. I halted and looked over my shoulder. Peottre stood at the edge of the excavation, looking down on me. He shook his head, his eyes full of pity. He spoke bluntly.

‘Give it up, Badgerlock. He’s dead. Your comrade is dead. I’m sorry. We saw him when we were searching the cells for our people. I had promised myself that if he were still alive, we would try to steal him, too. But he wasn’t. We were too late. I’m sorry.’

I stood staring up at him. Suddenly I couldn’t see him. The contrast between the brightness of the day and his dark silhouette seemed to blind me. Cold crept up me followed by a wave of numbness. I thought I would faint. I sat down very slowly in the ice. I hated the stupid words that came from my mouth. ‘Are you sure?’

Peottre nodded, and then said reluctantly, ‘Very sure. They had –’ He stopped speaking suddenly. When he resumed, he said flatly, ‘He was dead. He could not have lived through that. He was dead.’ He took a breath and then sighed it out slowly. ‘They are calling for you, down at the camp. The boy, Swift, he is with the dying man. They want you there.’

The dying man. Burrich. He jolted back into my thoughts like one of Chade’s explosions. Yes. I would lose him, too. It was too much, far too much. I put my face down in my hands and curled up, rocking back and forth in the snow. Too much. Too much.

‘I think you should hurry.’ Blackwater’s voice reached me from some distant place. Then I heard someone else say quietly, ‘You go tend to your own people. I’ll see to mine.’

I heard someone working his way down the slope of ice to me, but I didn’t care. I just sat there, trying to die, trying to let go of a life where I failed everyone that I cared about. Then a hand fell heavily on my shoulder and Web said, ‘Get up, FitzChivalry. Swift needs you.’

I shook my head childishly. I would never, never let anyone depend on me again.

‘Get up!’ he said more sternly. ‘We’ve lost enough people today. We’re not going to lose you, too.’

I lifted my head and looked up at him. I felt Forged. ‘I was lost a long time ago,’ I told him. Then I took a deep breath, stood up and followed him.

TWENTY-SIX

Healings

The Chalcedean practice of tattooing one’s slaves with a special mark of ownership began as a fashion among the nobility. In the early days of it, only the most valuable slaves, slaves one expected to own for a lifetime, were so marked. The custom seems to have escalated when Lord Grart and Lord Porte, both powerful nobles in the Chalcedean court, entered a rivalry to display their wealth. Jewellery, horses and slaves were the measure of wealth at that time, and Lord Grart chose to have all of his horses prominently branded and all of his slaves tattooed. Ranks of both accompanied him everywhere he went. It is said that Lord Porte, in imitation of his rival, actually bought hundreds of cheap slaves of little or no standing as craftsmen or academics, simply for the purpose of tattooing them as his and displaying them.

At that time in Chalced, some slave craftsmen and artisans and courtesans were allowed by their masters to accept outside commissions. Occasionally one of these privileged slaves would earn enough to purchase his freedom. Many masters were understandably reluctant to let such valuable slaves go. As tattoos of ownership could not be removed from the slave’s face without substantial scarring, and freedom papers were widely falsified, it was difficult for former slaves to prove they had earned their freedom. Slave owners took advantage of this by creating expensive ‘freedom rings’, earrings of gold or silver, often with jewels, the design unique to each noble family, that indicated a particular slave had earned his freedom. Often it took a slave years of service, after he had bought his freedom, to purchase the expensive earring that showed he was truly free to move about Chalced as he pleased, on his own recognizance.

Fedwren’s History of Chalced’s Slave Customs

I am no stranger to the aftermath of battle. I’ve walked across bloody earth and stepped over hacked bodies. Yet never before had I been in a place where the futility of war was so clearly illustrated. Warriors bound up the wounds they had dealt to one another, and Outislanders who had fought us now anxiously asked the Hetgurd men for news of relatives and clan lands left years ago. Like men wakened from a legendary sleep they were, groping after lost lives, trying to cross a rift of years. It was too clear that they well remembered all that they had done as servants of the Pale Woman. I recognized one of the guards who had dragged me before her. He looked hastily aside from my gaze, and I did not confront him. Peottre had already told me the only thing I needed to know.

I made my way through our camp. With an almost unseemly haste, it was being struck. Two badly-injured men, both from the Pale Woman’s force, were already loaded on the sleds, and the tents were coming down. A hasty ice cairn was being assembled over three dead men. All of them had belonged to her. Icefyre had eaten Eagle, the Hetgurd man who had fallen to the dragon. There would be no entombment for him. The other two men we had lost, Fox and Deft, had already been buried in the collapse of the pit. No sense digging them up only to bury them again, I supposed. It seemed a hasty and irreverent way to leave our fallen, but I sensed the emotion that drove it. There was an aura of haste to this departure, as if the sooner we could leave this place, the faster the Pale Woman would become a creature of the past. I hoped that she, too, was entombed beneath the immense fall of ice.

Web walked beside me and Chade came hurrying to meet me. Someone had bandaged his arm. ‘This way,’ he told me, and led me to where Burrich lay in the snow. Swift knelt beside him. They had not tried to move him. There was a wrenching wrongness to how his body lay. The spine is not meant to twist like that. I dropped to my knees beside him, surprised to find his eyes open. His hand spidered feebly against the snow. I slipped mine underneath it. He was breathing shallowly, as if hiding from the pain lurking in the lower half of his body. He managed a single word. ‘Alone.’

I looked at Web and Chade. Without a word, they withdrew. Burrich’s eyes met Swift’s. The boy looked stubborn. Burrich took a slightly deeper breath. There was a colour in his skin around his mouth and eyes, a strange darkening. ‘Just a moment,’ he said huskily to his son. Swift bowed his head slightly and walked away from us.

‘Burrich,’ I said, but an almost sharp movement of his hand against mine bid me stop.

I saw him gather the remnants of his strength. He paced himself, taking a breath for each phrase he uttered. ‘Go home,’ he said. And then, commanding me, ‘Take care of them. Molly. The lads.’ I started to shake my head. He asked the impossible of me. For a moment his hand tightened on mine, a shadow of his old grip. ‘Yes. You will. You must. For me.’ Another breath. He furrowed his brow, as if making an important choice. ‘Malta and Ruddy. When she comes in season. Not Brusque. Ruddy.’ He wagged one finger at me, as if I had thought to argue that decision. He took a deeper breath. ‘Wish I would see that foal.’ He blinked his eyes slowly, then, ‘Swift,’ he said, painfully.

‘Swift!’ I shouted and saw the loitering boy lift his head and start to run back to us.

Just before he reached us, Burrich spoke again. He almost smiled as he said, ‘I was the better man for her.’ A breath. In a whisper, ‘She still would have chosen you. If you’d come back.’

Then Swift flung himself to his knees in the snow beside Burrich and I gave my place over to him. Chade and Web had come back with a heavy blanket. Web spoke. ‘We’re going to try to scoop out the snow under you and sling you in the blanket to put you on the sled. The Prince has already released the bird that will summon the ships to fetch us back to Zylig.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Burrich said. His hand closed on Swift’s as he shut his eyes. A few moments later, I saw his hand go lax.

‘Move him now,’ I suggested. ‘While he’s unconscious.’

I helped them, digging in the snow under Burrich’s body and sliding the blanket beneath him. Despite our efforts to be gentle, he moaned as we moved him, and my Wit-sense of him faded a notch. I said nothing, but I am sure that Swift was as aware of it as I was. The situation didn’t need words. We loaded him onto the sled with the other two injured men. Just before we left that place, I looked up into the clear sky, searching. But there was no sign of either dragon.

‘Not even a thank you,’ I commented to Web.

He shrugged wordlessly and we set out.

For the rest of that day, I either walked beside Burrich or took turns pulling the sled. Swift walked always where he could see his father, but I do not think Burrich’s eyes opened again that day. Thick rode on the tail of the sled, huddled in a blanket and staring. Kossi and Oerttre rode on the other sled, well bundled against the cold. Peottre pulled it, humming a tune as he trudged along, while the Narcheska and Dutiful walked alongside it. They were in front of us. I could not hear what the Narcheska was telling her mother, but I could guess. Her eye, when it fell on Dutiful, was slightly less disapproving, but mostly her gaze lingered on her daughter, with pride. The remaining Hetgurd men led us, probing the snow for cracks as we went.

Web and then Chade came to walk alongside me for a time. There was nothing to say and that was what we said.

I counted it up to myself, mostly because I could not stop my mind from doing so. My prince had led here one dozen men plus Swift and Thick. Six Hetgurd men had come to oversee us. Twenty in all. Plus the Fool and Burrich. Twenty-two. The Pale Woman had killed Hest and Riddle and the Fool. Burrich was dying from the injury her dragon had dealt him. Eagle had died in the rain of ice from Chade’s explosion. Fox and Deft were likewise lost. Sixteen of us would return to Zylig. Assuming that Churry and Drub had survived on the beach alone. I drew a deep breath. We were bringing the Narcheska’s mother and sister home. Surely that counted for something. And eight Outislanders would be going back to their homes, men their families had long believed dead. I tried to feel some sort of satisfaction, but could not find it. This last and briefest battle of the Red Ship War had been the most costly to me.

Peottre called a halt in the grey of evening and we made a quiet camp. We used two of the tents to erect a makeshift shelter around the sled that the injured men were on so we would not have to move them. The other two were able to speak and eat, but Burrich was still and quiet. I brought Swift food and drink, and sat with him for a time, but after a while, I sensed that he wished to be alone with his father. I left him there and went out to walk under the stars.

There is no true dark to a night in that land. Only the brightest of the stars showed. The night was cold and the constant wind blew, heaping loose snow against the shelters. I could not think of anywhere I wanted to be or anything I wanted to do. Chade and the Prince were crowded into the Narcheska’s tent with Peottre’s family. There was triumph and rejoicing there; both were foreign emotions to me. The Hetgurd men and the recovered Outislanders were having a reunion of sorts. I walked past a tiny fire where Owl was matter-of-factly burning a dragon-and-serpent tattoo off a man’s forearm. The smell of roasting flesh rode the wind while the man grunted and then roared with the pain. Dutiful’s Wit-coterie, sans Swift, had also crammed themselves into a small tent. I heard Web’s deep voice as I went past and caught the gleam of a cat’s eye peering out. Doubtless they shared the Prince’s triumph. They had freed the dragon and he’d won the Narcheska’s regard.

Longwick sat alone before a small fire in front of a darkened tent. I wondered where he had got the brandy I smelled. I nearly walked past him with a silent nod, but something in his face told me that here was where I belonged tonight. I hunkered down and held my hands over the tiny fire. ‘Captain,’ I greeted him.

‘Of what?’ he retorted. He rolled his head back with a crackling sound, and then sighed. ‘Hest. Riddle. Deft. Doesn’t say much for me that all the men who accompanied me here are dead and I still live.’

‘I’m still alive,’ I pointed out to him.

He nodded. Then he gestured with his chin toward the tent and said, ‘Your half-wit’s in there, asleep. He looked a bit lost tonight, so I took him in.’

‘Thanks.’ I knew a moment of guilt, and then asked myself if I should have left Burrich to tend Thick. And reflected that perhaps having someone to oversee had been the best thing for Longwick. He shifted, and then offered me a brandy flask. It was a soldier’s flask, dented and scratched, his own hoard of spirits, and a gift to be respected. I drank from it sparingly before returning it to him.

‘Sorry about your friend. That Golden fellow.’

‘Yes.’

‘You went back a way.’

‘We were boys together.’

‘Were you? Sorry.’

‘Yes.’

‘I hope that bitch died slowly. Riddle and Hest were good men.’

‘Yes.’ I wondered if she had died at all. If she were still alive, could she be any threat to us? Dragon, Rawbread, and Forged servants had all been taken from her. She was Skilled, but I could think of no way she could use that against all of us. If she was alive, she was as alone as I was. Then I sat for a time, wondering which I hoped: that she was dead or alive and suffering? Finally, it came to me. I was too tired to care.

Some time later, Longwick asked me, ‘Are you really him? Chivalry’s Bastard?’

‘Yes.’

He nodded slowly to himself, as if that explained something. ‘More lives than a cat,’ he said quietly.

‘I’m going to bed,’ I told Longwick.

‘Sleep well,’ he said, and we both laughed bitterly.

I found my pack and bedding and took it into Longwick’s tent. Thick stirred slightly as I made my bed alongside him. ‘I’m cold,’ he mumbled.

‘Me, too. I’ll sleep against your back. That will help.’

I lay down in my blankets but I didn’t sleep. I wondered useless things. What had she done to the Fool? How had she killed him? Had he been completely Forged before she killed him? If she’d sent him into the dragon, did that mean he’d felt some final pain when the stone dragon died? Stupid, stupid questions.

Thick shifted heavily against my back. ‘I can’t find her,’ he said quietly.

‘Who?’ I asked sharply. The Pale Woman was large in my thoughts.

‘Nettle. I can’t find her.’

My conscience smote me. My own daughter, the man who had raised her dying, and I hadn’t even thought of reaching out to her.

Thick spoke again. ‘I think she’s afraid to go to sleep.’

‘Well. I can’t blame her.’ Only myself.

‘Are we going back home now?’

‘Yes.’

‘We didn’t kill the dragon.’

‘No. We didn’t.’

There was a long pause and I hoped he had gone back to sleep. Then he asked me quietly, ‘Are we going home on a boat?’

I sighed. His childish concern was the only thing that could have weighed me heavier. I tried to find sympathy for him. It was difficult. ‘It’s the only way we can go home, Thick. You know that.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘I don’t blame you.’

‘Me, neither.’ He sighed heavily. After a time he said, ‘So this was our adventure. And the Prince and the Princess get married and live happily ever after, with many children to warm them in their old age.’

He had probably heard that phrase thousands of times in his life. It was a common way for a minstrel to end a hero tale.

‘Perhaps,’ I said cautiously. ‘Perhaps.’

‘What happens to the rest of us?’

Longwick came into the tent. Quietly he began to make up his bed. From the way he moved, I suspected he had finished his brandy.

‘The rest of us go on with our lives, Thick. You’ll go back to Buckkeep and serve the Prince. When he becomes the King, you’ll be at his side.’ I reached to find his happy ending. ‘And you’ll live well, with pink sugar cakes and new clothes whenever you need them.’

‘And Nettle,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Nettle is at Buckkeep now. She’s going to teach me how to make good dreams. At least, that’s what she said. Before the dragon and all.’

‘Did she? That’s good.’

With that, he seemed to settle for the night. In a short time, his breathing took on the slower rhythm of sleep. I closed my eyes and wondered if Nettle could teach me how to make good dreams. I wondered if I’d ever have the courage to meet her. I didn’t want to think about her right now. If I thought about her, then I had to think about telling her about Burrich.

‘What will you do, Lord FitzChivalry?’ Longwick’s question in the dark was like a voice out of the sky.

‘That isn’t me,’ I said quietly. ‘I’ll go back to the Six Duchies and be Tom Badgerlock.’

‘Seems like a lot of people know your secret now.’

‘I think they are all men who know how to hold their tongues. And will do so, at Prince Dutiful’s request.’

He shifted in his blankets. ‘Some might do so merely at Lord FitzChivalry’s request.’

I laughed in spite of myself, then managed to say, ‘Lord FitzChivalry would greatly appreciate that.’

‘Very well. But I think it’s a shame. You deserve better. What of glory? What of men knowing what you have done and who you are, and giving you the acclaim you deserve for your success? Don’t you want to be remembered for what you’ve done?’

I didn’t need to think long. What man has not played that game, late at night, staring into the fire’s embers? I had been down the road of what might have been so often that I knew every crossroad and pitfall in it. ‘I’d rather be forgotten for the things people think I’ve done. And I’d give it all if I could forget the things I failed to do.’

And there we left it.

I suppose I must have slept at some point, because I awoke in the pre-dawn grey. I crawled from my blankets to keep from disturbing Thick and went immediately to Burrich’s bedside. Swift slept curled beside him, holding his father’s hand. My Wit-sense of the Stablemaster told me that he was sinking away from us. He was going to die.

I went to Chade and Dutiful and woke them. ‘I want something from you,’ I told them. Dutiful peered at me blearily from his blankets. Chade sat up slowly in his bedding, alerted by my voice that this was a serious matter.

‘What?’

‘I want the coterie to try to heal Burrich.’ When no one spoke, I added, ‘Now. Before he slips any further away.’

‘The others are going to realize that you and Thick are more than what you seem,’ Chade pointed out to me. ‘It is why I have left my own injury alone. Not that it compares to Burrich’s.’

‘All my secrets seem to have spilled out on this island anyway. If I must live with those consequences, then I’d like to have something to show for it. For all I’ve lost here. I’d like to send Swift home to Molly with his father.’

‘Her husband,’ Chade reminded me quietly.

‘Don’t you think I know that, don’t you think I see all the possible consequences?’

‘Go wake Thick,’ the Prince suggested as he threw back his blankets. ‘I know you want to hurry, but I suggest you get him a good breakfast before we try this. He can’t focus on anything when he’s hungry. And mornings are not his best time. So let’s at least feed him.’

‘Shouldn’t we think this through a bit before –’ Chade began, but Dutiful cut him off.

‘This is the only thing Fitz has ever asked of me. He’s getting it, Lord Chade. And he’s getting it now. Well, as close to now as I can manage. As soon as Thick has had some breakfast.’ He began to dress, and with a groan, Chade threw back his blankets.

‘You act as if I hadn’t thought of this myself. I have. Chivalry sealed Burrich to the Skill. Doesn’t anyone besides me remember that?’ Chade asked wearily.

‘We can try,’ Dutiful replied stubbornly.

And we did. It seemed to take an eternity to get a breakfast made for Thick and while he consumed it in his careful and thorough way, I tried to explain to Swift what I wanted to do. I feared to give him too much hope, and at the same time, I wanted him to understand the risks of what we did. If our attempt at mending Burrich’s crumpled body was too much for his physical reserves and he died, I did not want the lad to think we had killed him recklessly.

I had thought it would be a difficult thing to explain. More difficult was getting Swift to pause and consider what I was telling him. I tried to call him aside to speak to him, for the Bear was not far away, tending the Outislander injured. But Swift refused to leave his father’s side for even a moment so finally I spoke to him where he sat. At the first mention that Prince Dutiful might be able to use the Farseer magic to mend his father’s body, Swift became so avid that I am sure my cautions and warnings of possible failure went right past him. The boy looked like a castaway, his eyes dark-circled and sunken in grief. Whatever sleep he had taken last night had not rested him. When I asked him if he had eaten, he just shook his head as if such an idea exhausted him.

‘When will you start?’ he demanded of me for the third time, and I surrendered. ‘As soon as the rest of them get here,’ I told him, and almost at that moment, Chade lifted the flap of the rough tent we had erected over the sled and entered. Dutiful and Thick crowded in behind him. The number of people in the crude shelter now threatened to collapse it, and with an impatient gesture, Dutiful suggested, ‘Let’s get this down and out of the way. It will be more distraction than shelter while we work.’

So, while Swift chewed his lip impatiently, Longwick and I took down the screening canvas and bundled it up for transport. By the time we had finished, rumour of what we were doing had begun to trickle through the camp and all gathered to watch. I did not relish working in front of everyone, let alone revealing to all how intimate my connection to the Prince was. Yet there was no help for it.

We gathered around Burrich’s body. It was hard to persuade Swift to step aside and let me put my hands on him, yet Web at last drew him aside. He stood behind the lad and held him as if he were a much younger boy. Wit and arms, he wrapped him in a comforting embrace, and I sent him a grateful look. He nodded to me, acknowledging it and bidding me begin.

Chade and Dutiful and Thick joined hands, looking like men about to play some child’s game. I shivered with dread of what we were about to attempt and tried to ignore the avid attention of the onlookers. Cockle the minstrel was wide-eyed and tense with focus. The Outislanders, both Hetgurd and rescued, watched us with suspicion. Peottre stood at a slight distance, his women around him, his face solemn and intent.

When I was a few years older than Swift I had tried, at Burrich’s suggestion, to draw Skill-strength from him as my father had. I had failed, and not just because I had not known what I was doing. My father had used Burrich as a ‘King’s Man’, as a source of physical strength for his Skill-work. But any man so used also becomes a conduit to the user, and so Chivalry had sealed Burrich off to other Skill-users, so that no one could use him as a means to attack Chivalry or spy on him. Today, I would pit my strength and that of Dutiful’s coterie against my father’s ancient barricade and see if I could break past it into Burrich’s soul.

I reached a hand toward the coterie and Thick took it. I set my other hand on Burrich’s chest. My Wit told me that he lingered in his body reluctantly. The animal that Burrich dwelt in was hopelessly injured. If his body had been a horse, Burrich would have put it down by now. That was an unsettling thought and I pushed it aside. Instead, I tried to set my Wit aside and hone my Skill to the sharpness of a blade. I banished all other thoughts and sought for some place to pierce him with that awareness.

I found none. I sensed the rest of the coterie, sensed their anxiety and hovering readiness, but I could find no place to apply that eagerness. I could sense Burrich there, but my awareness of him skated over the surface, unable to penetrate. I did not know how my father had sealed him and had no idea how to undo it. I do not know how long I strove to break past his walls. I only know that at length, Thick dropped my hand, to wipe a sweaty palm down the front of his jerkin. ‘That one’s too hard,’ he proclaimed. ‘Do this easy one instead.’

He did not ask anyone permission, but leaned in past Burrich to set his hand on the shoulder of one of the injured Outislanders. I was not even holding Thick’s hand, but in that instant I knew the Outislander. He had been the Pale Woman’s slave for he knew not how many years. He wondered if his son had prospered in his mothershouse, and wondered, too, about his sister’s three sons. He had promised to teach them swordsmanship, all those years ago. Had anyone stepped forward to do that duty for him?

These thoughts tormented him as much as his injury, a sweeping sword wound that Bear had dealt him. It had laid open the flesh of his chest and bitten deep into his upper arm. He’d lost a lot of blood and that weakened him. If he could find the strength to live, his body would heal. Then, without regard to that, his flesh began to knit itself up. The man gave a roar and lifted a hand to clutch at his closing wound. Just like a rent garment sewing itself up, his flesh reached for the severed ends of itself. Bits that were dead or past repair were expulsed from him. In a sort of horror, I watched the pads of flesh on the man’s face melt away. Luckily for us, he was a burly man, possessed of the reserves that his body now burned.

He sat up suddenly on his pallet, and wrenched the caked bandages from his body, throwing them aside. All the witnesses gasped. His newly-healed flesh shone, not with the poreless sheen of a scar but with the health of a child’s body. It was a pale and hairless stripe down his swarthy body. He stared down at himself, and then, with a rough laugh of amazement, he thumped himself on the chest as if to convince himself of its soundness. A moment later, he had swung his legs over the side of the sled and hopped off it, to caper barefoot in the snow. An instant later, he was back, to sweep Thick off his stubby legs and swing him in a wide circle before setting the astonished little man back on his feet. In his own language, he thanked him, calling him Eda’s Hands, an Outislander phrase I did not understand. It conveyed something to Bear, though, for he instantly went to the other wounded man on the sled and throwing back the man’s coverings, gestured at him, for Thick to come to him.

Thick didn’t even glance at the rest of us. I scarcely had a thought to spare for him or what he did. My gaze was fixed on Swift, who stared at me with eyes gone blank and hopeless. I held out a useless hand to him, palm up. He swallowed and looked away from me. Then he came, not to me, but to Burrich. He took his place beside his father and picked up his darkening hand. He looked at me, a question in his eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, through the exclamations of amazement as the second Outislander stood, healed of his injuries. ‘He is sealed. My father closed him off to other Skill-users. I cannot get in to help him.’

He looked away from me, his disappointment so deep that it verged on hatred; not necessarily hatred of me, but of the moment, of the other men who were rising, renewed, and of those who rejoiced over them. Web had moved away from Swift, to allow him his anger. I saw no sense in trying to speak any more to him just then.

Thick seemed to have mastered the knack of Skill-healing, and with moderate supervision from Dutiful he moved on to heal the two men who had burned off their Pale Woman tattoos the night before. Pale smooth skin replaced oozing and blistered flesh. From being an object of disdain, Thick was suddenly the prince of their regard and a living embodiment of Eda’s Hands. I heard the Bear begging Prince Dutiful’s pardon for their former disrespect of his servant. They had not realized that he possessed Eda’s gift, and now they understood the great value the Prince placed on him and why he would have brought him to a battle. It hurt me to see Thick suddenly bask in their approval just as he had cringed before their disdain. I felt somehow betrayed that he could so swiftly forget how they had spurned him. Yet, I was glad that he could, even as I recognized the contradiction of it. Almost, I wished I could be as simple as he was, and accept that people truly meant the expressions they wore.

Chade came up behind me and set his hand lightly on my shoulder. I turned to him with a sigh, expecting some task. Instead, the old man put his arm around me. His grip tightened and he spoke softly by my ear. ‘I’m sorry, boy. We tried. And I’m sorry, too, for the Fool’s death. We did not always agree, he and I. But he did for Shrewd what no one else could have done, and the same for Kettricken. If we opposed one another this last time, well, be assured I had not forgotten those former times. As it was, he still won.’ He glanced up at the sky, as if he almost expected to see dragons overhead. ‘Won, and left us to deal with whatever it was he won for us. I don’t doubt that it will be as unpredictable as he was. And that, I am sure, would please him.’

‘He told me he would die here. I never completely believed him. If I had, there are things I would have said to him.’ I sighed, suddenly filled with the futility of such thoughts, and of all the things I had meant to do and never done. I groped within myself trying to find some meaningful thought or sentiment. But there was nothing to think or to say. The Fool’s absence filled me, leaving no room for anything else.

We moved on that day, and most of us were in high spirits. Burrich rode alone on the sled now, silent and unmoving, fading more as the day passed. Swift walked on one side of him and I on the other, and we spoke not at all. On our rest halts, I trickled a little water into Burrich’s mouth. Each time, he swallowed it. Even so, I knew that he was dying, and I didn’t lie to Swift about it.

Night came and we halted, and made food. Thick had no lack of friends now ready to look after him, and he loved the attention. I tried not to feel abandoned by him. All the days that I had wished to be free of his care, and now that I was, I wished I had the distraction of it again. Web came to Swift and me, bringing food for the boy and nodding to me that I should take a rest from my vigil. Yet walking apart from Burrich and Swift only made the night seem colder.

I found myself at Longwick’s fire, where he shared his harvest of gossip with me. Some of the freed Outislanders had been with the Pale Woman since the Red Ship War. Once, there had been scores of them, but she had relentlessly fed them to the dragons. At first, the main settlement had been on the shore near the quarry site, but after the war she had begun to fear that the Outislanders would turn on her. She had also been determined, from the beginning, that she would make an end of the dragon Icefyre. Legend said that the halls and tunnels beneath the glacier had existed for generations. She had waited for the year’s low tide to discover the fabled under-ice entry to it. Once within, she had put her men to chipping out the icy ceiling of the treacherous passage, to create a hidden access that could be used at almost any low tide. When she destroyed her beach settlement, she had ordered her servants to transport the larger of the two stone dragons and reassemble him in the great hall of ice. It had been a prodigious task, but she cared nothing for how many men or how much time it consumed.

In the years since the war, she had dwelt there, extracting tribute from the clans that still feared her or hoped to regain their hostages from her. She struck cruel bargains; for a shipment of food, she might return a body. Or a promise that the hostage would never be released to shame his family. When I asked Longwick if he thought that knowledge of her habitation was widespread in the Out Islands, he shook his head. ‘I got the sense that it was a matter of shame. No one who paid the bribes would have spoken of it.’ I nodded to myself at that. I doubted that many of the Narwhal Clan knew the full tale of what had become of Oerttre and Kossi, only that they were missing. Well did I know that very large secrets could still remain secrets.

So the Pale Woman’s kingdom had been built, from the labour of half-Forged warriors. When one became injured, or old, or intractable, he was given to the dragon. Many lives had gone into the stone in her futile efforts to animate it. We had arrived at the waning of her power. Scores served her where once there had been hundreds. Her dragon and the forced labour had consumed them.

The Pale Woman had made efforts of her own to kill Icefyre but had never succeeded in more than tormenting him. She feared to remove the ice that held him and had never discovered a weapon that effectively pierced his overlapping scales and thick hide. Her hatred and fear of him had been legendary among her slaves.

‘I still don’t understand,’ I said to Longwick quietly as we watched the small flames of his fire dying. ‘Why did they serve her? How did she get Forged ones to obey her? The ones I saw in Buck were without loyalties of any kind.’

‘I do not know. I soldiered in the Red Ship War, and I know what you speak about. The men I talked to said that their memories of their time serving her are dulled. They recall only pain, no pleasure, no scent, no taste of food. Only that they did what she bade them, because it was easier than being disobedient. The disobedient were fed to the dragon. I think here we see a more sophisticated use of Forging than any we knew in the Six Duchies. One man told me that when she took all his loyalty and love of his home and family away, it seemed to him that she was the only thing he could serve. And serve he did, though even the blunted memories of what he did for her shame him now.’

When I left Longwick and went back to where Burrich rested on the sled, I caught a glimpse of Prince Dutiful and the Narcheska between the tents. They stood, their hands entwined and their heads close together. I wondered how her mother regarded their marriage to come. To her, it must seem a strange and sudden alliance with an old enemy. Would she support it when it meant her daughter must leave her mothershouse to reign in a distant land? I wondered how Elliania herself felt about it; she had only recently regained her mother and sister. Would she now wish to leave them and travel to the Six Duchies?

Web was sitting with Swift and Burrich when I returned to them. Grief had aged the boy to the edge of manhood. I sat down quietly beside them on the edge of the sled. A makeshift tent draped it to keep the night winds at bay and a single candle lit it. Despite the blankets that swathed Burrich, his hands were cold when I took one in mine.

Swift looked defeated already as he asked me quietly, ‘Couldn’t you try again? Those others … they healed so quickly. And now they sit and talk and laugh with their fellows around the fire. Why can’t you heal my father?’

I’d told him. I repeated it anyway. ‘Because Chivalry closed him to the Skill, many years ago. Did you know that your father had served Prince Chivalry? That he served him as a King’s Man, a source of strength for when the King chose to do his magic?’

He shook his head, his eyes full of regret. ‘I know little of my father, other than as my father. He’s a reserved man. He never told us tales of when he was a boy like Mother tells us stories of Buckkeep Town and her father. He taught me about horses and caring for them, but that was before –’ he halted, then forced himself to go on, ‘Before he knew I was Witted. Like him. After that, he tried to keep me out of the stables and away from the animals as much as possible. That meant I had little time with him. But he didn’t talk about the Wit much either, other than to tell me he forbade me to touch minds with any beast.’

‘He was much the same way with me, when I was a boy,’ I agreed with him. I scratched my neck, suddenly weary and uncertain. What belonged to me? What belonged to Burrich? ‘When I got older, he spoke to me more, and explained things more. I think that as you got older, he would have told you more about himself, too.’

I took a deep breath. Burrich’s hand was in mine. I wondered if he would forgive me what I was about to do, or if he would have thanked me. ‘I remember the first time I saw your father. I was about five years old, I think. One of Prince Verity’s men took me down the hall to where the guardsmen were eating in the old quarters at Moonseye. Prince Chivalry and most of his guard were away, but your father had remained behind, still recovering from the injury to his knee. The one that makes him limp. The first time he was hurt there, it was because he leapt between a wild boar and my father, to save my father from being gutted by the animal’s tusks. So. There was Burrich, in a kitchen full of guardsmen, a young man in his fighting prime, dark and wild and hard-eyed. And there was I, suddenly thrust into his care, with no warning to either of us. Can you imagine it? Even now, I wonder what must have gone through his mind when the guardsman first set me down on the table in front of him and announced to all that I was Chivalry’s little bastard, and Burrich was to have the care of me now.’

Despite himself, a very small smile crept over Swift’s face. So we eased into the night, with me telling him the stories of the rash young man who had raised me. Web sat by us for some time; I am not sure when he slipped away. When the candle guttered, we lay down on either side of Burrich to keep him warm, and I talked on quietly in the darkness until Swift slept. It seemed to me that my Wit-sense of Burrich beat stronger in those hours, but perhaps it was only that I had recalled to myself all that he had been to me. Mixed in with my memories of how he had encouraged and disciplined me, of the times when he had righteously punished me and praised me, I now saw more clearly the times when a young single man had curtailed his life for the sake of a small boy. It was humbling to realize that my dependency on him had probably shaped his life as much as his had influenced me.

The next morning when I gave Burrich water, his eyelids fluttered a bit. For an instant, he looked out at me, trapped and miserable. Then, ‘Thanks,’ he wheezed, but I do not think it was for the water. ‘Papa?’ Swift asked him eagerly, but he had already faded again.

We made good time in our travel that day, and when evening came we decided to push on and try to be off the glacier before we stopped for the night. We were full of enthusiasm for that idea. I think we were all weary of camping on ice, but the distance yet to travel proved farther than we had believed. On we went, and on, past weariness into that stubborn place where we refused to admit we had misjudged.

It was deep into the night before we approached the beach. We saw the welcome sight of watch-fires, and before it sank into my weary mind that one fire should have sufficed for two guards, we heard Churry’s challenge ring out. Prince Dutiful answered it, and we heard a glad cry of several voices raised. But none of us were prepared to hear Riddle shouting a welcome to us. When I recalled how I had last seen him, it raised the hackles on the back of my neck. I knew one wild moment of irrational hope that the Fool, too, would somehow be there. Then I recalled what Peottre had told me and sorrow drenched me.

We were among the last to reach the beach camp. By the time we arrived, all was in an uproar of welcome and story-telling. Nearly an hour passed before I managed to get the tale out of someone. Riddle and seventeen Outislander survivors of the Pale Woman’s palace were there. They had come to themselves, probably at the moment of the dragon’s slaying. Riddle and his fellow prisoners had been rescued from their dungeon by one of her guard, when his sensibilities had come back to him. They had joined forces to find a way out, and Riddle had managed to lead them back to the beach. They were all very confused as to what had led to the recovery of their senses and their liberation. It took all the rest of that night for us to splice the story together for them.

Chade summoned me to his tent the next day, to be present when Riddle made his full report. I listened to his account of how the Pale Woman’s soldiers had fallen upon Hest and him, capturing both of them. Their mistake had been in seeing some of her guards emerge from a hidden entrance to her realm. They could not be allowed to bear that information back to the Prince. Riddle was not able to describe coherently how he had been Forged. It had to do with the dragon, but every time he attempted to tell about it, he began to tremble so violently that he was unable to go on. At last and to my relief, Chade gave up on attempting to wring that knowledge out of him. Truly, I thought it was information better lost than discovered.

He was astonished to know that the Fool and I had glimpsed him in the dungeon. He said he did not blame me for leaving him there; that if I had forced the door, he would certainly have attacked me for the sake of getting my warm clothing. Yet there was something in his eyes, so deep a shame that someone he knew had seen him in that state that I doubted our fledgling friendship would survive. I did not think I could ever be comfortable again, looking at the man I had left behind to die. I wondered if Riddle would ever again be the light-hearted man he had been. He had seen into a dark corner of himself, and ever after would have to carry those memories with him. He admitted, before us all, that he was the one who had finally killed Hest. He had used his shirt to wrap his hands against the cold. He could recall how carefully he had planned to kill the wounded man and take advantage of the spoils from his body while the other Forged ones in the dungeon slept. He also told us that he recalled the Pale Woman telling them it was a sort of test; that those who survived the fortnight would be given the freedom to serve her, and regular meals. He grinned madly as he told it, his teeth clenched as if to hold back sickness, saying that, at that moment, he could imagine no better fate than to serve her and have regular meals.

Two of the Outislanders who had returned with Riddle were men of the Narwhal Clan, long missing and presumed dead. Peottre welcomed them with joy. The Pale Woman had preyed on their clan for over a decade, decimating their men before she finally reduced them to despair by stealing both the reigning Narcheska and her younger daughter. The restoration of these warriors to the clan only increased the Prince’s status as a hero in their eyes.

When Chade had finished his questions, I asked the three that had burned in me. The answers were all disappointing. Riddle had not seen the Fool at any time in his captivity or during his escape. He had not seen the Pale Woman, not even her body, after he was freed from the dungeon.

‘But I don’t think we have to be concerned about her. The man who came and freed me, Revke, saw her end. Something made her suddenly go mad. She screamed that everyone had failed her, everyone, and now only her dragon would win the day for her. She must have ordered at least a score of men dragged forward. One after another, they were forced against the stone dragon, and slaughtered there. Revke said their blood soaked into the stone. But even that didn’t content her. She became furious, shouting that they were supposed to go into the dragon completely, that it would not rise unless someone went into the dragon whole.’

He looked around at our transfixed faces, perplexed. ‘I don’t speak Outislander as well as I should. I know it sounds mad, that she wanted someone to go into a stone dragon. But that was what Revke seemed to be saying to me. I could be wrong.’

‘No. I suspect you are exactly right. Go on,’ I begged him.

‘She finally ordered Kebal Rawbread given to the dragon. Revke said that when they unshackled him, the guards under-estimated the old warrior’s strength and his hatred of the Pale Woman. The guards had hold of him and were dragging him toward the dragon, and he was fighting them all the way. Then suddenly he lunged in the other direction, toward the Pale Woman. He caught her by the wrists, and he was laughing and shouting that they’d go into the dragon together and rise in triumph for the Out Islands. That it was the only way to win. And then Rawbread dragged her toward the dragon, shrieking and kicking. And then …’ He halted again. ‘I’m just telling the tale as Revke told it to me. It makes no sense, but –’

‘Go on!’ Chade commanded him hoarsely.

‘Rawbread walked backwards into the dragon. He sort of melted into it, and he held tight to the Pale Woman and dragged her in after him.’

‘She went into the dragon?’ I exclaimed.

‘No. Not all the way. Rawbread disappeared into the dragon, and he was pulling her after, so her hands and her wrists went in. She was shrieking at her guards to help her, and finally two seized hold of her and pulled her back. But … but her hands were melted away. Gone into the dragon.’

The Prince had his hand clamped tight over his mouth. I found I was trembling. ‘Is that all?’ Chade asked. I wondered where he got his calm.

‘Mostly. What was left of her hands was sort of burnt. Not bleeding, just charred away, Revke said. He said, she just stood there, looking at her stumps. The dragon was coming to life by then. When it started to move, it lifted its head too high, and big chunks of the ceiling came down. Revke said everyone ran, both from the falling ceiling and from the dragon. And that he was still hiding from the dragon when he suddenly got himself back.’ Riddle halted suddenly, and then said with difficulty, ‘I can’t explain to you what it feels like. I was in my cell, back to the wall, trying to stay awake because if I slept the others would kill me. And then I glanced down and saw Hest dead on the floor. And suddenly I cared that he was dead, because he’d been my friend.’ He shook his head and his voice went to a whisper. ‘Then I remembered killing him.’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ the Prince said quietly.

‘But I did it. It was me, I –’

I cut into his words before he could give any more thought to what he had done. ‘And how did you get out?’ I asked quietly.

Riddle seemed almost grateful for the question. ‘Revke opened the door for us and led us out and through her palace. It’s like a huge maze under the ice. We finally walked out of an opening that looked like a crack in an ice wall, right onto the glacier’s flank. Once we were out, no one knew what to do next. The others knew of no other place on the island where we could seek shelter. But I could just glimpse the sea from where we were. I told them that if we made our way to the sea and followed the beach, we’d have to eventually come to this base camp, even if we walked clear round the island first. As it was, we were lucky. We chose the shorter route and arrived here even before you did.’

There was one last question, but he answered it before I spoke. ‘You know how the wind blows at night, Tom. Drifting snow has probably covered all our tracks by now. Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could find my way back.’ He took a deep breath, and then added reluctantly, ‘Perhaps one of the Outislanders would be willing to try. But not me. Never. I don’t ever want even to get close to that place again.’

‘No one will ask you to,’ Chade assured him, and he was right. I left it at that.

Dawn was breaking when I returned to Burrich and Swift. Swift slept beside Burrich’s body. I noticed that he had moved, that one of his hands now lay outside his blankets. In tucking it in again, I discovered that Burrich clutched a wooden earring in his hand. I recognized it; the Fool had carved it, and I knew that inside it I would find the slave’s freedom earring that Burrich’s grandmother had won at such hardship to herself. That he had found the strength to take it off told me how important it was to him. I thought I knew his intentions for it.

Dutiful had released the homing pigeon that would fly back to Zylig to let the Hetgurd know that our quest was over. Nonetheless, it would take some days for the boats to reach us; in the meanwhile, we faced the prospect of short rations spread out over a larger party. It was not a pleasant thing to contemplate, yet I think most of us shrugged it off after all we had been through.

I found a quiet time with Swift, sitting beside the ever-dwindling Burrich. I told him the tale of the earring while I struggled to get it out of its wooden enclosure. In the end, the Fool’s handiwork proved too sophisticated for me. I had to break it to open it. Within lay the earring, shining as blue and silver as when Patience had first presented it to me. As she had that day, I used the pin of it to pierce Swift’s ear so he could wear it. I was slightly kinder to him than she had been to me; we numbed his earlobe with snow before I thrust the pin through it. ‘You wear this always,’ I told the boy. ‘And you remember your father. As he was.’

‘I will,’ Swift replied quietly. He touched it with cautious fingers; well did I remember its weight swinging from my raw earlobe. Then he wiped his bloody fingertips on his trouser leg and said, ‘I’m sorry I used it, now. If I still had it, I’d give it to you.’

‘What?’

‘The arrow that Lord Golden gave me. I thought it was ugly when he gave it to me, but I took it to be polite. Then, when all the others bounced off the dragon, the grey one struck and sank. I never saw anything like that before.’

‘I doubt that anyone ever has,’ I replied.

‘Maybe he had. He said it was an ugly bit of wood, but that it might still serve me well in time of need. He said he was a Prophet, that night. Do you think he knew the grey arrow would kill the dragon?’

I managed a smile. ‘Even when he was alive, I never knew when he truly knew something before it happened and when he was just cleverly reconstructing his words to make it seem that he did. In this case, however, he seems to have been right.’

‘Yes. But did you see my father? Did you see what he did? He dropped that dragon in his tracks. Web says he’d never felt strength like that before, strength to repel a dragon.’ He looked at me, challenging me to forbid it to him as he added, ‘He says that strength like that sometimes runs in Old Blood families. That perhaps I’ll inherit it, if I use my magic with discipline and judgment.’

I reached to cup the boy’s jaw, the earring cold against my palm. ‘Let’s hope you do. This world needs strength such as that.’

Longwick thrust his head inside our shelter. ‘Prince Dutiful has need of you, Tom,’ he apologized.

‘I’ll be right there,’ I assured him, and then, to Swift, ‘You don’t mind?’

‘Go. There’s nothing either of us can do here save keep watch.’

‘I’ll be back,’ I promised, and then stepped from the tent to follow Longwick through our camp.

The Prince’s tent was crowded. He, Chade and Thick were there, with Peottre, Oerttre, Kossi and the Narcheska. Thick’s lip was thrust out and I sensed his upset. The Narcheska sat on the floor, a blanket clasped around her shoulders and her back to me. I made my courtesies to all and then waited.

The Prince spoke. ‘We are having a bit of a problem with the Narcheska’s tattoos. She would like them removed, but they haven’t yielded to Thick’s Skill. Chade thought that, as you’d dealt with your own scars, perhaps you might be able to help.’

‘A scar is very different from a tattoo,’ I replied, ‘but I’m willing to try.’

The Prince leaned down to her. ‘Elliania? May he see them?’

She made no response. Her back was very straight as she sat there, and disapproval was plain on her mother’s face. Then, slowly, without a word, Elliania dropped her head forward and allowed the blanket to slide down her back. I knelt down and lifted the light to see more plainly. And then I gritted my teeth and understood why they’d thought of me.

The gleaming beauty of the serpents and dragons was gone. The tattoos were sunken into her back, the skin drawn tight as if they’d been branded in. I suspected it was the Pale Woman’s last act of vengeance. ‘They still cause her pain, from time to time,’ the Prince said quietly.

‘I’m speculating,’ I admitted. ‘Perhaps Thick can’t heal her easily because this isn’t a recent injury. It’s one thing to aid the body in doing what it’s already attempting to do. But these are old, and her body has accepted them.’

‘Your scars went away when we healed you,’ the Prince pointed out.

‘They aren’t hers,’ Thick observed sullenly. ‘I don’t want to touch them.’

I let Thick’s cryptic remark go by. ‘I think the Fool restored me to how he had always seen me. Unscarred.’ I did not want to say more of that just then, and I think they all knew that.

Elliania’s voice shook only slightly as she said, ‘Then burn them off, and heal the burn. I care not what it takes. I only want them gone. I will not wear her marks upon my body.’

No!’ the Prince said in horror.

‘Wait. Please,’ I said. ‘Let me try.’ I lifted a hand and then remembered to ask, ‘May I touch you?’

She dropped her head lower and I saw every muscle in her back go tight. Then she gave a single nod. Peottre towered over us, his arms crossed on his chest. I looked up at him and met his gaze. Then I sat down on the floor behind the Narcheska and carefully laid both my hands flat to her back. By an act of will, I kept them there. The palms of my hands felt the warm back of a young girl, but my Skill felt dragons and serpents writhing beneath my fingers. ‘More than ink is beneath her skin,’ I said, but did not know what it was that I sensed there.

Elliania spoke with an effort. ‘She made the inks from her own blood. So that they would always belong to her and obey her.’

‘She’s bad,’ Thick said darkly.

Elliania had given us the piece of knowledge we needed. Even so, it was a gruelling evening of Skill-work. I did not know Elliania well, and Thick was loath to touch her. He lent us his strength, but every intricate figure had to be separately driven out from her. Her mother and sister sat and watched silently. Peottre stayed for a time, then went out and walked, came back, and then went out again. I did not blame him. I wished I did not have to witness it. Foul-smelling ink oozed reluctantly from the pores on her back. Worse, it hurt her. She clenched her teeth, and then pounded wordlessly on the earth. Her long black hair, pulled forward to be out of our way, grew heavy with perspiration. Dutiful sat facing her, his hands on her shoulders to brace her, while I painstakingly traced each illustration with my fingertip, calling on her skin to push out the Pale Woman’s foulness. As I did so, I saw again the Fool’s back, so exquisitely and cruelly marked, and thanked the fates that his had been forced on him before the Pale Woman had gained and perverted the Skill-learning. I could not understand why her tattoos so resisted us. By the time the last clawed foot had been forced from her skin, I was exhausted, but her back was smooth and clear.

‘It’s done,’ I said wearily, and lifted the blanket to drape her again. She took in a breath that was almost a sob and Dutiful gingerly gathered her into his arms.

‘Thank you,’ he said to me quietly, and then, to Elliania, ‘It’s all finished. She can never hurt you again.’

I knew a moment’s uneasiness, wondering if that were true. But before I could voice any doubts, we heard a welcome cry from outside the tent. ‘Sail! Sail sighted, two sails. One flies the Boar and the other is the Bear!’

TWENTY-SEVEN

Doors

The more I delve into the affairs and associations of Lord and Lady Grayling, the more I am convinced that your suspicions are well founded. Although they have conceded to the Queen’s ‘invitation’ for young Lady Sydel to spend time at the Buckkeep Court, they did not do so graciously or eagerly. Her father was more determined to be hard-hearted in this matter than her mother. Her mother was truly scandalized that he sent her off with no garb fit for an ordinary day at court, let alone for feasting or dancing. The allowance he allotted her is also insufficient for a milkmaid. I believe he hopes that she will embarrass herself at court sufficiently to be sent home.

The woman he chose as her maid is not to be trusted. I suggest that a grievance against Opal be discovered and that she be dismissed from Buckkeep as swiftly as possible. Take care that her grey housecat leaves with her.

Sydel herself seems guilty of little more than being young and flighty. I do not think, for those reasons, that she even knows her parents have declared as Piebalds, let alone is privy to any of their plotting.

Spy’s report, unsigned

Favourable tides had brought the ships to us sooner than we had expected. But if we were surprised to see the ships so soon, the crews of the ships were equally shocked at the size of the party that awaited them on the shore. The boats they put over to come to shore were crowded with folk anxious to discover the news. So many of our men met them on the beach that the boats were literally picked up clear of the water and run far up the sand before the crews could disembark. The uproar sounded like a battle as every man strove to tell the tale his own way to our amazed transport. There was laughter, chest-thumping and shoulder-slapping as each man strove to be the first to tell the tale. Above all was the joyous roar of Arkon Bloodblade as he shared the Narwhal triumph. His reunion with Oerttre was more restrained and formal than I had expected it to be. Father he might be to Elliania, but he had never been formally wed to Oerttre, nor had he sired Kossi. So he rejoiced in their return as a friend, not as a father and husband, and it seemed more like the satisfaction that a warrior took in the triumph of an ally.

Later, I would discover that the Narcheska had promised much to her father in terms of crops, trade and other favours. The Boar Clan lands were rocky and steep, fine lands for grazing swine but not for growing field crops. Bloodblade had eight young nieces of his own clan to provide for, and these Boar youngsters would prosper because of the Narwhal triumph.

But all I knew at the time was that once more, rejoicing and triumph surrounded young Swift and me, making our sorrow all the deeper in comparison. Worse, I had made a resolution last night, one that felt so precisely correct that I knew nothing would turn me aside from it. So, while men whooped outside and over-shouted one another telling their portions of the tale, I spoke quietly to Swift as we sat in dimness under draped canvas beside his unresponsive father.

‘I won’t be going back with you. Can you take care of your father without me?’

‘Can I … what do you mean, you won’t be coming back with us? What else can you do?’

‘Stay here. I need to go back to the glacier, Swift. I want to find a way into her underground palace. At the least, I want to find my friend’s body and burn it. He hated to be cold. He would not wish to be entombed forever in ice.’

‘And what else do you hope to do? There is something you are not saying.’

I took a deep breath, thought of a lie, and then set it down. Enough lies for one lifetime. ‘I hope to look on the Pale Woman’s body. I hope to find her dead, to know that she died for all she has done to us. And if I find her living, I hope to kill her.’

It was a small and simple promise I’d made to myself. I doubted it would be easy to carry out, but it was the only comfort I could find to offer myself.

‘You look a different man when you talk like that,’ Swift said in a hushed voice. He leaned close to me. ‘When you talk like that, you have a wolf’s eyes.’

I shook my head and smiled. At least, my teeth showed. ‘No. No wolf wastes time on vengeance, and that is what this is. Vengeance, pure and simple. When people look most vicious, what you are seeing is not their animal side. It is the savagery that only humans can muster. When you see me loyal to my family, then you see the wolf.’

He touched a finger to his dangling earring. He knit his brows and asked, ‘Do you want me to stay with you? You should not face this alone. And, as you have seen, I did not lie. I am good with a bow.’

‘You are indeed. But you have other duties, more pressing ones. Burrich has no chance at all if he stays here. Get him onto the ship and back to Zylig. They may have skilled healers there. At the very least, they will have a place that is warm, with decent food and a clean bed for him.’

‘My father is going to die, FitzChivalry. Let us not pretend otherwise.’

Oh, the power that lurks in the naming of names. I let go. ‘You are right, Swift. But he need not die in the cold, under a piece of flapping canvas. That much we can give him.’

Swift scratched his head. ‘I want to do my father’s will in this. I think he would tell me to stay with you. That I cannot be as useful to him as I could be to you.’

I thought about it. ‘Perhaps he would. But I do not think your mother would tell you that. I think you need to be with him. He may rally again, before the end, and what words he may have for you could be precious ones. No, Swift. Go with him. Be with him, for me.’

He did not reply, but bowed his head to my words.

Even as we spoke, men were dismantling our camp and loading it aboard the ship. I think it shocked Swift when it was the Outislanders who came for him and Burrich. Bear came, to incline his head gravely to the boy and ask the honour of transporting him and his father aboard the Hetgurd ship. ‘Demon-slayers’, he named both of them, and I think it shocked Swift to realize that he had been left to grieve in isolation out of respect, not out of negligence. The Owl, their bard, sang them aboard the Bear ship, and though he twisted the words in their Bard’s tongue, still I heard with throat-choking pride of the man who had brought the dragon-demon to its knees and the boy who slew it to set the Pale Woman’s hostages free. Web, I noted, rode out in the boat with them, and would be taking ship with Swift. This comforted me. I did not want the lad to be alone among strangers, no matter how they might honour him when Burrich died, and I feared he would not live to see Zylig port.

Then the Prince was at my side, demanding to know which ship I was embarking upon. ‘You are welcome on either, but it will be close quarters no matter which you choose. They did not expect to carry off this many people. We shall be packed like salt-fish in a keg. Chade, in his wisdom, has chosen to separate me from the Narcheska, so I will be on the Bear ship. Chade goes on the Boar ship with Peottre and his women, for he hopes to further advance the final negotiations of our alliance during the voyage.’

I had to smile, despite my heavy heart. ‘Alliance, you still call it? It has begun to look like a wedding to me. And have you given Chade reason to think it best to separate you from Elliania for the voyage to Zylig?’

He raised an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth quirking. ‘Not I! It was Elliania who proclaimed she was satisfied as to her challenge to me to be worthy of her, and declared that she now regarded me as her husband. I do not think her mother was entirely pleased, but Peottre declined to oppose her. Chade has tried to explain to Elliania the necessity of my vowing to her in my “mothershouse”, but she will have none of that. She asked him, “And what is a man, to oppose a woman’s will in this matter?”’

‘I would have loved to hear his reply to that,’ I said.

‘He said, “Truly, lady, I do not know. But my queen’s will is that her son shall not bed with you until you have stood before her and her nobles in her house, and proclaimed that you are satisfied he is worthy of you.”’

‘And did she accept that?’

‘Not graciously.’ The Prince was obviously flattered by his bride-to-be’s eagerness. ‘But Chade has extracted a promise from me that I will act with restraint. Not that Elliania has made that easy for me. Ah, well. So I sail on the Bear ship and she on the Boar. Chade will be on the Boar, and we think Thick, for the Outislanders have made much of him and his Eda’s Hands. So. Which one for you? Come on the Bear. You can be with Burrich and Swift and me.’

‘Neither ship will I board. But I’m glad to hear you’ll be on the Bear ship with Swift. This is a hard time for him. He may bear it better among friends.’

‘What do you mean, neither?’

Time to announce it. ‘I’m staying here, Dutiful. I need to go back and try to find the Fool’s body.’

He blinked, considering it, and then, in an act of understanding that warmed me, simply accepted that I had to do it. ‘I’ll stay with you, of course. And you’ll need some men, if you’re hoping to tunnel down through the dragon pit.’

It touched me, that he did not argue the necessity of it, and that he offered to delay his own triumph. ‘No. You go on. You’ve a Narcheska to claim and an alliance to create. I’ll need no one, for I’m hoping to go back in where Riddle and the others came out.’

‘That’s a fool’s errand, Fitz. You’ll never find it again. I listened to Riddle’s answers as closely as you did.’

I smiled at his choice of words. ‘Oh, I think I will. I can be tenacious about things like this. All I ask is that you leave me what food you can spare and any extra warm clothing you have. It may take me some time to accomplish this.’

He looked uncertain at those words. ‘Lord FitzChivalry, forgive me for saying this, but this may be a rash risk of yourself, for no gain. Lord Golden is beyond feeling anything. There is little chance you will find a way back in, let alone find his body. I do not think I am wise to allow this.’

I ignored his final statement. ‘And that is another thing. You will be going back to enough chaos. You scarcely need Lord FitzChivalry’s resurrection in the midst of it. I suggest that you meet quietly with your Wit-coterie and still all their tongues about me. I’ve already spoken to Longwick. I don’t think I need worry about Riddle. Everyone else is dead.’

‘But … the Outislanders know who you are. They’ve heard you called by that name.’

‘And it has no significance for them. They won’t recall my true name any more than I can recall Bear’s or Eagle’s. I’ll simply be the crazy one who stayed on the island.’

He threw his hands wide in a gesture of despair. ‘And we are still back to you remaining on this island. For how long? Until you starve? Until you find that your quest is as futile as mine was?’

I pondered it briefly. ‘Give me a fortnight,’ I said. ‘A fortnight from now, arrange for a boat to come back here for me. If I haven’t succeeded in a fortnight, I’ll give it up and come home.’

‘I don’t like this,’ he grumbled. I thought he would argue further, but then he countered with, ‘A fortnight. And I won’t wait to hear from you, so do not Skill to me to beg for more time. In a fortnight, there will come a boat to this beach to take you off. And regardless of your success or failure, you will meet it and board it. Now, we have to hurry, before they’ve finished loading everything.’

But in the end, that was an idle fear. The crews were actually unloading things from the ships to make more room for the extra passengers. Chade grumbled and swore at my stubbornness, but in the end, he had to give way to me, mostly because I would not change my mind and everyone else was in a great rush to leave on the change of the tide.

It was still surpassing strange to stand on the shore and watch the ships borne away on the tide’s change. Heaped behind me on the beach was a miscellaneous dump of equipment. I had far too many tents and sleds for one man to use, and an adequate if very uninteresting supply of food. In the time between the ships vanishing and the fall of night, I picked through what they had left me, loading what I thought I’d actually use into my own battered old pack. I put in extra clothing, as much food as I thought I would need, and my feathers from the Others’ beach. Longwick had left me a very serviceable sword; I think it had been Churry’s. I had Longwick’s own belt-knife. The Fool’s tent and bedding I kept, setting it up for my night’s shelter, and his cooking supplies, as much because they were his as because they were the lightest to pack. Chade, I found to my amusement, had left me a small keg of his blasting powder. As if I’d risk tinkering with that again! My hearing was still not what it should have been. Yet, in the end, I did put a pot of it into my pack.

I built up a good fire for myself that night. Driftwood was not plentiful on the beach, but there was only one of me to warm, so I indulged myself. I had expected to find the peace that isolation usually brought to me. Even when my spirits were darkest, solitude and the natural world had always comforted me. But tonight, I did not feel that. The restless humming of the submerged stone dragon was like a simmering reminder of the Pale Woman’s evil. I wished there were a way to still it, to cleanse the evil carving back to honest stone again. I made up a generous pot of hot porridge for myself and recklessly sweetened it with some barley sugar that Dutiful had left for me.

I had just taken my first mouthful when I heard footsteps behind me. I choked and sprang to my feet, drawing my sword. Thick stepped into the circle of my firelight, grinning sheepishly. ‘I’m hungry.’

I swayed with the shock of it. ‘You can’t be here. You’re supposed to be on the ship, going back to Zylig.’

‘No. No boats for me. Can I have some dinner?’

‘How did you stay behind? Does Chade know? Does the Prince? Thick, this is impossible! I have things to do, important things to do. I can’t look after you right now.’

‘They don’t know yet. And I’ll look after myself!’ he huffed. I’d hurt his feelings. As if to prove he could, he went to the heap of abandoned cargo and rummaged until he came up with a bowl. I sat, staring at the flames, feeling completely defeated by fate. He came back into my firelight and sat down on a stone across from me. As he dished up more than half the porridge for himself, he added, ‘It was easy to stay. I just went with Chade, with Chade at Prince, and with Prince, with Prince at Chade. They believed me and got on the boats.’

‘And no one else noticed you were missing?’ I asked sceptically.

‘Oh. I went don’t see me, don’t see me at the others. It was easy.’ He resumed eating with pragmatic enjoyment of the food. He was obviously pleased with how clever he’d been. Between mouthfuls he asked, ‘How did you trick them into letting you stay?’

‘I didn’t trick them. I stayed because I had a task I had to do. I still do. They’ll be back for me in a fortnight.’ I put my head into my hands. ‘Thick. You’ve done me a bad turn. I know you didn’t mean to, but it’s bad. What am I going to do with you? What did you plan to do when you stayed here?’

He shrugged and spoke through the porridge. ‘Not get on a boat. That’s what I planned. What did you plan to do?’

‘I planned to go on a long walk, back to the icy place. And kill the Pale Woman if I could find her. And bring back Lord Golden’s body, if I could find it.’

‘All right. We can do that.’ He leaned forward and looked into the porridge pot. ‘Are you going to eat that?’

‘It seems not.’ My appetite had fled, along with all thoughts of peace. I watched him eat. I had two choices. I knew I could not leave him alone on the beach while I went off to hunt the Pale Woman. It would have been like leaving a small child to look after himself. I could remain here with him on the beach for a fortnight until the boat that Dutiful had promised to send back for me arrived. Then I could send Thick off with it, and try to resume my tasks. By then, autumn would be upon this northern island. Falling snow would join the blowing snow to obscure all signs of passage. Or I could drag him along with me, proceeding at his plodding, torturous pace, taking him into danger. And taking him, also, into a very private part of my life. I did not want him to be there when I recovered the Fool’s body. It was a task I wished and needed to do alone.

Yet there he was. Depending on me. And unwanted, there came to me the memory of Burrich’s face when I had first been thrust into his care. So it had been for him. So it was for me now. I watched him scraping the last of the porridge from the kettle and licking the sticky spoon.

‘Thick. It’s going to be hard. We have to get up early and travel fast. We are going up into the cold again. Without much fire, and with very boring food. Are you sure you want to do this?’

I don’t know why I offered him the choice.

He shrugged. ‘Better than getting on a boat.’

‘But eventually, you will have to get on a boat. When the boat comes back for me, I’m leaving this island.’

‘Nah,’ he said dismissively. ‘No boats for me. Will we sleep in the pretty tent?’

‘We need to let Chade and the Prince know where you are.’

He scowled at that, and I thought he might try to use the Skill to defeat me. But in the end, when I reached for them, he was with me, very much enjoying the prank he had played on them. I sensed their exasperation with him and their sympathy for me, but neither offered to turn back the ships. In truth, they could not. A tale such as they bore would not await the telling. Neither ship could turn back. For either the Prince or the Narcheska to be absent would not be acceptable to the Hetgurd. They must go on. Chade offered grimly to send back a boat for us the moment they docked in Zylig, but I told him to wait, that we would Skill to them when we were ready to leave. Not on a boat, Thick added emphatically, and none of us had the will to argue with him just then. I was fairly certain that when he saw me leave, he would depart with me. By then, he would probably be very weary and bored with survival here. I could not imagine him desiring to stay on the island alone.

And as the night wore on, I reflected that perhaps it was better for me that he was there, in some ways. When I bedded down in the Fool’s tent that night, Thick seemed an intruder there, as out of place as a cow at a harvest dance. Yet, if he had not been there, I know I would have sunk into a deep melancholy, and dwelt on all I had lost. As it was, he was a distraction and an annoyance, and yet also a companion. In caring for him, I did not have time to examine my pain. Instead, I had to create a pack for him with a share of supplies that I thought he could carry. Into his pack I put mostly warm clothing for him and food, knowing he would not abandon food. But as I prepared for sleep, I already dreaded the morrow and dragging him along with me.

‘Are you going to sleep now?’ Thick demanded of me as I pulled my blankets up over my head.

‘Yes.’

‘I like this tent. It’s pretty.’

‘Yes.’

‘It reminds me of the wagon, when I was little. My mother made things pretty, colours and ribbons and beads on things.’

I kept silent, hoping he would doze off to sleep.

‘Nettle likes pretty things, too.’

Nettle. Shame washed through me. I had sent her into danger and nearly lost her. And since that moment, I had made no effort to contact her. The way I had risked her shamed me, and I was shamed that I had not been the one to save her. And even if I’d had the courage to beg her forgiveness, I did not have the courage to tell her that her father was dying. Somehow, it felt like that was my fault. If I had not been here, would Burrich have come? Would he have challenged the dragon? This was the measure of my cowardice. I could go off, sword in hand, hoping to kill the Pale Woman. But I could not face the daughter I had wronged. ‘Is she all right?’ I asked gruffly.

‘A little bit. I’m going to show her this tent tonight, all right? She will like this.’

‘I suppose so.’ I hesitated, and then ventured one step closer. ‘Is she still afraid to go to sleep?’

‘No. Yes. Well, but not if I’m there. I promised her I wouldn’t let her fall in there again. That I’ll watch her and keep her safe. I go into sleep first. Then she comes in.’

He spoke as if they were meeting in a tavern, as if ‘sleep’ were a room across town, or a different village down the road. When he spoke again, my mind struggled to comprehend what the simple words meant to him. ‘Well. I have to go to sleep now. Nettle will be waiting for me to come for her.’

‘Thick. Tell her … no. I’m glad. I’m glad you can be there like that.’

He leaned up on one stubby elbow to tell me earnestly, ‘It will be all right, Tom. She’ll find her music again. I’ll help her.’ He took a long breath and gave a sleepy sigh. ‘She has a friend now. Another girl.’

‘She does?’

‘Um. Sydel. She comes from the country and is lonely and cries a lot and doesn’t have the right kind of clothes. So she is friends with Nettle.’

That told me far more than I’d wanted to know. My daughter was afraid to sleep, unhappy at night, lonely and befriending a disowned Piebald. I was suddenly certain that Hap was doing just as well as Nettle was. My spirits sank. I tried to be satisfied that Kettricken had removed Sydel from her undeserved isolation. It was hard.

The Fool’s tiny oil firepot flickered between us and died away to nothing. Darkness, or what passes for darkness in that part of the world on a summer night, cupped our tent under her hand. I lay still, listening to Thick’s breathing and the wash of the waves on the beach and the disquieting mutter of the disjointed dragon under the water. I closed my eyes, but I think I was afraid to sleep, fearful both that I’d find Nettle or that I wouldn’t. After a time, it seemed to me that sleep truly was a place and I’d forgotten the way there.

Yet, I must have slept eventually, for I awoke to dawn light shining in through the colours of the Fool’s tent. I’d slept far longer than I intended, and Thick slumbered still. I went outside, relieved myself, and brought wash water to heat from the icy stream. Thick did not get up until he smelled the morning’s porridge cooking. Then he emerged, stretching cheerfully, to tell me that he and Nettle had hunted butterflies all night, and she had made him a hat out of butterflies that flew away just before he woke up. The gentle silliness cheered me, even as it made a sharp contrast with my plans.

I tried to hurry Thick along, with small success. He walked idly on the beach while I struck the tent and loaded it onto my back. It took some persuasion to get him to take up his own pack and follow me. Then we set off down the beach in the direction from which Riddle and his fellows had come. I had listened intently to Riddle’s tale. I knew they had followed the beach for about two days. I hoped that if I did the same and then watched for where they had climbed down onto the beach, I’d find my way back to the crevasse where they had emerged from the Pale Woman’s realm.

Yet I had not reckoned with having Thick with me. At first he followed me cheerfully down the beach, investigating tide pools and bits of driftwood and feathers and seaweed as we went. He wet his feet, of course, and grumbled about that, and was soon hungry. I’d thought of that, and had travellers’ bread and some salt-fish in a pouch. It was not what he had hoped for, but when I made it clear that I was going to continue hiking regardless of what he did, he took it and chewed as we walked.

We did not lack for fresh water. Rivulets of it cut the beach or damped the stony cliff faces. I kept an eye on the rising tide, for I had no wish to be caught by it on a section of beach where we could not escape it. But the tide did not come up far, and I was even rewarded by footprints above the tide line. These traces of Riddle’s passage cheered me, and we trudged on.

As night came closer, we picked up the sparse bits of driftwood that the beach yielded to us, set up our tent well above the high water line and built our fire. If I had not had such a heavy heart, it would have been a pleasant evening, for we had a bit of moon and Thick was inspired to take out his whistle and play. It was the first time I’d ever been able to give myself over completely to both his musics, for I was as aware of his Skill-music as I was of the whistle’s piping. His Skill-music was made of the ever-present wind and the keening of the sea birds and the shush of waves on the shore. His whistle wove in and out of it like a bright thread in a tapestry. Because I had access to his mind, it was a comprehensible music. Without the Skill, I am sure it would have been annoying, random notes.

We ate a simple meal, a soup made from dried fish with some fresh seaweed added from the beach and travellers’ bread. It was filling; that was possibly the kindest thing that could be said for it. Thick ate it, mainly because he was hungry. ‘Wish we had cakes from the kitchen,’ he said wistfully while I scrubbed out the pot with sand.

‘Well, we won’t have anything like that until we travel back to Buck. On the boat.’

‘No. No boat.’

‘Thick, there is no other way for us to get there.’

‘If we just kept walking, we might get there.’

‘No, Thick. Aslevjal is an island. It has water all around it. We can’t get back home by walking. Sooner or later, we have to get on a ship.’

‘No.’

And there it was again. He seemed to grasp so many things, but then we would come to the one that he either refused or could not accept. I gave it up for the night and we went to our blankets. Again, I watched him slip into sleep as effortlessly as a swimmer enters water. I had not had the courage to speak to him about Nettle. I wondered what she thought of my absence, or if she noticed it at all. Then I closed my eyes and sank.

By that second day of hiking, Thick was bored with the routine. Twice he let me get so far ahead of him that I was nearly out of his sight. Each time, he came huffing and hurrying over the wet sand to catch up with me. Each time, he demanded to know why we had to go so fast. I could not think of an answer that satisfied him. In truth, I knew only my own urgency. That this was a thing that must be finished, and that I would know no peace until I did. If I thought of the Fool as dead, if I thought of his body discarded in that icy place, the pain of such an image brought me close to fainting. I knew that I would not truly realize his death until I saw it. It was like looking down at a festering foot and knowing it must come off before the body could begin to heal. I hurried to face the agony.

That night caught us on a narrow beach along a cliff face hung with icicles. Sheeting water down the rock face. I judged there was just room to pitch the tent and that we would be fine, as long as no storm rose to drive the tide higher. We set up our tent, using rocks to hold it in the sand, and made our fire and ate our plain provender.

The moon was a little stronger, and we sat for a time under the stars looking out over the water. I found time to wonder how Hap was doing, and if my boy had overcome his dangerous affection for Svanja or succumbed to it completely. I could only hope he had kept his head and his judgment. I sighed as I worried about that and Thick asked sympathetically, ‘You got a gut-ache?’

‘No. Not exactly. Worrying about Hap. My son back in Buckkeep Town.’

‘Oh.’ He did not sound very interested. Then, as if this was a thing he had pondered for a long time, he added, ‘You’re always somewhere else. You never do the music where you are.’

I looked at him for a moment, and then lowered my perpetual guard against his music. Letting it in was like letting the night into my eyes when twilight came over the land and it was a good time to hunt. I relaxed into the moment, letting the wolf’s enjoyment of the now come into me, as I had not for far too long. I had been aware of the water and the light wind. Now I heard the whispering of blowing sand and snow, and deep behind it, the slow groaning creak of the glacier across the land. I could suddenly smell the salt of the ocean and the iodine of the kelp on the beach and the icy breath of old snow.

It was like opening a door to an older place and time. I glanced over at Thick and suddenly saw him as complete and whole in this setting, for he gave himself to it. While he sat here and enjoyed the night, he lacked nothing. I felt a smile bend my mouth. ‘You would have made a good wolf,’ I told him.

And when I went to sleep that night, Nettle found me. It took me some time to become aware of her, for she sat at the edge of my dream, letting the wind off the sea ruffle her hair as she stared out of the window of my boyhood bedchamber at Buckkeep. When I finally looked at her, she stepped out of the window and onto my beach saying only, ‘Well. Here we both are.’

I felt all the apologies and explanations and excuses rise in me, crowding to be the first words out of my mouth. Then she sat down beside me on the sand and looked out over the water. The wind stirred her hair like a wolf’s ruff rippling in the breeze. Her stillness was such a contrast to all the jumbled communication inside me that I suddenly felt what a tiresome fellow I was, always filling the air with the rattle of words and anxieties. I found that I was sitting beside her with my tail neatly curled around my forefeet. And I said, ‘I promised Nighteyes that I would tell you tales of him, and I have not.’

Silence spun a web between us and then she said, ‘I think I would like to hear one tonight.’

So I told her about a clumsy, blunt-nosed cub springing high to land on hapless mice and how we had learned to trust one another and to hunt and think as one. And she listened through the night, and to some tales I told, she cocked her head and said, ‘I think I remember that.’

I came awake to dawn seeping in through the bright beasts that cavorted on the tent walls, and for a moment I forgot that I was weighted with sorrow and vengeance. All I saw was a gleaming blue dragon, wings spread wide as he rocked on the wind while below him scarlet and purple serpents arched through the water. Slowly I became aware of Thick snoring and that the waves were very close to the door of our tent. That sound woke alarm in me, and I scuttled to the door to peer out. At first, I was relieved, because the water was retreating. I had slept through the real danger, when the sea had reached within two steps of our door.

I crawled out of the tent and then stood, stretching and looking out over the waves. I felt an odd sense of peace. My dolorous mission was still before me, but I had reclaimed a part of my life that I thought I had spoiled. I walked a little away from the tent to relieve myself, almost enjoying the chill of the packed wet sand under my bare feet. But when I turned back to the tent, all my equanimity fled.

Twisted into the sand, inches from the tent flap, was the Fool’s honey jar.

I recognized it in that instant, and recalled well how it had disappeared from outside my tent on my first night on this island. I scanned the beach hastily and then the cliffs above us, looking for any sign of another person. There was nothing. I crept up on the honey jar as if it might bite me, all the while searching for even the tiniest sign of who had come and left so silently in the night. But the encroaching waves had wiped the beach clean of any sign of his passage. The Black Man had once more eluded me.

At last I picked it up. I took out the stopper, expecting I knew not what, but found it perfectly empty, with not even a trace of its former sweetness left within. I took it inside the tent and packed it carefully away with the Fool’s other possessions, even as I pondered what it might mean. I thought of Skilling of my strange discovery to Chade and Dutiful, but at length I decided I would say nothing of it to anyone for now.

I found little wood that morning, and so Thick and I had to be content with salt-fish and cold water for breakfast. The supplies that had seemed more than adequate for one man now seemed to be dwindling all too swiftly. I took a deep breath and tried to be a wolf. For now, there was fine weather and enough food for the day, and I should take advantage of that to continue my journey without whining for more. Thick seemed in a genial mood until I began to pack up the tent. Then he complained that all I wanted to do was to walk down the beach every day. I bit my tongue and did not remind him that he was the one who had chosen, uninvited, to stay behind and link his life to mine. Instead, I told him that we did not have much farther to go. That seemed to encourage him, for I did not mention that I would be looking for whatever marks Riddle and the others might have left when they clambered down to the sand. He had mentioned a cliff, and I hoped their passage had left some trace that wind and tide had not yet obscured.

So on we tramped, and I tried to take pleasure in the freshness of the day and the ever-changing countenance of the sea, even as I kept one eye on the cliffs that backed us. Yet the sign that suddenly greeted me was, I was sure, no doing of Riddle or of his companions. It was freshly scratched on the stone of the cliffs, unweathered by wind or water, and its meaning was unmistakable. A crude dragon cavorted over an arched serpent. Above them, an arrow pointed straight up.

It seemed to me that whoever had made the marks had chosen for us a fairly easy climb from the beach to the cliff tops. Even so, I went up first and unencumbered while Thick waited placidly on the beach below. At the top of the wind-scoured cliffs, there was a thin edge of bare ground. Stubborn grasses tufted there amidst a crunchy sort of moss. A sort of shallow meadow bloomed beyond it, of grasses and lichen-crusted rocks and pessimistic bushes. I had climbed up, knife in teeth, but no one, friend or enemy, awaited me there. Instead, there was only the barren sweep of cold wind from the crouching glacier.

I returned to the beach, to bring up first our packs and then Thick. He did well enough at climbing, but was hampered by his shorter stature and stockier girth. Eventually, however, we stood on the cliff top together. ‘Well,’ he exclaimed when he had finished puffing. ‘And now what?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I said, and looked about, guessing that whoever had left us such a plain sign on the cliff would not abandon us now. It took me a moment to see it. I do not think it was intended to be subtle, but rather that there was little to work with. A row of small beach stones was set in a line. One end of it pointed toward the place we had just climbed up. The other end pointed inland.

I handed Thick his pack and then settled my own on my shoulders. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We’re going that way.’ I pointed.

He followed my finger with his eyes and then shook his head in disappointment. ‘No. Why? There’s nothing there but grass. And then snow.’

I had no easy explanation. He was right. In the distance, the plain of stubby grass gave way to snow and then looming ice. Beyond them, a rock face shone with a frosting of ice and snow. ‘Well, that’s where I’m going,’ I said. And I struck out. I set an easy pace, but avoided looking back. Instead, I listened, and with my Wit, quested for an awareness of him. He was following, but grudgingly. I slowed my pace enough to allow him to catch up. When he was alongside me, I observed companionably, ‘Well, Thick, I think that today we will have answers to at least a few of our questions.’

‘What questions?’

‘Who or what is the Black Man?’

Thick looked stubborn. ‘I don’t really care.’

‘Well. It’s a lovely day. And I’m not just hiking on the beach any more.’

‘We’re hiking toward the snow.’

He was right, and soon enough we reached the outlying edges of it. And there, plainly, were the tracks of the Black Man, going and coming. Without commenting on them, I followed them, Thick trudging at my heels. After a short time, Thick observed, ‘We aren’t poking the snow. We might fall right through.’

‘As long as we follow these tracks, I think we’re safe,’ I told him. ‘This isn’t the true glacier yet.’

By early afternoon, we had followed the tracks across a windswept plain of snow and ice to a rocky cliff wall. Towering and forbidding, it defied the wind. Ice made columns down its face and had wedged cracks into it. At the base of it, the tracks turned west and continued. We followed. Night greyed the sky and I pushed on doggedly, giving Thick sticks of salt-fish when he complained of being hungry. As the twilight grew deeper around us, even my curiosity lagged along with my energy. At length, we halted. I felt sheepish as I turned to Thick and said, ‘Well, I was wrong. We’ll set up the tent here for the night, shall we?’

His tongue and lower lip pouted out and he beetled his brows at me in disappointment. ‘Do we have to?’

I glanced around, at a loss for what else I could offer him. ‘What would you like to do?’

‘Go there!’ he exclaimed and pointed. I lifted my eyes to follow the stubby finger. My breath caught in my chest.

I had been keeping my eyes on the tracks. I had not lifted my gaze to the looming cliff wall. Ahead of us, halfway up the bluff, a wide crack had been fitted with a door of grey wood. The rest of the crack had been filled in with rocks of various sizes. The door had been left ajar and yellow firelight shone within. Someone was in there.

With renewed haste, we followed the tracks to where they suddenly doubled back to follow a steep footpath that worked up and across the face of the cliff. Calling it a footpath was generous. We had to go in single file and our packs bumped against the rock as we negotiated it. Nevertheless, it was a well-used trail, kept free of debris and treacherous ice. Where trickles of ice from above had attempted to cross the path, they had been chopped off short and brushed away. It appeared to be a recent effort.

Despite these signs of hospitality, I was full of trepidation when I stood at last before the door. It had been constructed of driftwood, hand-planed and pegged together painstakingly. Warmth and an aroma of cooked food wafted out from it. Although it was ajar and the space in front of it small, still I hesitated. Thick didn’t. He shoved past me to push the door open. ‘Hello!’ he called hopefully. ‘We’re here and we’re cold.’

‘Please, enter do,’ someone replied in a low and pleasant voice. The accent on the words was odd, and the voice seemed husky as if from disuse, but the welcome was plain in the tone. Thick didn’t hesitate as he stepped inside. I followed him more slowly.

After the dimness of the night, the fire in the stone hearth seemed to glare with light. At first, I could make out no more than a silhouette seated before the fire in a wooden chair. Then the Black Man slowly stood and faced us. Thick drew in his breath audibly. Then, with a show of recovery and manners that astounded me in the little man, he said carefully, ‘Good evening, Grandfather.’

The Black Man smiled. His worn teeth were as yellow as bone in his black, black face. Lines wreathed his mouth and his eyes nestled deep in their sockets, like shining ebony disks. He spoke, and after a time my mind sorted out his badly accented Outislander. ‘I know not how long I’ve been here. Yet this I know. This is the first time that anyone has entered and called me Grandfather.’

When he stood, it was without apparent effort, and his spine was straight. Yet age was written all over his countenance, and he moved with the slow grace of a man who protects his body from shocks. He gestured to a small table. ‘Guests I seldom have, but my hospitality I would offer despite what is lacked. Please. Food I have made. Come.’

Thick didn’t hesitate. He shrugged out of his pack, letting it slide to the floor without regret. ‘We thank you,’ I said slowly as I carefully removed my own and set both of them to one side. My eyes had adjusted to the light. I do not know if I would have called his residence a cave or a large crevice. I could not see a ceiling, and I suspected that smoke travelled up but not out. The furnishings were simple but very well made, with both the craft and attention of a man who had much time to learn his skills and apply them. There was a bedstead in a corner, and a larder shelf, a water bucket and a barrel, and a woven rug. Some of the items appeared to have been salvaged, windfalls from the beach, and others were obviously made from the scanty resources of the island. It bespoke a long habitation.

The man himself was as tall as I was, and as solidly black as the Fool once had been white. He did not ask our names or offer his, but served soup into three stone bowls that he had warmed by the fire. He spoke little at first. Outislander was the language we used; yet it was not native to any of us. The Black Man and I worked at communicating. Thick spoke duchy-tongue but managed to make himself understood. The table was low, and our chairs were cushions with woven reed covers stuffed with dry grass. It was good to sit down. His spoons were made of polished bone. There was fish in the soup, but it was fresh, as were the boiled roots and meagre greens. It tasted very good after our long days of dried or preserved food. The flat bread that he set out with it startled me and he grinned when he saw me looking at it.

‘From her pantry to mine,’ he said, with no apology. ‘What I needed I took. And sometimes more.’ He sighed. ‘And now it is done. Simpler, my life will be. Yours, lonelier, I think.’

It suddenly seemed to me that we were in the middle of a conversation, with both of us already knowing, without words, why we had come together. So I simply said, ‘I have to go back for him. He hated the cold. I cannot leave his body there. And I must be sure that this is finished. That she is dead.’

He nodded gravely to the inevitable. ‘That would be your path, and you that path must tread.’

‘So. You will help me then?’

He shook his head, not regretfully but inevitably. ‘Your path,’ he repeated. ‘The path of the Changer belongs to you only.’

A shiver ran down my back that he called me that. Nevertheless, I pressed him. ‘But I do not know the way into her palace. You must know a way, for I saw you there. Cannot you at least show me that?’

‘The path will find you,’ he assured me, and smiled. ‘In darkness it cannot hide itself.’

Thick held up his empty bowl. ‘That was good!’

‘More, then?’

‘Please!’ Thick exclaimed, and then heaved a great sigh of pleasure as the man refilled his bowl. He ate his second serving more slowly. There was no talk as the Black Man rose and set a battered old kettle full of water over the fire. He fed the fire larger, and I watched the driftwood catch and burn with occasional licks of odd colours in the flames. He went to a shelf and carefully considered three little wooden boxes there. I arose hastily and went to my pack.

‘Please, allow us to contribute something to the meal. I have tea herbs here.’

When he turned to me, I saw that I had guessed correctly. It was as if I had offered another man jewels and gold. Without hesitation, I opened one of the Fool’s little packets and offered it to him. He leaned over it to smell it, and then closed his eyes as a smile of purest pleasure came over his face.

‘A generous heart you have!’ he exclaimed. ‘A memory of flowers grows here. Nothing brings to mind the memories so much as fragrance.’

‘Please. Keep it all, to enjoy,’ I offered him, and he beamed with delight, his black eyes shining.

He made tea with a rare caution, crumbling the herbs to powder and then steeping them in a tightly-covered container. When he removed the lid and the fragrance of the tea steamed up, he laughed aloud in delight, and, just as people do when a small child laughs, Thick and I joined in for sheer pleasure in his enjoyment. There was an immediacy about him that was very charming, so that it was almost impossible for me to find the focus to worry and fret. He shared out the tea, and we drank it in tiny sips, savouring both the fragrance and the flavour. By the time we were finished, Thick was yawning prodigiously, which somehow increased my own weariness.

‘A place to sleep,’ our host announced, and gestured Thick toward his own bedstead.

‘Please, we have our own bedding. You need not give up your bed to us,’ I assured him, but he patted Thick on the shoulder and again gesticulated at the bed.

‘You will be comfortable. Safe and sweet the dreaming. Rest well.’

Thick needed no other invitation than that. He had already taken off his boots. He sat down on the bed and I heard the creak of a rope framework. He lifted the coverlet and crawled in and closed his eyes. I believe he went to sleep in almost that instant.

I had already begun to spread out our bedding near the fire. Some of it was the Fool’s Elderling-made stuff, and the old man examined it carefully, rubbing the thin coverlet between his finger and thumb wistfully. Then, ‘So kind you are, so kind. Thank you.’ Then he looked at me almost sadly and said, ‘Your path awaits. May fortune be kind, and the night gentle.’ Then he bowed to me in what was obviously a farewell.

In some confusion, I glanced at his door. When I looked back at him, he nodded slowly. ‘I will keep the watch,’ he assured me, gesturing toward Thick.

Still I stood staring at him, confused. He took a breath and then paused. I could almost see him pushing his thoughts into words I could understand. He touched both hands to his cheeks and then held his black palms out to me. ‘Once, I was The White. The Prophet.’ He smiled to see my eyes widen, but then sadness came into his dark gaze. ‘I failed. With the old ones, I came here. We were the last ones and we knew it. The other cities had gone empty and still. But I had seen there was still a chance, a slight chance, that all might go back to what had been. When the dragon came, at first he gave me hope. But he was full of despair, sick with it like a disease. Into the ice he crawled. I tried. I visited him, I pleaded, I … encouraged. But he turned from me to seek death. And that left nothing for me. No hopes. There was only the waiting. For so long, I had nothing. I saw nothing. The future darkened, the chances narrowed.’ He put his hands together and looked through their cupped palms as if peering through a crack, to show me how limited his visions had become. He lifted his gaze back to me. I think my confusion disappointed him. He shook his head, and then with an obvious effort, pushed on. ‘One vision is left to me. A tiny peep … no! A tiny glimpse of what could be. It was not certain, ever, but it was a chance. Another might come. With another catalyst.’ He held a hand out to me, formed a tiny aperture with his fist. ‘The smallest chance, maybe there is. So small, so unlikely. But there is that chance.’ He looked at me intently.

I forced myself to nod, though I was still not certain I understood all he told me. He had been a White Prophet who failed? Yet he had foreseen that eventually the Fool and I would come here?

He took encouragement from my nod. ‘She came. At first, “She is the one!” I think. Her Catalyst she brings. Hope comes to me. She says, she seeks the dragon. And I am a fool. I show her the way. Then, the betrayal. She seeks to kill Icefyre. I am angry, but she is stronger. She drove me out, and I had to flee, by a way she cannot follow. She thinks me dead and makes all here her own. But I return, and here I make a place for myself. To this side of the island, her people do not come. But I live and I know she is false. I want to throw her down. But to be the change-maker is not my role. And my Catalyst …’ His voice suddenly went hoarser. He spoke with difficulty. ‘She is dead. Dead so many years. Who could imagine that death lasts so much longer than life? So, only I remained. And I could not make the change that was needed. All I could do was wait. Again, I waited. I hoped. Then I saw him, not white, but gold. I wondered. Then you came after him. Him I knew, at first glance. I recognized you when you left the gift for me. My heart …’ He touched his chest and then lifted his hands high. He smiled beatifically. ‘I longed to help. But I cannot be the Changer. So limited what I may do, or down it all falls. You understand this?’

I replied slowly. ‘I think I do. You are not allowed to be the one who makes the changes. You were the White Prophet of your time, not the Changer.’

‘Yes. Yes, that it is!’ He smiled at me. ‘And this time is not mine. But it is yours, to be the Changer and his to see the way and guide you. You did. And the new path found is. He pays the cost.’ His voice sank, not in sorrow, but in acknowledgement. I bowed my head to his words.

He patted my shoulder and I looked up at him. He smiled the smile of age. ‘And on we go,’ he assured me. ‘Into new times! New paths, beyond all visions. This is a time I never saw, nor she, she who me deceived. This, she never seen has. Only your Prophet has seen this way! The new path, beyond the dragons rising.’ He gave a sudden deep sigh. ‘High the price was for you, but it has been paid. Go. Find what is left of him. To leave him there …’ The ancient man shook his head. ‘That is not to be.’ He gestured again. ‘Changer, go. Even now, I dare not the change maker be. While you live, it is only for you. Now, go.’ He gestured at my pack and at his door. He smiled.

Then, without any further talk, he eased himself down onto the Fool’s bedding and stretched out before the fire.

I felt oddly torn. I was weary and the Black Man created just such an isle of rest as the Fool would have. And yet, in that comparison, I once more felt the urgency to put it all to a final end. I wished I had known I was leaving him; I would have warned Thick what to expect. Yet somehow, I did not think he would be alarmed to awaken here and find me gone.

Leaving him felt inevitable. I put on my still-chilly outer garments, and shouldered my pack again. I looked once more around the Black Man’s tiny home and could not help but contrast it to the splendour of the Pale Woman’s glacial domain. Then, my heart smote me that my friend’s body was still discarded in that icy place. I went out quietly into the deep grey of the night, shutting the door firmly behind me.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Catalyst

In a backwater of the river there, not far from the Rainwilders’ city, lie huge logs of what is known as Wizardwood. The sailor told me that it is a sort of husk that the serpents make in the process of becoming dragons. Much magical power is ascribed to this so-called wood. Artefacts made from it may eventually acquire a life of their own; it is said that the Liveships of the Bingtown Traders were originally made from such wood. Ground to a dust and exchanged by lovers, it is said to allow them to share dreams. Ingested in a larger quantity, it is said to be poisonous. When I asked why such valuable stuff would be left lying in a riverbed, the sailor told me that the dragon Tintaglia and her litter guard it as if it were gold. It would be worth a man’s life, he told me, to steal so much as a sliver of the stuff. My effort to bribe him to get me some met with resounding failure.

Spy’s report to Chade Fallstar, unsigned

The Black Man was right. No night could hide my path from me.

Nevertheless, it was a challenge to tread his narrow cliffside trail in the darkness. While I had lingered inside, slow rills of water had crept across it to become serpents of ice under my feet. Twice I nearly fell, and when I was at the bottom, I looked back up, marvelling that I had descended without a mishap.

And I saw my way. Or, at least, the start of it. Higher in the cliff face and past the Black Man’s door, a very pale blush of light emanated from the ice-draped stone. I shuddered at its dreadful familiarity. Then with a sigh, I turned back to the steep footpath.

Even by day, it would have been a nasty climb. My brief rest in the Black Man’s cavern seemed to have more sapped my energy than restored it. I thought, more than once, of going back into the warmth and comfort of his home, to sleep until morning. I did not think of it as something I could do but rather as something that I wished I could do. Now that I was so close to my goal, I was oddly reluctant to confront it. I had put a little wall of time between my grief and me. I knew that tonight, I would look my loss in the face and embrace the full impact of it. In strange anticipation, I wanted it to be over.

When I finally reached the softly glimmering crack in the wall, I found that the opening was barely large enough for me to enter. The slow slide of water down the rock-face was icing it gradually closed. I suspected that it must be a near daily task for the Black Man to keep this entrance clear enough to use.

I drew my belt-knife and clashed away enough of the icy curtain that I could just squeeze through. My pack scraped. Once I was inside, I still had to turn my body sideways and edge forward toward the pale light, dragging my pack behind me. The crack widened very gradually, and when I looked back the way I had come, it did not look like a promising exit. If I had not known otherwise, I would have said that the crack came to an end with no outlet. The crack narrowed and then bent slightly before it intersected with a corridor of worked stone. One of the Pale Woman’s globes gleamed there: it was the straying light from that orb which had beckoned me into this place.

I surveyed the corridor carefully before stepping out of the crack. All was still in both directions, so still that I could hear the slow drip of water somewhere, and then the soft groaning of the glacier shifting somewhere. My Wit told me all was deserted, but in this place, that was small comfort. What assurance did I have that all the Forged had been freed? I lifted my nose, scenting like a wolf, but smelled only ice-melt and faint smoke. I stood debating which way to go, and then impulsively chose to go left. Before I went, I scratched a mark at eye level on the stone wall by my crack, by that small act affirming that I expected to return.

Once more, I travelled the chill corridors of the Pale Woman’s realm. The halls were horribly familiar and yet unfamiliar in their stark similarity. They reminded me of somewhere I had been, and yet I could not summon the memory. In that realm, I had no way to measure the passage of time. The light of the bulbous globes was uniform and unwavering. I found myself walking lightly and silently, and approaching each corner with caution. I felt I explored a tomb, and not just because I sought the Fool’s body. Perhaps it was the movement of air in the cold tunnels, but there seemed always to be a whispering at the edge of my hearing.

This portion of the Pale Woman’s stronghold showed signs of long disuse. Most of the chambers that opened onto the corridor were bare. One held a scattering of useless debris: a worn sock, a broken arrow, a tattered blanket end and a cracked bowl were left behind on the dusty stone floor. In another, small cubes of memory stone were scattered all over the floor, obviously tumbled from the long narrow shelves that lined the walls. I wondered who had populated these chambers and when? Had this been a fortress for the Red Ships crews when they were not raiding? Or was it as the Black Man had told, had other people created these rooms and inhabited them? I decided that the habitation was far older than the Red Ship War. High on the wall, above the reach of casual destruction, the remains of bas-relief carvings showed me glimpses of a woman’s narrow face, of a dragon on the wing, of a tall and slender king. Only disconnected fragments of them remained, and I wondered if the Pale Woman had ordered them destroyed or if it was merely the idle pastime of Forged ones to eradicate beauty. Knowledge seeped into me slowly, but eventually I wondered, had she wished to erase all evidence that these passages had once belonged to the Elderlings? Were they the ‘old ones’ that the Black Man had seen perish here?

The corridor I followed merged seamlessly with one of ice. I stepped from black stone onto blue ice. Another dozen steps, and a carved portal admitted me into an immense vaulted chamber of ice. Flowering vines of ice were carved on the massive ice pillars that had been left in place to support the blue ceiling. Time had softened their line as the slow melt had eased them back into obscurity, but their grace remained. It was a place of dusk, a moonlit garden of ice, with a large glowing crescent moon embedded in the ceiling and the constellations spelled out in smaller light orbs overhead. The Women’s Gardens of Buckkeep Castle would have fitted twice into this chamber. It was obviously intended as a place of beauty and peace. Yet the lower reaches of the garden, the fantastically sculpted ice fountains and the decorative benches all showed signs of malicious vandalism. It was the sort of desecration that bespoke anger and resentment more than idleness. Only the body of a dragon poised on a pillar of ice remained. His wings had been broken away, his head shattered in a dozen pieces. The smell of old urine was strong and the foundation pillar that supported him was corroded with yellow, as if merely destroying the dragon’s image had not been enough for them.

I crossed the ice gardens and found a winding stairwell that led down. At one time, there had likely been carved ice-stairs going down and a balustrade, perhaps, but time and slow melt had changed the steps to an uneven and treacherous slope. I fell several times, clawing at the walls to slow my sliding and biting my cheek to endure the pain silently. The destruction in the chamber above had reminded me of the Pale Woman’s capacity for hate. I still feared that she might lurk somewhere in this ice labyrinth. I reached the bottom bruised and discouraged. I did not want to consider how I would ascend it again.

A wide corridor headed straight into a blue distance. Light globes at intervals illuminated the empty niches in its walls. As I passed them, I noted stumps of legs in one. In another, the stub of a vase remained. At one time, then, they had held sculptures and this had been a sort of gallery, I supposed. A plain and functional side passage opened off from it, and I took it, almost relieved to leave the broken beauty behind me. I followed it for what seemed like a long time. It sloped gently down. At the next turning, I went right, for I thought I knew where I was.

I was wrong. The place was a warren of intersecting ice passages. Doors lined some passages, but they were frozen shut and windowless. I made my marks at junctions, but soon wondered if I would ever find my way out again. I tried always to choose the path that was more used or wider, showing the recent dirt of human usage. Evidence of that became more obvious as I worked my way ever lower into the city of ice. Such I was now certain it had been. Looking back, I wonder if the Elderlings had simply accepted and shaped the ice when it overtook the city or if they had deliberately built in the stone of this island and then extended their dwelling into the glacier. I felt that as I found the passages and chambers that the Pale Woman and her Forged minions had used, I left behind the beauty and grace of the Elderlings and descended into the grubbiness and destruction of humanity and I felt ashamed of my kind.

The chambers began to show signs of recent habitation. Un-emptied slop buckets stood in corners of what might have been barracks rooms. Sleeping hides were scattered on the floor amongst the casual litter of a guardroom. Yet I saw none of the touches that soldiers usually kept in their sleeping places: no dice or gaming pieces, no luck charms given by their sweethearts, no carefully-folded shirt set aside for an evening in the tavern. The rooms bespoke a hard and bare life, stripped of humanity. Forged. It stirred in me a fresh surge of pity for the men who had lost years of their lives in the Pale Woman’s service.

More luck than memory led me at last to her throne room. When I saw the double door, a wave of sick anticipation swept through me. That was where I had had my final glimpse of the Fool. Would his chained body still sprawl on the floor there? At that thought, I felt a surge of dizziness and for a moment, blackness closed in at the edges of my vision. I halted where I stood and breathed slowly, waiting for my weakness to pass. Then I forced my legs to carry me on.

One of the tall doors of the chamber stood ajar. A shallow spill of snow and ice had been vomited out into the hall. At the sight of it, my heart stood still. Perhaps my quest would be thwarted here, the entire immense chamber collapsed and full of ice. The spilled snow was a ramp into the room; the days and nights that had passed since its collapse had seized the snow and ice in an icy grip and stilled it. Only the top third of the entry remained clear. I climbed up the fall of ice and peered into the chamber. For a moment I stood in awe in the muted bluish light.

The centre of the chamber ceiling had given way. Snow and ice had collapsed into it from above, filling the middle of the room but cascading to shallowness at the edges. Light came from a few remaining globes and peered out uncertainly from beneath the fall of ice. I wondered how long those unnatural lanterns would continue to burn. Was their magic that of the Pale Woman, or were those, too, remnants of an Elderling occupation of this place?

I went cautious as a rat exploring a new room, creeping around the perimeter of the walls where the fall of ice was shallowest. I clambered up and down over chunks and drifts of ice, fearing that I would eventually find my way blocked. But I finally reached the throne end of the room and could see what remained of the Pale Woman’s great hall.

The crush of falling ice had spared that end of the chamber, its rush depleted. The wave of avalanching ice had stopped short of her throne. It was overturned and broken, but I suspected that had happened when the stone dragon had stirred to life. He seemed to have made his exit through the middle of the chamber’s ceiling rather than from this end. The remains of two men protruded from the avalanche. Perhaps those were the fighters Dutiful had battled, or perhaps they had merely been in the dragon’s way as he charged off to do battle. Of the Pale Woman, there was no sign. I hoped that she had shared their fate.

The fallen and muted light globes lit this area uncertainly. All was ice and blue shadow. I circled the toppled throne and tried to remember exactly where the Fool had been chained to the dragon. In retrospect, it seemed impossible that the dragon had been as immense as I recalled him. I looked in vain for fallen shackles or my friend’s body. At last, I climbed up on icy rubble and from that vantage studied the room.

Almost immediately, I glimpsed a swirl of familiar colours and shapes. My belly churned as I slowly clambered down and walked over to it. I stood staring down at it, unable to feel any grief, only burning horror and disbelief. The overlay of frost could not disguise it. At length, I went to my knees, but I do not recall if I knelt to see it better or if my shaking legs simply gave out under me.

Dragons and serpents tangled and tumbled in the discarded folds of it. Scarlet frost outlined it. I did not need to touch it; I could not have brought myself to touch it, but it needed no touch to know that it was frozen solidly into the floor of the chamber. As body warmth had departed it, it had sunk into the ice and become one with it.

They had flayed the tattooed skin from his back.

I knelt beside it like a man in prayer. Doubtless it had been a slow and careful skinning to take it off intact. Despite the way it had wrinkled as it fell, I knew it was one continuous flap of skin, his entire back. To take it off like that would not have been easy. I did not want to imagine how they had restrained him, or who had lovingly wielded the blade. A second thought displaced that horrid image. This would not have been how she vindictively ended his life when she realized that I had defied her and wakened the dragon. Rather, she had done this to amuse herself, at her leisure, probably beginning the slow lifting of skin from flesh almost as soon as I had been taken from the room. Flung to one side, the wrinkled layer of skin was frozen to the floor like a dirty shirt cast aside. I could not stop staring at it. I could not keep myself from imagining every slow moment of his death. This was what he had foreseen; this was the end he had dreaded to face. How many times had I assured him that I would give up my life before I saw his torn from him? Yet here I knelt, alive.

Some time later, I came back to myself. I had not fainted and I do not know where my thoughts had gone, only that I seemed to awaken from a time of utter blackness. I rose stiffly. I would not try to free her grisly trophy and bear it off with me. That was no part of my Fool. It was the cruel mark she had put upon him, his daily reminder that eventually he must come to her and yield back to her what she had etched upon his skin. So let it lie there, frozen forever. With ever-darkening hatred of her and ever-deepening grief, I knew with sudden certainty where I would find my friend’s body.

As I stood, I caught sight of a curved sheen of grey. It was not far from where his skin lay upon the floor. I knelt beside it and brushed a layer of frost away to reveal a blood-smeared shard of the carved Rooster Crown. A single gem winked up from a carved bird’s eye. That I did take with me. That had belonged to him and me, and I would not leave it behind.

I left the demolished room and threaded my way through corridors as frozen as my heart. In all directions, the halls looked the same, and I could not focus my mind to recall how I had been dragged to her, let alone the location of the dungeon where they had confined me. I knew now, with certainty, where I had to go. I needed to find my way back to the first corridor the Fool and I had entered.

I know it took me more than the rest of the night. I wandered until I was past weariness. The cold nudged at me and my ears strained after imagined sounds. I saw no sign of any living creature. Eventually, when my eyes ached from remaining open, I decided to rest. I set my pack down in the corner of a small room where firewood had been stored. I put my back to the corner and sat on my pack. I clutched my sword in my hand as I drooped my head over my knees. I dozed fitfully until nightmares awoke me and drove me on again.

Eventually, I found her bedchamber, her frozen braziers draped with icicles. The lights burned brightly there and I could see the whole chamber, the carved wardrobes of rich wood, and the elegant table that held her mirror and brushes, her sparkling jewellery gleaming on a silvery tree. Someone, perhaps, had plundered as he fled, for one of the wardrobes stood open, and garments trailed from it across the floor. I wondered how they had missed taking the jewels. The sleek furs of her bed were hoared with frost. I did not linger there. I did not want to gaze at the empty shackles affixed to the wall across from her bed, nor on the bloody stains they framed on the icy wall.

Beyond her bedchamber, another door gaped. I glanced in as I passed, then halted and went back to it. There was a table in the middle of the room, and scroll-racks lined the walls. They were neatly filled, the scrolls rolled and tied in the Six Duchies fashion. I walked over to them, knowing what I had found, but feeling oddly emotionless about it. I pulled out a scroll at random and opened it. Yes. It was by Master Treeknee. This one had to do with rules of conduct for candidates in training. It strictly forbade the playing of pranks that involved the use of Skill. I let it fall to the icy floor and chose another at random. This was newer, and I recognized Solicity’s rounded hand and sloping letters. The words squirmed before my tearing eyes, and I let it fall to join its fellow. I lifted my gaze to look around the room. Here was the missing Skill library of Buckkeep Castle, surreptitiously sold away by Regal to finance his lush lifestyle at Tradeford. Traders who were agents for the Pale Woman and Kebal Rawbread had bought from the youngest prince the knowledge of the Farseer magic. Our inheritance had come north, to the Outislanders and eventually to this room. Here the Pale Woman had learned how to turn our own magic against us, and here she had studied how to make a stone dragon. Chade would have given his eyeteeth for a single afternoon in this room. It was a treasure trove of lost knowledge. It would not buy what I most desired, a chance to do things differently. I shook my head and turned and left it there.

Eventually, I found the dungeons that had held the Narcheska’s mother and sister. Peottre had left those doors ajar when he had snatched his women free. The next dungeon showed me a more grisly sight. Three dead men sprawled within it. I wondered if they had died as Forged ones, fighting amongst themselves, or if the death of the dragon had restored them to themselves, so that they perished of cold and hunger while in full possession of their sensibilities.

The door of the cell that had held Riddle and Hest stood open. Hest’s plundered body lay face up on the floor. I forced myself to look down into his face. Cold and death had blackened his countenance, but I saw there still the young man I had known. After a moment’s hesitation, I stooped and seized his shoulders. It was hard work, but I pried his body from the floor. It was not a pleasant task, for he was well frozen to it. I dragged him back to the room that had held the Narcheska’s mother and placed him on the wooden bed. I gathered from that room and her daughter’s cell anything that I thought might burn, old bedding and straw from the floor. I heaped it around his body, and then sacrificed half of the flask of oil that I had brought with me for burning the Fool’s body. It took some little time to get a bit of the straw to light, but once it did, the flames licked eagerly at the oil and clambered over the wood and straw. I waited until a curtain of flames had risen around his body. Then I cut a lock of my hair and added it to his funeral pyre, the traditional Six Duchies sacrifice to say farewell to a comrade. ‘Not in vain, Hest. Not in vain,’ I told him, but as I left him burning, I wondered what we had truly accomplished. Only the years to come would tell us, and I was not yet ready to say that the freeing of the dragon was a triumph for humanity.

And that left the last chamber. Of course. It would have been her final degradation of him, her final mockery and triumphant discarding of him. In a chamber spattered with human waste and garbage, by a heap of offal and filth, I found my friend.

He had been alive when they dumped him here. She would have wanted him to be aware of this final indignity offered him. He had crawled to the corner of the room that was least soiled. There, huddled in a piece of dirty sacking, he had died. My Fool had been such a clean man in his life that I did not doubt that dying among filth had been an additional torment for him. I do not know if someone had flung the old sacking over him or if he had sought it himself in the time before he finally died, curled in a tight ball on the icy floor. Perhaps whoever had disposed of him here had bundled him in it to make his body easier to drag. Blood and fluids had soaked the coarse and crusty weave of the fabric, freezing it tight to his diminished body. He had drawn up his knees and tucked his chin tight to his chest, and his face was locked in an expression of pain. His gleaming hair was loose and tattered, with mats of blood in it.

I set my hand on his cold clenched brow. I had not known I was going to do it until I did it. With all the Skill I could muster, I reached and sought for him. I found only stillness. I set both my hands to his cheeks and forced my way in. I explored his corpse, pushing my way through the passages where life had once flowed effortlessly. I tried to heal it, to awaken it again to life. Go! I commanded his blood and Live! I commanded his flesh.

But his body had been still too long. Reluctantly, I learned too well what all hunters know. At the instant of death, the decay begins. The tiny bits that make up the flesh begin the slide into carrion, letting go of one another so that they can find the freedom to become other things. His blood was thick, the skin that once held out the world had become a sack that held in the separating flesh. Breathless, I pushed at it, willing life into it, but it was like pushing on a hinge rusted closed. The pieces that used to move separately had become a single unmoving entity. Function had become stillness. Other forces were at work here now, disassembling the tiniest pieces, breaking them down like grinding grain into flour. All the little links that bound them were coming undone. Nevertheless, I tried. I tried to move his arm; I tried to force his body to take a breath.

What are you doing?

It was Thick, mildly annoyed that I had broken into his sleep. I was suddenly frantically glad to feel him with me. Thick, I have found him, the Fool, my friend, Lord Golden. I have found him. Help me heal him. Please, lend me your strength.

He was sleepily tolerant of my request. All right. Thick will try. I felt the wide yawn he did not disguise. Where is he?

Here! Right here! With my Skill, I indicated the still body before me.

Where?

Right here! Here, Thick. Under my hands.

There’s no one there.

Yes, there is. I’m touching him, right here. Please, Thick. Then, in my despair, I threw my plea wider. Dutiful, Chade. Please. Lend me strength and Skill for a healing. Please.

Who is hurt? Not Thick! Chade was with me abruptly, full of panic.

No, I am fine. He wants to heal someone who isn’t there.

He is here. I’ve found the Fool’s body, Chade. Please. You all brought me back. Please. Help me heal him, help me bring him back!

Dutiful spoke, calmingly. Fitz, we are all here, and you know we will do this for you. It may be harder, as we are separated, but we will try. Show him to us.

He is here! Right here, I’m touching him. I was suddenly furiously impatient with them. Why were they being so stupid? Why wouldn’t they help me?

I don’t sense him, Dutiful said after a long pause. Touch him.

But I am! I bent over him and put my arms around his curled body. I’m holding him. Please. Help me heal him.

That? That isn’t a person. Thick was obviously puzzled. You can’t heal dirt!

Rage filled me. He isn’t dirt!

Dutiful spoke gently. It’s all right, Thick. Don’t be upset. You said nothing wrong. I know you didn’t mean it that way. Then, to me, Fitz. Oh, Fitz, I am so sorry. But he’s dead. And Thick is right, in his own blunt way. His body is becoming … something else. I cannot sense it as a body. Only as … He halted, unable to say the words. Carrion. Rot. Degenerating meat. Dirt.

Chade spoke as calmly as if he were reminding me of an obvious lesson. Healing is a function of the living body, Fitz. The Skill can urge it, but the body does it. When it is alive. That is not the Fool you hold, Fitz. It is his empty shell. You cannot make it live any more than you could make a rock live. There is no calling him back into it.

Thick spoke pragmatically. Even if you made it work again, there’s no one to put in it.

I think it finally became real then. The corpse that was no longer his body. The absence of his spirit.

A long, long time seemed to pass. Then Chade spoke again softly. Fitz. What are you doing now?

Nothing. Just sitting here. Failing. Again. Just as I did with Burrich. He died, didn’t he?

I could almost see the resignation on the old man’s face. I knew how he would draw a breath and sigh that I insisted on stacking all my pain in one pile, facing it all at once. Yes. He did. With his son beside him. And Web. All of us honoured him. We halted the ships, to be together when they slid him over the side and let him go. Just as you must let the Fool go.

I did not want to agree with that or to answer it at all. The habits of a lifetime are strong. I diverted Chade’s attention. I found the Skill-scrolls. The stolen library. It is here, in the Pale Woman’s stronghold. Only I do not think this place was truly hers. I have seen things here that make me think it was a place where Elderlings abided.

Chade surprised me. Later, Fitz. Later is plenty of time to consider recovering the scrolls. For now, listen to me. Honour your friend’s body, however you see fit. Release it. Then both you and Thick hurry back to the beach. I will come back on the ship that I send for you. I misjudged what you intended to do. I do not think you should be alone with this sort of grief.

But he was wrong. Grief makes its own solitude, and I knew that I must endure it. I compromised, knowing it was the only way to make him leave me alone. Thick and I will be on the beach when the ship arrives. You don’t need to come back for us. I won’t let any harm come to us. But for now, I would be alone. If you don’t mind.

No boats! Thick said decisively. Not ever. No. I’ll stay right here where I am before I go on a boat. Forever.

Thick isn’t with you now? Chade sounded anxious.

No. He will explain. I still have a task to do, Chade. Thank you. All of you. Thank you for trying. I pulled up my walls, closing myself off from them. I felt Dutiful try to reach for me, but I could not tolerate even his gentle touch right then. I walled them out, even as Thick sleepily told them that the Black Man made wonderful food. Before my walls closed, I felt a tenuous touch that might have been Nettle, trying to send me comfort.

There was no comfort for me and I would not expose her to my pain. She would have enough of her own, soon enough. I closed my walls. It was time to deal with death.

I peeled the Fool’s corpse from the floor, leaving an outline of his coiled body and a handful of golden strands of his hair to mark where he had died. He was a solid, cold weight in my arms. In death, he seemed to weigh less than he had in life, as if the departure of his spirit had taken most of him with it.

I held him curled against my chest, the soiled mat of his golden hair under my chin, the coarse sacking against my fingers. I walked empty through the ice halls. We passed the chamber where Hest still burned. The smoke of his flesh crawled along the ceiling above us, tainting the still air with the aroma of cooking meat. I could have put the Fool’s body with his, but it did not feel right. My friend should burn alone, in a private farewell between us. I walked on, past the other cell doors.

After a time I became aware that I was speaking aloud to him. ‘Where? Where would you want me to do this thing? I could place you on her bed and burn you in the midst of all her heaped wealth … would you want that? Or would you think that contact with anything of hers would soil you? Where would I want to be burned? Under the night sky, I think, sending my own sparks up to the stars. Would you like that, Fool? Or would you prefer to be within the Elderling tent, with your own things around you, closed in with the privacy you always cherished? Why didn’t we ever talk about these things? It seems something a man should know about his best friend. But in the end, does it matter at all? Gone is gone, ash is ash … but I think I would prefer to loose your smoke to the night wind. Would you laugh at me for that? Gods. Would that you could laugh at me for anything again.’

‘How touching.’

The lilt of mockery, the knife’s edge of sarcasm and the voice so like his made my heart stop and then lurch on. I slammed my Skill-walls tight, but felt no assault against them. I turned, teeth bared, to confront her. She stood in the door of her bedchamber. She was mantled in ermine, white fur with tiny black tails interrupting it in a scattered pattern. It hung from her shoulders to the floor, draping her entire body. Despite the richness of her garb, she looked haggard. The perfect sculpting of her face had sunken to her bones and her pale hair, ungroomed, lagged and wisped like dry straw around her face. Her colourless eyes seemed almost dull, the eyes of a beached fish.

I stood before her, clutching the Fool’s corpse to my breast. I knew he was dead and she could no longer hurt him, and yet I backed away from her, as if I still needed to protect him from her. As if I had ever been able to protect him from her!

She lifted her chin, baring the white column of her throat. ‘Drop that,’ she suggested, ‘and come and kill me.’

Was it because she had suggested it that my first thought now seemed like such a bad idea? ‘No,’ I replied and suddenly I wanted only to be left completely alone. This was an intimate death I held. She, of all people, should not witness or take satisfaction in my grief. ‘Go away,’ I said, and did not know the low growl of my own voice.

She laughed, icicles shattering on stone. ‘Go away? Is that all? Go away? Such a keen vengeance for FitzChivalry Farseer to take upon me! Ah, that shall go down in tales and songs! “And then he stood, holding his beloved and said to their enemy, ‘Go away!’”’ She laughed, but there was no music in it. It was like rocks rattling down a hillside, and when I made no response to it, her laughter trailed away into silence. She stared at me, and for a moment she looked confused. She had truly believed that she could make me drop him and attack her. She tipped her head, staring at me, and after a moment, spoke again. Her voice was lower now.

‘Wait. I see. You have not yet unwrapped my little gift to you. You have not yet seen all that I did to him. Wait until you see his hands, and those clever, graceful fingers of his! Oh, and his tongue and teeth, that spoke so wittily for your amusement! I did that for you, FitzChivalry, that you might fully regret your disdainful rejection of me.’ She paused very briefly and then said, as if reminding me, ‘Now, Fitz. This is when you promise to kill me if I follow you.’

I had been about to utter those words. I bit down on them. She had made them empty and childish. Perhaps those words were always empty and childish. I shifted my burden in my arms and then turned and walked away from her. My Skill-walls were up and tight, but if she made any assault against them, it was too subtle for me to feel. My back felt exposed and I’ll admit that I wanted to run. I asked myself why I did not kill her. The answer seemed too simple to be true. I did not want to put his body down on her floor while I did it. Even more, I did not want to do anything that she expected me to do.

‘He called out for you!’ She sang the words after me. ‘He thought he was close to dying, I imagine. Of course, he was not. I am more adept than that! But he thought the pain would kill him, and he cried out for you. “Beloved! Beloved!”’ Her mockery of his agonized voice was perfect. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as if he had spoken to me from beyond the grave. Despite my resolve, my steps slowed. I held his body closer and bowed my head more tightly over his. I hated that her words could bring tears to my eyes. I should kill her. Why didn’t I kill her?

‘He did mean you, did he not? Well, of course he did, though you may not know it. I doubt you know the custom of the people he came from; how they exchange names to denote the life-long bonds they form? Did you ever call him by your name, to show him that he was as dear to you as your own life? Did you? Or were you too much of a coward to let him know?’

I wanted to kill her then. But I would have had to set his body down and I would not do that. She could not make me abandon him again. I would not set him down and I would not look back at her. I hunched my back against her pelted words and trudged away.

‘Did you? Did you? Did you?’

I had expected to hear her voice fade as I walked away. Instead, she lifted it, and her tone became even angrier as she flung the hateful question at me. After a time, I knew she was following me. The words were a hoarse shriek now, the cawing of crows as they summon one another to the rich pickings of a battlefield. ‘Did you? Did you? Did you?’

Even when I heard her running footsteps behind me and knew that she would attack me, I could not bring myself to drop the Fool’s body. I held him and turned, hunching a shoulder to her maddened onslaught. I do not think it was what she expected. Perhaps she had hoped I would face her with a drawn blade. She tried to stop but the icy floor betrayed her. She slid into me. I kept my grip on the Fool’s body as I slammed against the wall, and somehow managed to stay on my feet. She did not. She sprawled on her side, gasping hoarsely in her pain. I looked at her dumbly, wondering how a fall could have caused her that much agony. Then, as she tried to rise, I saw what she had concealed from me.

Riddle’s telling had been true. I stared at the blackened and shrivelled forearms that she struggled to use. She could neither rise nor cover them again beneath the robe. I met her colourless eyes and spoke my words coldly. ‘You are the coward. At the last minute, you could not give up yourself, not even to complete your vision of what the world should be. You lacked his courage. He accepted the price fate decreed for him. He took his pain and his death and he won. He triumphed. You failed.’

She made a sound, between a shriek and a yelp, full of hatred and fury. It battered at my Skill-wall, but she could not get through. Had her strength for that magic been drawn from Kebal Rawbread? I watched her try to get to her feet. The long mantle hindered her, for she knelt on the hem of it. The black sticks that had been her arms and hands were of no use to her. From the elbow down, her arms were shrunken to bones that ended in charred and tapering ends. I could see the remains of the dual bones in her forearms. There was no sign of her hands and fingers. Those, at least, the dragon had claimed before she had managed to drag herself free of him. I recalled how Verity had gone, and Kettle, melting into the dragon they had fashioned so lovingly for the good of their people. Then I turned and walked away from her.

‘Stop!’ she commanded me. There was outrage in her voice. ‘You kill me here! I have seen this, a hundred times in my nightmares. You kill me now! It was my certain fate if I failed. I dreaded it but I now command it! My visions have always been true. You are fated to kill me.’

I spoke over my shoulder, scarcely considering my words at all. ‘I am the Catalyst. I change things. Besides. The time we are in now is the time the Fool chose. It is his future I live in. In his vision of the future, I walk away from you. You die slowly. Alone.’

Another dozen steps, and then she screamed. She screamed until her breath was gone, and then I heard her ragged panting. I walked on.

‘You are the Catalyst still!’ she shrieked after me. There was nothing but desperation and amazement in her voice now. ‘If you will not kill me, then come back and use your Skill to heal me. I will be subject to you in all ways! You could use me as you wished, and I could teach you all I have learned from the Skill-scrolls! You have the strength to wield that magic! Heal me, and I will show you the path to power. You will be the rightful King of the Six Duchies, of the Out Islands, of all the Cursed Shores! All. I will give you all your dreams, if only you come back!’

My dream was dead in my arms. I continued to walk.

I heard her scratching the blackened stubs of her melted arms against the ice. It reminded me of an overturned beetle frantically scrabbling in a washbasin. I did not look back. I wondered, briefly, if she had ever foreseen this moment, if she had ever imagined the look of my back as I walked away. No, I suddenly knew. The Black Man had told me. I walked in the Fool’s world now, the future he had shaped. She could see nothing, prophesy nothing here. This time was not hers. It was the time he had chosen.

I do not think I am by nature a cruel man, and yet I have never been able to feel any sort of compunction over what I did. I heard her scream once, like an animal screams from a trap, but I did not look back. I turned a corner and walked on, back the way I had come.

I was unutterably weary and cold and hungry. Yet none of those things consumed me as much as my grief. At some point, tears came to me. They fell on the Fool’s golden hair and misted my vision of the tunnels to a pale maze. Perhaps in my daze, I missed one of my marks on the wall. I realized it, and turned back, but found myself in an unfamiliar corridor. I came to an eroded ice staircase and attempted to go up it, but found that, burdened as I was, I could not. I turned back again and trudged on, hopelessly lost.

At one point, I spread my cloak out on the floor and slept for a time, my arm flung protectively across his frozen body. When I awoke, I searched through my pack and found a bit of travellers’ bread and ate it. I drank from my flask, and then wet the edge of my cloak and wiped some of the blood and filth from his contorted face. I could not wipe the pain from his brow. Then I rose and took him up and walked on, completely disoriented in the unchanging pale light. I was, perhaps, a trifle mad.

I reached a place where one wall was of ice and one of stone. I should have turned back, but like a moth drawn toward light, I followed the passageway that was leading me upwards. I came to stairs cut in the stone and followed them up. The bluish light of the gleaming orbs did not waver, never brightening or dimming, so that I bore his body through a timeless maze of gentle stairs that wound ever upwards. I halted for breath on a landing. There was a wooden door there, the wood gone splintery and dry. I pushed it open, thinking of finding fuel for his burning.

If I had doubted at all that once this icy realm had belonged to the Elderlings, that chamber dispelled it. I had seen furniture like this before, tottering in the deserted ruins of the city by the river. I had seen a map such as this room held, though this seemed to be of a world rather than of a city and the surrounding countryside. It was on a table in the centre of the room. It was round, but it was not flat, nor drawn upon paper. Each island, each coast, each wave tip had been sculpted. Tiny mountains jutted in ranges, and the sea crinkled. Gleaming rivers meandered through grasslands to the sea.

An island, most likely Aslevjal, was in the exact centre of it. Other islands dotted the sea around it. To the south and west, I saw the coast of the Six Duchies, though it was subtly wrong in many places. To the north was a land I had no name for, and across a wide sea, on the eastern edge of the map I saw a coastline where tradition told me there was only endless ocean. Tiny gems had been set randomly into the map, each marked with a rune. Some seemed to glow with an inner light. One glittered white on Aslevjal. Four, set in a minute square, sparkled in Buck, near the mouth of the Buck River. There were a handful of others throughout the Six Duchies, some bright and some dull. There were more in the Mountain Kingdom, and a line of them, carefully spaced, along the Rain Wild River, though many of those were quenched. I nodded slowly to myself. Of course.

Dimly, I was aware that my arms and back ached. Yet it never occurred to me that I might wish to set down my burden and rest for a time. Inevitable as sunset, there was the door to another stairwell in the corner. I entered it. It was narrower than the first and the stairs were steeper. I marched slowly up it, my feet scuffing as I found each step unseeing. The light changed slowly as I went. The bluish glow faded, slowly replaced with the murky light of true day. Then I emerged into a tower room walled with glass. One panel of it had cracked, and all of the windows were coated with frost. The ceiling spoke of a steep spire overhead, with sheltering eaves. I put my eye to the crack in the window and peered out. Snow. Blowing snow. I could see no more than that.

In the centre of the room was a Skill-pillar. The runes carved into the sides of it were as cleanly chiselled as the day they had been cut. I walked a slow circuit around them until I came to the one that I had known would be there. I nodded to myself. I held him close to me and said softly into his blood-matted hair, ‘Let’s go back, then.’

I opened one hand and we walked into the Skill-pillar.

Perhaps my recent practise of the Skill had strengthened me, or perhaps this pillar worked better than others I had known. The Fool in my arms, I stepped from winter to summer, from a stone tower to what remained of a market plaza. All around me, a summer day hummed in the forest that had encroached to the edges of it. I took two more steps and then went to my knees, both in weakness and gratitude. Here, suddenly, it did not feel like blasphemy to deposit him on the clean stone and earth. I sat down flat beside him and rested. For a time, all was still, save for the calls of birds and the buzzing of busy insects. I looked down the overgrown road, like a tunnel through the greenery of the forest, that would, if I followed it, lead me to the Stone Garden where all the Elderling dragons slept. I looked up at the worn pillar, where once a young Fool had perched and I had seen him transformed into a white girl wearing a rooster crown. ‘This is a good place,’ I said softly. ‘I’m glad we came back here.’ I leaned back and closed my eyes. I slept.

It took time for the warmth of the afternoon to seep into me. When I awoke, I was too warm. The Fool’s frozen body was thawing and loosening in the sunlight. I peeled my winter garments from my body as if I were shedding an outworn skin until I wore only my tunic and leggings. Now that we were here, alone and together, I felt my urgency leave me. There was time here, time that belonged only to him and me, time in which I could do things properly.

I fetched water from the stream where once we had drunk. I gently washed his face, wiping the blood from his lips and smoothing the hair over his torn ear. When I could do so, I peeled the sacking away from his raw flesh. What I saw dizzied me at first. Yes. She was right. I did regret that I had turned away from her instead of dealing her the agonizing death she deserved. But as I straightened, as much as I could, his tormented and stiffened limbs and wiped away with green leaves and clean grass the filth and clotted blood, all hatred seeped away from me. Here was my Fool, and if I could not save him from death, I could send him from this life with dignity.

He had curled protectively around his last treasure. He gripped the Rooster Crown in his lifeless hands. I pried its dull grey wood carefully from his nail-less fingers. His tormentors had broken the crown, probably in the course of beating him, but he had repaired it before he died. When I saw how he had done it, how he had used his own congealing blood as a binder to hold the pieces together, I choked for a time. Its circle had a gap in it. I wondered if that had grieved him as he died.

Slowly I took from my pouch the shard they had left on the floor of the throne room. It only lacked that one piece to make it complete. I dipped the edges of it into his thawing blood, and joined it to its fellows to complete the crown. Damped with blood, the wood swelled and seized and held, almost as if it had never been broken. I did not know what this treasure was, exactly. Whatever it had meant to him, I would send him from this world wearing it.

I set it to one side as I gathered evergreen boughs and dry fallen limbs, dead twigs and dry grasses for his funeral pyre. Evening was hovering before it was built. When it was ready, I spread my cloak over it. Overhead, a deep blue sky shimmered, and summer seemed to hold its breath around us, awaiting the first stars of evening. The sparks of his burning would join them. I lifted him and placed him on the cloak. Experience told me the evergreen boughs would burn well and consume him. With a heavy heart, I sat down on the stone beside his pyre, the Rooster Crown in my lap. It lacked but one thing to be complete.

From my pack I took a bundled packet. Gently I unrolled the fabric. One at a time, I set out the feathers from the Others’ beach. As I handled each one, I marvelled anew at the intricate workmanship that had gone into their carving. Despite all the long way they had travelled with me, they were unharmed. Why someone had chosen such a lustreless wood for such fine work escaped me. It was as plain and dull as the arrow the Fool had given Swift.

It took some moments for me to fit each feather into its proper place. I noticed now what I never had before, that the end of each feather’s shaft was notched. Each would slide only into its proper aperture in the crown. As I pushed the last one into place, it seemed to my weary eyes that a wave of colours washed over both crown and feathers. Perhaps it was only a rainbow caught for an instant in the sudden tears that brimmed my eyes. I dashed them away impatiently. Time to be done with all this.

The crown whispered uncomfortably against my fingers, like a trapped fly buzzing in a fist. I wondered what I held. What potent Elderling magic was trapped here, denied for all time by the Fool’s death? For a moment, my eyes lingered on the softened carvings of roosters’ heads that ringed the crown. Either the Fool had never got round to painting it as we recalled it, or it had refused to hold the paint. Chips of colour still clung in the deeper corners of the carving. Tiny gems still winked in two of the carved eyes; the others were blank and empty. There were dark seams in the ring of the crown where it had been broken and then glued back into a whole with the Fool’s blood. I tapped one of the seams cautiously, testing the strength of the bond. It held and suddenly he leapt into my mind, my memory of him so poignant and whole that I felt disembowelled with sorrow.

I sat down heavily on the pyre beside him. Rigor had kept his body in its defensive curl. I could do nothing about that. I wished that I could have smoothed the lines of terror and pain from his face before I sent him on his way. I pushed his golden hair back from his tawny forehead. ‘Oh, Beloved,’ I said. I bent and kissed his brow in farewell. And then, grasping the Tightness of that foreign tradition, I named him as myself. For when I burned him, I knew I would be ending myself as well. The man I had been would not survive this loss. ‘Goodbye, FitzChivalry Farseer.’ I took the crown in both hands to ease it onto his brow. I felt suddenly as if all my life had been funnelling me toward this moment. It seemed cruel that the strongest current of my life would propel me toward this moment of absolute end and loss. But there were no other choices left for me. Some things could not be changed. It was time to crown the king’s jester and send him on his way.

I stopped.

I halted my hands, and it felt as if by doing so, I stood alone against fate and defied the flow of all time. I knew what I was meant to do. I should crown my Fool and then drench the pyre with the remaining oil. A spark, at most two, would be enough for the summer dry tinder. He would burn away to nothing, his smoke rising on the summer wind of the land beyond the Mountain Kingdom. I would go back, through the pillar, to Aslevjal. I would collect Thick and go back to the little bay and wait for a ship to come and fetch us. It was right, it was inevitable, it was the channel in which the entire world wished to flow. Life would go on without the Fool, because he had died. I could see it all so clearly, as if I had always known it would come to this.

He was dead. Nothing could change that.

But I was the Changer.

I stood suddenly. I lifted the humming crown high overhead in my hands and shook it at the sky. ‘NO!’ I roared. I still do not know to whom I spoke. ‘No! Let it be different! Not this way! Whatever you want from me, take it! But don’t let it all end like this! Let him take my life and give me his death. Let him be me and I be him. I take his death! Do you hear me? I take his death for my own!’

I lifted the crown to the sun. Through my flowing tears, it shone iridescent, and the feathers seemed to waver gently in the summer breeze. Then, with an almost physical wrench, I tore it out of time’s destined path. I clapped it firmly upon my own brow. As the world spun around me, I lay my body down on my funeral pyre, wrapped my arms around my friend and gave myself over to whatever awaited me beyond it.

TWENTY-NINE

Feathers in a Fool’s Cap

She was the richest girl in the world, for not only had she a noble father, and many silk gowns and so many necklaces and rings that not even a dozen little girls could have worn them all at once, but she had also a little grey box, carved from a dragon’s womb. And inside it, ground to fine powder, were all the happy memories of the wisest princesses who had ever lived. So, whenever she got the least bit sad, all she had to do was open her little box and take a tiny bit of the memory snuff, and, kerchoo! She was as happy as a girl could be again.

Old Jamaillian tale

I missed a step in the dark. It was like that, that unexpected lurch.

‘Blood is memory.’ I swear someone whispered that by my ear.

‘Blood is who we are,’ a young woman agreed with him. ‘Blood recalls who we were. Blood is how we will be remembered. Work it well into the womb wood.’

Someone laughed, an old woman with few teeth. ‘Say that six times swiftly!’ she cackled. And she did. ‘Work it well into the womb wood. Work it well into the womb wood. Work it well into the womb wood. Work it well into the womb wood. Work it well into the womb wood. Work it well into the womb wood.’

The others laughed, amused at her tripping tongue. ‘Well, you try it!’ she challenged us.

‘Work it well into the womb wood,’ I said obediently.

But it wasn’t me.

There were five other people there inside me, looking out of my eyes, running my tongue over my teeth, scratching at my beard with my unkempt nails. Breathing my breath, and rejoicing in the taste of the forest on the night air. Shaking out my hair, alive again.

Five poets, five jesters. Five tellers of tales. Five jumbling, tumbling minstrels, leaping and whirling in gratitude for their release, shaking out my fingers, limbering my voice, and already squabbling and vying for my attention.

‘What is your need? A birthday anthem? I’ve a host of them at my beck and call, and it’s no trouble, no trouble at all to adapt one to your recipient’s name!’

‘Hackery! Shameless hackery, this chopping and splicing of old relics, this dressing of bones anew! Let me have your voice and I’ll sing you a song to rouse your warriors and make your maidens tremble with new-born lust!’ This was a man, and he filled my lungs to bursting to roar out his words. Each set of words, each voice came from my own throat. I was a puppet for them, a pipe to be played.

‘Lust is but a wet moment, a surge and a splat!’ she said disdainfully. She was a young woman, and she remembered freckles across the bridge of her nose. Strange to hear her words pipe from my throat. ‘You want a love song, don’t you? Something timeless, something older than the fallen mountains, and newer than a seed unfurling in rich soil. Such is love.’

‘Good luck!’ Someone exclaimed in dismay. He tinged his words with a fop’s disdain. ‘Listen. Fa,la,la,la,la,la – oh, hopeless! This one has the pipes of a sailor, and a body of wood. The finest song ever sung will be a crow’s croaking when it comes from this throat, and I’ll wager he never turned a handspring in his life. Who is this, and how came he by our treasure?’

‘Minstrels,’ I said dully. ‘Minstrels, tumblers and bards. Oh, Fool, this would be your treasure. A circle of jesters. There is no help for us here.’ I put my head down into my hands. I felt the rough wood of the crown beneath my fingers. I pushed at it, but it clung stubbornly in place. It had tightened to my brow.

‘We’ve only just arrived,’ the toothless crone complained. ‘We’ve no intention of leaving already. We are a great gift, a magnificent gift, only awarded to the one most pleasing to the King. We are a chorus of voices, from all ages, we are a rainbow of history. Why would you refuse us? What sort of a performer are you?’

‘I’m not a performer at all.’ I sighed heavily. For a moment, I regained full awareness of my body. I stood by the funeral pyre. I didn’t recall getting up from it. Night was dark around us and chirring insects were tuning their voices. In the cooling air, I smelled the rich leaf mould of the forest. The Fool’s degenerating body added its own note of sweet rot. All his life, he had been the Scentless One to Nighteyes. Now, in death, I smelled him. It did not sicken me. There was still wolf enough in me that how he smelled was simply how he smelled. It was the change that gave me a pang, for it was irrefutable evidence that his body was going back to the earth and the natural web of rot and rebirth all around me. I tried to pause for long enough to take some comfort in that, but the five within me were too impatient for stillness. They turned me in a slow circle, lifting my arms, testing the spring of my feet, filling my lungs with air. I sensed how those within me lapped eagerly at the night, the taste, the smell, the sound, and the feel of the forest air on my face. They were avid for life.

‘What help do you need?’ the freckled girl asked me, and in her voice I heard sympathy and a readiness to listen. And under it, scarcely cloaked, lurked the hunger that all minstrels have for the tale of another’s woe. She wanted that part of life back as well. I did not wish to share mine.

‘No. Go away. You can’t help me.’ And then, against my will, I told them anyway. ‘My friend is dead. I want to bring him back to life. Can a minstrel help with that?’

For one respectful instant, they were silent as I gazed down on the Fool’s corpse. Then, the freckle-nosed girl said tremulously, ‘He’s very dead, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, he is,’ the bull-throated one declared, but added, ‘I can make you such a song as will have him remembered a thousand years hence. It is the only way ordinary mortals can transcend the flesh. Give me your memories of him, and I’ll get started.’

The crone spoke sense to me. ‘Did we know how to undo death, would we be what we are, feathers in a fool’s cap? We are lucky to have this much of life left to us. A pity that your friend did not have the favour of a dragon, or perhaps he, too, could share this boon.’

‘What are you?’ I demanded.

‘We are sweet preserves of song, stored away so that in the winter of our deaths you can taste again the tang of our summers.’ It was the young man, so conscious of his imagery that he ruined it for me.

‘Someone else!’ I begged when the young man fell silent.

‘We were favoured of dragons,’ a calm voice said. She was one who had not spoken before. Her voice was a deep calm pond, huskier than the voice of most women. I heard it in my mind even as my own throat rusted her words. ‘I lived by the river of black sand, in a little town called Junket. I went one day to fetch water from the river, and there I met my dragon. She was a young thing, just at the end of her first summer, and I was in the spring of my years. Oh, she was green, a thousand greens, with eyes like deep pots of melted gold. She stood in the river and the waters rushed by her. Then she looked at me, and my heart fell into her whirlpool eyes, never to surface again. I had to sing to her; speaking would not have been enough. So she charmed me and I sang to her, and charmed her in return. I was her minstrel and her bard for all the days of my life. And when my time to end was approaching, she came to me, with the gift that only a dragon may give. It was a sliver of wood from a dragon’s womb … do you know whereof I speak? The cradles they spin for the serpents to sleep in until they emerge as dragons? Sometimes, there is one who does not survive that stage, who dies in the sleep between serpent and dragon. Slow is the womb wood to erode, and the dragons forbid that humans touch any of it, save by their leave. But to me, fair Smokewing brought a sliver of it. She bid me wet it well with my own blood, and work the blood into it with my fingers, all the while thinking of a feather.

‘I knew what such a favour meant. It was rarely granted, even to minstrels who had served their dragons well. It meant I would take a place in the crown of minstrels, so that my songs and words and my way of thinking would go on, long after I died. The crown is the property of the Ruler of all the River Lands. The Ruler alone declares who may wear the crown and sing with the voices of minstrels long dead. It is a great honour, for only a dragon can select you to become a feather, and only the Ruler can bestow the gift of wearing the crown. Such an honour. I remember how I clasped my feather as I died … for die I did. Just like your friend. A pity that your friend was not favoured of dragons, to have been granted such a boon.’

I was hammered by the irony of it. ‘He should have been. He died to waken a dragon, the last male dragon in the world, so that Icefyre might rise to partner Tintaglia, the last female. So that there might be dragons again in this world.’

The moment of silence told me that I had impressed them. ‘Now, here is a tale worth the telling! Give us the memories of that, and each of us will make you a song, for surely there are at least a score of songs in such an event!’ It was the crone who spoke, my mouth going soft with her words.

‘But I don’t want a song about him. I want the Fool as he was, alive and whole.’

‘Dead is dead,’ the bull-voiced man said. But he said it gently. ‘If you wish to open your memories to us, we will weave you songs. Even with your voice, they will be songs that will live, for true minstrels will hear you sing them, and wish to sing them as they should be sung. Do you want to do that?’

‘No. Please, Fitz, no. Leave it be. Let it be over.’

It was a whisper against my senses, scarce a breathing of the words. I shivered to it, wild with hope and fear.

‘Fool,’ I breathed, praying there would be some response.

Instead, there was a cacophony, the thoughts indistinguishable from one another, as the five feather minstrels all shouted a dozen unanswerable questions at me. At last, Bull-throat roared through them with a reply.

‘He’s here! With us. In the crown, of all places. He put his blood in the crown!’

But from the Fool, there was no reply. I spoke for him. ‘The crown was broken. He used his blood to mend it.’

‘The crown was broken?’ The crone was aghast. ‘It would have ended all of us! Forever!’

‘He cannot stay in the crown! He was not chosen. Besides, the crown belongs to all of us. If he takes it, we shall not be able to speak, save through him.’ The young man was outraged at the Fool’s rash assumption of his territory.

‘He must go,’ the bull-voiced man concluded. ‘We are very sorry, but he must go. It is not right nor fitting that he be here.’

‘He was not chosen.’

‘He was not invited.’

‘He is not welcome.’

They gave me no time to express an opinion. The crown was tight to my brow and suddenly it became tighter. I lifted my hands to it, for they seemed to have retreated from my body into the crown, to do whatever they were doing now. For the nonce, my body was my own again. I tried to tear the crown from my head, but I could not get so much as a nail between it and my skin. In a wave of horror, I realized it was melding to my flesh, melting into me like a coterie seeping into a stone dragon. ‘No!’ I roared. I shook my head and clawed at it. It would not budge. Worse, it no longer felt like wood beneath my fingers. It felt like a band of flesh. When I queasily lifted my fingers to investigate the feathers, they flexed softly as cockerel plumes against my fingers. I felt sick.

Trembling, I went back to the funeral pyre and sank down onto it beside the Fool. I sensed no battle in the crown, only a concerted effort by the five minstrels. The Fool did not resist them; he simply did not know how to do what they demanded of him. I no longer had any voice in what they did. Theirs was a quarrel heard across the market, a conflict I was aware of but had no part in. They would force him out of the crown, and then he would be truly gone, forever. I could not stop it.

I took his body in my lap and held it. It had passed through stiffness now to laxness. His hand flopped to one side, and I lifted it by the wrist to fold it back in to his chest. Something in the way it moved so lifelessly woke an ancient memory. I scowled after it. It was not my recall. It was Nighteyes, and he saw it through a wolf’s eyes. We were in hunting light and the colours were muted. Yet I had been there. Somehow. And then it came back to me.

The Grey One, Chade, leaning on a shovel, his breath white in the cold air. He stands some distance away, so as not to frighten us. Heart of the Pack is the one who sits on the edge of my grave. His feet dangle in the hole before him, my splintered coffin at his feet. He holds my corpse in his lap. He waves the hand of it at me, beckoning the wolf in closer. His Wit is strong, and Nighteyes cannot bring himself to disobey Heart of the Pack. Heart of the Pack is speaking to us, a steady stream of calm words. ‘Come back to this. This is yours, Changer. Come back to it.’

Nighteyes lifts a lip and snarls. ‘We know death when we smell it. That body is dead. It is carrion, not fit for an honest meal.’ Nighteyes conveys the message to Heart of the Pack. ‘It smells bad. It is spoiled meat, we do not want it. There is better meat by the pond than that.’

‘Come closer,’ Burrich bids us. For that moment, I perceive him as both Burrich and Heart of the Pack. I slide sideways from the wolf’s perception of him into my human memory of that moment. I had long suspected that I had truly died, despite Chade’s assurances that his poisons had only feigned my death. My body had been too battered to withstand any amount of poison. In the memory, my wolf’s nose is mercilessly truthful. That body was dead. But the wolf’s keener Wit-awareness tells me what I had never guessed before. Heart of the Pack does more than hold my flesh. He has prepared it for me; it is ready to begin again, if only he can coax me into it. Nighteyes is a reassuring whisper against my senses.

The Wit. Not the Skill. Burrich did it with the Wit. But he was much stronger in that magic than I was, and far more wise. I stroked the Fool’s slackening face, willing his body to align with mine, but I could not find a way into him. He did not have the Wit. Was that the difference? I did not know. But I knew that there was a way, once, a place where we had linked, he and I. Once, he had dragged me from the wolf’s body back into my own. I turned my own wrist up to the faltering moonlight and found there the duskiness of his fingerprints. I took his mangled hand in mine. The fingernails had been peeled from three of his slender, delicate fingers. I pushed away my awareness of that agony he had endured. My hand overshadowed his as I carefully set each fingertip of his to each print on my wrist. I groped for the slender Skill-link, spun between us so many years before.

And it was there, faint as gossamer, but there. I gathered my courage, knowing well that I was going into death itself. But go I would. Had not I just said that I would, that I would take his death for him? I could feel that the crown minstrels were forcing him out, expelling him into my own flesh, but I had no time to wait and make explanations for him. I took a deep breath and trickled down the Skill-link, leaving my body to his awakening awareness and entering the ruin of his.

For the briefest moment, my perception was doubled. The Fool was in my flesh, looking out of my eyes. He stared down aghast at his own lax corpse in my arms. He lifted a hand to touch my whiskered chin. ‘Beloved!’ he groaned. ‘Oh, Beloved, what have you done? What have you done?’

‘It’s all right,’ I assured him quietly. ‘It’s all right. If I fail, take my life and live it. I willingly take your death.’ I seeped away from my body.

Then, like a stone falling into muck, I sank into the Fool’s lifeless flesh.

I was in a body that was dead, that had been dead for days.

This body had no life left in it, and hence it was no longer a body. Lifeless as a rock, it was separating into its components and going back to the earth. My Skill did not know what to make of such a situation. I pushed aside my impulse to use it, to cry out to Thick and Chade and Dutiful. They would only have forced me back into my own body to save me.

The Wit is the awareness of life all around us. It is a web, a net that connects us to every living creature. Some were vital and complex, large healthy beasts that demanded my recognition. Trees and plants were subtler, but even more essential to the continuation of life than creatures that moved. They were the warp the world is woven upon, and without them we would all snarl and fall. Even so, I had successfully ignored them for most of my life, other than a passing interest in the green shadow life of the oldest trees. But beyond and beneath it all, there flowed an even more nebulous life.

It was death.

Death, the knots in the net that connected us all, was not death at all. In that twisting and tightening noose, life was reformed, not destroyed. The Fool’s body rioted with life. It was a simmering cauldron of life, bubbling its way to rebirth. Every element that had united to make his body a living creature was still there. The question was, could I persuade it to assume its old alignment rather than the simpler forms it was now reducing itself to?

Breathless, voiceless, senseless, I gave myself over to it. It was like a Skill-stream in its own way, for it plucked and tugged at the strings of the Fool’s body, carrying away bits of him that it would use elsewhere. It fascinated me, this orderly dispersal, this resorting and reordering. It was rather like watching a well-played game of Stones. The bits moved in a pattern. I tried to coax one back to its old position, but it flowed away from me to join its fellows.

It is the old game again. Still, you will not see it. They are not individual hunters, but a pack. You do not set your will against the individuals. There are too many of them. You cannot stop them. So drive them. Use them. What they have made new, put back in place of the old.

It was a wolf’s wisdom. As Black Rolf had told me it could be, so it was. Nighteyes was with me, not as he had been, but as we had been. It was his vision I used that night, his simple wolf’s awareness that when one ate meat, one ate life as much as flesh. The elegant balance of the predator and the prey applied here as much as it did when we had hunted together. Death feeds life. What the body takes apart, it assembles again.

This was not a Skill-healing. It was a guiding of the changes, a herding of the bits into the alignment I recalled. I doubt that I was as adept as Burrich had been in my restoration. Time and again, the flows I had corrected reversed themselves and had to be persuaded again to build up, not tear down. Nor was the Fool completely human. That night, I confronted completely his strangeness. I thought I had known him. In those hours of rebuilding, I realized and accepted him as he was. That, in itself, was a revelation. I had always believed we were more alike than different. It simply was not true. He was human only in the same way that I was a wolf.

I stayed with my work, past the moment when I felt the blood begin to once more flow within his veins, beyond the slow perception that I could once more draw breath into his lungs. Some of his body had been repaired in the act of restoring it. Two of his ribs had been broken. Those bone ends had found their mates and began knitting themselves together. Gossamer stitches of flesh closed the worst rents in his skin. But there was little I could do about the places where flesh or bone or nail was simply missing. Delicately, I set in motion his own healing. I dared not urge it much past its own careful reconstruction. He had already burned the reserves of his body. I closed the raw flesh of his back against the agonizing kiss of the air. I coaxed his split tongue into a whole again. Two of his teeth were missing, and there was nothing I could do about that. When I knew I had done all I could for his body, I drew a deeper breath into his lungs. I opened his eyes.

Night was fading into dawn. The weaker stars had already given way to the creeping light of day. A bird sang a dawn call. Another one challenged it. An insect hummed past my ear. I became aware of my body more slowly. Blood moved through me and I tasted air sliding from my lungs. It was good. There was pain, a great deal of pain. But pain is the body’s messenger, the warning that something is wrong and must be repaired. Pain says that you are still alive. I heeded that message and revelled in it. For a long time, it seemed enough.

I blinked my eyes and shifted my gaze. Someone cradled me in his arms. His arm beneath my raw back was a scarlet welt of agony, but I lacked the strength to move away from it. I looked up into my own face. It was different from seeing myself in a mirror. I was older than I thought. He had taken off the crown, but there was a standing welt on my brow where it had scored my flesh with its grip. My eyes were closed and tears from beneath the closed lids slid down my cheeks. I wondered why I wept. How could anyone weep on such a dawn? With great effort, I lifted one hand slowly and touched my own face. My eyes snapped open and I stared at them in wonder. I had not known they were so dark nor that they could be so wide. I looked down at myself incredulously. ‘Fitz?’ The inflection was the Fool’s but the hoarse voice was mine.

I smiled. ‘Beloved.’

His arms closed around me almost convulsively. I arched away from that pain but he seemed unaware of it. Sobs shook him. ‘I don’t understand!’ he wailed to the sky. ‘I don’t understand.’ He looked around, my face wild with his uncertainty and fear. ‘I have never seen this moment. I am out of my time, beyond where I ended. What has happened? What has become of us?’

I tried to move, but I had so little strength. For a time, I had to ignore his weeping while I assessed myself. There was a lot of damage, but the body was striving to repair. I felt terribly, terribly frail. I drew a breath, and told him quietly, ‘The skin on my back is new and tender yet.’

He gulped for air. Breath ragged, he protested, ‘But I died. I was in that body, and they sliced the skin free from my back. I died.’ His voice cracked on the words. ‘I remember it. I died.’

‘It was your turn to die,’ I agreed. ‘And my turn to bring you back.’

‘But how? Where are we? No, I know where, but when? How can we be here, alive? How can we be like this?’

‘Be calm.’ I had the Fool’s voice. I tried for his lilt of amusement, and almost found it. ‘All will be well.’

I found my wrist with his hand. The fingertips knew where to fall. For a moment, our gazes held as we mingled in unity. One person. We had always been one person. Nighteyes had voiced it long ago. It was good to be whole again. I used our strength to pull myself up, to press his brow to mine. I did not close his eyes. Our gazes locked. I felt my frightened breath against his mouth. ‘Take your body back from me,’ I bid him quietly. And so we passed, one into the other, but for a space we had been one. The boundaries between us had melted in the mingling. No limits, I recalled him saying, and suddenly understood. No boundaries between us. Slowly I drew back from him. I straightened my back and looked down at the Fool in my arms. For an instant, he gazed clear-eyed at me with only wonder in his face. Then the pain of his wracked body demanded his attention. I saw him clench his eyes to it and wince away from my touch. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said softly. I eased him down onto the cloak. The evergreen boughs that had been his funeral pyre were his mattress now. ‘You did not have the reserves for me to perform a complete healing. Perhaps, in a day or two …’

But he already slept. I lifted a corner of the cloak and draped it over his eyes to shield them from the rising sun. I sniffed the air and it came to me that it would be a good time to hunt.

I took the whole morning for the hunt, and came back with a brace of rabbits and some greens. The Fool still lay as I had left him. I cleaned the rabbits and hung the meat to bleed. I set up his tent in the shade. I found the Elderling robe he had once given to me and laid it out inside the tent. I checked on the Fool. He slept on. I studied him critically. Biting insects had found him. They, and the growing strength of the sun on his skin convinced me that I should move him.

‘Beloved,’ I said quietly. He made no response. I spoke to him anyway, knowing that sometimes we are aware of the things we hear when we are sleeping. ‘I’m going to move you. It may hurt.’

He made no response. I worked my arms under the cloak and lifted him as gently as I could. Still, he cried out wordlessly, squirming in my arms as he tried to escape the pain. His eyes opened as I carried him across the ancient plaza to the tent in the shade of the trees. He looked at me and through me, not knowing me, not truly awake. ‘Please,’ he begged me brokenly. ‘Please stop. Don’t hurt me any more. Please.’

‘You’re safe now,’ I comforted him. ‘It’s over. It’s all done.’

‘Please!’ he cried out again, loudly.

I had to drop to one knee to get him inside the tent. He shrieked as the fabric brushed over his raw back in passing. I set him down as gently as I could. ‘You’ll be out of the sun and away from the insects here,’ I told him. I don’t think he heard me.

‘Please. No more. Whatever you want, anything. Just stop. Stop.’

‘It has stopped,’ I told him. ‘You’re safe now.’

‘Please.’ His eyes fluttered closed again. He was still. He had never truly wakened.

I went out of the tent. I had to be away from him. I was sick at heart for him, and wretched with my own sudden memories. I had known torture. Regal’s methods had been crude but effective. But I had had a small shield that the Fool had lacked. I had known that as long as I held out against him, as long as I could refuse to give him proof that I was Witted, he could not simply kill me. So, I had held firm against the beatings and deprivations; I had not given Regal what he wanted. Giving him that would have allowed him to kill me, without compunction, with the sanction of the Dukes of the Six Duchies. And in the end, when I knew that I could not hold out any longer, I had snatched my death from him, taking poison rather than allowing him to break me.

But for the Fool, there had been nothing he could hold back. He had nothing that the Pale Woman wanted, except his pain. What had she made him beg for, what had she made him promise, only to laugh at his capitulation and begin again on his tormented flesh? I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know, and it shamed me that I fled his pain. By refusing to acknowledge what he had suffered, could I pretend it had not happened?

Little tasks are how I have always hidden from my thoughts. I refilled my waterskin with clean cold water from the creek. I stole fuel from the former funeral pyre and built a small cook-fire from it. When it was burning well, I set one rabbit to roast on a skewer and the other to bubbling in a pot. I gathered up my strewn winter garments, beat some of the dirt from them and hung them on bushes to air. In the course of my tasks I found the Rooster Crown where the Fool had apparently flung it in a pique. I brought it back and set it just inside the flap of the tent. I went to the stream and scrubbed myself clean with horsetails and then bound my dripping hair back in a warrior’s tail. I did not feel like a warrior. I wondered if I would have felt better if I’d killed her. I thought of going back and killing the Pale Woman and bringing her head to the Fool.

I did not think it would help, or quite likely I would have done it.

I set the rabbit soup aside to cool, and ate the roasted one. Nothing quite compares to fresh meat when one has gone a long time without it. It was bloody near the bone and succulent. I ate like a wolf, immersing myself in the moment and in the sensation of feeding. But eventually I had to toss the last gnawed bone into the fire and contemplate the evening ahead of me.

I took the kettle of soup into the tent. The Fool was awake. He lay on his belly and stared at the corner of the tent. The long light of late afternoon shone through the tent’s panels and dappled him with colour. I had known he was awake. The renewal of our Skill-bond made it impossible for me not to know. I could block most of the physical pain he felt. It was harder to block his anguish.

‘I brought you food,’ I said to him.

After some silence had passed, I told him, ‘Beloved, you need to eat. And drink. I’ve brought fresh water.’

I waited. ‘I could make tea for you if you’d like.’

Eventually, I fetched a mug and poured the cooling broth into it. ‘Just drink this, and I’ll stop bothering you. But only if you drink this.’

Crickets were chirping in the dusk. ‘Beloved, I mean it. I won’t leave you in peace until you at least drink this.’

He spoke. His voice was flat and he did not look at me. ‘Could you not call me that?’

‘Beloved?’ I asked, confused.

He winced to the word. ‘Yes. That.’

I sat holding the mug of cold broth in both hands. After a time I said, stiffly, ‘If that is what you wish, Fool. But I’m still not leaving until you drink this.’

He moved in the dimness of the tent, turning his head toward me and then reaching a hand for the mug. ‘She mocked me with that name,’ he said quietly.

‘Oh.’

He took the mug awkwardly from me, protecting his torn fingertips from contact. He levered himself up on an elbow, quivering with pain and effort. I wanted to help him. I knew better than to offer. He drank the broth in two long draughts, and then held the mug out to me shakily. I took it and he sank down on his belly again. When I continued to sit there, he pointed out wearily, ‘I drank it.’

I took the kettle and the mug out into the night with me. I added more water to the kettle of soup and set it near the fire. Let it simmer until morning. I sat staring into the fire, recalling things I didn’t want to think about and chewing on my thumbnail until I bit it too close to the quick and tore it. I grimaced, and then, staring out into the night, shook my head. I had been able to retreat into being a wolf. As a wolf, I had not been humiliated and degraded. As a wolf, I’d kept my dignity and power over my life. The Fool had nowhere to go.

I’d had Burrich, and his calm, familiar ways. I’d had isolation and peace and the wolf. I thought of Nighteyes, and rose, and went to the hunt.

My first night’s luck did not hold. I came back to the camp after sunrise, with no meat, but a shirt full of ripe plums. The Fool was gone. A kettle of tea had been left to stay warm by the fire. I resisted the urge to call out his name and waited, almost patiently, by the fire until I saw him coming up the path from the stream. He wore the Elderling robe and his hair was slicked flat to his skull with water. He walked without grace in a lurching limp and his shoulders were bowed. With difficulty, I restrained myself from going to him. He reached the fire at last and, ‘I found plums,’ I told him.

He took one solemnly and bit into it. ‘They’re sweet,’ he said, as if it surprised him. With an old man’s caution, he lowered himself to the ground. I saw him run his tongue around the inside of his mouth and winced with him when he found the gap of missing teeth on one side. ‘Tell me what happened,’ he requested quietly.

So I did. I began with her guards throwing me out into the snow, and reported in as much detail as if it were Chade sitting there, nodding to my words. His face changed slowly as I began to speak about the dragons. Slowly he sat up straighter. I felt the Skill-link between us intensify as he reached for my heart to confirm what he was hearing, as if mere words could not be enough to convey it to him. Willingly, I opened myself to him and let him share my experience of that day. When I told him that Icefyre and Tintaglia had mated in flight and then disappeared, a sob shook him. But he was tearless as he asked me incredulously, ‘Then … we triumphed. She failed. There will be dragons in the skies of this world again.’

‘Of course,’ I said, and only then realized that he could not have known that. ‘We walk in your future now. On the path you set for us.’

He choked again, audibly. He rose stiffly and paced a turn or two. He turned back to me, his heart in his eyes. ‘But … I am blind here. I never foresaw any of this. Always, in every vision, if there was triumph, I bought it with my death. I always died.’

He cocked his head slowly and asked me, as if for confirmation, ‘I did die.’

‘You did,’ I admitted slowly. But I could not help the grin that crept over my face. ‘But, as I told you in Buckkeep. I am the Catalyst. I am the Changer.’

He stood still as stone, and when comprehension seeped into him, it was like watching a stone dragon come to wakefulness. Life infused him. He began to tremble, and this time I did not fear to take his arm and help him sit down. ‘The rest,’ he demanded shakily. ‘Tell me the rest.’

And so I told him, the rest of that day, as we ate plums and drank his tea and then finished the rabbit broth from the night before. I told him what I knew of the Black Man, and his eyes grew wide. I spoke of searching for his body, and reluctantly told how I had found him. He looked aside from me as I spoke and I felt our Skill-link fade as if he would vanish from my sight if he could. Nonetheless, I told him, and told him, too, of my encounter with the Pale Woman. He sat rubbing his arms while I spoke of her, and when he asked, ‘Then, she lives still? She did not die?’ his voice shook.

‘I did not kill her,’ I admitted.

And, ‘Why?’ he demanded shrilly, incredulously. ‘But why didn’t you kill her, Fitz? Why?’

That outburst shocked me and I felt stupid and defensive as I said, ‘I don’t know. Perhaps because I thought she wanted me to.’ The words seemed foolish to me, but I said them anyway. ‘First the Black Man and then the Pale Woman said I was the Catalyst for this time. The Changer. I did not want to cause any change to what you had done.’

For a time, silence held between us. He rocked back and forth, very slightly, breathing through his mouth. After a time, he seemed to calm, or perhaps he only deadened. Then with an effort he tried to conceal, he said, ‘I’m sure you did what was best, Fitz. I don’t hold it against you.’

Perhaps he meant those words, but I think it was hard for either of us to believe them just then. It dimmed the glow of his triumph and made a small shadowy wall between us. Nevertheless, I continued my account, and when I spoke of how we had come here through a Skill-pillar I’d found in the ice palace, he grew very still. ‘I never saw that,’ he admitted with a shade of wonder. ‘Never even guessed it.’

The rest was quickly told. When I came to the Rooster Crown and my shock that it was not some powerful magical talisman, but only five poets frozen in time, he lifted one shoulder as if to excuse his desiring such a frivolous item. ‘It wasn’t for me that I wanted it,’ he said quietly.

I sat silent for a moment, waiting for him to enlarge on that. When he did not, I let it go. Even when my tale was done and he realized how completely he had won, he seemed oddly muted. His triumph might have been years ago instead of mere days. The way he accepted it made it seem inevitable instead of a battle hard-won.

Evening had crept up on us. He made no effort to tell me of what had befallen him. I did not expect him to. Yet the quiet that followed and fell between us was like a telling. It spoke of humiliation, and the bafflement that something done to him could make him feel shamed. I understood it too well. I understood, too, that if I had tried to tell him that I would have sounded condescending. Our silences lasted too long. The small sentences, my telling him that I would fetch more firewood, or his observation that the chirring of the insects was actually pleasant after our silent nights on the glacier, seemed to float like isolated bubbles on the quiet that separated us.

At last he said that he was going to bed. He entered the tent and I did the small tasks one does around a camp at night. I banked the fire so the coals would survive until the morning and tidied away our clutter. It was only when I approached the tent that I found my cloak outside it, neatly folded on the ground. I took it and made my own bed near the fire. I understood that he still struggled, and that he wished to be alone. Yet, still, it stung, mostly because I wanted him to be more healed than he was.

Night was deep and I was sleeping soundly when the first shriek burst from the tent. I sat up, my heart pounding and my hand going immediately to the sword on the ground beside me. Before I could draw it from the sheath, the Fool burst from the tent, eyes wide and hair wild. The panic of his breathing shook his entire body and his mouth hung wide in his effort to gulp down air.

‘What is it?’ I demanded, and he started again, flinching back from me. Then he appeared to come to himself and to recognize my shadow by the banked fire.

‘It’s nothing. It was a bad dream.’ And then, he clutched his elbows and bent over his crossed arms, rocking slightly as if some terrible pain gnawed at his vitals. After a moment, he admitted, ‘I dreamed she came through the pillar. I woke up and thought I saw her standing over me in the tent.’

‘I don’t think she knows what a Skill-pillar is, or how it works,’ I offered him. Then I heard how uncertain a reassurance that was, and wished I had said nothing.

He did not reply. Instead he came shivering through the mild night to stand close to the fire. Without asking him, I leaned over and put more wood on it. He stood, hugging himself and watching as the flames woke and took hold of the fuel. Then he said apologetically, ‘I can’t go back in there tonight. I can’t.’

I didn’t say anything, but spread my cloak wider on the ground. Cautious as a cat, he approached it. He did not speak as he lowered himself awkwardly to the ground and stretched out between me and the fire. I lay still, waiting for him to relax. The fire mumbled to itself and despite myself, my eyes grew heavy again. I was just starting the slide toward sleep when he spoke quietly.

‘Do you ever get over it? Did you ever get past it?’ He asked me so earnestly for there to be a tomorrow that did not possess that shadow.

I told the hardest truth I had ever had to utter. ‘No. You don’t. I didn’t. You won’t. But you do go on. It becomes a part of you, like any scar. You will go on.’

That night, as we slept back to back beneath the stars on my old cloak, I felt him shudder, and then twitch and fight in his sleep. I rolled to face him. Tears slid gleaming down his cheeks and he struggled wildly, promising the night, ‘Please, stop. Stop! Anything, anything. Only please, please stop!’

I touched him and he gave a wild shriek and fought me savagely for an instant. Then he came awake, gasping. I released him and he immediately rolled free of me. On hands and knees, he scuttled away from me, over the stone of the plaza to the forest edge, where he hung his head like a sick dog and retched, over and over, trying to choke up the cowardly words he had said. I did not go to him. Not then.

When he came back, walking, I offered him my waterskin. He rinsed his mouth, spat, and then drank. He stood, looking away from me, staring into the night as if he could find the lost pieces of himself there. I waited. Eventually, silently, he came back and sank down onto the cloak beside me. When he finally lay down, he lay on his side, huddled in a ball, facing away from me. Shudders ran over him. I sighed.

I stretched out beside him. I edged closer to him, and despite his resistance, carefully turned him to face me and took him into my awkward embrace. He was weeping silently and I thumbed the tears from his cheeks. Mindful of his raw back, I drew him close, tucked his head under my chin and wrapped my arms around him. I kissed the top of his head gently. ‘Go to sleep, Fool,’ I told him gruffly. ‘I’m here. I’ll take care of you.’ His hands came up between us and I feared he would push me away. Instead, he clutched the front of my shirt and clung tightly to me.

All that night, I cradled him in my arms, as closely as if he were my child or my lover. As closely as if he were my self, wounded and alone. I held him while he wept, and I held him after his weeping was done. I let him take whatever comfort he could in the warmth and strength of my body. I have never felt less of a man that I did so.

THIRTY

Whole

I write this in my own pen, and plead that you excuse the Mountain hand with which I ink the Six Duchies characters. A formal writ is being prepared by our esteemed Scribe Fedwren, but in this scroll I desired to write to you myself, widow to widow and woman to woman, so that you may know well that I understand that no grant of land or title can make any easier the loss that you have suffered.

Your husband spent most of his life in service to the Farseer reign. Truly, he should have been rewarded years ago for all he did for his kings. His was a song which should have been sung in every hall. It was only by his risking of his life that I survived that dark night when Regal the Pretender turned upon us. In his modesty, he begged that his deeds remain unsung. It seems a callous thing that only now, when he has suffered death in our service, does the Six Duchies throne recall all that we owe to him.

I was seeking to select Crown lands that would amply reward Burrich’s service when a courier arrived from Lady Patience. Truly, ill news seems to fly swiftly, for she had already been informed of your husband’s passing. She wrote to me that he was among the most cherished of friends to the late Prince Chivalry, and that she was certain her lord would have wished to see his estate at Withywoods pass into your family’s stewardship. Title to these lands shall be immediately conveyed to you, to remain with your family forever.

Letter from Queen Kettricken to Molly Chandler Burrichswyf

‘I dreamed I was you.’ He spoke softly to the flames of the fire.

‘Did you?’

‘And you were me.’

‘How droll.’

‘Don’t do that,’ he warned me.

‘Don’t do what?’ I asked him innocently.

‘Don’t be me.’ He shifted in the bedding beside me. Night was a canopy over us, and the wind was warm. He lifted thin fingers to push the golden hair back from his face. The dying light of the fire could almost conceal the bruises fading from his face, but his cheekbones were still too prominent.

I wanted to tell him that someone had to be him, as he himself had stopped doing it so completely. Instead, I asked him, ‘Why not?’

‘It unnerves me.’ He took a deep breath and sighed it out. ‘How long have we been here?’

It was the third time he’d awakened me that night. I’d grown accustomed to it. He did not sleep well at night. I didn’t expect him to. I recalled clearly how I had chosen to sleep only by day and when Burrich was near me, watching over me, in the days of my recovery from Regal’s dungeons. There are times when it is comforting to sleep with sunlight on your eyelids. And times when quiet talk at night is better than sleep, no matter how weary you are. I tried to think how much time had passed since I’d carried his body through the pillar. It was strangely difficult. The interrupted nights and the sun-dappled days of rest seemed to multiply themselves. ‘Five days, if we count days. Four nights, if we count nights. Don’t fret about it. You’re still very weak. I don’t want to try the Skill-pillar until you are stronger.’

‘I don’t want to try the Skill-pillar at all.’

‘Um.’ I made a sound of agreement. ‘But eventually, we have to. I cannot leave Thick with the Black Man forever. And I told Chade that we would be on the beach, ready to greet the ship when it arrived. That should be in, oh, in about five days. I think.’ I had lost track of time in the ice labyrinth. I tried to be concerned about it. I had blocked all Skill-contact with the coterie since our failed healing attempt. Several times, I’d felt vague scratching at my door, but I’d determinedly ignored them. They were probably concerned for me. I said aloud, to convince myself, ‘I have a life to get back to.’

‘I don’t.’ The Fool sounded rather satisfied about that. That encouraged me. There were still moments in the day when he halted, motionless, as if listening for futures that no longer beckoned to him. I wondered what it was like for him. For his entire life, he’d endeavoured to set the track of time into the path that he perceived as best. And he had achieved that; we lived in the future that he had devised. I think he alternated between satisfaction with the future he had created and anxiety about his role in it. When he gave thoughts to such things. Sometimes he simply sat, his damaged hands cradled in his lap as he looked at the soil just beyond his knees. His eyes were afar then, his breathing so slow and shallow that his chest scarce moved with it. I knew that when he sat so, he was trying to make sense of things that were inherently senseless. I did not try to talk him out of it. But I did try, as now, to be optimistic about the days to come.

‘That’s right. You don’t have a life that you must return to; no burden to take up, no harness to resume. You died. See how pleasant it can be, to have died? Once you’ve died, no one expects you to be a king. Or a prophet.’

He propped himself up on one elbow. ‘You speak from experience.’ He spoke pensively, ignoring my jesting tone.

I grinned, ‘I do.’

He eased himself back onto my cloak beside me and stared up at the sky. He had not smiled. I followed his gaze. The stars were fading. I rolled away from him and came lightly to my feet. ‘Time to hunt soon. Dawn is coming. Do you feel strong enough to come with me?’

I had to wait for his answer. Then he shook his head. ‘In all honesty, no. I’m more tired than ever I’ve been in my life. What did you do to my body? I’ve never felt this weak and battered.’

You’ve never been tortured to death before. That did not seem a good answer to give him, so I stepped aside from it. ‘I think it will take you a time to recover, that’s all. If you had a bit more flesh on your bones, we could use the Skill to heal you.’

‘No,’ he flatly forbade it. I let it go by.

‘In any case, I’m tired of Outislander travel rations, and we haven’t much left of them anyway. Some fresh meat would do you good. Which I shan’t get for you by lazing here. If you want it cooked, try to wake the fire before I get back.’

‘Very well,’ he agreed quietly.

I hunted poorly that dawn. Concern for the Fool clouded my thoughts. I nearly stepped on one rabbit and it still managed to elude my frantic spring. Luckily, there were fish in the stream, fat and silver and easy to tickle. I came back in the early light, wet to the shoulders, with four of them. We ate them as the sun grew strong, and then I insisted we walk together to the stream to wash the smoky grease from our hands and faces. Belly full, I was ready to sleep after that, but the Fool was pensive. He sat by the fire and poked at it. The third time that he sighed, I rolled over onto my back and asked him, ‘What?’

‘I can’t go back.’

‘Well, you can’t stay here. It’s a pleasant enough place now, but take my word for it. Winter here is hard.’

‘And you speak from experience.’

I smiled. ‘I was a couple of valleys away from here. But yes, again, experience.’

He admitted, ‘For the first time in my life, I don’t know what to do. You have carried me forward, to a place in time that is past my death. Every day when I awaken, I am shocked. I have no idea what will happen to me next. I don’t know what I should be doing with my life. I feel like a boat cut loose and left to drift.’

‘Is that so terrible? Drift for a time. Rest, and grow strong. Most of us long for a place in our lives to do that.’

He sighed again. ‘I don’t know how. I’ve never felt like this before. I can’t decide if it’s bad or good. I’ve no idea what to do with this extra life you’ve given me.’

‘Well, you could probably stay here for the rest of the summer, if you learned to fish for yourself and hunt a bit. But you cannot hide forever from your life and friends. Eventually, you must face it again.’

He almost smiled. ‘This, from the man who spent over a decade being dead. Perhaps I should follow your example. Find a quiet cottage and live like a hermit for a decade or two. Then come back as someone else.’

I chuckled. ‘Then, in a decade, I could come ferret you out. Of course, I’ll be an old man by then.’

‘And I shall not,’ he pointed out quietly. He met my eyes as he said it and his face was solemn.

It was an unsettling thought, and I was just as glad to leave it. I did not want to think too deeply on such things. There would be enough difficult things for me to face when I went back. Burrich’s death. Swift. Nettle. Hap. Eventually, Molly, Burrich’s widow. Her now fatherless little boys. Complications I didn’t want and had no idea how to deal with. It was far easier not to think about them. I pushed them aside, and probably succeeded better than the Fool at walling myself off from the world that awaited my return, for I was practised at it. For the next two days, we lived as wolves, in the now. We had meat and water and the weather continued fair. Rabbits were plentiful and we still had dry travel bread in my pack, so we ate well enough. The Fool continued to heal, and though he did not laugh, there were times when he seemed almost relaxed. I was accustomed to his need for privacy, but now there was a dullness to his avoidance of me that saddened me. My efforts at banter woke no like response from him. He did not scowl or ignore them. He had always been so quick to find humour in even the most dismal circumstances that I felt that even in his presence, I missed him. Even so, he grew stronger and moved with less caution. I told myself that he was getting better and that there was nothing more to desire. Even so, I began to feel restless, and when he said one morning, ‘I am strong enough, now,’ I did not argue with him.

There was little enough to prepare for us to leave. I tried to take down his Elderling tent, but he shook his head, almost wildly, and then said hoarsely, ‘No. Leave it. Leave it.’ That surprised me. True, he had not slept in it since the nightmare, preferring to sleep between me and the fire, but I had thought he would want it. Nonetheless, I did not argue with him. In fact, as I gave it a last glance, and saw how the dragons and serpents on the fine fabric rippled in the light breeze, I found I could think only of his peeled skin on the ice. I shuddered and turned away from it.

In passing, I picked up the Rooster Crown. It had returned to its wooden state, if indeed it had ever been otherwise save in my imagination. The silvery grey feathers stood up in their stiff row around the circlet. It still seemed to whisper and buzz in my hand. I held it out to him and asked, ‘What of this? A circle of jesters. Do you want it still? Shall we leave it on top of the pillar, to remember she who once wore it?’

He gave me an odd look, and then said softly, ‘I told you. I did not want it for myself. It was for a bargain I struck, long ago.’ He looked at me very carefully and nodded very slightly as he said, ‘And I think it is time that I honoured it.’

And so we did not go straight to the pillar, but walked again down that fading path under the over-arching trees, past the creek and back to the Stone Garden. It was as long a hike as I recalled, and little stinging midges found us once we had entered the shade. The Fool made no comment at them, but only pressed on. Birds flitted overhead, moving shadows that crossed our path. The forest teemed with life.

I recalled my wonder the first time I had glimpsed the stone dragons hidden in their sleep under the trees. I had been terrified, literally awe-stricken by them. Even though I had walked amongst them several times since then, and even seen them called to life and flight to battle the Red Ships for us, I still found them no less astounding. I quested ahead of us with my Wit-sense, and found them, dark green pools of waiting life beneath the shadowing trees.

This was the resting place of all the carved dragons who had awakened to defend the Six Duchies from the Red Ships. Here we had found them, here we had wakened them with blood, Wit and Skill, and here they had returned when the year of battle was over. Dragons I had called them and called them still, from long habit, but not all of them took that shape. Some spoke of other fancies or of heraldic beasts of legend. Vines draped the immense figures of carved stone, and the winged boar had a cap of last year’s leaves on his head. They were stone to the eye and alive to my Wit-touch, gleaming with colour and detail. I could sense the life that teemed deep within the stone, but could not rouse it.

I walked among them with more knowledge now than when I had first discovered them here, and even fancied I could tell which ones had been worked by Elderling hands and which were the work of Six Duchies Skill-coteries. The Winged Buck was a Six Duchies dragon and no mistake. Those that were more dragon-like in form, I now suspected were the Elderlings’ work. I went first, of course, to Verity as Dragon. I did not torment myself with trying to rouse him from whatever stone dream held him. I did take off my shirt and dust the forest debris from his scaled brow and muscled back and folded wings. Buck blue he gleamed in the dappling sunlight after I had polished the length of him who had been my king. After all I had endured lately, the sleeping creature looked peaceful to me now. I hoped he truly was.

The Fool had gone, of course, to Girl on a Dragon. As I approached them, I saw that he stood quietly before her, the crown in one hand. The other hand rested lightly on the dragon’s shoulder, and I noted that his Skilled fingers touched the creature. His face was very still as he looked up at the figure of the girl astride the dragon. She was breathtakingly lovely. Her hair was more golden than the Fool’s; it fell to her shoulders and caressed them with its loose curls. Her skin was like cream. She wore a jerkin of hunter green, but her legs and feet were bare. Her dragon was even more glorious, his scales the shining green of dark emeralds. He possessed the lax grace of a sleeping hunting-cat. When last I had seen her, she had been posed in sleep upon the dragon, her rounded arms wrapped around his lithe neck. Now she sat upright on her mount. Her eyes were closed, but she lifted her face as if she could feel the errant sunbeams that touched her cheek. A very faint smile curved her lips. Crushed green plants beneath her sleeping steed indicated how recently she had flown. She had carried the Fool to Aslevjal Island, and then returned here, to rejoin her fellows in sleep.

I thought I had walked quietly, but as I approached, the Fool turned his head and looked at me. ‘Do you recall how we attempted to free her, that night?’

I bowed my head. I felt a bit ashamed, still, that I had ever been so young and rash.

‘I’ve repented it ever since.’ I had touched her with the Skill, thinking it might be enough to free her. Instead, it had only roused her to her torment.

He nodded slowly. ‘But what about the second time you touched her? Do you remember that?’

I sighed heavily. It had been the night I had Skill-walked, and seen Molly take Burrich as her man. Later that evening, I had worn Verity’s body, for he had borrowed mine, to get himself a son. To get Dutiful upon Queen Kettricken. I had not known that had been his intent. In an old man’s aching body, I had wandered the memory stone quarry. Wandered it until Nighteyes and I had come upon the Fool at his forbidden task. He had been chipping at the stone around the dragon’s feet, trying to finish the dragon so it might be set free. I had felt sorry for him, so great was his empathy with the creature. I had known, too, what it truly took to quicken a dragon: not just the work of a man’s hands, but the surrender of his life and his memory, his loves and his pains and his joys. And so I had set Verity’s Skill-silvered hands to the rocky flesh of Girl on a Dragon, and I had poured forth into her all the misery and pain of my short life, that she might take it and take life with it. Into the dragon I had poured my parents’ abandonment of me to the care of strangers, and all I had suffered at Galen’s hands and in Regal’s dungeon. I had given those memories to the dragon to keep and to hold and to shape herself with. I had given her my loneliness as a child and every sharp-edged misery of that night. Given it willingly, and felt my pain ease even as the world dulled around me and my love of it dimmed slightly. I would have given far more if the wolf had not stopped me. Nighteyes had rebuked me, saying that he had no wish to be bonded to a Forged one. I had not, at that time, grasped what he meant. Having seen the warriors who served the Pale Woman, I thought I understood better now.

I thought I understood, too, what the Fool had in mind and why he had come here. ‘Don’t do it!’ I pleaded with him, and when he looked at me in sharp surprise, I said, ‘I know you are thinking of putting your memories of her torture of you into the dragon. Girl on a Dragon could drain them out of you and keep them forever locked away where they cannot stab you. It would work. I know that. But there is a cost to that surcease from pain, Fool. When you dull pain and hide it from yourself …’ My words trickled away. I did not want to sound self-pitying.

‘You dull your joys as well.’ He said it simply. He looked away from me for a time, his lips folded. I wondered if he weighed the one against the other. Would he decide to be rid of night terrors at the expense of taking fresh joy in every morning? ‘I saw that in you, afterwards,’ he said. ‘I felt guilty. If I had not been chipping away at Girl on a Dragon, you never would have done it. I wished to undo it. Years later, when I came to see you at your cottage, I thought, “surely he will be healed by now. Surely he will have recovered.”’ He swung his gaze to meet me. ‘But you had not. You had just … stopped. In some ways. Oh, you were older and wiser, I suppose. But you had not made any move on your own to reach out to life again. But for your wolf, I think it would have been even worse. As it was, you were living like a mouse in a wall, off the crumbs of affection that Starling tossed to you. As thick-skinned as she is, even she could see it. She gave you Hap and you took him in. But if she had not brought him to your doorstep and dumped him there, would you have sought out anyone to share your life?’ He leaned closer to me and said, ‘Even after you came back to Buckkeep and your old world, you held yourself apart from it. No matter what I did or offered. Myblack. You couldn’t even connect to a horse.’

I stood very still. His words stung but they were also true. ‘Done is done,’ I said at last. ‘The best I can do now is to say, if that is what you came here to do, don’t do it. It wasn’t worth it.’

He sighed. ‘I’ll admit I thought of it. I admit I longed for it. I will even tell you that this is not the first time I have visited Girl on a Dragon since we came here. I thought of offering her my memories. I know she would take them, just as she took yours. But … in a way … although I did not see this future, almost it seems as if it was meant to be. Fitz. What do you recall of her story?’

I took a breath. ‘Verity told me that she was part of a coterie making a dragon. I recall her name. Salt. I discovered that, the night I gave her my memories. But Salt could not give herself willingly to the dragon. She sought to remain a part of the coterie, and yet separate, to be only the Girl of Girl on a Dragon. And with that, she doomed them. Because she held back too much, they did not have enough life to take flight as a dragon. They nearly quickened, but then mired down in stone. Until you freed them.’

‘Until we freed them.’ After a long time, he said, ‘It is like an echo of a dream to me. Salt was the leader of the coterie, and so it was called Salt’s Coterie. But, when it came to the carving, the one willing to give heart to the dragon was Realder. So. When all believed that the dragon would be quickened, it was announced as Realder’s Dragon.’ He looked at me quietly. ‘You saw her. Crowned with the Rooster Crown. A rare honour, and even rarer for a foreigner. But she had come a long way to seek her Catalyst. And like me, she had taken on the role of performer. Jester, minstrel, tumbler.’ He shook his head. ‘I had only that moment of being her. Just that brief dream, when I stood upon the pillar. I was, as I am, a White Prophet, and I stood high above the crowd and announced the flight of Realder’s Dragon to the people of this Elderling town. But not without regrets. For I knew that my Catalyst would do that day what he had always been destined to do. He would enter a dragon, so that years hence, he could work a change.’ He stopped and smiled a bitter-sweet smile, the first I had seen on his face in days. ‘How it must have grieved her, to see Realder’s dragon mire and fail due to Salt’s hesitation. She probably thought that she had failed, too. But if Realder had not made a dragon, and if that dragon had not failed, and if we had not found them there, still, in the quarry … what then, FitzChivalry Farseer? You looked far back that day, to see a White Prophet clowning on top of a Skill-pillar. Did you see all that?’

I blinked slowly. It was like awakening from a dream, or perhaps returning to one. His words seemed to wake memories I could not possibly hold.

‘I will give Realder’s dragon the Rooster Crown. That was the price he named for me, the first time I flew with him. He said that he wished to wear forever the crown the White Prophet wore, on the day his beloved said farewell to him right before he entered this dragon.’

‘The price for what?’ I asked him, but he did not answer. Instead, he looped the crown over one of his wrists and then began his cautious climb up the dragon. It saddened me to see him move so stiffly and cautiously. Almost I could feel the tightness of the new skin that pulled across his back. But I did not offer him my hand; I think that would have made it worse for both of us. Once he stood behind her on the dragon’s haunches, he balanced himself. Then, taking the crown in both hands, he settled the circle on her brow. For a moment, it remained as it was, silvery wood. And then, colour flowed into it from the dragon. The crown gleamed gold, the rooster heads that ringed it shone red and their jewelled eyes winked. The feathers themselves took on the gloss of real feathers and lost all stiffness, to bow just as real cockerel plumes would have nodded.

A deeper flush seemed to suffuse the Girl’s cheeks. She seemed to draw a breath. I was transfixed with amazement. And then her eyes opened, as green as her dragon’s scales. She gave no look to me, but twisted in her seat to look up at the Fool still standing on the dragon’s haunches behind her. She reached back a hand to cup his jaw. Her eyes locked with his. He leaned closer to her, captured by her gaze. Then her hand moved to the back of his head, and she pulled his mouth down onto hers.

She kissed him deeply. I had to witness the passion of what she shared with him. Yet it did not seem like gratitude, and as she prolonged the kiss, I think the Fool would have broken away if he could. He stiffened, and the muscles of his neck stood out. He never embraced her, but his hands went from wide open and forbidding to clenched fists clutched against his chest. And still she kissed him, and I feared to see him either melt into her or turn to stone in her embrace. I feared what he gave and feared more what she took from him. Had not he heard a word of what I had said to him? Why hadn’t he heeded my warning?

And then, as suddenly as she had stirred to life, she released him. As if he no longer mattered, she turned away from him and once more stretched her face up to the sunlight. It seemed to me that she sighed once, deeply, and then closed her eyes. Stillness crept over her. The gleaming Rooster Crown had become a part of Girl on a Dragon.

But the Fool, released from that unwelcome intimacy, was limp and falling. In a near swoon, he toppled from the dragon’s back, and I was barely able to catch him and keep him from tearing loose all his newly-healed hurts. Even so, he cried out as I closed my arms around him. I could feel him shuddering, like a man in an ague. He turned to me, his eyes blind, and cried out piteously, ‘It is too much. You are too human, Fitz. I am not made for such as this. Take it from me, take it, or I shall die of it.’

‘Take what?’ I demanded.

Breathlessly, he replied, ‘Your pain. Your life.’

I stood frozen and uncomprehending as he lifted his mouth to mine.

I think he tried to be gentle. Nonetheless, it was more like a serpent’s strike than a tender kiss as his mouth fastened to mine and the venom of pain flowed. I think that if there had not been his love mixed with the anguish he gave back to me, I would have died of it, human or not. It was a searing, scalding kiss, a flow of memories, and once they began, I could not deny them. No man, in the fullness of his years, should have to experience afresh all the passion that a youngster is capable of embracing. Our hearts grow brittle as we age. Mine near shattered in that onslaught.

It was a storm of emotion. I had not forgotten my mother. Never forgotten, I had banished her to a part of my heart and refused to open the door to it, but she was there, her long gold hair smelling of marigolds. And I remembered my grandmother, also of Mountain stock, but my grandfather had been no more than a common guardsman, posted too long at Moonseye and taking on the Mountain ways. All that I knew in a flash, and recalled how my mother had summoned me in from the pastures where, even at five, I had a share of the shepherding. ‘Keppet, Keppet!’ her clear voice would ring out, and I would run to her, barefoot over wet grass.

And Molly … how had I ever banished the smell and taste of her, honey and herbs, and the way her laugh rang like chimes when I had chased down the beach after her, her red skirts whipping wildly around her bare calves as she ran, or the feel of her hair in my hands, the heavy strands of it tangling and snagging on the rough skin of my palms? Her eyes were dark, but they’d held the light of the candles when I’d looked down on them below me as I made love to her in her servant’s room in the upper reaches of Buckkeep Castle. I had thought that light seen there would always belong only to me.

And Burrich. He’d been father to me in every way he could, and friend to me when I’d been tall enough to stand at his side. A part of me understood how he had fallen in love with Molly when he’d thought I was dead, but a part of me was outraged and hurt beyond common sense or rationality that he could have taken to wife the mother of my daughter. In ignorance and passion, he had stolen from me both woman and child.

Blow after blow rained on me. I was pounded iron on an anvil of memory. I languished again in Regal’s dungeons. I smelled the rotting straw on the floor and felt the cold of the stone against my smashed mouth and pulped cheek as I lay there, trying to die so he could not hurt me any more. It was a sharp echo of the beating Galen had given me years before, on the stone tower top we had called the Queen’s Garden. He had assaulted me physically and with the Skill, and to finish the task, he had crippled my magic, putting it firmly in my mind that I had no ability and would do better to kill myself than live on in shame to my family. He had given me, forever, the memory of teetering on the brink of taking my own life.

It was new, it all happened to me afresh, flaying my soul and leaving me bared to a salty wind.

I came back to summer and the sun’s slackening strength. The shadows were darker under the trees. I sprawled on the forest humus, my face hidden in my hands, beyond tears. The Fool sat next to me in the leaves and grass, patting my back as if I were an infant and singing some gentle, silly song in his old tongue. Slowly it caught my attention and my shuddering breaths calmed. When at last I was still, he spoke to me quietly. ‘It’s all right now, Fitz. You’re whole again. This time, when we go back, you’ll go all the way back to your old life. All of it.’

After a time, I found I could breathe deeply again. Gradually I got to my feet. I moved so cautiously that the Fool came to take my arm. But it was not weakness, but wonder that slowed my steps. I was like a man given back his sight. The edges of every leaf stood out when I glanced at it, and there, the veins, and a lacy heart where insects had fed. Birds called overhead and answered, and my Wit of them was so keen that I could not focus on the soft questions the Fool kept asking me. Light broke in streams through the canopy of leaves overhead, sending shafts of gold arrowing through the forest. Floating pollen sparked briefly in those beams. We came to the stream and I knelt to drink its cold, sweet water. But as I bent over it, the rippling of the water over the stones suddenly captured me and drew me into the clear, darkling world beneath the moving water. Silt was layered in patterns over the smoothed pebbles and water plants moved gently in the current. A silver fingerling angled through the plants to disappear beneath a trapped brown leaf. I poked at it with a finger and had to laugh aloud at how he darted away from me. I looked up at the Fool, to see if he had also seen it, and found him looking down on me fondly but solemnly. He set his hand to my head as if he were a father blessing a child and said, ‘If I think of all that befell me as a linked chain that brings me finally to this place, with you kneeling by the water, alive and whole, then … then the price was not too high. To see you whole again heals me.’

He was right. I was whole again.

We did not leave the forest plaza that evening. Instead, I built a new fire, and stared into it for most of the night. As if I were sorting scrolls or storing herbs for Chade, I went through all the years since I had given half my life away, and reordered my experience of them. Half-passions. Relationships in which I had invested nothing and received it in return. Retreats and evasions. Withdrawal. The Fool lay between the fire and me, pretending to sleep. I knew he kept vigil with me. Towards dawn, he asked me, ‘Did I do you a wrong?’

‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘I did myself a wrong, long ago. You’ve put me on the path to righting it.’ I did not know how I would do it, but I knew I would.

In the morning, I scattered the ashes of our fire on the plaza. We left the Elderling tent billowing in the wind and fled a promised summer squall. We shared out my winter clothing between us, and then, his fingers pressed to my wrist and, Skill-linked, we entered the pillar.

We stepped out into the pillar room of the Pale Woman’s ice castle. The Fool gasped and went to his knees after two staggering steps into the room. The trip through the pillar did not affect me as badly, though I knew a moment’s vertigo. Almost immediately, the chill of the place seized me. I helped the Fool to his feet. He stared around himself in wonder, hugging himself against the cold. I gave him some time to recover, and time to explore the frost-rimed windowpanes, the snowy view and the Skill-pillar that dominated the room and then told him quietly, ‘Come on.’

We went down the stairs, and halted again in the map room. He looked down at the world portrayed there. His long fingers wandered over the rippling sea and then returned, to hover over Buck. Without touching them, he indicated the four jewels set near Buckkeep. ‘These gems … they indicate Skill-pillars?’

‘I think so,’ I replied. ‘And those would be the Witness Stones.’

He touched, a wistful caress, the coast of a land far to the south and east of Buckkeep. No gem winked there. He shook his head. ‘No one who knew me lives there any more. Silly even to think of it.’

‘It’s never silly to think of going home,’ I assured him. ‘If I asked Kettricken, she –’

‘No, no, no,’ he said quietly. ‘It was but a passing fancy, Fitz. I cannot go back there.’

When he had finished gazing at the map, we went down the stairs, deeper into the pale blue light of the labyrinth. I felt as if we descended back into old nightmare. As we went, I saw his trepidation grow. He grew paler, not just from the cold. The half-healed bruises on his face stood out like shadows of the Pale Woman’s power over us. I tried to stay to the stone passages and find some egress from there, without success. As we wandered from room to room, the beauty of the place touched me even as I worried about the Fool’s growing silence and weariness. Perhaps we had misjudged, and he was not yet ready to confront the place where he had been so tormented.

Many of the chambers on this stone level seemed untouched by the vandalism and degradation I had seen elsewhere in the ice fortress. Themes of forest and flowers or fish and birds were lovingly chiselled into the stone lintels, and were echoed in the friezes within the chambers. The friezes seemed exotic and foreign, the colours either too pastel or too smoky for my Six Duchies taste. The figures of the humans were elongated, with fancifully coloured eyes and strange markings on their faces. They called to mind Selden, the Bingtown Trader, with his unnatural growth and scaled face. I said as much to the Fool, and he nodded. Sometime later, as we walked down yet another stone passageway, he asked me, ‘Have you ever seen a white rose that has grown for years in proximity to a red?’

‘Probably,’ I said, thinking of the gardens at Buckkeep. ‘Why?’

His mouth quirked to one side. ‘I think you have looked at them without truly seeing them. After years of such closeness, there is an exchange. It shows most plainly in the white roses, for they may take on a rosy blush, or exhibit faint tendrils of red in what used to be snowy white blossoms. It happens because there has been an exchange of the very stuff of their beings.’

I gave him a curious look, wondering if his mind was wandering and I should be concerned. He shook his head at me. ‘Be patient. Let me explain. Dragons and humans can live side by side. But when they do so for a long period, they influence one another. Elderlings show the effect of having been exposed to dragons for generations.’ He shook his head, a bit sadly and added, ‘It is not always a graceful transformation. Sometimes, there is too much exposure, and the children do not survive much past birth, or suffer a shortened lifespan. For a few, life may be extended, at the expense of fertility. The Elderlings were a long-lived race, but they were not fecund. Children were rare and treasured.’

‘And we are responsible for bringing dragons back into the world, so they may wreak this change upon us again?’ I asked him.

‘Yes. We are.’ He seemed quite calm about it. ‘Humanity will learn the cost of living in proximity to dragons. Some will pay it gladly. Elderlings will return.’

We walked for a time in silence and another question came to me. ‘But what of dragons? Do they take no effect from their exposure to us?’

He was silent for a longer time. Then he said, ‘I suspect they do. But they find it shameful and banish such beings. You have been to Others’ Island.’

That boggled my thoughts. I could think of nothing to say. Again we came to a junction of corridors, one of ice and two of stone. I chose one of the stone ones at random. As we paced along it, I tried to reconcile the Fool’s notion of Elderlings with what I had experienced of them.

‘I thought Elderlings were close to gods,’ I said at last. ‘Far loftier than humans in both spirit and mind. So they have seemed when I’ve encountered them, Fool.’

He gave me a quizzical look.

‘In the Skill-current. Bodiless beings, of great power of mind.’

He threw up his head suddenly and I halted beside him, listening. He turned to look at me, his eyes huge. My hand went to my sword. For a time, we stood frozen. I heard nothing. ‘It’s all right,’ I told him. ‘Air moves in these old passages. It sounds like someone whispering in the distance.’

He nodded, but it took several minutes for his breath to slow. Then he said, ‘I suspect that the Skill is what remains to you from an older time. That it is the trailing end of a talent that developed between dragons and humans, as a way to communicate. I do not understand what you speak of when you talk of the Skill-current, but perhaps the ability can allow one to transcend the need for a physical body. You have already shown me that it is a far more powerful magic than I ever suspected. Perhaps it was a result of living alongside the dragons, and perhaps it lingered. So that even after dragons were gone, the descendants of the Elderlings kept that ability, and passed it down to their children. Some inherited little of it. In others,’ he gave me a sideways glance, ‘the Elderling blood ran stronger.’

When I was silent for a time, he asked, almost mockingly, ‘You can’t quite admit it aloud, can you? Not even to me.’

‘I think you are wrong. Would not I know such things if they were true, would not I feel them? You seem to be saying that I am descended, somehow, from the Elderlings. And that would mean that, in a sense, I am part dragon myself.’

He gave a snort of laughter. It was so welcome a sound from him that I treasured it, even at my expense. ‘Only you would put it that way, Fitz. No. Not that you are part dragon, but rather that, somewhere, the stuff of dragons entered your family line. Some ancestor of yours may have “breathed the dragon’s breath” as the old tales say. And it has come down to you.’

We walked on, our feet scuffing on stone. The passages echoed oddly, and several times the Fool glanced back over his shoulder. ‘Like a long-tailed kitten born from a long line of stump tails?’ I asked him.

‘I suppose you could think of it that way.’

I nodded slowly to myself. ‘That would account for the Skill cropping up in odd places. Even in the Outislanders, it would seem.’

‘What’s this?’

His eyes had always been sharper than mine. His long fingers touched a mark scratched on the wall. Incredulous, I stepped closer to peer at it. It was one of mine. ‘It’s the way home,’ I told him.

THIRTY-ONE

Dragon’s Head

And dark Oerttre, mother to them all, lifted her eyes and shook her head.

‘It cannot be,’ she said with grave resolve. ‘We are not bound by what mere men have said.

My eldest must remain here, to reign after me. Woman to woman is our power passed.

You would take our Narcheska to be your Queen? Of all our treasure, she would be the last

That we would forfeit, no matter what your deed. Show me in fact how you have fulfilled

The letter of your promise. In blood you wrote your vow that you’d do as she had willed.

O Farseer Prince, recall now the boast that you did say:

On these hearthstones of our mothershouse, Icefyre’s head you’d lay.’

The Dragon’s Head, Cockle Longspur

We followed my marks backward through the Elderling maze, and emerged eventually from the crack in the icy wall into a bright day. The wind was brisk and blowing ice crystals filled the air, peppering our skins and making the steep path treacherous underfoot. The clear light of true day made my eyes tear. The Fool went before me down the steep path. Here, exposed to the wind and cold, his weakness showed plain, and I muttered at my own stupidity. This had overtaxed him. The second time he slipped, I took a firm grip on the back of his collar and kept him upright on his feet until we reached the Black Man’s door. ‘Knock!’ I told him, but when he only stared back at me, bleary-eyed with exhaustion, I reached past him to thud my fist against the wood.

The door was opened so swiftly that I had to believe that he had been waiting for us. Even then, the Fool stood frozen, staring at the smiling Black Man who confronted us. ‘He’s cold, and very weary,’ I excused him, and then thrust him into the room in front of me. Once inside I pushed the door firmly shut behind us and then turned back gratefully to the cosy room. I blinked, letting my eyes adjust to the dimness after the brightness of full daylight. I saw the small hearth fire first, and then I found the Black Man staring at the Fool in mutual incredulity.

‘He was dead,’ the Black Man told me firmly. ‘He died.’ His eyes were very wide.

‘Yes. He was.’ I confirmed it for him. ‘But I am the Catalyst. I change things.’

And then Thick sprang up from the hearth and grasped me in a short-limbed hug. He danced like a little bear as he shouted, ‘You’re back! You’re back! I thought you would never come back. Chade said, “The ship is coming,” and I said, “But he’s not here and I won’t get on a ship.” Then he said, “It’s coming anyway.” And it did, but no one was there and it went back, because I said, “No, I am not walking back all alone, all alone, and I don’t want to get on a ship anyway!”’ He halted his dance and then told me with a satisfied grin, ‘Either you are dead or Chade is so angry at you that you’ll wish you were. That was what he said. Dutiful. Oh, and the dragon head, I forgot to tell the dragon head part. Nettle did it! She sent the dragon head to the mothershouse and it was a big surprise for everyone. Except me. She told me she could do it, could talk to Tintaglia and make her sorry if she didn’t. So she did. And everything is good again now.’

The last he said so confidently that it was difficult to look down into the cheerful round-eyed face and say, ‘I don’t think I understood half of what you just told me. And I think I have been away longer than I thought. But I’m glad to be back.’ I extricated myself from his hug. A strange silence had fallen in the other half of the room. The Black Man and the Fool regarded one another, not with animosity, but disbelief. Looking at the two of them together, I could see a kinship, but it was one of ancient lineage rather than a close family resemblance. The Black Man was the first to speak.

‘Welcome,’ he said faintly.

‘I never saw you,’ the Fool said wonderingly. ‘In all the futures I glimpsed, in all that might be, I never saw you.’ He abruptly began to tremble and I knew he was at the end of his strength. The Black Man seemed to sense this also, for he pushed a cushion closer to the fire and motioned hastily that the Fool should be seated. The Fool more collapsed than sat down. I took my cloak from around him, telling him, ‘The warmth will reach you faster if you let it in.’

‘I don’t think I’m that cold,’ he said faintly. ‘I’m just … I’m outside my time, Fitz. I’m a fish in the air or a bird beneath the sea. I’m past my life and I grope forward through each day, wondering what I am meant to do with myself. It’s hard. It’s very hard for me.’ His voice dwindled as he said the words. He looked up at the Black Man as if begging for help. His head wavered on his neck.

I did not know what to say to him. Did he resent that I had sought more life for him? It hurt to think so, but I held my tongue. I watched the Black Man grope for words. ‘This, I can teach …’ The Black Man’s voice slowly faded away. A smile slow as sunrise came to his face. He cocked his head at the Fool and said something in another tongue.

The Fool opened to him as a flower turns to light. A tremulous smile lit his face and he replied hesitantly in the same language. The Black Man whooped aloud in delight to hear him. He gestured at himself and said something rapidly, and then, as if remembering his manners, took up the kettle and a cup and with a graceful flourish, poured tea for the Fool and set it before him. The Fool thanked him extravagantly. Their language seemed to take many words to say simple things. Not one syllable of it resembled any tongue I’d ever heard before. The Fool’s voice grew fainter. He took a breath and then finished what he was saying.

I felt an adolescent pang of exclusion. Almost as if the Fool sensed it, he turned slowly to me. He pushed his hair back from his face with fingers that shook. ‘I have not heard the language of my childhood since, well, since I left home. It is like balm to hear it again.’

Chade and Dutiful must have known through Thick that I had returned, for I felt then such a battering against my Skill-walls as might have been a siege. I decided reluctantly that it was time to let them in. I took the cup of tea the Black Man had just poured for me and sat down by his fire and then, seeing the Fool well occupied with our host, I surrendered and lowered my Skill-walls.

Chade’s blast of fury, fear and frustration preceded all thought, shaking and cuffing me as if I were an errant serving-boy. When he was finished, I think it annoyed him even more that I laughed at his onslaught, even as my reaction cheered Dutiful.

Not much can be wrong with you if you can laugh like that! I’ve never felt such a carelessness of spirit from you. I caught the boy’s sense of amazement and wonder.

An instant later, Chade echoed it. What has come over you? Are you drunk?

No. I am whole and well healed. And so is the Fool. But my tale will keep. Does all go well with you? Has our prince well and truly won his bride? Thick has told me a wild bit of tale about a dragon’s head on the mothershouse hearth. Is it true? Who killed Icefyre?

No one killed the dragon. It was just his head he placed there. But, yes, it seems to be done and settled. Chade replied with grim satisfaction. Now that we know you are safe, we can sail tomorrow. That is, if Dutiful can find the courage to tell his bride she must come home with him.

I but allow her time to be sure it is her will that she follows in this, Dutiful replied sternly.

I do not understand. Would someone start at the beginning and tell the tale?

And then it was that I heard in full, from both Chade and Dutiful, with excited asides from Thick, of how Nettle had bedevilled and nagged Tintaglia, troubling her dreams and her waking hours, importuning her to pay back the puny humans who had suffered so much so that Icefyre could fly free. Tintaglia in her turn had driven Icefyre much as a pigeon drives his mate to the nest, back to Zylig, where the dragons presented themselves to the Hetgurd still convened there, and then on to Mayle Island and Wuislington.

There the dragons had landed before Elliania’s mothershouse. I gathered that there had been some structural damage in the process, but nonetheless the immense Icefyre had forced his way into the mothershouse, where he ungraciously placed his head, very briefly, upon the hearthstones, so that Dutiful’s promise to Elliania might be completely carried out.

I thought that Elliania had professed herself satisfied that Dutiful had fulfilled his promise and proven himself worthy of her when he aided in the rescue of her mother and sister. I was a bit confused as to why all this had been necessary.

Oh, she has shown herself well satisfied, for some days now, Chade replied acidly, and I suspected that perhaps Dutiful’s virtue had not been proof against the girl’s importuning. It is her mother who has proven difficult, much to Peottre’s woe. Oerttre told us, before we were even docked in Zylig, that she did not regard any agreement that men had brokered concerning her daughter as binding. She finds it unthinkable that Elliania would leave her home, even to be Queen of all the Six Duchies. She has raised a thousand faults with the arrangement, saying that as she herself was still alive and therefore the true Narcheska, all of this was agreed to without the proper consent. She objects to the idea of Lestra inheriting the title of Narcheska; she finds the girl unfit to rule after her. And she is horrified at the thought that Elliania’s and Dutiful’s children would remain in the Six Duchies.

Except for our sons, Dutiful interjected.

True, Chade conceded. She had been more than willing to allow Dutiful and Elliania to, that is, to become, to have – He could not find a delicate way to verbalize the thought.

Dutiful was more prosaic. Her mother was willing to allow me to share Elliania’s bed. She seemed affronted that anyone might think to thwart her daughter in who she wishes to bed. And the Narcheska Oerttre had offered that any male children so conceived would be given to the Six Duchies. At the age of seven.

There was a mutual silence as they allowed me to digest that idea. It was untenable. None of his dukes would accept an heir thus created.

And now? Now that Icefyre has fulfilled completely Elliania’s challenge to Dutiful?

Narcheska Oerttre was impressed. It is hard not to be impressed when a creature of that size lumbers through your home and places his head on your hearthstones. Especially when some of the framework of your door is still around his neck. I could easily excuse Dutiful’s youthful satisfaction at this vindication. I think her objections are at an end. And even if she still has reservations, there were enough members of the Hetgurd here to witness it that they will not stand. They now see it as honour that Elliania will come to my hearth. To ‘found a new mothershouse’ is how they phrase it.

As if she were conquering all the Six Duchies by becoming Dutiful’s Queen, Chade complained. Yet I could hear the relief in his voice. I foresaw there would be difficulties in future days, as the customs of her land clashed with ours. If she bore a son first, would her relatives be scandalized to see him inherit before her daughters? I set the thought from my mind. There would be enough time to worry about that when it happened.

And how was that brought about?

Ask Thick. He and Nettle seem to have concocted that.

The smile faded from my face. I had to know. Does Nettle know about Burrich’s death?

Yes. Chade’s reply was short and grim.

I would not wish such news to be withheld from me, Dutiful pointed out severely. I knew he was justifying his action to Chade as much as to me. And so I did as I thought best. Besides, my mother deserved that news as well, that she can see to the needs of the family of the man who served us so well and so long. Besides. When I stand before my cousin in the flesh, I do not wish to do so with a bag of dirty secrets behind my back.

That seemed harsh and I sensed that I trod on the edges of a quarrel between Dutiful and Chade. It did not seem a good time to advance my own opinion. Moreover, it was too late to change what had been done. So I tried to change the subject instead. So. The wedding will now proceed with no further objections.

Now it can. Dutiful had insisted we remain here until we heard from you. Or until we decided you were dead, and sent a rescue party back for Thick. Not that he was fond of the idea of being rescued and brought home. But now that you are there, we shall send a boat for both of you immediately. As soon as you arrive here, we can proceed home.

No boats! Thick insisted.

The Prince ignored him. Our wait for Fitz has not been wasted time, Dutiful contradicted Chade. It would not have been appropriate to immediately snatch the Narcheska from her family. Elliania has been too long separated from her mother and sister. I have enjoyed seeing them together. And when she looks from her sister to me … Fitz, she thinks I am a hero. The Outislander bards are making songs of this.

Very long songs, Chade added. We’ve had to listen to them, smiling, nearly every night.

We simmered into satisfied silence. My prince had won his bride. There would be peace between the Six Duchies and the Out Islands. Then Dutiful added solemnly, And I was glad that you were allowed some time to deal with your loss. I am sorry, Fitz.

Chade asked quietly, You were able to recover the Fool’s body?

It was my moment for triumph. I recovered the Fool.

I thought he was dead! Dutiful’s gravity dissolved in amazement.

So did I, I replied, and abruptly decided to leave that as my full explanation. It was easy enough to divert them from any more questions regarding the Fool. I simply added, I am sorry to have missed the ship you sent for us. But you need not bother with another. Thick and I have an easier way back to Buckkeep. One that does not require him to set foot on a deck again.

Their astonishment at my revelation of the working Skill-pillar could not match Thick’s delight at the news he could go home without sailing. He suddenly clutched me about the middle, tugged me to my feet and capered so wildly about me that I could not hold the focus necessary to Skill. I seized him by his shoulders and braced my feet to stop our dance, and then looked up to find the Black Man regarding us with alarmed amusement. The Fool looked too tired to show any surprise.

‘He just realized that we could go home through the Skill-pillars,’ I explained to them. ‘Thick hates boats. And he is delighted to know that our journey may be a matter of moments instead of days.’

The Black Man looked at me without comprehension. Then the Fool said something to him in his own tongue, and the man made a long ‘aaaah’ of understanding and nodded sagely. The Fool’s explanation seemed to bring to his mind some other incident, for the Black Man launched into a long monologue intended for the Fool.

Thick skidded to a sudden halt and cocked his head as if listening. ‘Skill-scrolls, Chade says, bring the Skill-scrolls.’ He paused, frowning as he paid attention to Chade’s Skilling. ‘But not yet! Don’t go home yet, not until he has a good way to explain it. But soon. Nettle is getting tired of all the messages. You could do it better.’

I had given Chade much to think about, and to my relief, he excused himself from our Skilling to do just that. Dutiful attempted to explain to me how Nettle had persuaded Icefyre to present his head to the Narcheska, but Thick was too excited to permit our conversation. And I sensed restlessness from the Prince that told me that he had better ways to pass his time than lingering with me. I sent him off with a stern warning to be circumspect, which I am sure he ignored.

I came back to full awareness to find the Fool nodding wearily to the Black Man’s long explanation of something. It was the most foreign babbling I had ever heard, with not a single word that I recognized. Thick insisted on reporting how he had spent his time with the Black Man, with many descriptions of food, of Chade being angry and upset, and of a wonderful sliding place he had discovered not far away. I looked at his round face, beaming with contentment. He was a wonderful man. He accepted, with equanimity, that I had returned, that the Fool was no longer dead, and that soon we would be back home without going on a boat. His joy at sliding on snow was equal to his joy at my return. I envied his easy acquiescence to change and the future.

As he prattled, I tried to decipher what the future held for me. We would go back to Buckkeep and I’d have the task of transporting the Skill-library there. Already I dreaded how many trips through the pillars that would entail. Yet that task became simple when I thought of what would follow. I had to introduce myself to Nettle. And reveal to Molly that I lived. Such a wave of longing swept through me at that thought that it near took my breath away. In restoring the full range of my memories of her, the Fool had swept my heart back in time to that moment when I first knew I had lost her. The anguish was as fresh, and my love for her as strong. I dreaded the thought of our first meeting, and all the explaining I must do. I dreaded facing her grief for her husband, but I knew I must. Burrich had cared for my daughter when I had ‘died’. Could I do less for his little sons? And yet, it was not going to be easy. None of it was going to be easy. Yet, with an odd sideways tilt of my heart, I realized I was anticipating it, that I believed that beyond the sorrow we would share at Burrich’s death, there might eventually be something else. I felt shallow and greedy even as I thought of it, but nonetheless, it was there. It seemed years since I had looked ahead and seen opportunities and possibilities. I suddenly knew that I wanted change and life and the dangers of attempting to win Molly’s love again.

Thick shook me by the shoulder. ‘So?’ he asked me delightedly. ‘So, you want to go now?’

‘Yes,’ I found myself saying, and then discovered that I had been smiling and nodding so to his descriptions of sliding on the snow, I’d volunteered to go sliding with him. His delight was too great for me to crush it, and it suddenly came to me that I truly had nothing better to do at the moment. The Fool could do with rest and he seemed to be enjoying his talk with the Black Man. So we bundled up and went outside again. I had planned to slide with him once or twice, just enough to content him, but the slope he had found was as long and sweeping as an otter slide and just as inviting. Thick’s use of it over the last few days had polished it smooth. We slid on our bellies and then together, on top of my cloak, whooping like children, heedless of how wet and cold we got.

It was play, pure and simple. Play that I’d had no time for, that I had dismissed as unnecessary and an interruption to all the practical tasks of a well-ordered life. When had I lost sight of taking simple pleasure for the sake of pleasure? I forgot myself in it and came back to the world with a start when I heard my name being called. I had just come to the end of the slide and as I turned to the Fool’s voice, Thick crashed into me from behind. I went flying and landed, mostly unhurt, with Thick on top of me. We floundered to our feet to find the Fool watching us with amusement and fondness that was hard to look upon. Regret and wistfulness were there also. ‘You should try it,’ I told him, half-embarrassed to be caught cavorting like a boy in the first snow of the year. I stood and helped Thick to his feet. He was grinning despite his tumble.

‘My back,’ the Fool said quietly, and I nodded, feeling suddenly subdued. I knew it was more than his newly-healed back, more than the stiffness of half-healed hurts. His experience had scarred and stiffened more than his body. I wondered how long it would be before his spirit regained its flexibility.

‘You’ll heal,’ I assured us both as I walked up to him. I wished I had been more certain.

‘Prilkop has made food for us,’ he told me. ‘I’ve come to tell you it’s ready. We shouted from the door, but you didn’t hear us.’ He paused. ‘The walk down looked easy. It wasn’t. Now I dread the walk up again.’

‘It’s steep,’ I agreed as we started back. At the mention of food, Thick had broken into a trot and preceded us. ‘Prilkop?’

‘The Black Man’s name.’ The Fool trudged along beside me as we headed back to the steep cliffside trail. He was breathless. ‘It took him a moment or two to recall it. It has been long since he had anyone to speak with, and longer still since he has spoken our native tongue.’

‘You both seemed to be enjoying it,’ I said, and hoped I did not sound jealous.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. He almost smiled. ‘It has been so long since he was home that when I told him my childhood memories, he could only marvel at how many things had changed. We both wonder what things are like there now.’

‘Well, I suppose he could go home now if he wished. I mean, he has no vision to keep him here any more. Does he?’

‘No.’ We walked a bit in silence and then the Fool said quietly, ‘Fitz, home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there any more.’ He set his hand on my arm and I halted. ‘Let me breathe,’ he begged, and then defeated our pause by speaking. ‘You are the one who should go home,’ he told me earnestly. ‘While you still can. While there are people there who will know you and rejoice in your return. Not just Buckkeep. Molly. And Patience.’

‘I know. I intend to.’ I looked at him puzzled, surprised that he had thought I would not.

His face went almost blank with astonishment. ‘You will? You are?’

‘Of course.’

‘You mean it, don’t you?’ His eyes searched my face. Almost, I saw a shadow of disappointment there. But then he seized one of my hands in both of his and said, ‘I am glad for you, Fitz. Truly glad. You had said you would, but you seemed hesitant. I thought perhaps you would change your mind.’

‘What else would I do?’

He hesitated a moment, as if he would say something. Then he seemed to change his mind. He gave a small snort. ‘Go find a cave to live in alone for the next decade or so.’

‘Why would I do that? Retreat from life, and there is no opportunity for anything to get better … oh.’

And then I was rewarded by the slow spread of his old smile across his face. ‘Help me up the path,’ he said, and I was glad to do so. He leaned more heavily on my arm than I had expected him to. When we reached Prilkop’s cavern, I made him sit down. ‘Spirits? Brandy?’ I asked of Prilkop, and when the Fool had weakly translated my words, the Black Man shook his head. He came closer to the Fool and bent down to look into his face. He touched the Fool’s forehead and then shook his head.

‘I will make a tea. For this, a helpful tea.’

We ate together and passed the evening telling stories. The Fool and Prilkop seemed to have slaked some of their thirst for conversing in their own tongue. I made up a pallet for the Fool and insisted he lie down near the fire. I tried to tell Prilkop the full tale of how we had come to Aslevjal. He listened intently, nodding, his brow furrowed. From time to time, the Fool would offer a brief explanation to Prilkop of some part of our tale that he did not understand. Mostly he lay still, eyes closed, listening. When he did break into my telling, it was strange to hear how the Fool pieced out our life tale for him, for he made it seem as if always the goal had been to awaken and restore true dragons to the world. I suppose that for him, it had been. But it was peculiar to see my own life in that light.

It became very late and Thick had dozed off long ago before Prilkop bade us goodnight. I knew an odd moment of awkwardness when I spread my blankets separately from the Fool’s. There was plenty of bedding here; no need to share any more. But I had slept beside him for so many nights that I wondered if he would want the comfort of me close by to guard him from his night terrors, but I could not find a way to ask him. Instead, I propped my head on my arm and watched him sleep. His face was slack with exhaustion, yet pain still furrowed his brow. I knew that after all he had been through, he would need time apart from me, time alone with himself to discover once again who he was. Yet, selfishly, I did not want him to grow apart from me again. Not only my love for Molly but my boyish fondness and closeness to the Fool had been rejuvenated as well. To be the best of friends again, making nothing of one another’s differences, to enjoy the days and face hardships optimistically; he represented all that to me, and I vowed I would not let that carelessly slip from my grip again. He and Molly would round out my life to what it should have been. And Patience, I thought with wonder. I would reclaim her, too, and never heed the cost.

Perhaps it was that Thick slept close by me, or perhaps it was that for the first time since I’d ventured into the Pale Woman’s realm, I slept deeply enough to dream my own dreams. In either case, Nettle found me. Or perhaps I found her. I found myself in an evening place. It was a place I almost remembered, yet it had changed so much that I was not certain of it. Banks of flowers glowed luminously in the dimness. Somewhere, a fountain played, a muted splashing. The evening fragrances of blossoms wafted and blended on the night breeze.

Nettle was sitting on a stone bench, alone. She leaned her head against the wall behind her and stared up at the night sky. I winced when I saw her. Her beautiful hair had been shorn down to her scalp. It was the oldest sign of mourning in the Six Duchies, and not often practised among women. I came and sat on the paving stones in front of her in my wolf guise. She stirred and looked down at me.

‘You know that my father is dead?’

‘Yes. I am sorry.’

Her fingers toyed with a fold of her dark skirt. ‘Were you there?’ she asked at last.

‘When he died, no. When he took the injury that would kill him, yes.’

A little silence spun out between us. ‘Why do I feel so awkward asking this, as if it is improper for me to be curious? I know that the Prince thinks it more appropriate to speak all around it and say only that my father was a hero and fought well. But that is not enough for me. I want to know how he died … was hurt. I want … I need to know every detail. Because they dumped his body in the sea and I will never see him again, dead or alive. Do you know how that feels? Just to be told that your father is dead, and that is all?’

‘I know exactly how it feels,’ I said. ‘So was it done to me, also.’

‘But, eventually, they told you?’

‘They told me the lie that they told everyone. No. I was never told how he truly died.’

‘I am sorry,’ she said, and meant it. She turned her head and looked at me curiously. ‘You’ve changed, Shadow Wolf. You … ring. You are … like a bell when it is struck. What is the word?’

‘Resonate,’ I suggested, and she nodded.

‘I feel you more clearly. Almost as if you were real.’

‘I am real.’

‘I mean, real, here.’

I wished that I were. ‘How much of it do you want to know?’ I asked her.

She lifted her chin. ‘All. Everything. He was my father.’

‘That he was,’ I was forced to agree. I steeled myself. It was time. Then another thought came to me and I asked her, ‘Where are you now? When you are awake?’

She sighed. ‘As you see. In the Queen’s Garden, at Buckkeep Castle,’ she said forlornly. ‘The Queen allowed me to go home for three days. She apologized to me and to my mother, but said it was as much time as she could spare me now for my mourning. Ever since I learned to dream true, not even my nights have belonged to me. Always I am at the call of the Farseer throne, expected to give my entire life to it.’

I phrased it carefully. ‘In that, you are your father’s child.’

She blazed up at me suddenly, lighting the garden with her wrath. ‘He gave his life for them! And what did he get in return? Nothing. Well, some estate, now that he is dead, some Withywoods place I’ve never heard of. What do I care for land and a title? Lady Nettle, they call me now, as if I were a noble’s daughter. And Lady Thornbush they call me, behind my back, simply because I speak my mind in honest words. I care nothing for what they think of me. As soon as I can, I will leave this court and go home. To my real home, the house my father built and his barns and pastures. They can take Withywoods and tear it stone from stone for all I care. I’d rather have my father.’

‘So would I. But all the same, you have more right to Withywoods than anyone else. Your father served Prince Chivalry, and that estate was one of his favourites. It is almost as if you are Chivalry’s heir, that you receive it.’ And I was sure that was what Patience had intended. She could count the months and years on her fingers, and know that Molly’s child was mine. The old woman had done her best to see something of her grandfather’s lands passed on to Nettle. It warmed my heart that she had done so. I suddenly knew why Patience had waited until after Burrich’s death to see the land go to Nettle. It was because she had respected his claim to Nettle’s paternity and would do nothing to make anyone else question it. Now the lands would appear a thing that Burrich had earned for his family rather than an inheritance passed on to a grandchild. The subtleties of my eccentric stepmother would always delight me.

‘I would still rather have my father.’ She sniffed, and turned her face from me. She spoke to the darkness, hoarsely. ‘Are you going to tell me what happened to him?’

‘Yes. I am. But I am trying to decide where to begin that tale.’ I weighed caution against courage, and then suddenly realized my decision should not rest on my feelings at all. How much should a young woman, alone and in grief, suddenly be confronted with? Now was not the time to change her perception of who she was. She was facing enough changes. Let her grieve unfettered by questions such as my revelations could raise for her.

‘Your father took his death wound in service to the Farseer monarchy, it is true. But when by sheer will alone he dropped a dragon to his knees, it was not for his prince. It was because the stone dragon had threatened his beloved son.’

She was incredulous. ‘Swift?’

‘Of course. Swift was why he came here. To get his son and take him safely home. He did not think there would be a real dragon to face.’

‘There is so much I don’t understand. You call the dragon that they faced a “stone dragon”. What is that?’

She deserved to know. And so I told her a hero’s tale, full of the Pale Woman’s dark magic and of a man who had come, half-blind and alone, to face down a dragon for the sake of his wayward son. I told her, too, of how Swift had stood before the dragon’s charge, and sped the arrow that slew him. And then I spoke of Swift’s loyalty to her father as he lay dying. I even explained the earring that Swift would be wearing when he returned home to them. She wept as I spoke, black tears that vanished as they fell. Her garden faded around us, and the icy glacier wind blew past us and I realized the strength of my telling was such that she saw it, much as I had. Only when my words had faded, did the garden ease back into existence around us. The fragrances were sharper, as if a recent rain had watered them. A moth fluttered by.

‘But when will Swift come home?’ she demanded anxiously. ‘It is hard enough for my mother to know her husband is dead. She should not have to worry whether her son will return safely. Why do they linger so long there when their task is done?’

‘Swift serves his Prince. He will come back when Dutiful returns,’ I assured her. ‘They are still negotiating the marriage that will bind our countries in friendship. These things take time.’

‘What is wrong with that girl?’ Nettle demanded angrily. ‘Is she without a mind or has she no honour? She should live up to the word she gave. She got her dragon’s head on the hearthstones. I saw to that!’

‘So I have heard,’ I told her wryly.

‘I was so angry with him,’ she told me confidentially. ‘It was the only thing I could think of to do.’

‘You were angry with Icefyre?’

‘No! With Prince Dutiful. Dither, dither, dither. Does she like me, does she love me, I won’t force her to keep a bargain made under duress, I am so, so very noble … Why does not he tell that fickle Outislander girl, “I paid the toll and I’ll cross the bridge.” I’m sure I would have!’ Then her blaze of indignation suddenly damped as she said, ‘You don’t think I’m traitorous to speak so of him, do you? I mean no disrespect. I am as loyal a subject to our illustrious prince as anyone. It is just that, when you speak with someone mind to mind, it is hard to remember that he is a prince and far above me. There are times when he seems as thick-witted as one of my brothers, and I just want to shake him!’ Despite her earlier protestation of loyalty to her monarch, she suddenly sounded like a girl very exasperated with foolish boys.

‘So. What did you do?’

‘Well, at that time those Outislander people were making much fuss over him not having put the dragon’s head on the hearthstone of her mothershouse. As if rescuing her mother and sister were not worth the weight of a bloody dead animal head stinking in front of your fireplace!’ I could feel the effort it took her to restrain herself. ‘Mind you, I only know of these things as I relay them to the Queen. I am the one who must stand before her each morning and pass on such tidings as they send through me. Does he think that is pleasant? But it occurred to me one dawn, after leaving my queen solemn and heavy of heart because the marriage might not happen at all, that perhaps there was something I could do. Despite her bluster and threats, I know Tintaglia well. Perhaps because of those things, I know her well. So, as she had pestered me, disturbing my dreams whenever I slept, so I began to do to her. For in all her comings and goings from my sleep, she had worn a sort of path that I could follow back to her. If that makes sense to you.’

‘It does. But I still marvel that anyone would dare “pester” such a creature.’

‘Oh, in the dream world, we are well matched, as I think you might remember. I doubt she would fly all the way here just to trample a mere human. And unlike me, she prefers to sleep heavily after she has eaten or mated. So, those were precisely the times I chose to bother her.’

‘And you asked her to ask Icefyre to return to Mayle Isle and put his head down on the Narcheska’s hearth?’

‘Asked her? No. I demanded it. And when she said she would not, I said it was because she could not, that despite all humans had done to rescue him, Icefyre was too petty to acknowledge the debt. And that she durst not make him do it, for though she claims to be a queen, she allowed him to master and drive her. I said that her mating must have addled her brains. That put her into a froth, I can tell you.’

‘But how did you know it would?’

‘I didn’t. I just got angry and said what first came to me.’ I felt her sigh. ‘It’s a fault I have, one that has not made me popular in this court. I am too swift of tongue. But I think it is the best way to speak to a dragon. I told her that if she could not make Icefyre do what was right then she needn’t flaunt about so high and mighty. I hate it when people lord over you when you know that, given a good scratch, they’re no better than you are.’ She paused, then added, ‘Or dragons. In all the legends, they are wise, or incredibly powerful or –’

‘They are incredibly powerful,’ I interrupted her. ‘I assure you of that!’

‘Perhaps. But Tintaglia, in some ways, she’s like … me. Sting her pride a bit and she has to prove she can do whatever you’ve told her she can’t. She’s a nag, or worse, a bully, when she thinks she can get away with it. And just because she lives so long and was born remembering so much, she acts as if we are moths or ants, with no lives worth honouring.’

‘It sounds as if you’ve had more than one conversation with her in this regard.’

She paused a trifle. ‘Tintaglia is an interesting creature. I don’t think I’d ever dare call her my friend. She thinks she is, or more accurately, I think she believes I owe her loyalty and duty or worship, simply because she is a dragon. But it is hard to call someone your friend when you know that your death would mean no more to her than a moth flying into a candle means to me. Pftt! Oh, it’s gone. Too bad. As if I were just an animal!’ She snatched a flower from a nearby bed as if to tear it apart.

I winced. She sensed it.

‘No, I meant like an insect or a fish. Not like a wolf.’ Then, as if the thought had only just come to her, ‘You aren’t as I see you in my mind. I know that now. I know you aren’t a wolf. I mean, I don’t think of you as just an animal. Did I hurt your feelings?’ Hastily, she restored the flower to its broken stem.

She had, but I didn’t think I could explain it to myself, let alone her. ‘It’s fine. I know what you meant.’

‘And when you come back with the others, I’ll finally get to meet you and see you as you are?’

‘When I come back, it’s very likely we’ll meet.’

‘But how will I know you?’

‘I’ll tell you it’s me.’

‘Good.’ Hesitantly she added, ‘I missed you while you were gone. I wanted to talk to you, when they told me my father was dead. But I couldn’t find you. Where did you go?’

‘Someone very important to me was in trouble. I went to help him. But now that’s all settled, and we’ll be coming home soon.’

‘Someone important to you? Will I meet him?’

‘Of course. I think you’ll like him.’

‘Who are you?’

I wasn’t expecting the question just then. It took me off balance. I didn’t want to tell her that I was FitzChivalry or Tom Badgerlock. I found myself saying, unplanned, ‘I’m someone who used to know your mother, before she met Burrich and married him.’

Her reaction was not what I expected. ‘You’re that old?’ She was shocked.

‘And I think I just got older,’ I told her, laughing.

But she did not laugh with me. Her reply was stiff. ‘Then I suppose that when you return, you are more like to be my mother’s friend than mine.’

There was a complication I had not counted on. Jealousy rang green in her thoughts. I tried to stem it. ‘Nettle, I have long cared about both of you. And will continue to do so.’

Even colder, she asked, ‘Will you try to take my father’s place with her?’

I felt a blundering fool. I groped for an answer and then forced myself to face a truth I’d been avoiding. ‘Nettle. They were together for, what, sixteen years? They shared seven children. Do you think anyone could take his place with her?’

‘Just so you understand that,’ she replied, somewhat mollified. And then she dismissed me with, ‘Now I must clear my dreams of you in case the Prince wishes to find me. Almost every night, he or Lord Chade has words I must bear to the Queen. I get little time to make my own dreams any more. Good night, Shadow Wolf.’

And then her fragrant garden and gentle twilight world faded away from me and I was left in the darkness. It took a short time for me to realize I was not asleep at all, but was lying on the floor of the Black Man’s cave, staring into shadows dimly lit by the embers in his fireplace. I thought over what I had told Nettle, and decided that I had been foolish to let her know that I had once loved Molly. And how could I not have foreseen that Molly’s children, including Nettle, might see me as an interloper in their household? I felt discouragement wash over me, and considered a total retreat from all of it.

But in the wake of that, I found iron resolution. No. I would not flee from the chaos I had made of my life. I loved Molly, still, and I thought it possible that she might still have some feelings for me. Even if she didn’t, I had told Burrich that I would see to the well-being of his younger children. I would be needed there, even if I were not welcomed at first. I might fail; Molly might even drive me off. But I would not surrender before I had tried.

I was going home.

THIRTY-TWO

Through Stones

The Witness Stones have stood, time out of mind, through storm and earthquake, on Witness Hill near Buckkeep Castle. There is no record of who raised them. Some say that they are as old as the foundations of Buckkeep Castle itself. Others say they are older still. A number of traditions have grown up around them. It is a popular place for couples to pledge their wedding vows, for it is said that if someone speaks falsely before the stones, the gods themselves will punish them. It is also said that if men meet there, to decide the truth by contest, the stones will look down and see that the victory goes to the honourable man.

There are similar standing stones throughout the Six Duchies and beyond. All seem to be carved of the same black stone. All seem to have been sturdily set to withstand all elements. Some are decorated with runes. Others seem to be plain, but a closer inspection usually reveals that runes once graced them, and have either worn away or been chiselled off them.

Although we have not been able to find mention of them in the Skill-scrolls we have, they were almost certainly used by the Elderlings as a method for swift transit from one place to another. Herewith, I have set out a map of the known Skill-pillars, as I shall call them. On this map, I have clearly marked a legend that shows which runes apply to which locations. Although some of the Skill-pillars shown may appear to be unmarked, an experienced Skill-user can still use them for transit. It is not suggested that younger users of the Skill be allowed to travel through the stones alone. Indeed, they should always be accompanied by an experienced user, and should only use the stones for travel as an absolute necessity. It can be a taxing experience for the novice user, leading to exhaustion, or, in the case of forced overuse, madness.

Chade Fallstar’s On Skill-pillars

The Fool’s fragile recovery collapsed in the early hours. I awoke in darkness to the sounds of him tossing and struggling in his sleep. When I tried to wake him, his face was warm and I could not break him from his nightmares. I sat beside him, holding his hand and talking to him softly, easing him into quieter dreams. I was uncomfortably aware that the Black Man had awakened. He lay on his bed and silently watched me with the Fool. I could not see his eyes, but I felt them on me. He measured us and I did not know why.

Towards dawn, I felt Chade’s press against my mind. Reluctantly I admitted him. You can go home now. This will be your tale. The Prince and I sent you home early with Thick, on a trading vessel, as Thick was miserable here and we wished you to bear tidings to the Queen immediately. I think that will be believable; just avoid giving any details. I shall be so glad to have you in place there. Nettle is a fine girl, but we have had to be very circumspect in our reports through her, and very careful not to task her beyond her abilities. It is imperative I have someone in place who can be privy to the sort of information that must be conveyed to the Queen.

I cannot go now, Chade. The Fool has fallen ill. He cannot travel.

Chade was silent for a few moments. Then, But from what you said, you would not have to carry him far. Just to the Skill-pillar, and then whisk him home, to healers and warmth and safety.

I wish it were that simple. The path to the pillar is very treacherous and cold. And the journey through the Skill-pillar is tasking for him. I dare not risk him. He has already been through too much.

I see. I felt Chade weighing my words. Then, Do you think he will be better a day from now? I could give you another day.

I made my thoughts firm. I do not know. But I will take as many days as he needs, Chade. I will not risk him.

Very well. The thought oozed annoyance but also acceptance. If you must.

Indeed, I must, I replied firmly. We will travel when the Fool is stronger. Not before.

Dawn found me hollow with worry. Well I knew that many men who died from battle wounds died days after the battle, from fevers and flux and infection. The journey here had strained his healing and undone many days of rest. The Fool slept heavily, far past midday, and then woke, gummy-eyed and haggard, to drink cup after cup of water. Prilkop insisted that we move him from the floor to his bed. The Fool made the short staggering walk between us, then folded onto the Black Man’s bed as if he were exhausted, and almost immediately sank down into sleep. His skin was warm beneath my touch.

‘Perhaps it’s just one of his changing times,’ I told Prilkop. ‘So I hope. It would be better than infection. He will be feverish and weak for several days, and then shed a layer of skin as if he’d been burned. Underneath, his new skin will be darker. If that is what this is, there’s little we can do for him now except keep him comfortable and wait.’

Prilkop touched both his cheeks with a gesture, and then smiled at me, saying, ‘This I suspected. To some of us, it happens. The discomfort passes.’ Then, looking down at the Fool he added, ‘If that is all of it.’ He shook his head. ‘The injuries to him were many.’

A question came to me and I asked it without pausing to wonder if it were impolite. ‘Why did you change? Why is the Fool changing? The Pale Woman remained white.’

He lifted his hands, expressing bafflement. ‘On this, I have thought many times. Perhaps, as we cause change, we change. Other prophets who remain white often speak much, but do little. He and I, in our youths, much change we foretold. Then, out we went and we made changes. And, perhaps, we also changed ourselves.’

‘But the Pale Woman also did things to try to make changes.’

He smiled, grimly satisfied. ‘She tried. She failed. We prevailed. We changed.’ Then he tilted his head to one side. ‘Perhaps. So this old man thinks.’ Prilkop glanced over at the sleeping Fool and nodded to himself. ‘Rest is what he needs. Sleep, and good food. And quiet. You and Thick, go fishing. Fresh fish would be good for him.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t want to leave him when he’s like this.’

Prilkop put a gentle hand on my shoulder. ‘You make him restless. He feels your worry. To let him rest, you away go.’

Thick spoke up from his corner by the hearth. ‘We should go home. I want to go home.’

The Fool startled me when he croaked my name. ‘Fitz.’

I was instantly at his side with water. He did not want to drink it, but I was insistent. When he turned his face from the cup, I took it away. ‘Was there something else you wanted?’

His eyes were unnaturally bright with fever. ‘Yes. I want you to go home.’

‘He doesn’t know what he’s saying,’ I told Prilkop. ‘I couldn’t take him like this.’

The Fool drew a deep breath. He spoke with an effort. ‘Yes. I do. Know what I’m saying. Take Thick. Go home. Leave me here.’ He coughed and then motioned for more water. He drank it in sips, and then pulled in another deep breath. I let him lie back in his blankets.

‘I won’t leave you like this,’ I promised him. ‘I’ll take as much time as we need here. Don’t worry about anything. I’ll be right here.’

‘No.’ He seemed irritable, in that weary way the sick do. ‘Listen to me. I need to stay. Here. For a time. With Prilkop. I need to understand … when I am, where I am … I need to … Fitz, he can help me. You know I will not die of this. It is only my changing time. But what I need to learn, I must learn alone. Be alone, for a time. I need to think, alone. You understand. I know you do. I was you.’ He lifted thinning fingers to rub at his face and cheeks. The dry skin rippled and rolled under his fingers, flaking away from newer, darker skin beneath. He rolled his eyes to Prilkop. ‘He should go,’ he said, as if Prilkop could force me. ‘He is needed at home. And he needs to be home.’

I sat down on the floor by the bed. I did understand. I remembered the long days of my recovery, after my time in Regal’s dungeon. I recalled the uncertainty I had felt. Torture shames a man. To break and scream, to beg, to make promises … unless a man has endured that, perhaps he cannot forgive it in another. The Fool needed time alone, to reassess how he saw himself. I had not wanted Burrich to ask a thousand questions of me; I had not even wanted him to be solicitous and kind. On some instinctive level, he had known that, and had allowed me my days of sitting and staring, unspeaking, over the meadows and hills. It had been difficult to admit I was a human and not a wolf: it had been harder to admit I was still myself.

The Fool extended a thin hand from under his blankets. He patted my shoulder awkwardly, and then ran his fingers down my bearded cheek. ‘Go home. And shave while you’re there.’ He managed a faint smile. Then, ‘Let me rest, Fitz. Just let me rest.’

‘Very well.’ I tried not to feel that he dismissed me. I turned to Thick. ‘I’ll take you home, then. Dress warmly, but you needn’t pack anything. Before the night is over, we’ll be in Buckkeep.’

‘And warm again?’ Thick pressed me. ‘And with good things to eat? Fresh bread and butter, milk and apples, sweet cakes and raisins? Cheese and bacon? Tonight?’

‘I’ll do my best. You get ready. And tell Chade for me that we’re going home tonight. I’ll tell the guard at the gate that we came home early, on the first boat. Because you were cold.’

‘I am cold,’ he agreed heartily. ‘But no boats. You promised.’

I hadn’t but I nodded anyway. ‘No boats. Get ready, Thick.’ I turned back to the Fool. He had closed his eyes again. I spoke softly. ‘So. You get your way. As you always seem to. I’ll take Thick home. I will be gone for a day. At most, two days. But then I’ll come back, and I’ll bring back food and wine with me. What would you like? What could you eat?’

‘Have you any apricots?’ the Fool asked me in a wavering voice. Plainly he had not grasped the whole of what I had told him.

‘I’ll try to bring you some,’ I said, doubting I could but loath to tell him so. I smoothed his hair back from his warm face. His hair felt stiff and dry. I looked at Prilkop. He nodded slowly to my silent plea. Before I left, I tucked the blankets up over his shoulders. Then I stooped and despite his closed eyes, I pressed my brow to his. ‘I’m coming back soon,’ I vowed. He made no response and perhaps he already slept. I left him there.

Prilkop too made his farewells to us within the cave. ‘Take care of him,’ I told the Black Man. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow. Make sure he eats.’

He shook his head to my words. ‘Not that soon,’ he cautioned me. ‘Already, you have used the portals too many times, too close together.’ He made a motion as if he dragged something out of his chest. ‘It takes from you, and if you do not have enough left for yourself, it can keep you.’

He peered into my eyes, as if trying to be sure I had understood him. I hadn’t, but I nodded and assured him, ‘I’ll be careful.’

‘Farewell, Thick man. Farewell, Fool’s Changer.’ Then, with a tip of his head toward the Fool, he added quietly, ‘I will watch over him. More than that, none of us can do.’ And then, as if embarrassed to ask, he said, ‘The small man said, “cheese”?’

‘Cheese. Yes. I will bring you cheese. And tea, and spices and fruit. As much as I can carry.’

‘When it is safe for you to come again, that would be nice.’ He was beaming as we thanked him again for all he had done for us, and then left. The wind had come up and the night was chill. Thick had stubbornly refused to abandon his pack, clinging to every single possession in it, so he came laden behind me as we edged up the steep and narrow path to the crack in the rock face. The trickle of moisture had iced it narrow again, and again I had to draw my sword and clash ice away in the darkness. Thick whimpered at the dark and the wind and kept insisting that he wanted to go home, not seeming to connect that I must first open the way so we could.

I was finally able to squeeze through. I pulled Thick after me, though he wedged there for a moment. He followed me in, going slower and slower the closer we came to the unnatural light. ‘I don’t like this,’ he warned me. ‘I don’t think this is the way home. This is going in a rock. We should go back.’

‘No, Thick, it’s all right. It’s just an old magic. We’ll be fine. Just follow me.’

‘You had better be right!’ he warned me. He followed me, looking all around himself at every step. The deeper we went, the more cautious he became. When we reached the first Elderling carvings, he gasped and stepped back. ‘The dragon dreams. Those were in the dragon dreams!’ he exclaimed. Then, abruptly, as if I had been tricking him, ‘Oh, I have been here before. Now I know. But why is it so cold? It didn’t used to be so cold.’

‘Because we are under ice. That makes it cold. Come on, now. Stop walking so slowly.’

‘Not this cold,’ he replied cryptically, and followed me again, but no faster than he had before. I thought I had fixed the path in my mind. Despite that, I turned wrong twice. Each time I had to retrace my steps, Thick became more doubtful of me. But eventually, despite his laggard steps and my faulty memory, we reached the map room.

‘Don’t touch anything,’ I warned him. I studied the map and the rune by the four tiny gems near Buckkeep. Those gems, I was convinced, represented the Witness Stones. For generations, they had been regarded as a place of power and truth, a gateway to the gods. Now I suspected I knew the origin of that legend. I fixed the rune carefully in my mind. ‘Come, Thick,’ I told him. ‘It’s time to go home.’

He made no reply, and even when I touched his shoulder, he looked up at me slowly. He had sunk down to sit on the floor. With one hand, he had rubbed the dusty tiles clean to reveal a piece of a pastoral scene. His face had an almost dazed expression. ‘They liked it here,’ he said softly. ‘They played a lot of music’

‘Put your walls up, Thick,’ I bade him, but did not feel that he obeyed me. I took his hand and held it firmly in mine. I wasn’t sure he was listening, but as I led him up the stairs to the pillar room, I explained to him several times that we would hold tight to each other and walk through the pillar and be home. His breathing had become deep and even as if he slept heavily. Uneasily I wondered if the city itself were affecting him.

I did not give myself time to wonder if the ancient and worn Witness Stones would still function as Skill-pillars. The Fool had used one, hadn’t he, and his Skill was much less than mine. I drew a deep breath, gave Thick’s hand a small shake in an attempt to win his attention, and then stepped determinedly into the pillar, drawing him behind me.

Again there was that breathlessly long pause in my being, almost familiar now. There seemed to pass a star-speckled blackness of indeterminate length and then I stepped out onto the grassy sward of the hillside near Buckkeep. Thick was still with me. I felt a moment’s giddiness, and Thick stumbled past me and sat down flat on the turf. The warmth of summer touched our skins and the smells of a summer night filled my nostrils. I stood still, letting my eyes adjust. The four Witness Stones loomed behind me, pointing at the night sky. I drew a deep breath of the warm air. I smelled sheep pastured nearby, and the more distant smell of the sea. We were home.

I went to Thick and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re all right,’ I told him. ‘We’re home. I told you. Just like stepping through a door.’ Then a wave of dizziness swept through me and I pitched forward onto my face. For a little time I lay there, trying not to retch.

‘We are all right?’ Thick asked me miserably.

‘In a moment or two,’ I assured him breathlessly. ‘In a moment or two, we’ll be fine.’

‘That was as bad as the boat,’ he said accusingly.

‘But much shorter,’ I told him. ‘Much shorter a time.’

Despite my reassurances, it was some while before we recovered and got to our feet. It was a goodly hike from the Witness Stones to the gates of Buckkeep Castle, and Thick was puffing and complaining long before we got there. The frozen Elderling city and the trip through the pillars seemed to have disoriented him and wearied him. I felt cruel as I hurried him along, tempting him with promises of wonderful food, cold ale and a warm soft bed. The rising sun lent light to us to avoid most tumbles. Before he had gone far, I was carrying Thick’s pack and then his cloak and hat. He would have shed more clothing if I had let him. By the time we reached the gates, we were sweating in our winter clothes on a fair morning.

I think the guards recognized Thick before they did me. I was unshaven and unkempt. I told them we’d been sent home early on a filthy Outislander coastal trader, and that it had been a miserable trip and we were glad to be home. Thick was only too glad to enlarge on my poor opinion of boats. The guards at the gates were full of questions, but I told them that we’d been sent home some time ago and that it had taken us far too long to get here, and that I’d been ordered to report to the Queen before I shared any gossip. They let us through.

It was mostly serving folk and guards up and about at that hour. I got Thick no further than the kitchens. The men in the guardroom had learned to tolerate the Prince’s pet. They would jest with him, roughly, and listen to his tales and measure them by their own. Any brag he made of dragons or magic pillars or Black Men would be taken with a large grain of salt there. I knew I had to leave him and it was perhaps the safest place in the keep for him. Besides, I suspected that his mouth would be too full for much talk. I left him there with a hot meal and the admonition that as soon as he was finished eating, he should either go to bed in his room or seek out Sada, bathe, and let her know, emphatically, that no one on our voyage had died of seasickness.

I took a roll of fresh bread with me and devoured it on my way to the barracks. The warm summer air seemed laden with scent after my long weeks in the cold. Our guards’ section of the long, low barrack house was dusty and deserted. I rid myself of my heavy woollen clothes. I longed to stop to wash and shave, but instead simply pulled on a fresh guard’s uniform. I longed even more to fall face down on my bed there but knew that I needed to see the Queen as soon as possible. I knew, too, that she would not be expecting me yet.

I found my way to the hall that led to the larders and storage rooms for the kitchen. When no one else was in sight I entered the storage room that had the cupboard with the false back in it. It was also where the hams and smoked sausages were stored, and I helped myself to a sausage before I closed the false door behind me and began my weary ascent of the dark stairs. I went by touch, feeling my way, for the steps were pitch black. I had finished my sausage by the time I reached the entry to Chade’s tower room. I opened the door and stepped in.

Darkness and a musty smell greeted me. I encountered the worktable with my hip, cursed the bruise and then groped my way to the hearth. I found the tinderbox on the end of the mantel. When I finally had a tiny flame going in the neglected hearth, I quickly lit the half-burnt candles from the mantel candelabrum to give me some light. I fed up the fire, more for light than warmth. The room was dismal, dusty and dank after weeks with no fire in the hearth. The flames would freshen the air.

I was aware of Gilly an instant before he burst into the room from one of his own hiding places, full of enthusiasm at the thought that the sausage-bringers had finally returned. When he discovered that I had only the smell and a lick or two of grease on my fingers, he gave me a nip of rebuke and tried to climb up my leg.

‘Not now, friend. I’ll bring you treats later. First, I must see the Queen.’ I hastily smoothed my hair back into a short warrior’s tail. I wished there was time to do better, but I knew Kettricken would tolerate my unkempt appearance more than she would my dawdling to change it. I entered the secret corridors and made my way to the door that gave onto the Queen’s privy room and thence to her private sitting room. I paused to listen carefully at the door before I opened it, not wishing to walk in on her if she had any company. I nearly fell when Kettricken jerked the door open.

‘I heard your footstep. I’ve been waiting for you, oh, it seems like the entire day. I am so glad you are home, Fitz. So glad to see someone to whom I may speak freely.’

Kettricken was not the calm and rational queen I knew. She looked haggard and anxious. The usually serene room was almost disorderly. The wicks of the white candles that burned on her low table needed trimming, and a forgotten wine-glass, still a quarter full, idled on the table. There was a pot of tea on the table and cups for us, with a crumble of tea herbs spilled beside it. Two scrolls relating to the Out Islands and their customs were on the corner of the table.

Later, I would discover that it was not just the sporadic and cryptic reports that Chade and Dutiful had sent her through Nettle that had frayed her, but a civil uprising between Old Blood and Piebalds that had erupted in the Six Duchies in our absence. For the last three weeks, she had dealt with murders and retaliations followed by more slaughter. Although there had been no killings reported in the last six days, she still dreaded a knock at her chamber door and a messenger’s baton presented to her. It was ironic that she had forced a measure of tolerance for the Witted on her nobles, only to have the Witted turn on one another.

But that was not discussed that morning. She begged a full report of me, so that she might have a better foundation for the decisions Dutiful and Chade were demanding from her. I obediently began it, only to have her interrupt with questions of how my first encounter with the Hetgurd related to what was happening now, and whether I thought Elliania’s people would resent our taking of her to be our queen and whether Elliania herself came willingly to Dutiful’s side.

After the fifth such interruption, she caught herself. ‘I am sorry.’ She had seated herself on a low bench beside the table. I could see her frustration that I had not been a witness to the party’s return to Aslevjal and Elliania’s mothershouse. I could not give her my view of the Outislander reactions to the dragon, for I had not seen them.

She started to ask another question. I held up a hand. ‘Why not let me contact Prince Dutiful or Lord Chade? That is why I came home. Let us have them answer your immediate questions, and then, if need be, I will report in full, all that I saw and did.’

She smiled. ‘You take this magic for granted now. It still surprises me. Nettle has done her best for us, and she is a fine young woman. But Chade is so secretive, and Dutiful’s messages seemed awkward. If you would reach for my son. Please.’

There followed for me the most wearying morning of Skilling that I’d ever endured. I had built stamina for the magic, but for the first time in my life, I came to understand just how earlier coteries had served their rulers. Knowing it was closest to her heart, I reached first for Dutiful, who was delighted to find me safely home. There followed from him an outpouring to his mother that I could scarcely keep up with. At first, it was awkward, for he spoke to her as son to mother, with a familiarity that was proper to such a relationship but difficult for me. As he conveyed his thoughts on the events, it was also taxing for me to refrain from correcting him, for it was inevitable that his views did not perfectly coincide with mine.

He revealed that he had offered to release Elliania from their mutual bond. It was after they had come close to quarrelling. She saw no reason why they could not be married and yet allow her to remain as Narcheska of the Narwhals, with Dutiful coming and going as the other husbands and lovers did. It had, he confided to his mother through me, deeply hurt her when he said he could not give up his throne to be her husband. She asked me, why not? Was not that what I was asking of her, that she forsake home, family and title to become my wife in a strange place, and moreover, to rob her clan of the children that should be rightfully theirs? It was difficult, Mother. She made me see it all in a different light. Even now, when I think of it, I wonder if what we do is right.

‘But she would be Queen, here! Do not they recognize what honour and power would go with such a title?’

And when I had passed Kettricken’s words to her son, I felt his regret as he said, She will not be Clan Narwhal any more. When, at first, her mother would not release her, she became angry. She threatened to leave her clan without her mother’s permission. It was a very ugly moment. Peottre stood by her, but almost all the women of the clan opposed Elliania. Her mother said that if she left, she would be forsaking them, to become a … well, they have a word for it. It is not an honourable one to call a woman. It is one who has stolen from her own people to give to strangers. Many of their rules, including their ones for hospitality, insist that family must be provided for first. This, then, is a grave insult.

I relayed Kettricken’s concern. But it has been resolved, now? She leaves her people with her honour intact.

I think it has. Her mother and the Great Mother have consented. Still, you know how a thing may be said in words but not meant in the heart. It is like how some of our nobles tolerate the Old Blood. To the letter of the law, but with no heart to be fair to them.

I know well what you mean. It has been difficult here, Dutiful, while you were gone. I have done my best, but I look forward to Web’s return. The bloodshed has been appalling, and many of my lesser nobles are muttering that it is as they said, that the Witted are little better than the animals they mate with, and that freed of the curb of punishment, they are happy to slaughter one another. The Old Blood’s zeal to eliminate the Piebalds has blackened the reputation of the Witted rather than cleared it.

And so their talk wandered, from one thing to another. After a time, it was almost as if they forgot I was there. I grew hoarse repeating to Kettricken all that Dutiful wished to say to her. I sensed his relief that neither Chade nor Nettle were a party to the conversation. He confided many doubts, and yet also the small, sweet triumphs of his courtship of his bride. There was a particular shade of green that she liked, and he took great pains in describing it, for he hoped that the personal chambers that welcomed her to Buckkeep could incorporate it. He had many minor complaints over how Chade had handled the most recent round of negotiations, and many areas in which he wanted the Queen to rein in her Chief Councillor. Here, Kettricken and Dutiful did not precisely agree, and I was again hard put to serve only as go-between without injecting any of my own thoughts.

And gradually, as they employed my magic for the best interests of the Farseer throne, I began to be aware of the Skill-current. It pulled me in a new way. Not the impulsive, dive-into-it-and-be-lost-forever temptation I knew only too well, but like music heard in another chamber, lovely music that draws the attention away from what one is supposed to be doing until one becomes immersed in only it. At first it was distant, like the thunder of rapids heard while one drifts in the calm part of the river. It drew me, but not strongly. I thought I was ignoring it. The Prince’s words to the Queen and her replies flowed through me and I scarce had to pay attention to what I said or the thoughts I sent to Dutiful.

It began to seem that the Skill itself was flowing through me, as if I were the river, and I was only jolted from it when the Queen leaned forward and shook me, hard.

‘Fitz!’ she cried out, and Fitz! I dutifully relayed to Dutiful.

Then, ‘Wake him however you must. Throw water in his face, pinch him. I fear if I retreat now, he will go under all the way.’

And even as I spoke Dutiful’s words to the Queen, she took up her cup of cooling tea and dashed it in my face. I spluttered, coughed, and was once more fully aware of my surroundings. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, wiping my sleeve over my face. ‘That has never happened to me before. At least, not in this fashion.’

The Queen offered me a kerchief. ‘We’ve had some minor difficulties of this type with Nettle. It was one reason Chade wanted you to be here as soon as possible.’

‘He said something of the kind. I wish he had been more specific. I would have found a way to come sooner.’

‘She will need instruction in the Skill, Fitz. It should begin soon. Actually, it should have begun long ago.’

‘I know that, now,’ I admitted humbly. ‘A lot of things should have begun long ago. I’m home now, and I intend to begin them soon.’

‘How about now?’ Kettricken asked me levelly. ‘I could summon my maid, and send for Nettle. You could meet her now.’

A wave of dread washed through me. ‘Not yet!’ And then I amended it to, ‘Not like this, my lady, please. Let me be clean and shaven. And rested.’ I took a breath. ‘And fed,’ I added, trying not to make it sound like a remonstrance.

‘Oh, Fitz, I am sorry! I have let my own needs and desires run rampant over yours. A selfish act. I apologize.’

‘A necessary act,’ I assured her. Then, ‘Shall I find Dutiful again? Or Chade. I know there is still much you need to know.’

‘Not just now. I judge it best that you refrain from Skilling for a time.’

I nodded. Left alone in my own mind, I felt almost empty, as if I could no longer string together a thought of my own. It must have showed, for she leaned forward to set her hand on mine. ‘Some brandy, Lord FitzChivalry?’

‘Please,’ I replied, and my queen rose to get it for us.

Some time later, I twitched my eyes open. A shawl had been put around me and my chin rested on my chest. My brandy waited on the table before me. Kettricken was sitting quietly at the table, looking at her folded hands. I knew she meditated and did not wish to disturb her. Yet she seemed aware that I had awakened almost as soon as I opened my eyes. She gave me a weary smile.

‘My queen, I offer my humblest apologies.’

‘You have been long without rest.’ She muffled a small yawn of her own and said, ‘I sent for breakfast, and let my maid know I am famished. She will wish to tidy this room before she sets it out for me here. Conceal yourself until you hear me knock.’

And so I spent some short time sitting on the steps in the darkness behind the concealed panel. I closed my eyes, but did not sleep. Yet it was not the burdens of the Six Duchies throne that weighted my thoughts. I was but a tool to be used in that sorting. I would eat with the Queen, visit the steams and shave, sleep for a short time and then find a way to slip out of the castle and go back to the Witness Stones. I would raid the storeroom first, I decided, and take with me cheese and fruit and wine for the Fool and the Black Man. Perhaps they would enjoy some fresh bread. I smiled to myself, thinking how they would welcome the change in food. Perhaps the Fool would be better and able to travel. If he was, I could bring them both to Buckkeep, where I would know the Fool was safe. And finally I would be free, to go to Molly, and heal the rift of years. I heard the Queen’s tap on the wall.

She had taken advantage of the time to smooth her hair and don a fresh gown. A meal, ample for several people, was set out on the low table. Tea steamed from a flowered pot, and I smelled fresh bread, and butter melting on hot porridge beside a pot of thick yellow cream.

‘Come and eat,’ she welcomed me. ‘And if you have a word left in you, tell me of what you have been through, and how it is that you and Thick have discovered such a swift way to travel.’

I realized then the depth of the Queen’s faith in me. So much had not been relayed through Nettle for the sake of keeping Chade’s secrets. Only by subtle hints had she known to expect me, and yet she had believed we would arrive. And so, as we ate, I found myself reporting to her yet again. She had always been a good listener, and over the years had been my confidante more than once. Perhaps that was why I found myself telling her far more of the truth than I had confided to anyone else. I told her of my search through the city for the Fool’s body, and tears ran down her cheeks unchecked when I told her where and how I had found him. Her pale eyes brimmed with wonder as I told her how we had returned to the abandoned plaza. To her alone did I confide my venture into death. To her alone did I give a full accounting of our visit to the dragons themselves and the restoration of the Rooster Crown.

Only once did she interrupt. I had told her of brushing the dust and leaves off Verity as Dragon. She instantly reached across the table to seize my hand in a cool, hard grip.

‘With these pillars, if you held my hand, you could take me to him? Even just once? I know, I know, all that would not be there for me. Yet, even to touch the stone that holds him … Oh, Fitz, you have no idea what that would mean to me!’

‘To take an unSkilled person through a pillar … I do not know the full toll it might take on your mind. It could be arduous and dangerous, my queen.’ I was reluctant, and yet even more reluctant to disappoint her.

‘And Dutiful,’ she said, as if she had not heard my warning at all. ‘Dutiful should stand, at least once, by the dragon of his father. It would make real his father’s Sacrifice to him, and he might perceive his own in a kindlier light then.’

‘Dutiful’s Sacrifice?’

‘Did not you hear what he could not say? That as a man, he could have stayed there with Elliania, and been her husband and welcomed by her family. As a prince, he cannot. It is not a small Sacrifice, FitzChivalry. Elliania will follow him here, that is true. But ever, it will be a little wall between them. You yourself have known how sharp that can be, to disappoint the woman you love out of the duty you must yield to your people.’

I spoke without considering the wisdom of it. ‘I will be going back for her, now. The time for that sacrifice is at an end. Burrich is gone and no longer stands between us. I will take Molly again for my own.’

A silence followed my words, and I realized I had shocked her. Then she said, gently, ‘I am glad that, at last, you have found that resolve. I speak now as a woman and your friend. Do not go to Molly too soon. Let her son come home to her first. Let her family heal around their terrible wound. Then, approach her, but as yourself, not as a man coming to take Burrich’s place.’

I knew her words were wise as soon as I heard them. But my heart howled to rush to Molly as soon as I could, to begin, as soon as possible, to make up the years we had lost. I wanted to comfort her in her grief. I bowed my head, realizing the selfishness of that impulse. Hard as it would be for me to stand to one side and wait, it was what I should do, for the sake of Burrich’s sons.

‘And the same for Nettle,’ Kettricken went on implacably. ‘She will soon know that something has changed when I do not call on her to pass messages to Dutiful for me. Yet, if you will listen to me, do not rush to her. Above all, do not try to replace her father. For such Burrich was to her, Fitz, through no fault of your own. Such he will always be. You will have to find another role in her life, and be content with it.’

They were bitter words for me to hear, and more bitter still was it for me to admit, ‘I know.’ I sighed. ‘I will teach her the Skill. That time, I will have with her.’

I resumed my tale for the Queen, and by the time I reached the end of it, the pot of tea was gone. I was a bit abashed to see that I had cleared the table of food. I suspected that Kettricken had eaten little of it. I blinked my sandy eyes and tried to stifle a huge yawn. She smiled at me wearily.

‘Go and sleep, Fitz.’

‘Thank you. I shall.’ Then, well aware I was not supposed to know her identity, I asked the Queen, ‘If you would speak to Chade’s new apprentice, it would be of great help to me. The third storeroom in the east hall is where he used to have supplies left for Thick to bring up to his tower room. As soon as the Fool can travel, I plan to bring him back to Buckkeep. The tower room might be the best place for him to stay, until he can shed his identity as Lord Golden. Chade’s apprentice could stock the room if she –’ And there I bit my tongue, knowing I’d betrayed myself in my weariness.

Queen Kettricken gave me a tolerant smile. ‘I’ll tell Lady Rosemary to make the arrangements. And if I need you?’

I pondered briefly, then realized the obvious. ‘Ask Nettle to contact Thick.’

She shook her head. ‘I plan to send Nettle home to her family for a time. They need her. It is not fair that they be apart at this time.’

I nodded. ‘Thick will be about. You could keep him at your side. It might be a good way to occupy him and keep him from telling too many tales of how he came home.’

She nodded gravely. I bowed, suddenly horribly weary.

‘Go, Fitz, and take my thanks with you. Oh!’ The sharpness of her intake of breath warned me.

‘What?’

‘Lady Patience is expected. She sent me word of her visit at the same time that she told me she wished to convey Withywoods on Lady Nettle. She also warned me that she wished to “consult me on serious matters concerning certain inheritances that should be provided for now”.’

There was little point in mincing words. ‘I am sure she knows that Nettle is my daughter. Eda help the poor child if Patience has decided to take over her education.’ I smiled ruefully at my remembrance of Patience’s instruction of me.

Queen Kettricken nodded to that. Solemnly she asked, ‘What is the saying? All your chickens have come home to roost?’

‘I think that’s it. But strangely enough, my lady queen, I welcome them.’

‘I am glad to hear you say so.’ She nodded to me that I was excused.

I left the room, and the climb back up to Chade’s tower seemed endless. When I got there, I lay down on the bed. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but it suddenly seemed the Skill-current was very near. Perhaps it was because of my long exercise with it that morning. I opened my eyes and became aware I could smell myself. I heaved a sigh and decided that getting cleaned up before I slept would not be a bad idea.

Once more I wound my way through the immense old castle, avoiding the guard room and the inevitable barrage of questions. I found the steams relatively deserted at that time of day. The two guardsmen there did not know me, and while they greeted me affably enough, they asked no questions. I was as much relieved at that as I was to scrape the whiskers from my face. I gave myself a most thorough scrubbing and then, feeling as if I had been parboiled, emerged clean and ready to sleep.

Nettle was waiting for me outside the steams.

THIRTY-THREE

Family

So I shall have to travel to Buckkeep, in the heat of summer, because I dare not trust either the tidings I bring or the items that must be transferred to a courier. My old Lacey has declared she will make the journey with me, despite a weakness of her breath that has taken her lately. I beg that, for her sake, you will find us quarters that do not require the climbing of too many stairs.

I will require a private audience with you, for the time has come when I should reveal a secret I have concealed for many years. As you are not a stupid woman, I suspect you have guessed part of it already, but I should still like to sit down and discuss with you what had best be done for the good of the young woman involved.

Missive from Lady Patience to Queen Kettricken

I knew her at once by her close-cropped head. But there her resemblance to my dream-image of her stopped. The travelling dress she wore was green, cut for riding, and she carried a cloak of sensible brown homespun. Plainly, she saw herself as looking like her mother, for thus she had appeared in my dreams. To my eyes, she more strongly resembled Molly’s father but with some Farseer elements thrown into the mix. It was a Farseer gaze that she fixed on me as I emerged, at once dashing my hope that I might walk past her unrecognized. I halted where I stood.

I froze and waited dumbly for what might come. She continued to regard me levelly. After a moment, she said quietly, ‘Do you think that if you stand very still, I can’t see you, Shadow Wolf?’

I smiled foolishly. Her voice was low-pitched, deeper than one might expect in a girl, like Molly’s at that age. ‘I … no, of course not. I know you can see me. But … how did you know me?’

She came two steps closer. I looked around us and then I walked away from the steams, well aware that for a young noblewoman of the Buckkeep court to be seen casually chatting with an older guardsman might excite gossip. She walked beside me, following me unquestioningly as I led her toward a secluded bench in the Women’s Garden. ‘Oh, it was very easy. You had promised you’d reveal yourself to me, did you not? I knew you were coming home. Dutiful said as much when we spoke last night, that soon I would be freed of these duties for a time. So, when the Queen summoned me and told me I might return home to comfort my mother for a time, I knew what it meant. That you were here. Then,’ and she smiled, a genuine smile of pleasure, ‘I encountered Thick, on his way up to the Queen as I was leaving her. I knew him by his music, as well as by his name. And he knew me, at first glance. Such a hug he gave me! It shocked Lady Sydel, but she will recover. I asked Thick where his travelling companion was. He shut his eyes for a moment, and told me, “in the steams.” So I came and I waited there.’

I wished that Thick had warned me. ‘And you knew me when you saw me?’

She gave a small hmph. ‘I recognized the dismay on your face at being found out. None of the other men who have come out gawked at me that way.’ She gave me a sideways glance, well pleased with herself but there were little sparks in her eyes. I wondered if mine looked like that when I was angry. She spoke calmly and competently, just as Molly sometimes used to do when she was storing up fuel for a rage. After a moment’s reflection, I decided she had the right to be annoyed with me. I had promised to make myself known to her when I returned. And I had intended to evade that promise.

‘Well. You’ve found me,’ I said lamely, and instantly knew it was exactly the wrong thing to say to her.

‘Small thanks to you!’ She seated herself solidly on the bench. I stood, well aware of the disparity in our apparent ranks. She had to look up at me, but it did not seem that way when she demanded, ‘What is your name, sir?’

So I had to give her the name by which I was known when I wore the blue of a Buckkeep guard. ‘Tom Badgerlock, my lady. Of the Prince’s Guard.’

She suddenly looked like a cat with a mouse between her paws. ‘That’s convenient for me. The Queen said she would have a guardsman accompany me on my journey home. I’ll take you.’ It was a challenge flung down.

‘I am not free to go, my lady.’ It sounded like an excuse and I hastily added, ‘I take over your duties, as you have guessed. I act as go-between for Lord Chade, Prince Dutiful and our gracious queen.’

‘Surely Thick could do that.’

‘His magic is strong, but he has his limits, my lady.’

‘My lady!’ she muttered disdainfully. ‘And what shall I call you then? Lord Wolf?’ She shook her head, exasperated with me. ‘I know you are telling me the truth. Worse luck for me.’ Her shoulders slumped suddenly, and her youth and grief were more apparent. ‘It is not an easy tale I bring home to my mother and brothers. But, they deserve to know the manner of our father’s death. And that Swift did not abandon him.’ Without thinking, she lifted her hands and ran them through her shortened hair until it stood up in spires and peaks all over her head. ‘This magic of the Skill has not been an easy burden for me. It has snatched me from my home, and kept me here when my mother needs me most.’ Turning to me accusingly, she demanded, ‘Why did you choose me, of all people, to give this magic to?’

It shocked me. ‘I didn’t. I didn’t choose you. You had it, you were born with the magic. And, for some reason, we connected. I didn’t even realize you were there, watching my life, for a very long time.’

‘There were times when that was obvious,’ she observed, but before I wondered what I had unwittingly shown her of myself, she added, ‘And now I have it, like some disease, and it means that I am ever in service to my queen. And to King Dutiful, when he succeeds her. I don’t suppose you can even imagine what a burden that could be to me.’

‘I have some inkling of it,’ I replied quietly. Then, when she continued to sit unmoving before me, I asked her, ‘Should not you be on your way? Daylight is the best time for travel.’

‘We have just met, and you are so anxious for us to be parted.’ She looked down at the ground beneath her feet. Suddenly, she was Nettle from our dreams as she shook her head and said, ‘This is not at all how I imagined our first meeting would be. I thought you would be happy to see me, and we would laugh and be friends.’ She gave a small cough and then admitted shyly, ‘A long time ago, when I first had dreams about you and the wolf, I used to imagine that we would really meet some day. I pretended you would be my age, and handsome and find me pretty. That was silly, wasn’t it?’

‘I’m sorry to have disappointed you,’ I said carefully. ‘I definitely find you pretty, however.’ She gave me a look that said that such compliments from an ageing guardsman made her uncomfortable. Her illusions about me had made a barrier I had not expected. I came closer to her, and then crouched down beside her to look up into her eyes. ‘Could we, perhaps, begin this again?’ I put out a hand to her and said, ‘My name is Shadow Wolf. And Nettle, you cannot imagine how many years I have longed to meet you.’ Without warning, my throat closed tight. I hoped I would not get teary. My daughter hesitated, and then set her hand in mine. It was slender, like a lady’s hand should be, but brown from the sun and her palm against mine was calloused. The touch strengthened our Skill-bond and it was as if she squeezed my heart rather than my fingers. Even if I had wanted to hide what I felt from her, I could not have done so. I think it breached some wall she had held.

She looked up into my face, on a level with hers now. Our eyes met, and suddenly her lower lip trembled like a baby’s. ‘My papa is dead!’ she stammered out. ‘My papa is dead, and I don’t know what to do! How can we go on? Chivalry is such a boy still, and Mama knows nothing of the horses. Already, she speaks of selling them off and moving to a town, saying she cannot abide to be where my father so emphatically is not!’ She choked and then gasped, ‘It’s all going to fall apart. I’m going to fall apart! I can’t be as strong as everyone expects me to be. But I have to.’ She drew herself up straight and faced me. ‘I have to be strong,’ she repeated, as if that would turn her bones to iron. It seemed to work. No tears. Hers was a desperate courage. I caught her in my arms and held her tight. For the first time in her life or mine, I held my daughter. Her cropped hair was bristly against my chin and all I could think was how much I loved her. I opened myself to her and let it flood from me into her. I felt her shock, both at the depth of my feeling and that a relative stranger would touch her so. I tried to explain.

‘I will look after you,’ I told her. ‘I’ll look after all of you. I promised … I promised your papa I would do that, look after you and your little brothers. And I will.’

‘I don’t think you can,’ she said. ‘Not as he did.’ But trying to gentle her words, she added, ‘I do believe you will try. But there is no one like my papa in the world. No one.’

For a moment longer, she let me hold her. Then, gently, she disentangled herself from me. Subdued, she said, ‘My horse will be saddled and waiting. And the guardsman the Queen assigned me will be there, also.’ She took a huge breath, held it, then slowly let it out. ‘I have to go. There will be a lot to do at home. Mama cannot manage the babies as well as she used to with Papa gone. I’m needed there.’ She found her kerchief and dabbed unshed tears from her eyes.

‘Yes. I’m sure you are.’ I hesitated, and then said, ‘There was a message, from your father. You may think it odd or frivolous, but it was important to him.’

She looked at me quizzically.

‘When Malta comes into season, Ruddy is to stud her.’

She lifted a hand to her mouth and gave a strangled little laugh. When she caught her breath, she said, ‘Ever since the mare came to us, he and Chivalry have argued about that. I’ll tell him.’ She took two steps away from me and repeated, ‘I’ll tell him.’ Then she whirled and was gone.

I stood for a moment, feeling bereft. Then a sad smile spread over my face. I sat down on the bench and looked out over the Women’s Garden. It was summer and the air was rich with the fragrance of both herbs and blossoms, and yet the scent of my daughter’s hair was still in my nostrils and I savoured it. I stared into the distance over the top of the lilac tree and wondered. It was going to take me longer to get to know my daughter than I had thought. Perhaps there would never be a good time to tell her that I was her father. That piece of information did not seem as important as it once had. Instead, it seemed more important that I find a way to come into their lives without causing pain or discord. It wasn’t going to be easy. But I would do it. Somehow.

I must have fallen asleep there. When I awoke, it was late afternoon. For a moment, I could not recall where I was, only that I was happy. That was such a rare sensation for me that I lay there, looking up at blue sky through green leaves. Then I became aware that my back was stiff from sleeping on a stone bench, and in the following instant, that I had planned to take food and wine back to the Fool today. Well, it was not too late for that, I told myself. I rose and stretched and rolled the kinks out of my neck and shoulders.

The pathway back to the kitchen led through the herb gardens. At that time of year, lavender and dill and fennel grow tall, and this year they seemed even taller than usual. I heard one woman say querulously to another, ‘Just see how they’ve let the gardens go! Disgraceful. Pull up that weed, if you can reach it.’

Then, as I stepped into view, I recognized Lacey’s voice as she said, ‘I don’t think that’s a weed, dear heart. I think it’s a marigo—well, it’s too late now, whatever it was, you’ve got it up, roots and all. Give it to me, and I’ll throw it in the bushes where no one will find it.’

And there they were, two dear old ladies, Patience in a summer gown and hat that had probably last seen the light of day when my father was King-in-Waiting. Lacey, as ever, was dressed in the simple robe of a serving woman. Patience carried her slippers in one hand and the torn-out marigold in the other. She looked at me near-sightedly. Perhaps she saw no more than the blue of a guard’s uniform as she declared to me sternly, ‘Well, it didn’t belong there!’ She shook the offending plant at me. ‘That’s what a weed is, young man, a plant growing in the wrong place, so you needn’t stare at me so! Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?’

‘Oh, dear Eda of the Fields!’ Lacey exclaimed. I thought I might still be able to retreat, but then Lacey, stolid, solid Lacey, turned slowly and fainted dead away into the lavender.

‘Whatever are you doing, dear? Did you lose something?’ Patience exclaimed, peering at her. And then, when she perceived Lacey was supine and unmoving, she turned on me, asking in outrage, ‘See what you’ve done now! Frightened the poor old woman to death, you have! Well, don’t stand there, you simpleton. Pluck her out of the lavender before she crushes it completely!’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said, and stooping, I lifted her. Lacey had always been a hearty woman, and age had not dwindled her. Nonetheless, I managed to raise her, and even carried her to a shady spot before I set her down on the grass there. Patience had followed us, muttering and shaking her head over how clumsy I was.

‘Faints at the drop of a hat she does, now! Poor old dear. Do you feel better now?’ She eased herself down beside her companion and patted her hand. Lacey’s eyes fluttered.

‘I’ll fetch some water, shall I?’

‘Yes. And hurry. And don’t even think of running off, young man. This is all your doing, you know.’

I ran to the kitchens for a cup and filled it at the well on my way back. By the time I got there, Lacey was sitting up and Lady Patience was fanning her old servant, alternately scolding and sympathizing. ‘… and you know as well as I do how the eyes play tricks on us at our age. Why, only last week, I tried to shoo my wrap off the table, thinking it was the cat. It was the way it was curled, you know.’

‘My lady, no. Look well. It is him or his ghost. He looks just as his father looked at that age. Look at him, do.’

I kept my eyes down as I knelt by her and offered her the cup. ‘A bit of water, ma’am, and I’m sure you’ll feel better. It was most likely the heat.’ Then, as Lacey took the cup from me, Patience reached across her to seize my chin in her hand. ‘Look at me, young man! Look at me, I said!’ And then, as she leaned closer and closer to me, she exclaimed, ‘My Chivalry never had a nose like that. But his eyes do … remind me. Oh. Oh, my son, my son. It cannot be. It cannot be.’

She let go of me and sat back. Lacey offered her the cup of water, and Patience took it absently. She drank from it, and turning to Lacey, said calmly, ‘He wouldn’t dare. He wouldn’t have.’

Lacey still stared at me. ‘You heard the rumours, same as me, my lady. And that Witted minstrel sang us the song, about the dragons and how the Witted Bastard rose from the grave to serve his king.’

‘He wouldn’t,’ Patience repeated. She stared at me, and my tongue was frozen to the roof of my mouth. Then, ‘Help me up, young man. And Lacey, too. She has the fainting spells, these days. Eating too much fish is what I think brings them on. And river fish at that. Makes her wobbly, so you’ll just see us back to our chambers, won’t you?’

‘Yes, ma’am. I’ll be happy to.’

‘I daresay you’ll be happy to. Until we get you behind closed doors. Take her arm, now, and help her along.’ But that was easier said than done, for Patience clung to my other arm as if a river might sweep her away if she let go.

Lacey was, in truth, swaying as she walked, and I felt very bad indeed to have given her such a shock. Neither one of them said another word to me, through twice Patience pointed out caterpillars on the roses and said they were never tolerated in the old days. Once inside, we still had a long walk through the great hall, and then up the wide stairs. I was grateful that it was only one flight, for Patience muttered nasty words as she mastered each riser, and Lacey’s knees cracked alarmingly. We went down the hall and Patience waved at a door for me. It was one of the best chambers in Buckkeep, and it pleased me more than I could say that Queen Kettricken had accorded her this respect. Lady Patience’s travelling trunk was already open in the middle of the room, and a hat was already perched on the mantel. Kettricken had even recalled that Lady Patience preferred to dine in her chambers, for a small table and two chairs had been placed in the fall of sunlight from the deep-set window.

I saw each of them to a chair, and when they were seated, asked them if there was anything else I could bring them.

‘Sixteen years,’ Patience snapped. ‘You can fetch me sixteen years! Shut that door. I don’t suppose it would be wise for this to be gossip all over Buckkeep. Sixteen years, and not a peep, not a hint. Tom, Tom, whatever were you thinking?’

‘More likely, not thinking at all,’ Lacey suggested, looking at me with martyred eyes. That stung, for always when I had been a boy and in trouble with Patience, Lacey had taken my part. She seemed to have recovered well from her faint. There were spots of colour on her cheeks. She ponderously rose from her chair and went into the adjoining room. In a few moments, she returned with three teacups and a bottle of brandy on a little tray. She set it down on the small table between them, and I winced at the sight of her lumpy knuckles and gnarled fingers. Age had crippled those nimble hands that once had tatted lace by the hour. ‘I suppose we could all do with a bit of this. Not that you deserve any,’ she said coldly. ‘That was quite a fright you gave me in the garden. Not to mention years of grief.’

‘Sixteen years,’ Patience clarified, in case I had managed to forget in the last few moments. Then, turning to Lacey, she said, ‘I told you he wasn’t dead! When we prepared his body to bury him, even then, washing his cold legs, I told you he couldn’t be dead. I don’t know how I knew it, but I knew it. And I was right!’

‘He was dead,’ Lacey insisted. ‘My lady, he had not breath to fog a bit of glass, nor a single thump of his heart. He was dead.’ She pointed a finger at me. It shook slightly. ‘And now you are not. You had best have a good explanation for this, young man.’

‘It was Burrich’s idea,’ I began, and before I could say another word, Patience threw up her hands in the air, crying, ‘Oh, I should have guessed that man would be at the bottom of this. That’s your girl he has been raising all these years, isn’t it? Three years after we’d buried you, we heard a rumour. That tinker, Cotttlesby, that sells such nice needles, he told us he had seen Molly in, oh, some town, with a little girl at her side. I thought to myself then, how old? For I said to Lacey, when Molly left my service so abruptly, that she puked and slept like a woman with child. Then, she was gone, before I could even offer to help her with the babe. Your daughter, my grandchild! Then, later, I heard that Burrich had gone with her, and when I asked about, he was claiming all the children as his own. Well. I might have known. I might have known.’

I had not been prepared for Patience to be quite so well informed. I should have been. In the days after my death, she had run Buckkeep Castle, and developed a substantial network of folk who reported to her. ‘I think I could do with some brandy,’ I said quietly. I reached for the decanter, but Patience slapped my hand away.

‘I’ll do it!’ she exclaimed crossly. ‘Do you think you can pretend to be dead and vanish from my life for sixteen years and then walk in and pour yourself some of my good brandy? Insolence!’

She got it open, but when she tried to pour, her hand shook so wildly that she threatened to deluge the table. I took it from her, as she began to gasp, and poured some into our cups. By the time I set the bottle down, she was sobbing. Her hair, never tidy for long, had half fallen down. When had so much grey come into it? I knelt down before her and forced myself to look up into her faded eyes. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed harder. Cautiously, I reached up and tugged her hands from her face. ‘Please believe me. It was never by my choice, Mother. If I could have come back to you without putting the people I loved at risk, I would have. You know that. And the way you prepared my body for burial may have saved my life. Thank you.’

‘A fine time to call me “mother”, after all these years,’ she sniffed, then added: ‘And what would Burrich have known about anything, unless it had four legs and hooves?’ But she put her tear-wet hands on my cheeks and drew me forward to kiss me on the brow. She sat back and looked down at me severely. The tip of her nose was very pink. ‘I’ll have to forgive you now. Eda knows, I may drop dead tomorrow, and angry as I am with you, I still would not wish you to walk about the rest of your life regretting that I had died before I forgave you. But that does not mean I’m going to stop being angry with you, nor that Lacey has to stop being angry with you. You deserve it.’ She sniffed loudly. Lacey passed her a kerchief. The old serving woman’s face rebuked me as she took her seat at the table. More clearly than ever, I saw how the years together had erased the lines between lady and maid.

‘Yes. I do.’

‘Well, get up. I’ve no desire to get a crick in my neck staring at you down there. Why on earth are you dressed as a guardsman? And why have you been so foolish as to come back to Buckkeep Castle? Don’t you know there are still people who would love to see you dead! You are not safe here, Tom. When I return to Tradeford, you shall come with me. Perhaps I can pass you off as a gardener or a wayward cousin’s son. Not that I shall allow you to touch my plants. You know nothing about gardens and flowers.’

I came to my feet slowly and could not resist saying, ‘I could help with the weeding. I know what a marigold looks like, even when it isn’t in flower.’

‘There! You see, Lacey! I forgive him and the next word out of his mouth is to mock me!’ Then she covered her mouth suddenly, as if to suppress another sob. The tendons and blue veins stood out on the back of her hand. Behind it, she drew a sharp breath, and then said, ‘I think I’ll have my brandy now.’ She lifted her cup and sipped from it. She glanced at me over the brim, and more tears suddenly spilled. She set the cup down hastily, shaking her head. ‘You’re here and alive. I don’t know what I’ve got to weep about. Except sixteen years and a grandchild, lost to me forever. How could you, you wretch! Account for them. Account for yourself and what you’ve been doing that was so very important you couldn’t come home to us.’

And suddenly, all the very good reasons I’d had for not going to her seemed trivial. I could have found a way. I heard myself say aloud, ‘If I hadn’t given my pain to the stone dragon, I think I would have found a way, however risky. Maybe you have to keep your pain and loss to know that you can survive whatever life deals you. Perhaps without putting your pain in its place in your life, you become something of a coward.’

She slapped the table in front of her, then exclaimed in pain at her stinging fingers. ‘I didn’t want a moral lecture, I wanted an accounting. With no excuses!’

‘I’ve never forgotten the apples you threw to me through the bars of my cell. You and Lacey were incredibly brave to come to me in the dungeons, and to take my part when few others dared to.’

‘Stop it!’ she hissed indignantly as her eyes filled with tears again. ‘Is this how you get your pleasure these days? Making old ladies weep over you?’

‘I don’t mean to.’

‘Then tell me what happened to you. From the last time I saw you.’

‘My lady, I would love to. And I will, I promise. But, when I encountered you, I was on a pressing errand of my own. One that I should complete before I lose the daylight. Let me go, and I promise that I’ll be back tomorrow, to give a full accounting.’

‘No. Of course not. What errand?’

‘You recall my friend, the Fool? He has fallen ill. I need to take him some herbs to ease him, and food and wine.’

‘That pasty-faced lad? He was never a healthy child. Ate too much fish, if you ask me. That will do that to you.’

‘I’ll tell him. But I need to go see him.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘Well, it has been sixteen long years since you’ve seen me. He can wait his turn.’

‘But he is not well.’

She clashed her teacup as she set it down on the saucer. ‘Neither am I!’ she exclaimed, and fresh tears began to well.

Lacey came to pat her shoulders. Over Patience’s head, she said to me, ‘She is not always rational. Especially when she is tired. We only arrived this morning. I told her that she should rest, but she wanted a bit of air in the gardens.’

‘And what, pray, is irrational about that?’ Patience demanded.

‘Nothing,’ I said hastily. ‘Nothing at all. Come. I’ve an idea. Lie down on your bed, and I shall sit beside you where you are comfortable, and begin my tale. And if you drowse off, I shall quietly take my leave, and come back to continue it tomorrow. For sixteen years cannot be told in an hour, or even in a day.’

‘It will take sixteen years to tell sixteen years,’ Patience told me sternly. ‘Help me up, then. I’m stiff from travelling, you know.’

I gave her my arm and she leaned on it as I escorted her to her bed. She groaned as she sat down on it, and as the feather bed gave beneath her, she muttered, ‘Much too soft. I’ll never be able to sleep on this. Do they think I’m a hen, setting in a nest?’ Then, as she lay back and I helped her lift her feet onto the bed she said, ‘You’ve quite ruined my surprise, you know. Here, I was all set to summon a grandchild to me and reveal to her that she was well born of noble blood, and pass on to her keepsakes of her father’s. Oh, help me take my shoes off. When did my feet get so far away from my hands?’

‘You don’t have your shoes on. I think you left your slippers in the garden.’

‘And whose fault is that? Startling us that way. It’s a wonder I didn’t forget my head down there.’

I nodded, noting but not commenting that her stockings didn’t match. Patience had never cared much for detail. ‘What sort of keepsakes?’ I asked.

‘It scarcely matters now. As you are alive, I intend to keep them.’

‘What were they?’ I asked, intensely curious.

‘Oh. A painting you gave me, don’t you know? And, when you were dead, I took a lock of your hair. I’ve worn it in a locket ever since.’ While I was speechless, she leaned up on an elbow. ‘Lacey, come have a lie down for a bit. You know I don’t like you to be too far away if I need you. Your hearing isn’t what it used to be.’ To me, she confided, ‘They’ve given her a narrow little bed in a closet of a room. Fine if your maid is a slip of a girl, but hardly appropriate for a mature woman. Lacey!’

‘I’m right here, dearie. You needn’t shout.’ The old serving woman came round to the other side of the bed. She looked a bit uncomfortable at the prospect of lying down in front of me, as if I might think it improper that she should share a lady’s bed. It made perfect sense to me. ‘I am tired,’ she admitted as she sat down. She had brought a shawl, and she spread it over Patience’s legs.

I brought a chair to the edge of the bed and sat down backwards on it. ‘Where should I begin?’ I asked her.

‘Begin by sitting on that chair properly!’ And after I had corrected that, she said, ‘Don’t tell me what that vile pretender did to you to kill you. I saw enough of it on your body and I could not bear it then. Tell me, instead, how you survived.’

I thought briefly, considering. ‘You know I am Witted.’

‘I thought you might be,’ she conceded. She yawned. ‘And?’

And so I launched into my tale. I told her of seeking refuge in my wolf, and how Burrich and Chade had called me back to my body. I told her of my slow recovery, and of Chade’s visit. I thought she had drowsed off then, but when I tried to rise, her eyes flew open. ‘Sit down!’ she commanded me, and when I had done so, she took my hand, as if to keep me from creeping away. ‘I’m listening. Go on.’

I told her of Burrich leaving, and of the Forged Ones. I explained to her how Burrich had come to believe I had died there, and returned to Molly to protect her and the child she carried. I told her of my long journey from Buck to Tradeford, and of Regal’s King’s Circle there. She opened one eye. ‘It’s all a garden, now. I’ve plants and trees and flowers from all over the Six Duchies and beyond. Monkey-tail vine from Jamaillia, and blue-needle bush from the Spice Isles. And a lovely herb-knot in the very middle of where it used to be. You’d like it, Tom. You will like it, when you come to live with me.’

‘I’m sure I’ll like it,’ I said, scrupulously avoiding the topic of where I might or might not live. ‘Shall I go on, or do you want to nap now?’ A gentle snore buzzed from Lacey’s side of the bed.

‘Go on. I’m not the least bit sleepy. Go on.’

But in the midst of my telling her how I had attempted to kill Regal, she dozed off. I sat still a time longer, waiting until her grip slacked on my hand and I could slip clear of her.

I walked silently to the door. As I lifted the latch, Lacey raised up on one elbow. There was nothing wrong with her hearing, and I suspected that despite her crooked fingers, one would still find a blade up her sleeve. So I nodded to her and left Patience sleeping as I slipped from the room.

I went down to the guardroom and ate heartily. There is nothing like a steady diet of salt-fish to make one appreciate bread and butter and cold roast fowl. My enjoyment of the meal was somewhat damped by the knowledge that evening was drawing on. Guardsmen seemed always hungry, and no one made any comment when I carried off half a loaf of bread and a goodly wedge of cheese with me. From my meal, I went immediately to a storeroom where I helped myself to a carry basket and two sausages. I added the loaf and cheese to the basket. I took my trove up to Chade’s tower room. Thick had been there. He had done a cursory dusting of the table and mantel and set out a bowl of fruit. A little fire burned on the hearth. There was a small supply of firewood in the hod, a bundle of tapers on the table, and water in the barrel. I shook my head in wonder at the man. After all he had been through, he was home for one day and still remembered his old duties. I put half a dozen yellow and purple plums into my carry basket and nested a bottle of Chade’s wine between the bread and cheese. I was folding feverfew and dried willow bark into a twist of paper when I felt Chade nudge at my mind.

What?

I need to speak to the Queen, Fitz.

Cannot you use Thick instead? I was just on my way to the Skill-pillars.

This will not take long.

I will have to find a way to arrange quiet time with Queen Kettricken.

I have already contacted her, through Thick. The message she sent back was, yes, immediately. If you go to her private sitting room, she will come to you shortly.

Very well.

You seem cross.

I am worried about the Fool. I have some things here I’d like to take back to him. Fresh fruit and herbs for fever.

I understand, Fitz. But this should not take long. Then, you can sleep the night through, and go in the morning.

Very well. I released our contact. Very well. And what else could I have said? He was right. Many of the thoughts Dutiful had conveyed to his mother would have been difficult for Thick to grasp, let alone pass on. I tried not to resent the time it stole from me. The Fool would be fine, I told myself. He had been through the changes before, and who better than the Black Man to tend him? He had even told me that he needed time apart from me, time to think. Time to think without watching the face of someone who had witnessed what had befallen you. Besides, it was better that I serve this duty than Nettle, I told myself sternly. She needed to be home, with her family, and doubtless her family needed her there. I found a clean piece of cloth and covered the bread. I went down the long dim stairs to wait upon the Queen.

It did not take a short time. Chade and Dutiful were quarrelling, and Chade had attempted to steal a march upon the Prince by contacting the Queen first. He and the Prince were to board the ship to sail home tomorrow afternoon. The Narcheska was to have come with them, but earlier in the day, she had gone to Dutiful and begged that she might have three more months in the company of her family before she left them to come to Buckkeep. The Prince had granted it to her, privately, without consulting Chade.

Very privately, Chade seethed, and I wondered if he intended that I pass on to the Queen that the asking of the boon and the granting of it had occurred in a setting of an intimacy of which the councillor did not approve.

‘Very discreetly was this matter discussed between the Prince and the Narcheska,’ was what I told her.

‘I see,’ she replied, and I wondered if she did.

As of yet, there has been no public announcement. It is not too late for us to retract this permission. I fear it will throw all our plans awry if the girl is allowed to stay here. For one thing, it will mean that when she arrives, if she keeps her promise to arrive at all, it will be in the storms of winter rather than in time for the nuptials to be celebrated with the autumn harvest. The Prince will be returning to his nobles without a bride, indeed, with nothing visible to show for the time and expense of this expedition. If, as we have hoped, you planned to press for the dukes to declare him King-in-Waiting, this will be a lacklustre event to base it on. Tales of dragons rescued and dragon heads on hearthstones will mean little to nobles who have seen not so much as a scale of a dragon, let alone the bride and alliance won by such valour. And I fear the longer the Narcheska lingers among her women here, the harder they will make it for her to depart from them. Their reluctance to give her up has grown hourly. They mourn her as one going to her death, as vanishing from their world forever.

When these thoughts had been delivered to the Queen, she suggested to Chade, ‘Perhaps, then, it would be wiser to give her more time to bid her people farewell. Please add many assurances that visitors will always be welcome, and that she will periodically return to visit there as well. Have you extended welcome to any of her clan who wish to accompany her, not just to witness the wedding, but to stay on that she need not feel so alone here?’

As I passed her words on to Chade, I was reminded starkly of how alone Kettricken had been when she journeyed from the mountains, without so much as a personal maid to accompany her. Did she recall her early days of being alone in a foreign court where no one spoke her mother-tongue or recognized her customs?

It is a part of the difficulty. As I understand it, a woman’s bond to her land is sacred. The women in line to rule their mothershouses seldom leave their homeland at all. They live on it, die on it, and go back into it. All that goes into a woman or comes forth from her is expected to stay on her own lands. So, no women of power will travel with her when she comes to Buckkeep. Peottre will accompany her, and perhaps a couple of her male cousins. Arkon Bloodblade will come, and a goodly number of leaders from other clans will come, to confirm the trade alliances they have formed with our visiting nobles. But she will not have an entourage of servants and ladies.

‘I see,’ Kettricken replied slowly. We were alone in her sitting room. She had poured wine for us, and the glasses rested, neglected, on the low table. The room had been restored since last I saw it. As ever, Kettricken sought her peace in simplicity. A single flower floated in a low pottery dish and the candles were shielded to a gentle glow. The candles released a calming perfume into the air, but Kettricken was tense as a treed cat. She saw me looking at her hands clenched on the edge of the table and carefully relaxed them. ‘Does Chade hear all that I say to you?’ she asked me softly.

‘No. He is not with me that way, not riding with me as Verity used to do. That takes a great deal of concentration. And demands a total loss of privacy of thought. I have not invited him to that. So, he hears only what you tell me to say to him.’

Her shoulders lowered a trifle as she relaxed. ‘Sometimes my councillor and I are at odds. When we spoke through Nettle … well. It was difficult, for Chade and I were both being so circumspect, taking care not to involve her in matters far beyond her ability or need to understand. But now you are here.’ She lifted her head slightly. Almost, she smiled. ‘I take strength from you, FitzChivalry. In an odd way, when you Skill for me, you serve me as a Queen’s Man.’ She drew herself up straight. ‘Tell Chade that in this matter, the Prince’s word to his affianced one will not be compromised. If he feels winter is not an auspicious time for this wedding, then let us offer to postpone it until spring, when the crossing will doubtless be safer and more pleasant for the Narcheska. In the matter of the Prince being hailed as King-in-Waiting, well, that has always been up to his dukes. If he must bring home a woman as trophy for them to find him worthy of the title, then the title means little to me. He will, eventually, reign over them. It is my opinion that his kindness and consideration to his future bride may well strengthen this alliance rather than be seen as weakness.’ She paused, as if thinking, pinching her lips firmly together. Then, ‘Tell him that, please.’ She took up her wine-glass and sipped from it.

This is not wise, Fitz. Cannot you reason with her? The Prince is besotted with Elliania. He must be made to see that it is more important to both their futures that he now gratifies the wishes of his dukes rather than his bride’s mother. The sooner this marriage is a reality, the sooner they will see him as a man approaching kingship rather than a boy-prince. He is far too impetuous, following the impulse of his heart when the good of the Six Duchies demands that only his head makes his decisions. Make her understand, Fitz, that we have spent the summer doing the Narcheska’s will, and now it is time for his dukes to see that they still have his heart, and that their regard is more important to him than the well-wishes of the Out Islands.

I pondered his words for a moment and then opened my eyes to the Queen’s anxious gaze. ‘This is what Chade thinks,’ I said, and relayed the gist of the message.

The subtlety was not lost on Kettricken. ‘And what do you think, FitzChivalry?’

I bowed my head to her. ‘I think you are the Queen. And that Prince Dutiful will some day be king.’

‘Then, you counsel me to ignore my councillor’s advice and give support to my son?’

‘My lady queen, I am very glad that I do not have to give you advice in this area.’

She almost smiled. ‘You do if I ask you for it.’

I was silent for quite a time, thinking furiously.

‘Is your chair uncomfortable?’ She asked solicitously. ‘You shift as if it is full of fire-ants.’

I settled back into it resolutely. ‘I would find a way between, my lady. It would please his dukes if the Prince were wed and an heir produced, but he is still very young, not even of an age to be a King-in-Waiting. The nuptials and the title can, perhaps, wait. Let the Narcheska have her time with her mother and sister. I have been there and seen how power is wielded. Although Oerttre is Narcheska still, for she is alive, for Elliania to depart will be as profound an abdication as when my father passed the crown to Verity. Some will dispute who should next inherit the title. While she is a presence there, she can make firm her younger sister’s claim. And I think it would be in the Six Duchies’ best interest to see that her line of the family remains securely in power. Our dukes can be placated in other ways. Trade is what will enrich their coffers, and the Narwhal and Boar clans are not the only ones interested in what we have to offer them. Throw wide the gates. Invite their kaempras, their warrior-leaders. Men all, they will not scruple to leave their mothershouses, if by doing so they can gain a trade advantage. Let that be what we celebrate this autumn harvest. Begin now to plan a Harvest Fest that will display for them the riches of our Six Duchies. Encourage the dukes to attend, with their families and nobles of their duchies. Celebrate the trade alliances now, and let the wedding be the capstone when it occurs.’

Kettricken leaned back in her chair and regarded me carefully. ‘And when did you learn to be so sagacious, FitzChivalry?’

‘A wise old man taught me that diplomacy is the velvet glove that cloaks the fist of power. Persuasion, not force, works best and lasts longest. Make this alliance in the dukes’ best interest and they will be eager to welcome and honour the Narcheska when she arrives.’

I did not add that he had taught me that when he had been content to move behind the walls of Buckkeep and manipulate the throne unseen.

‘Would that he still recalled that. Tell him your thoughts, but phrase them as if they were mine.’

I longed not to be a party to Chade’s haggling with the Queen, but there was no way to avoid it. I witnessed, more clearly than I wished, the subtle way in which they wrestled for the power of the Farseer Throne. Age and experience of the Six Duchies were on Chade’s side. I winced as several times he insisted that it was her Mountain upbringing that blinded Kettricken to the political necessity of showing the Out Islands a strong will. I had known that Chade had amassed power to himself. I do not think he meant any ill; I believe that he genuinely felt that he fought for the best interests of the Six Duchies. Had I manipulated the power of the throne for that long, doubtless I, too, would have felt a proprietary right to it. At the same time, I saw too clearly that if Kettricken did not stand firm, Dutiful could inherit a hollow crown.

And so, against my will, I began to make suggestions to Kettricken that would outflank Chade and to throw my strength toward her side. It was not long before Chade was aware of it, I am sure. And yet the wily old badger only seemed to relish the game more as he heaped objections and possibilities ever higher. Night deepened and then ventured toward dawn. The old man seemed tireless in his arguments, but I was not, and I watched my queen’s pallor grow.

Finally, during a pause in a very convoluted argument in which Chade had been sorting dukes and Outislander kaempras into sets and predicting where each group would side, my weariness got the better of me.

‘Just tell him “no”,’ I suggested. ‘Tell him the Prince has given his word to his fiancée, and it will not be abrogated by you or by Chade. Tell him that if it is an error, it is the Prince’s error, and learning the consequences of errors is one of the best tutors that any young ruler can have.’

My throat was hoarse and my mouth dry with talking. My head seemed too big and heavy for my neck and my eyeballs to have been rolled in sand. I reached for the wine bottle to pour us each a little more, but as I extended my hand, Kettricken seized it in both of her own. I lifted my eyes to hers, startled. Her blue gaze burned as I had never seen it blaze before; it made her eyes seem dark and a little wild.

‘You tell him, Sacrifice. Do not say it comes from me. I wish you to tell him it is your decision. That as the rightful if uncrowned King, this is what you decree.’

I blinked and stared. ‘I … cannot.’

‘Why not?’

The answer did not make me feel brave. ‘If once I take that stance, I cannot step aside from it. If once I declare myself so to Chade, then I must ever guard that right, the right of final say, from him.’

‘Until Dutiful puts on his full crown. Yes.’

‘My life would never be my own again.’

‘This is the life that has always waited for you. This is your life, your own life, which you have never taken up. Take it up now.’

‘Have you discussed this with Dutiful?’

‘He knows that I regard you as Sacrifice. When I told him that, he did not dispute it.’

‘My queen, I …’ I pressed the heels of my hands to my throbbing temples. I wanted to say I had never even considered such a role. But I had. I had come two breaths from it on the night King Shrewd died. I had been ready to step up and seize the power of the throne. Not for myself, but to guard it for the Queen until Verity returned. I teetered on accepting the shadow crown she offered. Was it truly hers to give?

Chade pushed into my thoughts. It is late and I am an old man. Enough of this. Tell her –

No. It was not hers to give. It was mine to take. No, Chade. Our prince has given his word, and it will not be abrogated by any of us. If it is an error, it is the Prince’s error, and learning the consequences of errors is one of the best tutors that any young ruler can have.

Those are not the Queen’s words.

No. They are mine.

A long absence of thought followed my words. I could feel Chade there, I could almost sense his steady breathing as he stacked up my words and considered them from every angle. When next he touched minds with me, I could feel his smile, and strangely, the welling of his pride. Well. After fifteen years, do we finally have a true Farseer on the throne again?

I held my stillness. Waiting. Waiting for mockery or challenge or defiance.

I shall tell the Prince that his decision has been confirmed. And extend our gracious invitation to all the Outislander kaempras. As you will, King Fitz.

THIRTY-FOUR

Commitments

Our loss is great, and all for the foolishness of a wager between novices no wiser than children. By order of Skillmaster Treeknee all markings will be removed from the Witness Stones. By order of Master Treeknee, it is forbidden for any Skill-candidates or novices to go to the Witness Stones unless the Skillmaster accompanies them. By order of Skillmaster Treeknee, all knowledge of the use of the Witness Stones is hereafter restricted to those who are candidates for Master status.

Recovered Skill-scroll

When I climbed the hidden stairs back up to Chade’s tower room that dawn, I was beyond weariness. I could not seem to find a coherent thought of my own. Chade and Prince Dutiful would be on their way home by this afternoon. The invitation to the Harvest Fest would have been passed to every kaempra of every clan. Kettricken would have to set in motion the preparations for the grandest celebration that had ever been held in Buckkeep Castle. The invitations to the dukes and their nobles, the food, the guest housing, the minstrels and jugglers and puppeteers to be hired: it made my head spin and I longed to lie down and sleep. Instead, once in my room, I added a few sticks of dry wood to the failing embers in the hearth. I filled a ewer with water from the barrel, and then poured it into the old washbasin and plunged my face into it. I came up, rubbed at my eyes until they felt less sandy and then wiped my face dry. I looked into the small glass Chade had always kept there and wondered who it was looking back at me.

I suddenly understood what the Fool had said to me earlier. I had journeyed to a place and time I had never foreseen, one past my death. Futures I had never imagined loomed before me, and I had no idea which one I should aspire to. I had taken a step toward claiming a throne, in essence if not in view. I wondered if that meant that I had pushed any life with Molly out of the possible futures I might claim.

Chivalry’s sword rested where I had left it, above the hearth. I took it down. It fitted my hand as if made for it. I flourished it aloft, and then asked the empty chamber, ‘And what would you think of your bastard now, King Chivalry? But, I forget. You never wore the crown, either. No one ever called you King Chivalry.’ I lowered the point of the sword to the floor, conceding to fate. ‘Nor will anyone ever bow the knee to me. All the same, I think I will leave some sign of my passage.’

A strange trembling passed through me, leaving calm in its wake. Hastily, I restored the sword to its place and then wiped my sweaty palms down my shirtfront. A fine king, I thought, wiping sweat down his guard’s uniform. I needed some sleep, but not yet. King Fitz, the bastard monarch. I made a decision and refused to think any more on it. I added a bottle of good brandy to my basket, covered it with a napkin, took up a heavy cloak and fled.

I left the secret corridors behind me and departed by the guards’ entrance. I had to pass the kitchens and almost I stopped to eat. Instead, I helped myself to a little loaf of sweet morning bread from the guards’ mess and ate it as I walked. I passed out of the gate with no more than a sleepy nod from the lad on watch there. I thought how I might change that and then pushed the thought aside. I strode on. I diverted from the main road down to Buckkeep Town onto the trodden trail that went first through the woods and then across the gentle roll of a hill. In the early light of day, the Witness Stones stood stark against the blue sky, awaiting me. Sheep cropped the grass around them. As I approached, they regarded me with that lack of curiosity that is sometimes confused with stupidity. They moved away slowly.

I reached the Witness Stones and walked a slow circle around them. Four stones. Four sides to each stone. Sixteen possible destinations. How often had they been used over the years? I stood on the hilltop and looked out around me. Grass and trees and there, if one looked for it, the indentation of an ancient road. If there had ever been the rubble of houses here, it had long ago been swallowed by the earth, or more likely carted off to rise again as a hut elsewhere.

Hands behind my back, I studied the stone faces. I decided the runes had been deliberately effaced, long ago. I wondered why and suspected I would never know. And that was almost a comfort.

The basket on my arm was growing heavy and the sun was warming me too well. I slung the heavy cloak around my shoulders. It would be cold where I was going. I stepped up to the face of the pillar I had emerged from on my last journey, set my hand to it, and passed through.

I stumbled a bit as I emerged into the pillar room. Then dizziness took me and I sat down flat on the dusty tiles until it passed. ‘Not enough sleep, and using the stones twice in too short a period of time. Not good,’ I told myself firmly. ‘Not wise.’ I tried to stand up, and then decided to sit down again until the tower stopped spinning. It took several moments of sitting there before I realized something obvious. The floor was no longer cold. I put both hands flat against it, as if to prove it to myself. It was not exactly warm; it was more neutral, neither warm nor cold. I stood, and noticed that the windows were losing their haze of thick frost. I thought I heard whispering behind me and turned quickly. No one was there. Perhaps it was an errant summer wind, a warm wind from the south sweeping the island. Very peculiar. I had no time to dwell on it.

I left the pillar room and basket on my arm, tried to hasten through the icy labyrinth. My head pounded. I had not imagined the change in temperature. In one corridor, water slipped over the stones of the floor in a shallow running flow. The gentle warming of the chambers and halls lessened and then ceased as I approached the juncture where stone walls met ice. Little black spots danced before my eyes. I stopped and leaned my brow against the icy wall and rested. The spots receded and slowly I felt more myself. The coolness seemed to help. By the time I emerged from the crack in the ice wall onto the narrow path down to the Black Man’s cavern, I had my cloak wrapped well about my basket and me.

I made my way down the steep path and knocked again at the Black Man’s door. No one answered. I knocked again, hesitated for a time and then tried the string latch. The door swung open and I entered.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim room. The fire had burned low. The Fool was sleeping heavily on a pallet made up near the hearth. There was no sign of Prilkop. I shut the door quietly, put my basket on Prilkop’s low table and took off my cloak. Silently I moved to the Fool’s side and crouching down, peered into his sleeping face. The darkening of his skin was already apparent. I wanted to wake him and ask him how he was. Sternly I resisted that impulse. Instead, I unloaded the basket, finding a wooden platter for the bread and cheese and a basket for the fruit. Prilkop’s water barrel was nearly empty. I put water on to heat for tea, and then took his buckets out and down to the place where the trickle down the rockface came to a slight overhang and fell free. I waited while they filled, and then hauled them up again. By that time, the water was hot, and I made fragrant spice tea.

I think the aroma of the tea was what woke the Fool. He opened his eyes and lay still, staring at the awakened fire for a time. He did not move until I said, ‘Fool? Are you any better?’

Then he gave a small start and turned his head sharply toward me as he jerked his body into a protective ball. I was sorry to have frightened him, and well understood that reflex.

I made no comment on it, saying only, ‘I’ve come back, and brought food with me. Are you hungry?’

He pushed his blankets back a little and half sat up, and then sagged back down into his bedding. ‘I’m getting better. The tea smells good.’

‘No apricots, but I brought you plums.’

‘Apricots?’

‘I thought your mind was wandering a bit when you asked me to fetch you apricots. The fever, you know. Still, if there had been any to hand, I’d have filched some for you.’

‘Thank you,’ he said. Then, staring at me, ‘You look different. More than just being clean.’

‘I feel different. But the clean helps, too. I wish I could have brought the Buckkeep steams with me for you. I think they’d do you good. But as soon as you can walk at all, I’ll get you home. I’ve told Kettricken that we’ll be putting you up in Chade’s old tower room for a time, until you’ve completely recovered and decided who you’d like to become next.’

‘Who I’d like to become …’ He made a small sound of amusement. I could not find the right sort of knife for cutting the bread, so contented myself with tearing off the end of the loaf for him. I took him bread and cheese and a plum, and when the tea had finished steeping, poured him a cup. ‘Where’s Prilkop?’ I asked as he sipped at his tea. I was a bit annoyed that he had left the Fool here alone.

‘Oh, out and about. He has been investigating the Elderling stronghold, to see what damage has been done to it. We’ve had more time for talk while you were gone, in the moments when I was awake. There were not many, I think. He told me tales of the old city; they seem interwoven with my dreams. I suspect that is where he is now. He spoke of seeing what damage she had done, and what he could put right. I suspect he did things to make the city less hospitable, in hopes of driving her out. Now he plans to undo them. I asked him, “For whom?” and he said, “Perhaps just for the sake of putting it right.” He lived there alone for many years after all the others died. For generations, perhaps. He did not tally the passing years, but I am convinced he has been here a very long time. He welcomed the Pale Woman when she first arrived for he thought she had come with her Catalyst to fulfil Prilkop’s goals.’

He drew breath and sipped at the tea. ‘Eat first and then tell stories,’ I suggested to him.

‘Tell me yours while I eat. Something momentous has happened to you. It’s in your bearing and eyes.’

And so I spoke to him, as I could have to no other, divulging all that had befallen me. He smiled but it seemed weighted with sadness, and nodded to himself as if I were but confirming things that he already knew. When I had finished, he tossed his plum pit into the fire and said quietly, ‘Well. It is nice to know that my last vision and prophecy was a true one.’

‘So. I’ll live happily ever after, as the minstrels sing?’

He twisted his mouth at me and shook his head. ‘You’ll live among people who love you and have expectations of you. That will make your life horribly complicated and they will worry you sick half the time. And the other half, annoy you. And delight you.’ He turned away from me and took up his cup and looked into it, like a hedge-witch reading tea leaves. ‘Fate has given up on you, FitzChivalry Farseer. You’ve won. In the future that you now have found, it’s almost likely that you’ll live to a ripe old age, rather than that fate will try to sweep you from the playing board at every opportunity.’

I tried to lighten his words. ‘I was getting a bit tired of being hauled back from death’s door and beyond every time I turned around.’

‘It’s nasty. I know how nasty now. You’ve shown me that.’ He almost had his old smile as he asked me, ‘Let’s leave it at this and call it even, shall we? One time pays for all?’ I nodded. Then as if he had to say it swiftly before I interrupted, ‘Prilkop and I have been talking about what should happen next.’

I smiled. ‘A new plan to save the world? One that doesn’t involve me dying quite so often?’

‘One that doesn’t involve you at all,’ he said quietly. ‘You could say that we are going home, after a fashion. Back to the place that shaped us.’

‘You said no one there would remember you; that there was little point to going back there.’ I was starting to feel alarm.

‘Not to the home that birthed me; I am sure I am no longer recalled there. But to the place that prepared both of us to face our destinies. It was a sort of school, you might say. I know I’ve spoken of it to you, and told you, too, that I ran away from it when they refused to recognize the truth of what I told them. There, I will be well remembered, and Prilkop also. Every White Prophet who has ever passed through there is well remembered.’

‘So let them remember you there. It seems to me they did not treat you well. Why go back?’

‘To see that it never happens to any child again. To do what has never been done before, to return, and interpret for them the old prophecies in light of what we now know. To expunge from their libraries all that the Pale Woman planted there, or at least to cast it in a different light. To bring back our experiences of the world to them.’

I was silent for a long time. ‘How will you get there?’

‘Prilkop says he can use the pillars. Together, we could travel quite a way south before we needed to find another way to travel. We’ll get there. Eventually.’

‘He can use the pillars?’ I was stunned. ‘Why did he remain here, in cold and privation, all those years?’

The Fool looked at me as if it were obvious. ‘I think he can use them, but he dreads them. Even in our language, there are Elderling concepts he has difficulty in explaining to me. The magic that makes the pillars work takes something from you, each time you use it. Not even the Elderlings used them casually. A courier of an important item might use one or even two pillars to travel, but then the task was passed on to another. But that is not the whole of why he stayed. He stayed to protect the dragon. And to await the coming of the White Prophet and the Catalyst, the ones he had seen who could, perhaps, finish his task. That was, after all, the focus of his life.’

‘I cannot imagine such devotion.’

‘Cannot you? I think I can.’

I heard the scrape of the door and Prilkop entered. He looked startled to see me there, as well he might, but then exclaimed something to the Fool. The Fool translated. ‘He is amazed to see you return here so soon, and asks what pressing business had led you to brave the pillars again.’

I made a dismissive gesture and spoke to Prilkop. ‘I wished to bring food for you; see, here is bread and cheese, as you wished, and wine and plums. I had hoped to find you both ready to travel to my home with me. But the Fool still seems weak.’

‘Travel to your home with you?’ he asked me, and I nodded, smiling.

He turned to the Fool and spoke softly to him at length in their tongue. The Fool replied more briefly. Then he turned and spoke reluctantly to me. ‘Fitz. My friend. Please. Come and sit with me by the fire. I need to talk to you.’

He got up stiffly, draped a blanket loosely around his shoulders and moved slowly to a grass cushion by the hearth. He eased himself down onto it and I took one beside him. Prilkop was investigating the food. He broke off a piece of cheese, put it into his mouth and then closed his eyes in sheer pleasure. When he opened them again, he bowed his head in thanks to me. I nodded back, pleased to have pleased him. When I turned back to the Fool, he took a deep breath and spoke.

‘Prilkop does not intend to go back to Buckkeep with you. And neither do I.’

I stared at him, running his words through my mind over and over. They made no sense. ‘But, why? His task here is finished, as is yours. Why remain in such a harsh place? It’s cold, and this is summer! Life is hard here, and barren. When winter comes … I cannot even imagine wintering here. There is no reason for you to stay here, none at all, and every reason in the world for you to come back to Buckkeep. Why would you want to stay here? I know you wish to return to your “school” but surely you could come to Buckkeep first. Rest and recover for a time, and then take ship from there.’

He looked down at his long hands held loosely in his lap. ‘I have discussed this at length with Prilkop. There is so much that neither of us knows about this situation, this living beyond our time as White Prophets. He has experienced it longer than I have. He stayed here because it was the last place he had a vision of himself. He stayed in the hopes that his final view of another prophet and catalyst coming to finish his task was true. And it was. His last vision was true.’ He looked into the fire and then leaned over to push the end of a piece of driftwood deeper into it. ‘I had a final vision, too. Of what would be after my death.’

I waited.

‘I saw you, Fitz. I saw you in the midst of what you are currently becoming. It did not seem to me that you were always happy, but I thought you were more complete than before.’

‘What has that got to do with it?’

‘It has to do with what I did not see. I was, of course, to be dead. I had seen clearly that my death was a part of your future. No, that sounds cruel, as if my death were a thing you had planned. Rather, say, that my death was a landmark on the journey to where you had gone. You had passed my death and gone on to that life.’

‘I did pass your death. But, as you have told me so often, I am a Catalyst. I brought you back.’

‘Yes. You did. I had never foreseen such a thing. Neither had Prilkop. And in all the records we studied and memorized when we were in training, there is nothing that either of us can recall that foreshadows such a thing.’ He almost smiled. ‘I should have foreseen that only you could work such a change, a change that may have carried us outside of any future that any White Prophet has ever foreseen.’

‘But –’ I began, and he lifted that long cautioning forefinger to halt me.

‘Prilkop and I have discussed this. Neither of us thinks I should risk being around you too much. I could make a serious mistake. There is far less chance of my making a mistake if I do not go back with you.’

‘I don’t understand. A mistake? What mistake? You’re feverish still, and not making sense.’ I was worried and irritated at the same time. I shifted angrily and he reached out a hand and set it on my arm. His touch was almost cool. He was still weak from his changing time but he did not speak from fever. His voice was almost stern, as if he were an old man and I were a wilful youngster.

‘Yes, you do. You understand. You don’t want to look at it, but you know it. You are still the Changer, still the Catalyst. Even in the short time you were at Buckkeep, you’ve proved that. Change is swirling around you like a whirlpool. Restored, you no longer flee it, but seem to attract it. And I, I am blind now, when it comes to seeing what vast changes my influence upon you can cause. So.’ He was silent for a time. I waited him out. ‘I will not be coming with you. No, wait, don’t speak. Let me talk for a time.’

But instead of speaking, he immediately fell silent. I sat and looked at him and thought how he had changed. The pale moon-faced boy, the lithe and narrow youth, was now visibly a young man. Recent privation had sharpened the angles of his face and the bruises around his eyes from his torment were still fading. But that was only his body. His glance had darkened and his solemnity did not seem a temporary mood but a new gravity of spirit. I let him take his time as he mentally sorted his words. I suspected he was working on a decision, and that however resolute he might claim to be, his heart still teetered on a choice.

‘Fitz, I faced my death, not bravely perhaps, but determinedly. Because I had seen what might come after it, and judged it worth the cost. I decided to come to this island, and set in motion the events that would end with the dragon rising. I knew I would die, horribly, in pain and cold. But I also saw the chance for the world to know dragons again, a chance for there to be creatures as arrogant and lovely as humans, so that they might balance one another. I dreamed of a world in which men could not dominate all nature and impose their order upon it. It will not be a peaceful world, and it may be that men will curse me for my role in what happened here. But it will be a world in which both men and dragons are so busy with one another that they cannot subvert all nature to themselves. That was what I saw, in the greater scheme of things.’

‘Fine!’ I was weary of his talk of dragons, and uneasy still about what we had loosed on the world. ‘So now there will be dragons. Lots of them, from what I saw happening over the battlefield. But why can’t you come back to –’

‘Hush!’ he rebuked me sternly. ‘Do you think this is easy for me? Do you think that lofty reason is my only one? Do you think it is easy for me to part my ways from yours? No. There is a more personal element that divides my path from yours. It is because of what I glimpsed on a far smaller scale. I saw you, after my death, taking satisfaction in the things and people you had so long denied yourself. Living the life you were meant to have, after my death. You gave me another piece of life. Shall I use it to rob you of yours?’ More slowly he added, ‘I can love you, Fitz, but I cannot allow that love to destroy you and what you are.’ He rubbed at his face wearily, and then exclaimed in annoyance at the skin that peeled away beneath his fingers. He shook the bits from his fingertips, rubbed his face all over vigorously, and then folded his hands into his lap and looked into the fire. I glowered at him, baffled and waiting.

Behind us, Prilkop moved quietly around the room. I heard a clicking sound and glanced behind me. He had opened the neck of a little sack and was taking small blocks of stone out of it. I recognized it at once. Memory stone, cut into uniform cubes like the ones I had glimpsed in the Elderling chamber. I watched as he held one briefly against his temple, then smiled, and set it aside. He repeated the process, and again. It was soon apparent to me he was sorting the blocks into different stacks. He looked up, realizing the Fool and I were watching him. He smiled and held up a cube of stone. ‘Music’ Another cube. ‘Some poetry.’ Another cube. ‘History. Music, again.’ He proffered one to me, but I waved it aside, uneasy. The Fool, however, reached out to touch it lightly with one Skilled fingertip. He recoiled from it as quickly as if he had been burned, but then smiled at me. ‘Music, indeed. Like a rushing flood of it. You should try it, Fitz.’

‘We were talking,’ I reminded him quietly. ‘About you coming back to Buckkeep with me.’

‘No. We were talking about me not coming back.’ He tried a smile that failed.

I just looked at him. A short time later he said something, a request, to Prilkop. At almost the same moment, I felt Chade tug at my thoughts. I would speak to the Queen.

I can’t right now. Try Thick.

You know all the reasons why that will not work. Please, Fitz. It will not take long.

That is what you said last time. Besides, I am nowhere near the Queen. I went through the pillar. I’m with the Fool.

What? Without warning any of us or consulting with us at all?

I believe my life is still my own.

No. It was a flat denial from Chade. No, it is not, sir. Last night, you drew a line with me, and I sensed you did it with the Queen’s approval. You cannot claim that authority one moment, and then shoulder aside from it the next. Crowns cannot be doffed so lightly.

I am not truly the King and you know it.

Too late to take that stance, Fitz! Chade sounded angry. Too late. The Queen offered you the authority and you accepted it.

I did not capitulate. I could not decide if I agreed with him or not. Give me some time. By now, you must be at sea. What can be of such immediate importance now that you have sailed?

It will keep for a time, that is true. But after this, Fitz, you must not absent yourself without warning all of us.

Am I a servant, that my time is never my own?

Worse. You are a king. And ‘Sacrifice’ to all.

He broke his mind free of mine before I could reply to that at all. I blinked and realized that I had just heard the door close. Prilkop had left. The Fool was looking at me, somehow aware I had been Skilling and waiting for my attention to come back to him. ‘I am sorry. Chade, in a rush as always, demanding that he needed contact with the Queen. He claims that if she has recognized me once, even for a moment as “Sacrifice” that I now have all the duties and responsibilities of a crowned king. It’s ridiculous.’

‘Is it?’

‘You know it is!’

My defence seemed to release a torrent of words from him, as if while he waited the words had mounted up inside him like water behind a dam.

‘Fitz. Go back to the life you were meant to have, and love it, without reserve. That was what I saw you doing.’ He gave a laugh that had hysteria at the edge of it. ‘It even sustained me while I was dying. To know that you would go on to that life, after I was dead. When the pain was worst, I fixed my thoughts on what I had seen for you, and I let it move through me.’

‘But … she said you called out for me. When she tormented you.’ I said the words, and then wished I could call them back. He suddenly looked sick and old.

‘Probably, I did,’ he admitted. ‘I have never claimed to be brave. But the fact that she could wring that from me changes nothing, my friend. Nothing.’ He looked into the fire as if he had lost something there, and I was ashamed that I had taken him back to his torture. No man should be reminded that he has screamed in front of people who delighted in it. ‘It should probably serve to teach me that, in many ways, I am not as strong as I wish I were.

And I should not put myself in a position in which my weakness could damage both of us.’

He suddenly took my hand. It startled me, and when I looked at him, our eyes locked. ‘Fitz. Please. Do not tempt me to follow you and interfere in the future I saw for you. Do not tempt me to step out of my time and try to take something that was never meant for me.’ He shivered suddenly, as if a chill had taken him. He let go of my hand and leaned closer to the fire, holding his hands out to them. The nails had just started to regrow. His rubbed his hands together, loosening a layer of skin like white ash. The new skin exposed beneath reminded me of polished wood. Very softly, he asked me, ‘Could you have been content to live with Nighteyes among the wolves?’

‘I would have been willing to try,’ I said stubbornly.

‘Even if his mate could never completely accept you?’

‘Could you, for once, just say simply whatever it is you are trying to say?’

He looked at me and rubbed his chin as if he were truly considering it. Then he smiled sadly. ‘No. I can’t. Not without damaging something precious to me.’ As if he were not changing the subject at all, he asked, ‘Will you ever tell Dutiful that your body fathered his?’

I did not like him to speak that aloud even when it was just we two. My strong Skill-bond with Dutiful made him seem ever close. ‘No,’ I said shortly. ‘He would see too many things differently. It would hurt him, to no good end. It would damage his image of his father, his feelings toward his mother, even his feelings toward me. What purpose could it serve?’

‘Exactly. So you will always love him as a son, but treat him as your prince. One step away from where you long to be. Because even if you told him, you could never be his father.’

I was starting to get angry again. ‘You are not my father.’

‘No.’ He stared at the fire. ‘And I’m not your lover, either.’

I felt suddenly weary and sour. ‘Is that what this is about? Bedding with me? You won’t return to Buckkeep because I won’t bed with you?’

‘No!’ He did not shout the word, but something in the way he said it stunned me to silence. His voice was low, almost harsh as he spoke. ‘Always, you bring it back to that, as if that is the only possible culmination of love.’

He sighed and abruptly settled back in his chair. He looked at me speculatively, and then asked, ‘Tell me, did you love Nighteyes?’

‘Of course.’

‘Without reserve.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then by your logic, you wished to couple with him?’

‘I wished … No!’

‘Ah. But that was only because he, too, was male? It had nothing to do with your other differences?’

I gaped at him. A moment longer he managed to keep his face straight in honest inquiry. Then he laughed at me, more freely than I had heard him laugh in a long time. I wanted to be offended, but it was such a relief to hear him laugh, even at my expense, that I could not.

He caught his breath, and said, ‘There it is. Plainly, Fitz. I told you I set no limits on my love for you. I don’t. Yet I never expected you to offer me your body. It was the whole of your heart, all for myself, that I sought. Even though I’ve never had a right to it. For you gave it away ere ever you saw me.’ He shook his head. ‘Long ago, you told me that Molly would never be able to tolerate your bond with the wolf. That she would force you to decide between them. Do you still believe that?’

‘I think it likely,’ I had to reply softly.

‘And how do you think she would react to me?’ He paused for a heartbeat. ‘Who would you choose? And what would you lose, either way, by being forced to make such a choice? Those are the questions I’ve had to ponder. And if I come back with you, and make that choice a part of your future, what else will my Catalyst change in the process of choosing? If you left the Six Duchies with me, what future would we have set in motion, all unknowing?’

I shook my head and looked away from him. But the flow of his words was relentless and my ears heard them.

‘Nighteyes chose. He chose between the pack of wolves that would have accepted him and his bond with you. I do not know if you ever discussed with him what that decision cost him. I doubt it. The little I knew of him makes me think he chose and went forward from there. I do not mean to shame you. But is it not true that Nighteyes paid a higher toll for your bond, for the love that you shared, than you did? What did it cost Nighteyes to be bonded to you? Answer honestly.’

I had to look aside, for I was ashamed. ‘It cost him living with a pack, and being a wolf in full. It cost him having a mate and cubs. Just as Rolf later warned us. Because we set no limits on our bond.’

‘You knew the exhilaration of sharing his wolfness with him. Of being as close to becoming a wolf as a man can. Yet … forgive me … I do not think he ever sought the human within himself as ardently as you pursued being a wolf.’

‘No.’

He took my hand again and held it in both of his. He turned it over and looked down at the shadows of his fingerprints that I had worn on my wrist for so many years. ‘Fitz. I have thought long on this. I will not take your mate and cubs from you. My years will be long; by comparison, you have not that many left. I will not take from you and Molly whatever years may remain to you. For I am sure that you will be together, again. You know what I am. You have been within this body, and I in yours. And I have felt, oh, gods help me against that memory, I have felt what it is to be human, fully human, in the moments that I held your love and pain and loss within me. You have allowed me to be as human as it is possible for me to be. What my teachers took away from me, you restored tenfold. With you, I was a child. With you, I grew to manhood. With you … Just as Nighteyes allowed you to be the wolf.’ His voice ran down and we were left sitting in silence, as if he had run out of words. He did not release my hand. The touch sharpened my awareness of the Skill-bond between us. Dutiful nudged at my Skill, seeking my attention. I ignored him. This was more important. I tried to grasp exactly what the Fool feared.

‘You think that it would hurt me if you came back to Buckkeep. That it would keep me from a life you had seen.’

‘Yes.’

‘You dread that I would grow old and die. And you would not.’

‘Yes.’

‘What if I didn’t care about those things? About the cost.’

‘I still would.’

I asked my last question, my heart squeezed with hurt, dreading however he might answer it. ‘And if I said I would follow you then? Leave my other life behind and go with you.’

I think that question stunned him. He drew breath twice before he answered it in a hoarse whisper. ‘I would not allow it. I could not allow it.’

We sat a long time in silence after that. The fire consumed itself. And then I asked the final, awful question. After I leave you here, will I ever see you again?’

‘Probably not. It would not be wise.’ He lifted my hand and tenderly kissed the sword-calloused palm of it, and then held it in both of his. It was farewell, and I knew it, and knew I could do nothing to stop it. I sat still, feeling as if I grew hollow and cold, as if Nighteyes were dying all over again. I was losing him. He was withdrawing from my life and I felt as though I were bleeding to death, my life trickling out of me. I suddenly realized how close to true that was.

‘Stop!’ I cried, but it was too late. He released my hand before I could snatch it back. My wrist was clean and bare. His fingerprints were gone. Somehow, he had taken them back, and our Skill-thread dangled, broken.

‘I have to let you go,’ he said in a cracked whisper. ‘While I can. Leave me that, Fitz. That I broke the bond. That I did not take what was not mine.’

I groped for him. I could see him, but I could not feel him. No Wit, no Skill, no scent. No Fool. The companion of my childhood, the friend of my youth was gone. He had turned that facet of himself away from me. A brown-skinned man with hazel eyes looked at me sympathetically.

‘You cannot do this to me,’ I said.

‘It is done,’ he pointed out. ‘Done.’ His strength seemed to go out of him with the word. He turned his head away from me, as if by doing that, he could keep me from knowing that he wept. I sat, feeling numbed in the way that one does after a terrible injury.

‘I am just tired,’ he said in a small, quavering voice. ‘Just tired, still. That is all. I think I will lie down again.’

Fitz. The Queen wants you. Thick pushed effortlessly into my mind.

Shortly. I am with the Fool right now.

It’s about Old Blood. Soon, please, she says.

Soon, I replied dully.

And no sooner was Thick cleared from my mind than Chade was tapping at my shoulder. I gave him my heed and As long as you are there, think to bring back at least some of the Skill-scrolls you found there. We’ll be in need of them, I think.

Chade. I will. Please. A time to myself. Please.

Very well. His reply was surly. Then he softened, asking more gently, What is the problem? Is he that ill?

Actually, he seems improved. But I need a time for my own thoughts.

Very well.

I turned back to the Fool, but he had either sunk into a true sleep or was pretending one so convincingly that I could not find it in me to try to wake him. I needed a time to think. I thought there must be some way to get him to change his mind, if only I could think of it.

‘I’ll be back,’ I told him, and then slung my cloak over my shoulders and went out. I thought I might as well make a trip through the Elderling maze to retrieve some of the Skill-scrolls. It would keep me busy while I thought. I have never done my best pondering while sitting still. I climbed the steep path and found I did not have to squeeze quite as much to get into the crack. My comings and goings were wearing it open, I thought to myself. Yet I had not gone far under the false light of the Elderling globes before I saw someone coming toward me. It startled me for the instant before I recognized the Black Man. He had a haunch of smoked meat on one shoulder, and as we drew near to one another, he nodded to me and then slung it carefully to the ground.

‘Her supplies, I stole. Many times. Not like this. A little bit here, a little bit there. Now, what I want, I take.’ He cocked his head at me. ‘And you?’

‘Somewhat the same. Years ago, scrolls, special writings, were taken from my king. She has them, here, in a room near her bedchamber. I am to bring them home again.’

‘Ah, those. I saw them long ago.’

‘Yes.’

‘I will help.’

I was not sure I wanted help, but there seemed no courteous way to refuse him. I nodded my thanks, and we walked companionably through the halls. He shook his head at the desecration of the carvings and the missing art from the empty niches. He spoke to me of the folk who had lived here in the times he had known. Thick had been right. Once, the stone hallways had been warmed. Elderlings had come and gone from this place, enjoying the wonders of the ice and snow that never reached their warmer lands. I tried to imagine taking pleasure in coming to a cold place, but the idea was foreign to me.

He had somehow unharnessed the magic that gave warmth to the stone. He had sought, too, to deprive the Pale Woman of the Elderling light, but had failed at that. Yet even without warmth, she had stayed. She had driven Prilkop into hiding, and shown her disdain for him and the dragon-partnered Elderlings by her encouragement of the destruction of their art.

‘Yet she left the map room alone,’ I pointed out to him.

‘She did not know of it, perhaps. Or, not knowing the use, did not care. Of the travel portals, she knew nothing. Once, only once, to flee her I used one.’ He shook his head at the memory. ‘So weak, so sick, so –’ He put his fists to his temples and made pounding motions. ‘I could not come back, for many days. When I did,’ he shrugged, ‘she had made my city hers. But now I take it back.’

He knew his city well. He took me by a different path, through narrower ways that had, perhaps, been for servants or tradesmen. In less time than I had thought possible, we turned down a hallway that led us past her bedchamber. I glanced in. Someone had been there since I last glimpsed it. I halted and stared. Every item in the room that could have been pushed over or dragged about had been. A cask of jewellery had spilled a stream of pearls and silver chains and glittering white stones across the floor. Some had settled in slow melt into the floor of the chamber. Prilkop saw me staring and calmly entered into the room. ‘This will work,’ he told me, and pulled a silk coverlet from her bed. As I watched, he knotted the corners to form a very large carry sack. Catching the sense of what he did, I found another and copied him. Then, our makeshift sacks slung across our backs, we went on to the scroll room.

I was not prepared for the sight that met me there. The racks had been deliberately pushed toward the centre of the room, so that as they fell, their shelved contents spilled in a messy pile. A broken pitcher lay near them and oil drenched a number of the scrolls. The Pale Woman lay on the floor near them. She was very dead. Her blackened stick arms reminded me of insect legs. Freezing and death had darkened her countenance. She had thrown back her head and died, mouth open like a snarling cat. An Elderling light globe, pried loose from its setting, lay near the oil-soaked manuscripts. It looked battered, as if it had been kicked and beaten. For a time, Prilkop and I stared in silence.

‘She tried to make a fire to warm herself,’ I hazarded my guess. ‘She thought something in the light globe might catch the scrolls on fire.’

He shook his head in disgust. ‘No. To destroy. Her whole desire that was. Dragons to destroy. Other prophets to destroy. Beauty. Knowledge.’ He nudged one of the oily scrolls that was close to her body. ‘What she could not control or possess, she destroys.’ He met my eyes and added, ‘She could not control your Fool.’

He set to work alongside me. The unruined scrolls, we loaded into one sack, taking as much care as we could, for some were very old and fragile. Those that had taken the oil I placed separately from the others. I noticed that we both avoided the Pale Woman. When I had to move her body to get at the scrolls beneath her, Prilkop backed away and looked aside. When every single scroll had been rescued, I looked at her lying there. ‘Do you want me to do something with her body?’ I asked him quietly.

He stared at me, as if uncomprehending. Then he slowly nodded.

So it was that I bundled her into one of the sumptuous fur spreads from her bed and dragged her down the hall behind me. He showed me a door, quite small, that I would not have noticed on my own. It opened onto a chute and the distant rush of waves. He had me push her into this. She vanished from sight, and that seemed to give Prilkop much satisfaction.

We returned to the scroll room for our trove. We walked through the halls, dragging the sacks more than carrying them. Scrolls are surprisingly heavy. I winced at every bump as we took them up the stairs, imagining how Chade would scold me for treating them like this. Well, he would not know what condition they were in when I first found them. With Prilkop’s help, I got both sacks up to the pillar room. There we paused to catch our breath. For all his years, the old man seemed as spry as a youngster. For the first time, I pondered how old the Fool might live to be. Then, the even more strange thought came to me, to wonder where he was in his life. Was he still a youngster? Did that have any meaning to him? Once he had told me that he was older than Nighteyes and I put together … I pushed the thought aside uncomfortably. I did not want to consider how different we were, how different we had always been. Our friendship had crossed that line and made us one.

Just as my bond with Nighteyes had made us one. And yet. I sighed as I followed the Black Man down the steps to the map room. And yet it had not made us the same. I was a man, with a man’s concerns with this world, unable to live fully in the now as Nighteyes did, nor to stretch his years beyond their span.

Was that how the Fool saw me?

I made a small sound in my throat. Prilkop glanced back at me, but said nothing. When we reached the map room, he paused by the image. He rubbed his hands together as he considered it, then, with a raised eyebrow, he gestured at it.

I touched the grouped gems near Buckkeep. ‘Buckkeep,’ I told him. ‘My home.’

He nodded sagely. Then, as the Fool had before, he touched a land far to the south. ‘Home,’ he said. Then he touched an inlet on the coast of that land and said, ‘Clerres.’

‘Your school,’ I guessed. ‘Where you wish to return.’

He paused, head cocked, then nodded. ‘Yes. Our school.’ He gave me a sad look. ‘Where we must return. That what we have learned may be recorded. For others, yet to come. Very important this is.’

‘I understand.’

The Black Man looked at me kindly. ‘No. You don’t.’ He studied the map again, and then, as if speaking to himself said, ‘The letting go is hard. Yet, this you must do. Both of you. Let go. If not, you will make more changes. Blindly. If, because of him, things you do make changes, what comes of them? No one can say. Even a little thing. You bring to him bread. He eats. If you do not bring this bread, someone else eats it. See, a change. A little change. To him, you give your time, your talk, your friendship. Who then does not receive your time? Hmm? A big change, maybe, I think. Let go, Fool’s Changer. Your time together is over. Done.’

It was none of his concern and I very nearly told him so. But he looked at me so kindly and sympathetically that my anger died almost as soon as I felt it.

‘Let us go back,’ he suggested. I started to nod and then Thick broke into my thoughts.

Fitz? Have you finished yet? The Queen is still waiting.

I sighed wearily. I’d best go take care of it, and then beg some time for myself. I’ve finished. I’ll bring the Skill-scrolls home with me this time. Meet me at the Witness Stones and help me carry them.

No! I’m eating raspberry tart! With cream.

After the tart, then. I felt a sudden sympathy for Thick’s unwillingness to interrupt his meal to rush and find me. Prilkop had reached the end of the steps. He glanced up at me quizzically. ‘I have to go back to my home for a time,’ I told him. ‘Please tell the Fool that I will come back as soon as I can. I’ll bring more food then, fresh fruit and bread.’

Prilkop looked alarmed. ‘Not through the portal stones? So soon? Not wise is that. Foolish, even.’ He made a beckoning gesture at me. ‘Come to Prilkop’s home. A night, a day, a night, a day, and then go back through the stones. If you must.’

‘I fear I must go now.’ I did not want to see the Fool or talk to him again until I had found a way around all his arguments.

‘Changer? You can do this? You have done this before?’

‘Several times.’

He came back up the steps toward me, his brow lined with anxiety. ‘Never have I seen this done so often, so close together. Be careful, then. Do not come back too soon. Rest.’

‘I’ve done this before,’ I insisted. I recalled how I had been in and out of the Skill-stones with Dutiful on that long ago day we fled the Others’ beach. ‘Do not fear for me.’

Despite my brave words, I wondered if I were being foolish in going through the Skill-stones once again. Whenever I look back on that moment, I wonder whatever possessed me. Was it the press of hurt that the Fool had taken our link away? I truly think not. I think it was more likely too little sleep for too many days.

I climbed back up the steps to the Skill-pillar. The Black Man followed me anxiously. ‘Sure you are? Sure of this?’

I stooped and took up the necks of both bags. ‘I’ll be fine,’ I assured him. ‘Tell the Fool I will be back.’ I gripped the necks of both bags in one hand. I opened my other palm wide and pushed into the pillar. I stepped into a starry night.

THIRTY-FIVE

Resumption

In that last dance of chances

I shall partner you no more.

I shall watch another turn you

As you move across the floor.

In that last dance of chances

When I bid your life goodbye

I will hope she treats you kindly.

I will hope you learn to fly.

In that last dance of chances

When I know you’ll not be mine

I will let you go with longing

And the hope that you’ll be fine.

In that last dance of chances

We shall know each other’s minds.

We shall part with our regrets

When the tie no longer binds.

Fate took a final swipe at me. That is how I have come to think of it. Perhaps the gods wanted to reinforce Prilkop’s warning to me.

I felt a very mild surprise. I saw eternal blackness and a scattering of lights of various brightnesses. It was like lying on my back on a tower top and staring up into a summer night. Not that I thought of it that way at the time. At the time, I drifted through stars. But I did not fall. I did not think, I did not wonder. I was simply there. A brighter star there was, and I was drawn to it. I could not tell if I got closer to it, or if it approached me. I could not have told anything, for while I was aware of these things, they did not seem to have any significance. I felt a suspension of life, of interest, a suspension of all feelings. When at last the star was close, I attempted to fasten myself to it. This act did not seem to involve any will or intention on my part. Rather it was like a smaller drop of water starting to blend with another one close by. But she plucked me free of herself, and in that moment of her considering me, I once more came to awareness of self.

What? You again? Are you really so intent on remaining here? You are far too small, you know. Unfinished. There is not enough of you to exist by yourself here. Do you know that?

Know that? Like a child learning language, I echoed her final words, trying to pin meaning to them. Her kindness to me fascinated me, and I did long to immerse myself in her. To me, she seemed made of love and acceptance. I could let go of my boundaries, if she would allow me, and simply mingle what I had been with what she was. I would know no more, think no more, and fear no more.

Without my speaking, she seemed to know my mind. And that is what you would truly wish, little one? To stop being yourself, before you have even completed yourself? There is so much more you could grow to be.

To be, I echoed, and suddenly the simple words took force and I existed again. I knew a moment of full realization, as if I had surfaced from a very deep dive and taken a full deep breath of air. Molly and Nettle, Dutiful and Hap, Patience and Thick, Chade and Kettricken, all of them came back to me in a wave of possibilities. Fear mingled wildly with hope as to what I could become through them.

Ah. I thought perhaps there was something more for you. Then you wish to go back?

Go back.

Where?

Buckkeep. Molly. Nettle. Friends.

I do not think the words had meanings for her. She was beyond all that, beyond the sorting of love into little individual persons or places. But I think my longing was what she could read.

Very well then. Back you go. Next time, be more careful. Better yet, do not let there be a next time. Not until you are ready to stay.

Very abruptly, I had a body. It sprawled face down in grass on a chill hillside. Somehow, I still gripped the two bags I had slung over my shoulder. They were on top of me. I closed my eyes. The grass was tickling my face and dust was in my nose. I breathed in the intricacy of earth and grass, sheep and manure, and my amazement at their network stole all my thoughts. I think I slept.

It was dawn when next I came awake. I was shaking with cold, despite the blanketed scrolls on top of me. I was stiff and my skin was wet with dew. I sat up with a groan, and the world spun lazily around me until I lay back down again. The sheep that lifted their heads in surprise to see me stir were fat with wool. I got to my hands and knees and then tottered upright, staring around me like a new foal as I tried to make the ends of my life meet. I took deep slow breaths, but felt little better. I decided that food and a real bed would put me right, and that I’d find that at Buckkeep Castle.

I shouldered one sack and dragged the other. At least, such was my intention. I went three steps and down I went. I felt, if anything, worse than when I had first emerged from the stones. Prilkop was right, I decided grudgingly, and wondered uneasily how long it would be before I dared make a return trip through the portals. But I had more immediate problems to solve.

I groped out with the Skill. I could barely focus enough to wield it, and when I found Thick’s music and then Thick, he was already in contact with Dutiful and Chade. I tried to break in and could not. Their thoughts rattled against mine. They did not seem to be passing information, but attempting some Skill-exercise. I became aware of Nettle, floating like a faint perfume. She caught at their circle, almost held, then wafted away again. In the disappointed silence that followed her failed attempt, I found a place for my faint Skilling.

Thick. I’m not well. Can you come to meet me at the Witness Stones? Bring a pony, or even a donkey and cart. I’m not sure I could sit up to ride. I have two large sacks of scrolls.

I felt a wordless blast of amazement from all of them. And then, a pelting of questions: Where are you?

Where have you been?

Are you hurt? Were you attacked by something?

Held prisoner?

I just came through the stones. I’m weak. Sick. Prilkop said, don’t use the stones too often. And then I let it go, feeling wretchedly nauseous and dizzy. I lay down on my side in the grass. The morning was cold, and I pulled one of the blanket sacks half over me and lay still, shivering.

They all came. I heard sounds and opened my eyes and found myself looking at Nettle’s shoes and riding skirt. A healer annoyed me by feeling me all over for broken bones and peering into my eyes. He asked if I had been attacked. I managed to shake my head. Chade said, ‘Ask him where he has been for the last month? We have been expecting these scrolls since before we arrived back at Buckkeep.’ I closed my eyes and held my tongue. Then the healer and his helper lifted me into the back of a cart. The bundles of scrolls were placed beside me. The cart lurched off down the tussocky hillside. Chade and Dutiful rode on one side of it, looking grave. Thick came behind on a stocky pony, managing it well enough. Nettle rode a mare, obviously one of Burrich’s breeding. Several mounted guards followed, with the edgy look of men who had expected to confront at least a minor enemy and still had dwindling hopes of a skirmish. I had said little, fearing to say too much before ears that should not hear it.

My mind churned like a team stuck in mud. It dragged out the old legends of standing stones. Lovers fled angry parents into them, and returned a year or a decade later, to find all grievances forgotten. They were the gates to the land of the Pecksies, where a year might pass as a day. Or a day as a year. I recalled, hazily, my time in the starry blackness. How much time had passed? A few weeks? Chade had mentioned a month. Obviously enough time had passed that they had returned to Buckkeep from Mayle. For here they were. I smiled faintly at that ‘swift’ leap of logic.

When we reached Buckkeep, Chade led off the guards with the trove of scrolls. The Prince took my hand and thanked me for a job well done, as if I were any guardsman who had completed a difficult task at risk to himself. Hand to hand, he pushed his Skilling into my mind. I could barely hear him. Come to see you soon. Rest now.

Nettle and Thick followed him as he strode away and I was assisted into the infirmary where I was very content to lie still and think of nothing. I believe that several days passed. It was hard to keep track of things like time. The headaches and dizziness passed, but the vagueness lingered. I had been somewhere and experienced something vast and I knew that, but could not find any words for it, even to explain it to myself. It was so large and foreign an event that it challenged all the meaning and order that I gave to the rest of my life. Small things stole my attention: the dance of motes in a beam of sunlight, the twisted wool woven to form my blanket, the grain of the wood in the frame of my bed. It wasn’t that I could not Skill; it was more that I could not see the point of it, nor gather the energy and focus to do it.

They fed me well and let me rest. Visitors came and went and left almost no impression on me. Once I opened my eyes to see Lacey looking down on me with stern disapproval. I closed them. The healer could do nothing for me and often loudly observed in my vicinity that he thought I was a lazy malingerer. They brought an old, old woman to see me. After our eyes met, she nodded vigorously and said, ‘Oh, yes, he has that Pecksie-nibbled look to him. The Pecksies took him underground and fed on him. It’s known they have a hole up there, near the Witness Stones. They’ll take a new lamb or a child, or even a strong man if he’s in his cups when he wanders about up there.’ She nodded sagely and advised, ‘Give him mint tea and cook his meat with garlic until he reeks of it. They can’t abide that, and they’ll soon enough let him go. When his nails have grown long enough to be cut, and he cuts them, that’ll set him free.’

And so they fed me a meal of garlicky mutton with mint tea, and then pronounced me cured and turned me out of the infirmary. Riddle was waiting for me. He told me that I looked like a mooncalf. He took me to the steams, crowded with noisy guardsmen laughing far too loudly, and then in the guardsman’s act of ultimate purification, took me to the complete chaos of the guards’ tables and effortlessly persuaded me to drink ale with him until I had to stagger outside and vomit. The level of shouted conversation and laughter made me feel oddly alone. One young guardsman asked me six times where I had been, and finally I simply said, ‘I got lost coming back,’ which made me the cleverest fellow at the table for nearly an hour. If he had expected it to shake loose my tale from me, it failed. Yet, oddly enough, I felt better, as if my body’s violent protest over the mistreatment had persuaded me that, yes, I was human and had to make allowances for it. I woke the next day in the barracks, stinking and sweaty, and went back to the steams. I scraped my fouled beard from my face and scrubbed myself with salt and then washed all over with cold water. I dressed in a fresh guard’s uniform, for my trunk had returned with the rest of the quest’s company and gear, and then ate a very simple and small breakfast of porridge in the crowded and noisy guardroom. Just outside the door of the guards’ mess, the kitchen rattled and clanged as if a battle were going on there, with whole companies of kitchen help attacking their tasks.

Feeling more like myself than I had in days, I used the concealed door near the laundry court to enter Chade’s labyrinth and made my way up to the workroom.

I found the worktable lined with oily scrolls spread out for cleaning and copying. There were fresh apples in a basket by the hearth chairs. They had not been ripe when last I was in this room. That little fact rocked me more than I expected it to. I sat down, focused myself and reached for Chade. Where are you? I need to report. I need someone to help me make sense of this.

Ah! Excellent to hear you. I would very much welcome your report. We are in Verity’s tower. Can you make the climb?

I think so. But not swiftly. Wait for me.

I made the climb, but they did have to wait for me. When I emerged from the side of the hearth, I received a shock, for Lady Nettle, unmistakably Lady Nettle in her green gown and lace collar, was seated at the great table with Chade, Dutiful and Thick. She looked only mildly surprised to see me emerge. I lifted a strand of cobwebs from across my eyes and shook it from my fingers into the hearth. Then, uncertain of my role, I offered a guard’s courteous bow to all of them and stood as if awaiting orders.

‘Are you quite all right?’ Dutiful asked me and came to offer me his arm to my seat at the table. I was too proud to take it, and even seated at the table, I was uncertain of how to proceed. Chade marked my furtive glances at Nettle, for he burst into a laugh and said, ‘Fitz, she’s a member of the coterie now. You must have expected it to come to this.’

I glanced at her. Her look was like a knife, and her words as cold and sharp as she sank them into me. ‘I know your name, FitzChivalry Farseer. I even know that I am your bastard daughter. My mother knew no Tom Badgerlock, you see. So, while you were in the infirmary, she went to see who had claimed to be her old friend. Then she came away and told me all. All.’

‘She does not know “all”,’ I said faintly. Abruptly I could think of no more to say. Chade got up hastily, poured brandy and brought it to me. My hand shook so that I could scarcely raise it to my mouth.

‘Well, your mother named you well,’ Dutiful observed acidly to her.

‘As did yours,’ Nettle replied sweetly.

‘Enough, both of you. We will set this aside while Fitz tells us where he was while guards combed the entire kingdom for him.’ Chade spoke quite firmly.

‘Molly is here? At Buckkeep?’

‘Everyone is here at Buckkeep. The whole world came for Harvest Fest. Tomorrow night.’ Thick spoke with satisfaction. ‘I get to help with the apple press.’

‘My mother is here. And all my brothers. Who know nothing of any of this, and my mother and I have decided it is best that it remain that way. They are here because my father will be honoured at Harvest Fest for his role in the slaying of the dragon. As will Swift, and the rest of the Wit-coterie.’

‘Good. I am glad of that,’ I said, and I was, but my words came out dully. It was not just the shock of discovering that Harvest Fest was tomorrow. I felt plundered of dignity and control of my life. And oddly freed by it. The decision of when and how to tell Molly that I lived had been taken from me. She had seen me. She knew I lived. Perhaps the next move was hers. And the thought that followed that plunged me into an abyss. Perhaps she had already made it. She had walked away from me.

‘Fitz?’ I became aware that Chade had spoken to me several times when he touched me on the arm. I twitched and came back to awareness of the people at the table. Dutiful looked sympathetic, Nettle distant, and Thick bored. Chade rested a hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘Would you report to the coterie on where you have been and what happened to you? I have my suspicions, but I’d like them confirmed.’

Habit made me begin from the last time he’d heard from me. I was blithely telling them of entering the Black Man’s abode when I suddenly became reluctant to share all the Fool had said. So I looked at my hands on the table and summarized it, leaving out as many of the intimate details as I could. Of those who sat at the table, only Chade perhaps had a glimmering of what my parting from the Fool meant. Without thinking, I said aloud, ‘But I did not go back, and you say I’ve been gone over a month. I do not know what they will make of that absence. I want to go back, but now I fear the pillars as I never have before.’

‘And well you should, if what I have read in the Skill-scrolls you brought back is an indicator. But more of that, later. Tell the rest.’

And so I did, of leaving and claiming the scrolls and disposing of the woman’s body. Chade was fascinated by the Elderling magic of lights and warmth, and asked many questions about the cubes of memory stone that I could not answer. I saw him already itching to attempt the trip and explore for himself that magically-charged realm. I went on to Prilkop’s farewell, and then to my endless passage through the pillars. When I spoke of the being who had rescued me, Dutiful sat up very straight. ‘Like the ones from our time on the Others’ beach.’

‘Like and not like. I think there, our minds were in their world. In the pillars, my body was there as well. Since I’ve returned, I’ve felt … strange. More alive in some ways. More connected, to even the tiniest bits of this world. And yet more alone, also.’ And then I fell silent. There seemed nothing to add to my account. I glanced at Nettle. She met my gaze with a neutral little look that said I meant nothing to her and never had.

Chade seemed to feel he had enough to ponder, for he pushed back from the table like a man who has finished a substantial meal. ‘Well. A tale that will take some thought to sort out, and enough lessons for now. All of us have tasks to get to with Harvest Fest just around the corner. There will be a gathering tonight, in the Great Hall, with music and jugglers and dancing and tales. Many of our Outislander friends will be there, as well as all our dukes. I shall see the rest of you there tonight, I am sure.’

When they continued to sit and look at him, he added heavily, ‘And I would speak privately with Fitz now.’

Thick stood up. So did Nettle. ‘After I speak privately with Fitz,’ Dutiful announced calmly.

Thick looked perplexed, but immediately added, ‘Me, too.’

‘Not I,’ Nettle said coolly as she walked toward the door. ‘I can’t imagine anything I’d ever want to say to him.’

Thick stood rooted in place, his eyes darting from Nettle to Dutiful. He was obviously torn. I managed to dredge up a smile for him. ‘You and I will have lots of time later, Thick. I promise.’

‘Ya,’ he agreed abruptly, and managed to catch the door before it had completely closed behind Nettle. He followed her out. Dutiful gave Chade a glance and the councillor retreated to stand by the window looking out over the sea. Plainly it was not what Dutiful wanted. Just as plainly, the power struggle between councillor and prince continued. I looked at Dutiful. He sat down in the chair next to me and drew it closer. He spoke softly and I expected to hear of his concerns with the Narcheska and his betrothal. ‘I’ve talked with her a lot about you. She’s angry with you right now, but I think if you’ll give her time, she can calm down enough to listen to you.’

It took me a moment. ‘Nettle?’

‘Of course.’

‘You talked about me a lot with her?’ Better and better, I thought sourly to myself. Dutiful sensed my dismay.

‘I had to,’ he said defensively. ‘She was saying things like, “He abandoned my mother when she was pregnant, and never came to see me at all.” I couldn’t let her just say things like that, let alone believe them. So I’ve told her the truth, as you told it to me.’

‘Fitz?’ He spoke a few moments later.

‘Oh. Sorry. Thank you.’ I couldn’t even recall what I had been thinking.

‘You’ll like her brothers. I do. Chivalry’s a bit full of himself, but I think it’s a bluff to make up for how frightened he is of all the changes. Nimble is nothing like Swift. I never met two twins less alike. Steady lives up to his name, while Just chatters like a magpie. And Hearth, he’s the youngest, all he does is run and giggle and try to get his brothers and Nettle to wrestle with him. He’s not afraid of anyone or anything.’

‘They’re all here for Harvest Fest.’

‘At the Queen’s invitation. Because Swift will be recognized and Burrich honoured.’

‘Of course.’ I looked at the table between my hands. Did I fit anywhere in any of this?

‘Well, I suppose that’s all I wanted to say. I’m glad you’re better. And I think Nettle will come about, if you give her time. She feels tricked. I warned you she would. Oddly enough, I think that what made her angriest was that you disappeared like that. She took it personally, somehow. But I think she’ll reconsider her opinion of you, if you give her time.’

‘I don’t think I’ve much choice in it.’

‘No, I don’t suppose you do. But I didn’t want you to think it was hopeless and give up and go off somewhere to avoid seeing her. Your place is at Buckkeep now. So is hers.’

‘Thank you.’

He glanced aside from me. ‘I can’t tell you what it means to me to have her here at court. She’s so outspoken and blunt. I never was friends with a girl like I can be with her. I suppose it’s because we’re cousins.’

I nodded, unsure how true it was, but glad of it all the same. If she had the Prince’s friendship, she had a powerful protector at court.

‘I have to go. I’ve missed my last two fittings for my Harvest Festival clothing. I swear, they take it out on Thick, poking him with pins “by accident” if I’m not there to defend him. So I’d best be there.’

I nodded to that as well and then somehow he was up and out the door and the room was silent without me much noticing how it had happened. Chade set a cup of brandy down before me with a firm tap on the table. I looked at it and then up at him. ‘You may need it,’ he observed mildly. Then he revealed, ‘The Fool was here, two weeks ago. I’d give a lot to know how he comes and goes from here so unseen, but he managed. I heard a tap at the door of my private sitting room, late at night. And when I opened it, there he was. Changed of course, as you said. Brown as an apple seed, all over. He looked weary and half-sick, but I think that could have been his journey through the pillar. He did not speak of the Black Man, or indeed of anything except you. He obviously expected to find you here. That frightened me.’

I set the empty brandy glass down on the table. Without asking, Chade refilled it for me. ‘When I told him we hadn’t seen you, he looked stricken. I told him how thoroughly we’d searched, and that my private premise had been that you’d gone off with him. He asked if we’d used the skill; I told him that of course we had, but that it had yielded no trace of you. He gave me the name of an inn where he’d be staying for a week, and asked me to send a runner immediately if any news of you came in. At the end of the week, he came back to me again. He looked as if he had aged a decade. He told me he’d made inquires of his own about you, with no positive results. Then he said he had to depart, but that he wished to leave something with me for you. Neither of us expected you’d return to claim it.’

I didn’t have to ask for it. He set down a sealed scroll, no bigger than a child’s closed fist, and a small bag made from Elderling fabric. I recognized it as coming from the coppery robe. I looked at them, but made no move to touch either of them while Chade was watching me. ‘Did he say anything? As a message for me, I mean.’

‘I think that is what those things are.’

I nodded.

‘Hap came to see you while you were in the infirmary. Did you know?’

‘No. I didn’t. How did he know I was there?’

‘I believe he spends a great deal of time at that minstrel tavern these days. When we were searching for you, we put the word out through the minstrels of course. We were desperate to hear any rumour of you, so he knew that we expected Tom Badgerlock to be at Buckkeep and he wasn’t. Then, when you were found, of course the minstrels heard of that, too. So he knew through them. You should see him soon and put his mind at rest.’

‘He visits the minstrel tavern often?’

‘So I’ve heard.’

I didn’t ask from whom, or why the Queen’s councillor would be kept informed of the habits of a woodworker’s apprentice. I merely said, ‘Thank you for watching over him.’

‘I told you I would. Not that I’ve done well at it. Fitz, I am sorry to tell you this. I don’t know the details, but I understand he got in a bit of trouble in town and has lost his apprenticeship. He has been staying amongst the minstrel folk.’

I shook my head at that, sick at heart. I should have done better by him. Time, definitely, to take the young man in hand. I decided I’d seek out Starling for gossip on where to find my boy. I felt guilty and remiss that I had not sought him out before this.

‘Any other news that I should know?’

‘Lady Patience whacked me quite soundly with her fan when she discovered that you had been in the infirmary for some days and no one had informed her.’

I laughed in spite of myself. ‘In public?’

‘No. She has gained some discretion in her old age. She summoned me to a private meeting in her chambers. Lacey was waiting for me. I went in, Lacey offered me a cup of tea, and Patience came in and whacked me with her fan.’ He rubbed his head above his ear and added ruefully, ‘You might have told me she knew you were alive and disguised as a guardsman. Something that she finds offensive in the extreme, by the by.’

‘I didn’t have a chance. So. Is she angry with me?’

‘Of course. But not as angry as she is with me. She called me an “old spider” and threatened to horsewhip me if I didn’t stop interfering with her son. How did she establish a connection between you and me?’

I shook my head slowly. ‘She’s always known more than she lets on.’

‘Indeed. That was the case even when your father was alive.’

‘I will go and see Patience also. Well, it seems that my life is as much a tangle as ever. How go things in the greater schemes of Buckkeep?’

‘Your plans have succeeded well enough. Those dukes who did not travel to the Out Islands on Prince Dutiful’s first sortie are glad to have a chance at making trade agreements with the kaempra who have been arriving. Some think there may be enough profit in it to persuade the Hetgurd to put an end to all raids. I do not know if they can wield that authority, but if all the dukes say, firmly, that trading agreements are contingent on an end to all raiding, it may cease. There has even, you may be surprised to hear, been talk of some marriage offers between Six Duchies nobility and the Out Island clans. So far, it has been all kaempras offering to join our “mothershouses” and we have had to caution our nobility that the Outislander notion of marriage is sometimes not so permanent as our own. But some may work out. Several of our higher nobles have younger sons they might offer to Outislander clans.’

He leaned back in his chair and poured brandy for himself. ‘It might even be a lasting peace, Fitz. Peace with the Outislanders in my lifetime. Truth to say, I never thought I’d see it.’ He sipped from his cup and added, ‘Though I’ll not count my chickens before they are hatched. We’ve still a way to go. I’d like to see Dutiful hailed as King-in-Waiting before the winter is over, but that may take a bit of doing. The lad is still impulsive and impetuous. I’ve cautioned him, over and over, that the crown sits on the King’s head, not his heart. Nor considerably lower. He needs to show his dukes a man’s measured thought, a king’s considered opinions, not a boy’s passions. Both Tilth and Farrow have said they’d rather see him wed first or with a few more years to steady him before they recognize him as King-in-Waiting.’

I pushed my brandy cup toward him and he filled it as well. ‘You say nothing of the dragons. There have been no problems, then?’

He gave a wry smile. ‘I think our Six Duchies folk are a bit disappointed that they have not seen so much as a scale of them. They would have relished having Icefyre come crashing through our gates to present his head to our queen. Or they think they would. As for me, I am well contented with that situation. Dragons at a distance are amazing and noble creatures of legend. My closer experience of them makes me suspect they’d burp nobly after consuming me.’

‘Do you think they went back to Bingtown, then?’

‘Most emphatically not. We had a messenger from the Traders last week, seeking word of Tintaglia. From the scroll, I could not tell if they were worried for her well-being, or frantic at having become the sole providers for several earth-bound dragons. I was going to tell them we had no idea of what had become of them after Icefyre made his appearance at the Narwhal mothershouse. Then Nettle spoke up. She said that Tintaglia and Icefyre were feeding and mating and completely engrossed in those two activities. She could not say where; her contact with Tintaglia is intermittent, and a dragon’s idea of geography quite different from ours. But they were feeding on sea-bears. So I think that would put them to the north of us. We may yet see something of them if they decide to fly back to Bingtown.’

‘I’ve a feeling we’ve not heard the last of them. But what about closer to home? Have we resolved anything with our Old Blood?’

‘Old Blood has shed much blood while we were gone. It has rocked several of our duchies to discover that Old Blood may run stronger in the nobility than was previously admitted. There was even a rumour about Celerity of Beams, that perhaps she and her hawk saw with the same eyes. Shocking. These revelations come out when vendettas run hot, and one set of murders lead to another. Kettricken has been hard pressed to keep order. But the gist of it is that Old Blood seems to have thoroughly cleaned their own house of “the Piebald blight”. Web was horrified at the news he received when he arrived home. He has pressed, more than ever, for Old Blood to make itself known and respectable. In some ways, the bloodletting has been a setback for him. Ironically, he has proposed to create a township for Old Blood, where they may demonstrate their diligence and civility. What once they opposed for fear it would lead to slaughter, they now propose as a way to demonstrate their harmlessness. When unprovoked. The Queen is considering it. Location would require much negotiation. Many fear the Wit more than ever these days.’

‘Well, not everything can go smoothly, I suppose. At least it may be more out in the open, now.’ I sat a moment, wondering. Celerity of Beams, Witted? I did not think so. But looking back, I could not be certain.

‘And Lord FitzChivalry Farseer? Will he come out into the sunlight at last?’

‘What, only Lord? I thought I was to be King?’ And then I laughed, for never had I seen Chade struck dumb before. ‘No,’ I decided. ‘No, I think we will let Lord FitzChivalry Farseer rest in peace. Those important to me know. That was all I ever cared about.’

Chade nodded thoughtfully. ‘I could wish you a minstrel’s happy ending to your tale, “much love and many children”, but I do not think it will come to be.’

‘It never came true for you, either.’

He looked at me and then looked aside. ‘I had you,’ he said. ‘But for you, perhaps I would have died an “old spider” hiding in the walls. Did you never think of that?’

‘No. I hadn’t.’

‘I’ve things to do,’ he said abruptly. Then, as he stood, he rested a hand on my shoulder and asked, ‘Will you be all right now?’

‘As well as can be expected,’ I said.

‘I’ll leave you then.’ He looked down and added, ‘Will you try to be more careful? It was not easy for me, those days when you went missing. I thought you had fled Buckkeep and the duties of your blood, and then when the Fool came through, I believed you were dead somewhere. Again.’

‘I’ll be just as careful with myself as you are with yourself,’ I promised him. He lifted one brow at me and then nodded.

I sat for some time after he was gone looking at the package and the scroll. I opened the scroll first. I recognized the Fool’s careful hand. I read it through twice. It was a poem about dancing, and a farewell. I could tell he had written it before he discovered my absence. So. He had not changed his mind. He and Prilkop had paused here only to say goodbye to me, not because he’d had a change of heart.

The package was lumpy and rather heavy. When I untied the slithery fabric, a piece of memory stone the size at my fist rolled out on the table. The Fool’s Skilled fingers had carved it, I was sure. I poked at it cautiously but felt only stone. I lifted it up to look at it. It had three faces, each blending into the next. Nighteyes was there, and me, and the Fool. Nighteyes looked out at me, ears up and muzzle down. The next face showed me as a young man, unscarred, eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar. Had I ever truly been that young? And the Fool had carved himself as a fool, in a tailed cap with one long forefinger lifted to shush his pursed lips and his brows arched high in some jest.

It was only when I cupped the carving in my hand that it awoke for me and revealed the memories the Fool had imbued in it. Three simple moments it recalled. If my fingers spanned the wolf and myself, then I saw Nighteyes and I curled together in sleep in my bed in the cabin. Nighteyes sprawled sleeping on the Fool’s hearth in the Mountains when I touched both Fool and Nighteyes. The last was confusing at first. My fingers rested on the Fool and me. I blinked at the memory presented to me. I stared at it for some time before recognizing it as another of the Fool’s memories. It was what I looked like when he pressed his brow to mine and looked into my eyes. I set it down on the table and the Fool’s mocking smile looked up at me. I smiled back at him and impulsively touched a finger to his brow. I heard his voice then, almost as if he were in the room. ‘I have never been wise.’ I shook my head over that. His last message to me and it had to be one of his riddles.

I took my treasures and crawled back behind the hearth and set the panel back in place. I went to my workroom and hid them there. Gilly appeared, with many questions about the lack of sausages. I promised him I’d look into it. He told me I should, and bit a finger firmly as a reminder.

Then I left the workroom and slipped back into the main halls of Buckkeep. I knew that Starling would be sniffing over the visiting minstrels, so I went to the lower hall where they usually rehearsed and were generously hosted with viands and drink. The room was stuffed with entertainers, competing with one another in that boisterous and co-operative way they have, but I saw no sign of Starling. I then sought her in the Great Hall and the Lesser, but without success. I had given up and was leaving on my way down to Buckkeep Town when I caught a glimpse of her in the Women’s Gardens. She was walking slowly about with several other ladies. I waited until I was sure she had seen me and then went to one of the more secluded benches. I was certain she would find me there and I did not have to wait long. But as she sat down beside me, she greeted me with, ‘This is not wise. If people see us, they will talk.’

I had never heard her voice concern over that before and it took me aback, as well as stinging my feelings. ‘Then I will ask my question and be on my way. I’m going to town to look for Hap. I’ve heard he’s been frequenting one of the minstrel taverns and I thought you’d know which one?’

She looked surprised. ‘Not I! It’s been months since I’ve been to a minstrel tavern. At least four months.’ She leaned back on the bench, her arms crossed and looked at me expectantly.

‘Could you guess which one?’

She considered a moment. ‘The Pelican’s Pouch. The younger minstrels go there, to sing bawdy songs and make up new verses to them. It’s a rowdy place.’ She sounded as if she disapproved. I raised my brows to that. She clarified, ‘It’s fine enough for young folk new to singing and telling, but scarcely an appropriate place for me these days.’

‘Appropriate?’ I asked, trying to master a grin. ‘When have you ever cared for appropriate, Starling?’

She looked away from me, shaking her head. She did not meet my eyes as she said, ‘You must no longer speak to me so familiarly, Tom Badgerlock. Nor can I meet you again, alone, like this. Those days are over for me.’

‘Whatever is the matter with you?’ I burst out, shocked and a bit hurt.

‘The matter with me? Are you blind, man? Look at me.’ She stood up proudly, her hands resting on her belly. I had seen bigger paunches on smaller matrons. It was her stance rather than her size that informed me. ‘You’re with child?’ I asked incredulously.

She took a breath and a tremulous smile lit her face. Suddenly, she spoke to me as if she were the old Starling, the words bubbling from her. ‘It is little short of a miracle. The healer woman that Lord Fisher has hired to watch over me says that sometimes, just when a woman’s chances for it are nearly gone, she can conceive. And I have. Oh, Fitz, I’m going to have a baby, a child of my own. Already, I love it so that I can scarcely stop thinking of it, night or day.’

She looked luminously happy. I blinked. Sometimes, she had spoken of being barren with bitterness, saying that her inability to conceive meant she would never have a secure home or a faithful husband. But never had she uttered a word of the deep longing for a child that she must have felt all those years. It stunned me. I said, quite sincerely, ‘I’m happy for you. I truly am.’

‘I knew you would be.’ She touched the back of my hand, briefly, lightly. Our days of greeting one another with an embrace were over. ‘And I knew you would understand why I must change my ways. No breath of scandal, no hint of inappropriate behaviour by his mother should mar my baby’s future. I must become a proper matron now, and busy myself only with the matters of my household.’

I knew a shocking moment of greenest envy.

‘I wish you all the joys of your home,’ I said quietly.

‘Thank you. You do understand this parting?’

‘I do. Fare you well, Starling. Fare you well.’

I sat on the bench and watched her leave me. She did not walk, she glided, her arms across her belly as if she already held her unborn child. My greedy, raucous little bird was a nesting mother now. I felt a twinge of loss to watch her go. In her own way, she had always been someone I could turn to when my days were hard. That was gone now.

I thought about my days with Starling on the walk down to Buckkeep Town. I wondered, if I had not given my pain to the dragon, would I ever have given anything of myself to Starling? Not that I had shared much with her. I looked back at how we had come together and wondered at myself.

The Pelican’s Pouch was in a new part of Buckkeep Town, up a steep path and then down, and half built on pilings. It was a new tavern, in the sense that it hadn’t existed when I was a lad, yet its rafters seemed well smoked and its tables showed the battering of most minstrel taverns, where folk were prone to leap to a tabletop either to sing or declaim an epic.

It was early in the day for minstrels to be up and about, so the place was mostly deserted. The tavern keeper was sitting on a tall stool near the salt-rimed window, gazing out over the sea. I let my eyes adjust to the perpetual dimness and then saw Hap sitting at a table by himself in the corner. He had several pieces of wood in front of him and was moving them around as if playing some sort of game with them. He’d grown a little beard, just a fringe of curly hair along his jaw. Immediately, I didn’t like it. I walked over and stood across the table until he looked up and saw me. Then he jumped to his feet with a shout that startled the dozing tavern keeper and came around the table to give me a big hug. ‘Tom! There you are! I’m so glad to see you! Word went out that you were missing. I came to see you when I heard you’d turned up, but you were sleeping like the dead. Did the healer give you the note I left for you?’

‘No, he didn’t.’

My tone warned him. His shoulders sagged a bit. ‘Ah. So I see you’ve heard all the bad news of me, but not the good, I’ll wager. Sit down. I’d hoped that you’d read it and I wouldn’t have to tell it all again. I get weary of repeating the same words over and over, especially since I do it so much these days.’ He lifted his voice, ‘Marn? Could we have two mugs of ale here? And a bit of bread, too, if there’s any out of the oven yet.’ Then, ‘Sit down,’ he said again to me, and took a seat himself. I sat down opposite him. He looked at my face and said, ‘I’ll tell it quickly. Svanja took my money and spent it on pretties that attracted the eye of an older man. She’s now Mistress Pins. She married the draper, a man easily twice as old as me. And wealthy, and settled. A substantial man. So. That’s done.’

‘And your apprenticeship?’ I asked quietly.

‘I lost it,’ he replied as quietly. ‘Svanja’s father made complaint about my character to my master. Master Gindast said I must change my ways or leave his employ. I was stupid. I left his employ. I tried to get Svanja to run away with me, back to our old cabin. I told her things would be hard, but that we could live simply with our love for each other to make us rich. She was furious that I’d lost my apprenticeship, and told me I was crazy if I thought she wanted to live in the woods and tend chickens. Four days later, she was walking out on Master Pins’s arm. You were right about her, Tom. I should have listened to you.’

I bit my tongue before I could agree with him. I sat and stared at the tabletop, wondering what would become of my boy now. I’d left him on his own just when he’d needed a father the most. I pondered what to do. ‘I’ll go with you,’ I offered. ‘We’ll go to Gindast together and see if he will reconsider. I’ll beg if I have to.’

‘No!’ Hap was aghast. Then he laughed, saying, ‘You haven’t given me a chance to tell the rest. As usual, you’ve seized on the worst and made it the only. Tom. I’m here, amongst the minstrels, and I’m happy. Look.’

He pushed his bits of wood toward me. The shape was rough yet, but I could see that, pegged together, they’d make a harp. I’d been with Starling long enough to know that the making of a basic harp was among the first steps toward becoming a minstrel. ‘I never knew I could sing. Well, I knew I could sing, of course, but I mean I never knew I could sing well enough to be a mistrel. I grew up listening to Starling and singing along with her. I never realized how many of her songs and tales I’d got by heart, simply listening to her of an evening. Now, we’ve had our differences, Starling and I, and she doesn’t approve of my taking this path at all. She said you’d blame her for it. But she vouched for me, and she let it be known that I could sing her songs until my own came to me.’

The mugs of ale and fresh bread, crusty and steaming, were delivered to our table. Hap tore the bread into chunks and bit into one while I was still trying to grasp it all. ‘You’re going to become a minstrel?’

‘Yes! Starling brought me to a fellow named Sawtongue. He has a terrible voice, but a way with the strings that is little short of a god’s gift. And he’s a bit old, so he can use a young fellow like me to carry the packs and make up a fire on the nights when we’re between inns on our travelling. We’ll stay in town until after Harvest Fest of course. He’ll play tonight at the lesser hearth, and I may sing a song or two at the earlier revels for the children. Tom, I never knew that life could be this good. I love what I’m doing now. With everything Starling taught me, all unknowing, I’ve the repertoire of a journeyman already. Though I’m behind on the making of my own instrument, and of course I’ve few of my own songs yet. But they’ll come. Sawtongue says I should be patient, and not try to make songs, but to wait and let them come to me.’

‘I never thought to see you turn minstrel, Hap.’

‘Nor I.’ He lifted a shoulder in a shrug and grinned. ‘It’s a fit, Tom. No one cares who my mother and father were or weren’t, or if my eyes don’t match. There’s not the endless grind of being a woodworker. Oh, I may complain about reciting, over and over, until every single word is exactly as Sawtongue wants it turned, but it’s not difficult. I never realized what a good memory I had.’

‘And after Harvest Fest?’

‘Oh. That will be the only sad part. Then I’m away with Sawtongue. He always winters in Beams. So we’ll sing and harp our way there, and then stay with his patron at a warm hearth for the winter.’

‘And no regrets.’

‘Only that I’ll see even less of you than I have this last summer.’

‘But you’re happy?’

‘Hmm. As close to it as a man can get. Sawtongue says that when you let go and follow your fate instead of trying to twist your life around and master it, a man finds that happiness follows him.’

‘So may it be for you, Hap. So may it be.’

And then we talked for a time of incidental things and drank our ale. To myself, I marvelled at the knocks he had taken and still struggled back onto his feet. I wondered, too, that Starling had stepped in to help him as she had, and said nothing of it to me. That she had given him permission to sing her songs told me that she truly intended to leave her old life behind her.

I would have talked the day away with him but he glanced out of the window and said he had to go wake his master and bring him his breakfast. He asked if I would be at the Harvest Eve revels that night, and I told him I was not sure, but that I hoped he’d enjoy them. He said he’d be certain to, and then we made our farewells.

I took my homeward path through the market square. I bought flowers at one stall, and sweets at another and racked my brain desperately for any other gifts that might buy me back into Patience’s good graces. In the end, however, I could think of nothing and was horrified to realize how much time I’d wasted wandering from booth to booth. As I made my way back to Buckkeep Castle, I was part of the throng going there. I walked behind a wagon full of beer barrels and in front of a group of jugglers who practised all the way there. One of the girls in the group asked me if the flowers were for my sweetheart, and when I said no, they were for my mother, they all laughed pityingly with me.

I found Patience in her rooms, sitting with her feet up. She scolded me and wept over my heartlessness in making her worry while Lacey put the flowers into a vase and set out the sweets with tea for us. My tale of what had befallen me actually brought me back into her good graces, though she complained still that there were more than a dozen years of my life unaccounted for.

I was trying to recall where I had left off in my telling when Lacey said quietly, ‘Molly came to visit us a few days ago. It was pleasant to see her again, after all the years.’ When I sat in stunned silence, Lacey observed, ‘Even in widow’s dress, she’s still a fine-looking woman.’

‘I told her she shouldn’t have kept my granddaughter from me!’ Patience declared suddenly. ‘Oh, she had a hundred good reasons for it, but not one good enough for me.’

‘Did you quarrel with her?’ I asked in dismay. Could it become any worse?

‘No. Of course not. She did send the girl to see me the next day. Nettle. Now there’s a name for a child! But she’s straight spoken enough. I like that in a girl. Said she didn’t want Withywoods or anything that might come to her because you were her father. I said it had nothing to do with you, but with the fact that she was Chivalry’s granddaughter, and who else was I to settle it on? So. I think she’ll come to find that I’m more stubborn than she is.’

‘Not by much,’ Lacey observed contentedly. Her crooked fingers played on the edge of the table. I missed her endless tatting.

‘Did Molly speak of me?’ I asked, dreading the answer.

‘Nothing you’d care for me to repeat to you. She knew you were alive; that was no doing of mine, though. I know how to keep a secret. Apparently far better than you do! She came here ready for a quarrel, I think, but when she found that I, too, had suffered all those years, thinking you dead, well, then we had much in common to talk about. And dear Burrich, of course. Dear, stubborn Burrich. We both had a bit of a weep over him. He was my first love, you know, and I don’t think one ever gets back the bit of heart one gives to a first love. She didn’t mind me saying that, that there was still a bit of me that loved that awful headstrong man. I told her, it doesn’t matter how badly behaved your first love is, he always keeps a place in your heart. And she agreed that was true enough.’

I sat very still.

‘That she did,’ Lacey agreed, and her eyes flickered to me, as if measuring how stupid I could possibly be.

Patience chattered on of this and that, but I found it hard to keep my mind on her words. My heart was elsewhere, walking on windy cliff tops with a girl in blowing red skirts. Eventually, I realized she was telling me I had to go; that she must begin to dress for the evening festivities, for it took her longer to do those things than it used to do. She asked if I would be there, and I told her, probably not, that it was still difficult for me to be seen at gatherings of the nobility where someone might dredge up an old memory of me. She nodded to that, but added, ‘You have changed more than you know, Fitz. If it had not been for Lacey, I might have walked right by you and not known you at all.’

I did not know whether to take comfort in that or not. Lacey walked me to the door, saying as we went, ‘Well, I suppose we’ve all changed a great deal. Molly, now, I’d have known her anywhere, but I’m not the woman that I used to be. Even for Molly, there are changes, though. She said to me, she said, “Fancy, Lacey, they’ve put me in the Violet Chamber, in the south wing. Me, as used to be a maid on the upper floors, housed in the Violet Chamber, where Lady and Lord Flicker used to live. Imagine such a thing!”’ Again, her old eyes flickered to mine.

I gave one slow nod.

THIRTY-SIX

Harvest Fest

As you have requested, I send a messenger to you, to inform you that the blue queen dragon Tintaglia and the black drake Icefyre have been seen. They seem to be in good health and appetite. We conveyed to them that you were concerned for their well-being and for the well-being of the young dragons left in your care. We could not be certain that they understood the gravity or the urgency of your desire for information about them, as perhaps you will understand. They seemed very intent on one another, and little disposed to desire or facilitate conversation with men.

Missive from Queen Kettricken to the Bingtown Traders’ Council

Evening found me at my old post behind the wall. For once, I was spying for my own curiosity rather than upon any mission for Chade. I had a bottle of wine, bread, apples, cheese, sausages and a ferret in a basket beside me, and a cushion to perch on. I hunched with my eye to a crack and watched the swirl as Six Duchies and Out Islands met and mingled.

Tonight there was little formality. That would be tomorrow. Tonight there was food in abundance set out on tables, but the tables edged the walls to leave room for dancing. Tonight there would be opportunity for lesser and younger minstrels, jugglers and puppeteers to show their skills. Tonight was casual chaos and rejoicing in the harvest prospects. Tonight, commoner and nobles mingled in all the halls and courtyards of the keep. I probably could have safely wandered amongst them, but I had no heart for it. So I hid and peered and took pleasure in the pleasure of others.

I was at my post early enough that I did get to hear Hap sing. He sang for the children, early gathered for they would be early sent to bed, and chose two silly songs, about the man who hunted the moon and the one about the woman who planted a cup to grow some wine and a fork to grow some meat and so on. He’d always laughed at those when Starling sang them to him, and so did his audience now. He seemed to take great and genuine pleasure in that, and his master seemed well pleased. I gave a small sigh. My boy gone off with the minstrels. I’d never imagined that.

I also saw Swift, his head cropped close for mourning, walking about with Web. The lad seemed older than when I last had seen him, not in looks but in bearing. He followed Web and I was glad he had such a man to mentor him. My eyes wandered, and amidst the dancers, I saw young Lord Civil. There was a girl in his arms and to my shock, it was Nettle. I sat watching and chewing that until the end of the tune, when Prince Dutiful escorted Lady Sydel back to him and claimed the next dance with Nettle for himself. The Prince, I thought, looked a bit forlorn despite his formally pleasant mien. I doubted that it was his friend’s lady or his cousin that he truly wished to be dancing with. As for Nettle, she danced well, but self-consciously, and I wondered if she was uncertain of the steps or made awkward by the rank of her partner. Her dress was simple, as simple as the Prince’s Harvest Fest attire, and I saw Queen Kettricken’s hand in that.

Thinking of the Queen made me look for her, and I found her on a high chair, overlooking the festivities. She looked tired but pleased. Chade was not beside her, and I thought that odd, until I saw that he, too, was dancing with a fiery-haired woman who was probably a third of his age.

One by one, my eyes sought and found all the folk who had woven the most important parts of my life. Starling, Lady Fisher now, sat on a cushioned chair. Her lord stood solicitously close by, and fetched her drink and food from the tables himself as if servants could not be trusted with such an essential task. Lady Patience entered, wearing more lace than all the other women combined, with Lacey at her elbow. They found the end of a bench near a puppeteer’s stage and sat nudging and pointing and whispering together as if they were two little girls. I spotted Lady Rosemary talking with two Outislander kaempras. I was sure that her charming smile and ample bosom were gathering plenty of information for Lord Chade to ponder on the morrow.

Arkon Bloodblade was there, in a mantle trimmed with red fox fur, discussing something earnestly with the Duchess of Bearns. She seemed to be listening courteously, but I wondered if any trade agreement could ever completely change her heart toward the Outislanders. I saw three others I recognized from the Hetgurd gathering over by the food tables, and several standing and staring perplexedly at a puppet show. My eyes snagged on Nettle again as she drifted alone through the festive throng. A stocky young man approached her. By his close-cropped curls, I deduced that it was Chivalry, Burrich’s eldest son. They stood talking in the midst of the noise and laughter. As I watched, a woman in simple dress of very dark blue approached them, leading a struggling small boy by the hand. I winced at Molly’s shorn head, knowing with deep certainty that Burrich would never have approved of what she had done to her tresses. Her bared head made her look oddly young. She gripped Hearth by the hand and was pointing at another young boy, evidently entreating Chivalry to help her gather them up for the night. Instead, Nettle swept her youngest brother up in her arms and whirled him out onto the dance floor, where his squeals of glee at having eluded his mother made more than one couple smile. Chivalry held out a placating hand to Molly, nodding at something she said. Then a troupe of tumblers stacked themselves up in such a way as to precisely block my view. When they were finished with their tricks, I could not see Molly at all.

I sat back in the dimness. At my elbow, Gilly asked, sausages?

I felt about in the basket but discovered only worried bits of meat. He’d taken them all to pieces in the act of killing them. I found one nub larger than the others and offered it to him and he snatched it happily from my hand.

And so my evening passed. On the dance floor, I saw those I cherished most turn and move to music that barely reached my ears through the thick walls. I leaned back from my peephole to ease my aching back. A tiny spot of light reached through it toward me. I caught it in my hand and sat staring at it for a time. A metaphor for my life, I thought. I pushed my self-pity aside and leaned forward again.

Thick was leaving the food table with a stack of tarts in his two hands. His music was loud and joyous and he moved to it, out of step from the tune that all the others heard. But at least he was out there, I thought to myself. At least he was out and amongst them all. I felt the impulse to throw caution to the wind and join him, but it died as swiftly as it had arisen. No.

Molly’s children had found a juggler to their liking. They stood in a half-circle, watching him. Nettle held Hearth’s and Steady’s hands. Just was in Chivalry’s arms. Nimble and Swift stood together. I noticed Web behind them, at a distance from them and yet present. My eyes wandered over the crowd, seeking and not finding. I stood. I left my basket and cushion to the ferret and went unencumbered through the narrow passages.

I knew there was a peephole to the Violet Chamber. I eschewed it. I left my secret warren, spent some small time in a closet slapping dust and cobwebs from myself and then walked swiftly, eyes down, through the crowded halls of Buckkeep. No one remarked on me, no one called my name or stopped me to ask how I had been. I could have been invisible. As I climbed the stairs, the crowd thinned. By the time I had reached the residential chambers of Buckkeep Castle, the halls were deserted. Everyone was at the festivities below. Everyone but me, and perhaps Molly.

I walked three times past the door of the Violet Chamber. The fourth time, I commanded myself to knock and did, more forcefully than I had intended. My heart was hammering and I was literally shaking in my shoes. There was only silence. Then, when I thought this mustering of courage would be for naught, that no one would answer, I heard Molly ask quietly, ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s me,’ I said stupidly. And then, while I was searching for what name to call myself by, she told me plainly that she knew who was there.

‘Go away.’

‘Please.’

‘Go away!’

‘Please.’

‘No.’

‘I promised Burrich I’d look after you and the young ones. I promised him.’

The door opened a crack. I could see one of her eyes as she said, ‘Funny. That was what he told me when he first began to bring things to my door. That he had promised you, before you died, that he’d look after me.’

I had no answer to that, and the door started to close. I shoved my foot into it. ‘Please. Let me in. Just for a moment.’

‘Move your foot or I’ll break it.’ She meant it.

I decided to risk it. ‘Please, Molly. Please. After all the years, don’t I get one chance to explain? Just one?’

‘The time for explaining was sixteen years ago. When it might have made a difference.’

‘Please. Let me in.’

She jerked the door suddenly open. Her eyes were blazing and she said, ‘I only want to hear one thing from you. Tell me about my husband’s last hours.’

‘Very well,’ I said quietly. ‘I suppose I owe you that.’

‘Yes,’ she said as she stepped away from the door, holding it just wide enough that I could eel through. ‘You owe me that. And a lot more.’

She wore a night robe and wrapper. Her body was fuller than I remembered it, her figure a woman’s rather than a girl’s. It was not unattractive. The room smelled of her, not just the perfume she wore, but of her flesh and of beeswax and candle-making. Her dress was neatly folded on top of the chest at the foot of the bed. A trundle bed made up beside hers proclaimed that her boys would sleep here with her. Her brush and comb were set out on a table, more by habit than for any need for them.

The first stupid words out of my mouth were, ‘He would not have wanted you to cut your hair.’

She lifted a self-conscious hand to her head. ‘What would you know about it?’ she demanded indignantly.

‘The first time he saw you, long before he took you from me, he commented on your hair. “A bit of red in her coat” is what he said.’

‘He would put it like that,’ she said, and then: ‘He never “took me” from you. We thought you were dead. You let us think you were dead and I knew despair. I had nothing except a child depending on me for everything. If anyone took anything, I took him. Because I loved him. Because he treated me well and he treated Nettle well.’

‘I know that.’

‘I am glad that you do. Sit there. Tell me how he died.’

So I sat on a chair and she perched on the clothing chest, and I told her of Burrich’s last days. It was the last conversation I would have imagined having with her in those circumstances and I hated it. Yet, as I spoke, I felt also a terrible relief. I needed to be telling her these things as much as she needed to be hearing them. She listened avidly as if every word were a moment of his life that she could reclaim for herself. I hesitated to speak of Burrich’s Wit, yet there was no way to leave it out of the tale. She must have heard of it before, for she showed no shock or revulsion. I told it in a way that not even Swift could have, for I could say to her that at the end, it was obvious to me how much Burrich loved his son, that there was no rift between them when he died. It was different from telling it to Nettle. Molly understood the full significance of Burrich asking me to look after her and his little sons. I repeated what he had said to me, that he had been the better man for her, and I repeated to her that I agreed with that.

She sat up straight and spoke bitterly. ‘Fine. So you both agreed on that. Did either of you ever think to consult with me on it? Did either of you ever pause to consider that perhaps the decision belonged to me?’

And those words opened the door for me to go back down the years, and to tell her what I was doing, and where and how I had learned that she had given herself to Burrich. She looked away from me, chewing on her thumbnail as I spoke. When my words lapsed to silence she said, ‘I thought you were dead. If I had known otherwise, if he had known otherwise …’

‘I know. But there was no safe way to send word to you. And then, once you had … it was too late. If I had come back, it would have torn all of us apart.’

She leaned forward, her chin cupped in both her palms and her fingers over her mouth. Her eyes were closed, but tears welled from under her lashes. ‘What a mess you made of it. What a mare’s nest we made of our lives.’

There were a hundred answers to that. I could have protested that I had not made the mess, that it had befallen all of us. Suddenly, it would have taken more strength than I had. I let it go. I let it all go. ‘And now it’s too late for there ever to be anything for you and me.’

‘Oh, Fitz,’ and even in rebuke, for me to hear my name from her lips was a sort of sweetness. ‘For you, it has always been too late or too soon. Always some day. Always tomorrow, or after you do this one last duty for your king. A woman needs a chance for something to be now. I needed that. I’m sorry we had so little of it.’

A little time longer we sat there in our own sorry silence. Then she said quietly, ‘Chivalry will be bringing the little ones to me soon. I promised they could stay until the last puppet show. It would not do for them to find you here. They would not understand and I could not explain.’

And so I left her, bowing to her at her door. I had not touched so much as her hand. I felt worse than I had when I had been trying to knock. Then, there had been some shred of possibility. Now, I was left with the reality. Too late.

I descended the stairs, back into the crowds and the noise. Then the noise seemed suddenly louder, and people were talking excitedly, some asking questions, others repeating rumours. ‘A ship! From the Out Islands!’

‘It’s late to be docking!’

‘A Narwhal banner?’

‘The runner just went in! I saw his message baton.’

Then I was trapped in the herd of folk crowding back toward the Great Hall. I tried to fight my way to the edge of the corridor, but only succeeded in being elbowed in the ribs, cursed at, and having my feet trodden on. I gave up and let the surge of eager folk carry me into the Great Hall.

A runner had indeed just reached the Queen. It took some little time for awareness of this to settle on the room. The musicians for the dance fell silent first, and then the puppeteers ceased their play. Jugglers stilled their clubs. The crowd hummed like a hive in anticipation as more and yet more folk crowded into the room. The messenger stood before the Queen, panting still, his baton that signalled to all that he was a royal messenger and not to be delayed still clasped in his hand. In a moment, Chade was at Kettricken’s side, and then the Prince was climbing the dais to stand beside her. She held out the open scroll so that they both might read it. Then, when she held it aloft, the murmurs and speculation died to near silence.

‘Good tidings! A ship with the Narwhal emblem has docked in the harbour,’ she announced. ‘It seems that perhaps Kaempra Peottre of the Narwhal Clan of the Out Islands will join us for our Harvest Fest tomorrow.’

It was wonderful news and Arkon Bloodblade’s shout of enthusiasm was easily heard above the polite mutters of the dukes and duchesses. An Outislander slapped the Duke of Tilth on the back. The Prince nodded his pleasure to the entire assembly and then motioned to the musicians who launched into a lively and celebratory tune. There was scarcely room to dance; yet folk seemed content to hop or sway in place to the merry tune. Then the crowding in the room eased a bit as some folk fled it for fresh air or space or a chance to spread the gossip further. The puppet show finished and I saw Chivalry and Nettle gather up their smaller siblings and herd them from the room. Other youngsters were being shooed along as well. Just when I thought that the crowd had eased enough that I could gracefully leave without resorting to elbows to get through the door, a second wave of excited voices reached us from outside. Almost immediately, folk began to spill back into the room. I felt someone tug at my sleeve and turned to find Lacey standing there. ‘Come sit with us, lad. We’ll hide you.’

And so I soon found myself on a bench between Patience and Lacey, looking as unostentatious as a fox in the henhouse. I slumped my shoulders and hid my face behind a mug of fresh cider and waited to see what the fresh hubbub was about.

It was Peottre arriving, I thought when I saw him standing still in the door. And yet the noise outside seemed greater than that would occasion and Peottre himself had a determined look on his face that bespoke something momentous. He lifted both arms over his head and cried out loudly, ‘Clear a way, if you will! Clear a path.’

It was easier said than done in the crowded space, and yet folk tried to give way. He walked in first, setting a measured tread, and then behind him came a vision such as few have ever seen. Elliania wore a hooded blue cloak. The hood was lined with white fur that set off her shining black eyes and hair. The cloak itself was floor length and trailed some little distance in a train. It was Buck blue, and worked all over with bucks and narwhals leaping side by side. Tiny glittering white gems made up their eyes, so that it seemed she wore a summer evening sky as she advanced into the room.

Prince Dutiful had remained upon the dais with his mother. Now he looked down on her and no one in the room could doubt that he beheld her with delight. He did not say a word to either Chade or the Queen. Nor did he bother with the two steps, but leapt straight to the floor. At sight of him, Elliania threw back her hood, and then ran to meet him. They met in the centre of the Great Hall. As they clasped hands, her clear and joyous voice carried. ‘I could not wait. I could not wait for winter and I could not wait for spring. I am here to marry you and I will do my best to live according to your ways, strange though they are.’

The Prince looked down at her. I saw his face light with joy, and then I saw his hesitation. I saw him groping for what he must say, for what was correct for him to say before all his gathered people. Elliania looked up at him, and the light in her face began to dim as Dutiful attempted to compose a careful reply.

I Skilled fiercely. Tell her you cannot wait either. Tell her you love her and that you will wed her right away. Love that comes so far and at such a price should not be put off! A woman needs to be loved now.

Chade’s face froze in a smile of horror. The Queen stood, and I knew she held her breath. Peottre stood motionless, and his face was very still. I knew he prayed the Prince would not hurt or humiliate the girl.

Dutiful spoke loud and clear. ‘Then we shall wed, within the week. Not just before my dukes, but before all gathered here. We shall wed, and we shall bring in the harvest as man and wife. Would that please you?’

‘El and Eda, the Sea and the Land!’ Bloodblade shouted. ‘The Buck and the Narwhal! At the turning of the year. Good fortune to us all!’

‘So it would be!’ Peottre cried out and a sort of wonder came into his face.

‘That would please me.’ I saw the words formed by her lips, but did not hear them. Noise had erupted all about me as hundreds of tongues clattered at once. Chade closed his eyes for a moment, then put on a smile and looked with apparent fondness at his impulsive, impetuous prince. Yet the secret sourness of his gaze was defeated and nullified by what shone in Elliania’s eyes. If she had ever needed confirmation of her decision, Dutiful had given it. I wondered at what cost to herself and to her clan she had come here. The garment she wore bore both narwhals and bucks, and I doubted she had made it entirely herself. So I deduced some maternal support of her decision.

‘They’re getting married this week?’ Patience asked me, and I nodded in response.

‘This will be a Harvest Fest to remember,’ she observed. ‘Best send runners out about the countryside. No one will want to miss this. We haven’t had a proper wedding in Buckkeep since Chivalry and I married here.’

‘I don’t think this will be one now. They’ve prepared for harvest Fest, not a wedding. Cook’s going to be very upset!’ Lacey warned us.

She was right, of course. I was able to retreat from the chaos I’d created, and actually found a few hours of sleep that night holed up in the workroom. I fear few others did. The servants worked through the night. It was fortunate they had the feast for the harvest well begun and the castle already decked with autumn garlands. Fortunate, too, that the Prince’s dukes and duchesses had already convened for Harvest Fest, for it would have caused a greater furore if the Prince’s haste to wed had caused one of his high nobles to miss the ceremony.

I almost missed my peephole the next day. I stood through the lengthy harvest ceremony in the back row of the Prince’s Guard. Longwick had replenished our depleted ranks, yet even so I was painfully aware of the absence of those who had gone to find the dragon with us. Riddle stood beside me, and I think he felt it as keenly as I did. Yet for all that, there was satisfaction in watching our prince and his bride.

They were arrayed as the King and Queen of the Harvest. Long had it been since that old custom was observed, for long had it been since we had had a royal couple in residence. The seamstresses must have worked throughout the night. Elliania wore her cloak of narwhals and bucks, and somehow a doublet that matched it perfectly had been created for the Prince. Dutiful’s simple coronet had been replaced with an ornate harvest crown, and in that I saw Chade’s subtle hand, for he displayed the Prince as a crowned king before his dukes. Ceremonial it might be, yet it could not fail to leave an impression. Elliania was crowned as well. Whereas the Prince wore a crown of gilded antlers, hers featured a single narwhal horn enamelled in blue and trimmed in silver. When they danced together, alone in the centre of the sanded floor, they looked like a couple from a legend sprung to life.

‘Like Eda and El themselves,’ Riddle observed, and I nodded to myself.

Nobility and commoners are alike swayed by pomp and pageantry. Over the next few days, the castle and the town swelled with folk as it had not in years. The ceremony to honour the Prince’s Wit-coterie was well attended, with far more folk than it would have ordinarily attracted. Cockle had the telling of the tale, and he acquitted himself well and with far more accuracy than I had come to expect of minstrels. Perhaps because he was Witted himself, he did not wish to be seen as embroidering the truth beyond what it would bear. So he told the tale with moving simplicity that made little of the type of magic Burrich and the coterie used and much that they had been willing to sacrifice all for their prince.

Cockle, Swift, Web and Civil were formally recognized as the Prince’s Wit-coterie. There was some small grumbling at that, as older nobles recalled well that once the word had only been applied to the circle of Skilled ones who aided a king. Chade assured them that there would, indeed, eventually be a Skill-coterie as well, as soon as suitable candidates could be tested and selected.

The Queen conveyed Withywoods to Molly rather than Nettle, so that it might be seen as granted to Burrich’s line in token of his service. Molly accepted it gravely and I knew that the monies from that estate would provide well for her and all her children. Lady Nettle was presented as the newest of the Queen’s circle of ladies, and Swift officially apprenticed to the Witmaster Web. Web spoke briefly but strongly of the power of Burrich’s magic, and bemoaned that the man had been forced to hide it rather than educate his son in it. He hoped there would never be such a waste of talent again. Then Web solved for me the riddle that he had given me when first we set out on the voyage. For he said that Burrich briefly rallied before he died, enough to bid his son farewell, and to die with the Warrior’s Prayer on his lips. For, ‘Yes,’ he had sighed on his dying breath, and all knew that was the ultimate prayer one could offer to life. Acceptance.

I pondered that during the evening when I sat in my workroom. My hands were slick with lamp oil. It had spread through the Skill-scrolls, making many of the old letters fuzzy and swollen to my weary eyes. It was a discouraging, tiresome task. I pushed the scroll away from me, wiped my hands on a rag, and poured myself a little more brandy.

I was not certain I agreed with Web’s thoughts, and yet it seemed to me that ‘yes’ had been Burrich’s word for life. Certainly, there seemed to be very little glory or satisfaction in saying ‘no’ to it. I had said it often enough to have felt fully the truth of that.

I had sought in vain for another opportunity to speak to Molly alone. Always, she seemed surrounded by her children. Slowly it came to me, sitting there alone by my fire, that they were a part of her. Likely there would be very little chance of finding her alone and apart from them. The opportunity I had so long denied myself was here and now, but rapidly slipping away from me.

The next morning, on the eve of the wedding, I went to the steams early in the day. I washed myself and shaved more carefully than I had in years. Back in the tower room, I brushed my hair back into a warrior’s tail, and then took out the selection of clothing that the Fool had inflicted on me. I dressed slowly in the blue doublet and the white shirt, finishing it with the Buck-blue leggings. I was now definitely a Buckman, but no longer looked like servant or guardsman. I looked at myself in the mirror and smiled ruefully. Patience would approve. I looked dangerously like my father’s son. I dared myself, and then moved the silver fox pin from the inside of my doublet to the outside. The little fox winked at me and I smiled back.

I left the secret labyrinth and walked through the corridors of Buckkeep Castle. Several times I felt eyes on me, and once a man stopped dead before me and squinted at me with a frown, as if struggling to remember something. I passed him by. The castle was acrawl with hastening servants and nobles socializing with one another. I made my way to the Violet Chamber and knocked firmly.

Nettle opened the door. I had not been prepared for that, thinking that young Chivalry would have been the first I must confront. She stared at me, and then recognized me with a visible start. She said nothing until I asked, ‘May I come in? I would speak to your mother and brothers.’

‘I don’t think that’s wise. Go away,’ she said, and began to shut the door but Chivalry caught the edge of it, asking her, ‘Who is it?’ and then, in an aside to me, ‘Don’t mind her, sir. Dress of a lady and manners of a fishwife.’

The room seemed full of children. I had never before realized how many seven children were. Swift and Nimble were sitting on the floor by the hearth, a game of Stones spread out before them, with Steady watching the play. Swift looked up, saw me, and his mouth opened in an O of surprise. I saw his twin poke him, demanding, ‘What is it? It’s your turn.’ Hearth and Just, wrestling on the bed, ignored me. I suddenly realized the size of the promise that Burrich had demanded of me; it was easily seven times what Chivalry had asked of him when he handed me over to his right-hand man to raise. The blankets were rucked about the tussling youngsters on the bed and the candelabrum on the night table was in obvious danger of being overset. And then, before Nettle could shut the door on me or Chivalry invite me in, Molly entered from the adjoining chamber. She halted, staring at me.

I think she would have thrown me out if she’d had the chance. Hearth stood up on the bed and made a spring for his brother, who evaded him by rolling away. I took two swift steps and caught the six-year-old before he hit the floor. He wriggled away from me immediately, charging back into battle with his brother. They suddenly reminded me of a litter of puppies, and I smiled as I said, ‘I promised Burrich that I would look after his sons. I can’t do that if I don’t know them. I’ve come to introduce myself.’

Swift stood up slowly to face me. The question in his eyes was plain. I took a breath. I found my answer. Yes. ‘My name is FitzChivalry Farseer. I grew up in the stables of Buckkeep. Your father taught me all the things he thought a man should know. I would pass that on to his sons.’

Chivalry had caught Nettle’s uneasiness, and the name unsettled him even more. He moved to put his body between the smaller children and me. It was so instinctive of him that I had to smile, even when he said, ‘I think I can pass my father’s teachings on to my brothers, sir.’

‘I expect that you will. But you will have other things to think of as well. Who cares for your stock and stables right now, when you are all away?’

‘Oxworthy. A man from our village who used to come to help out with the heavy work from time to time. He can manage it well enough, for a few days, though I will have to return to our holdings right after the Prince’s wedding.’

‘It’s not his business!’ Nettle interjected indignantly.

I knew I had to face her down or let her drive me off. ‘I made a promise, Nettle. Swift witnessed it. I do not think your father would have asked that of me unless he wished the raising of his small sons to be my business. That sets it out of your hands.’

‘But not out of mine,’ Molly interjected firmly. ‘And for many reasons, I think this unwise.’

I took a breath and steeled my will. I turned to look at Chivalry. ‘I love your mother. I have for years, for years before she chose your father. Yet I promise you, I will not try to take his place with any of you. Only to do what he asked of me. To look after you all.’ I looked back at Molly. Her face was so white I thought she would faint. ‘No secrets,’ I told her. ‘No secrets among us.’

Molly sat down heavily on the bed. Her two youngest boys immediately came to her, Hearth climbing into her lap. She put her arms around him reflexively. ‘I think you had better go,’ she said faintly. Steady came to his mother and put a protective arm around her.

Swift stood suddenly. ‘No secrets? Will you tell them you are Witted then?’ It was a challenge.

I smiled at him. ‘I believe you just did that for me.’ I took a breath and looked at Nettle. ‘I will also be instructing your sister in the Skill.’ At Chivalry’s blank look, I said, ‘The King’s magic, the old magic. She has it. She talks with dragons. You should chat with her about it some time. It was why she was first brought here to Buckkeep, to serve her prince. I believe your father had some ability in the Skill for he served as King’s Man to King-in-Waiting Chivalry. The man for whom your eldest brother is named.’

Swift was staring at me uncertainly. ‘Web said we were not to speak of who you really were. That there were still some who’d like to see you dead. That your life was in our hands.’

I bowed to him. ‘Yes. I put my life in your hands.’ I looked at Nettle and added, ‘If you’d truly like to be rid of me, it would be fairly simple for you.’

‘Please, Fitz.’ Molly sounded desperate. ‘Go. I need to speak to my children privately. I wish you had not given such a heavy secret to my younger ones. I scarcely trust them to wash their necks each day, let alone to preserve such a confidence.’

I felt a bit foolish then, and I bowed, saying only, ‘As you will, Molly,’ and left. I got five steps past the closing of the door before my knees began to shake so badly that I had to lean up against the wall for a moment. A passing servant asked me if I was ill, but I assured her I would be fine. Yet as I found my strength and walked away down the corridor, I wondered if I would be.

Then Nettle’s sudden Skilling hit me with the force of a mallet. The dragons are coming! Tintaglia bids us have live meat waiting for them, in the ‘customary’ place!

It was good fortune that brought us dragons on the Prince’s wedding day, but Nettle’s inspiration that the tribute Tintaglia had demanded so imperiously be referred to as the Dragon’s Feast. Hapless steers, beribboned with blue streamers, were penned not far from the Witness Stones, awaiting their fate. Tintaglia and Icefyre were not present for the ceremony itself, which was just as well. The well-wishers who came to witness the Prince and Elliania make their vows in the centre of the Witness Stones crowded both hillsides. The couple was splendid in blue and white. They stood in the centre of the stones under a serendipitously blue sky and spoke their promises loudly and clearly.

I was amongst the guards who stood in a line to keep an area near the cattle-pens cleared for the dragons. They appeared as small jewels in the sky just as the Prince had finished his promises to his bride and his dukes. They flew nearer, and the crowd oohed and aahed as if they were an acrobatic troupe brought especially for their pleasure. The dragons grew larger and even larger and soon we had no problems in keeping an area cleared for them to alight as people began to realize the size of the creatures that were approaching. A hush came over the crowd as it became apparent that Tintaglia fled the ardently pursuing Icefyre. Above the Witness Stones, they wheeled and cavorted and mock-battled, swooping low enough that the wind of their wings tousled hair and flapped scarves. Together they soared, gleaming black and silvery blue, up in an abrupt, almost vertical climb and then Icefyre lunged and caught his mate. They coupled in a display of wanton lust that delighted the gathered witnesses as a good omen for their prince and new princess. No one with even a drop of the Skill in them could have been completely immune to the passions of those great beasts. It infected the crowd with a wave of both sentiment and amorousness that made that evening’s festivities a night long and fondly remembered by many.

The dragons cared little for any of that. They coupled several times, with loud trumpeting and mock challenges to one another, and then fell on the bullocks with a zeal for feeding that was horrifying to witness. The pens did not hold the panicky cattle and one guardsman was trampled and several dozen onlookers sent scrambling for safety before Tintaglia and Icefyre completed their slaughter and settled in to feeding. That was bloody and messy enough that even those who had stayed behind to watch the dragons kill the cattle decided to go back to the castle, or to watch from a safer distance.

Yet even though the dragons paid little attention to the occasion, their presence was a triumph for our prince. Before the dukes dispersed to their separate duchies, they met and agreed to recognize Dutiful as King-in-Waiting. It was an end to Dutiful’s quest worthy of any minstrel’s song, and many were made about it, and sung often in the days to come. The feasting and rejoicing in Buckkeep Castle went on for a full twenty days until the onset of wintry weather convinced the nobility that they ought to seek their own keeps and holdings before travel became completely unpleasant. The castle settled back, very gradually, into a routine. Yet for all that winter, it remained a livelier place than it had in many a year. The King-in-Waiting and his young bride attracted not just the youthful nobility of the Six Duchies, but the younger kaempra of the Out Islands. Alliances were made that had nothing to do with trade, and wedding plans set that spanned the two countries. Among those who announced their intentions were Lord Civil and Lady Sydel.

Yet it was a time of departures, too. I made farewell to Hap and his master, for they would follow their lord back to his keep for the winter. My boy seemed genuinely happy, and if I was not pleased to part with him, I was pleased that he had found a choice that gave him so much satisfaction. Web took Swift off with him, saying it was time the boy got out and met more of his own folk, to understand better all the nuances of the Wit and to make him appreciate the necessity of using it with discipline. My declaration of love for his mother had raised a new wall between Swift and me. I was not sure it was one I could soon breach, and yet I felt better knowing that I had spoken honestly to him. Web tried to talk me into going with them, saying that I too would benefit, but I begged off yet again, promising that truly, truly, one day I would make time. He smiled, and reminded me that no man could make time, but only use that which he was given wisely. I promised him I’d try to do that, and waved them farewell from the gates of Buckkeep.

The dragons departed with the first frost, and we were not sorry to bid them farewell. They were each capable of eating a couple of cattle a day. Nettle warned us early in their visit that if we did not supply them willingly, they would likely take whatever they fancied. Our herds and flocks were well culled before the chill of winter drove them south. I was amused one night to become aware of Nettle and Tintaglia in dream-talk. Nettle dream-rode with Tintaglia. She flew slightly behind Icefyre, heading south as they flew through the night. The sweep of cool wind, the stars overhead and the rich smells of the slumbering earth below were intoxicating.

And beyond that desert, you will find some of the richest, fattest herds in this part of the world. Or so I have heard. Nettle was casual with her recommendation.

Desert? Dry sand? I have been longing for a good dust bath. Wet sand clings beneath my scales, and water cannot polish old blood from one’s scales like sand does.

I think you will find much there to your liking. I have heard that the cattle of Chalced are easily twice the size of what we raise here, and so fat that the meat catches fire if you try to cook it over an open flame.

Nettle’s dream was rich with the smell of roasting meat and dripping fat. It almost made me hungry. I have never heard of the cattle of Chalced being exceptionally fat or large, I objected.

We were not conversing with you, Nettle pointed out severely. And what I know of Chalced, I know from my father’s stories of that place. I think they would profit much from a visit from hungry dragons. And then she tumbled me out of her dream and I awoke on the floor by my bed.

Dutiful, Chade, Nettle, Thick and I continued to meet in early mornings to study and expand our understanding of the Skill. Nettle was courteous, but spoke to me only as it was necessary. I did not push against that wall, either, but instructed Dutiful, Thick and her as a group. Soon my paltry advantage over them was apparent, and we proceeded to learn as a coterie. What we learned from the recovered scrolls made us go more slowly rather than more quickly for it rapidly became apparent that we wielded our magic like a boy wields a sword, with little understanding of either the danger or the potential of it. Chade desperately wished to experiment with the Portal Stones, as we began to call them. The Elderling cities and their hints of both treasure and secrets enticed him. Only the extreme aversion that both Thick and I evinced toward them convinced him that he should wait until he had a better mastery of the magic before attempting such a thing.

Perhaps the most positive outgrowth of it was that Chade agreed that in spring he would arrange a Calling after the old tradition, and that from among those who came, we would select Skill-candidates who would be trained according to the careful procedures outlined in the scrolls.

Despite my duties, winter dragged for me. The day after the wedding, Molly and five of her sons had departed Buckkeep. She did not bid me farewell in any way. I bled inside for three days and then, lacking all other advisors in matter of the heart, took my sorry account of my foolishness to Patience and Lacey. They listened carefully, praised my courage and honesty, condemned my stupidity, and then revealed that Molly had already told them the whole story. After chiding me for rushing in just as they had warned me not to do, Patience announced that I had best return to Tradeford with her for the winter, to keep myself busy and to give Molly some time. I narrowly begged my way out of that. Yet bidding them farewell was difficult for me, and I promised I would come to visit before the year was out.

‘If we’re still alive,’ Patience conceded cheerfully. They promised to send me a monthly missive along with the report of the holdings that they sent to the Queen, and I promised to do likewise. I watched them set forth, mounted on horses amidst the guard the Queen had insisted on sending with them, for despite their years they both disdained the comforts of a litter. I stood in the road, staring after them until a curve in the road took them out of sight.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Ever After

Let the Calling be announced well in advance, for people deserve a warning before the Skill-magic touches them for the first time. A Calling issued with no warning can induce great fear, for some who hold the potential for Skill will not know what it is, and fear that madness or worse has come upon them. So let riders be sent out well ahead of time. But do not tell when the exact day of the Calling will go forth. In the past, much time has been wasted trying to wake the Skill in some who came to Buckkeep, claiming to have heard the Call, when in fact all they wished to do was escape a life as farmers or bakers or rivermen.

Let the strongest Coterie in the keep issue the call, making it as far reaching as possible. A Calling should be held no more often than every fifteen years.

Treeknee’s On the Calling of Candidates

I tried. But I could not help myself.

One month after Patience had departed, I gave in to an impulse. I sent a large pot of preserved wintergreen berries to Molly. I approached Riddle to act as my messenger. He seemed surprised that I even asked if he were busy, commenting that he had been told several weeks ago to consider himself at my disposal. Chade had undertaken a number of small changes on my behalf since I’d begun to take a more active role in Farseer matters. The pretence that I was an ordinary member of the Prince’s Guard was fading, replaced with the unseen acceptance that I served the royal family in more confidential ways. Nominally, I was still Tom Badgerlock but I seldom wore the livery of a guard any more, and the fox pin rode always on my breast.

Riddle seemed bemused by the errand I gave him but carried the gift and delivered it nonetheless.

‘What did she say?’ I asked him anxiously when he returned.

He looked at me blankly. ‘She said nothing to me. I gave it to the lad who came to the door. But I told him it was for his mum. Isn’t that what you wanted me to do?’

I hesitated, and then said, ‘Yes. That was exactly right. Yes.’

The next month, I sent a missive saying that I thought Nettle was doing very well with her studies and becoming more comfortable at court. I told the family that Web had sent a bird to inform us that he and Swift would likely winter with the Duke and Duchess of Beams. Web seemed well pleased with the boy, and I thought Molly would wish to know they were well and doing fine. My letter spoke only of her children. Along with the missive, I sent two jumping jacks and a carved bear and a sack of horehound candies.

Riddle’s report from that delivery was slightly more encouraging. ‘One of the little fellows said horehound was good, but not as good as peppermint.’

The next month, a sack of horehound and a sack of peppermint candies, as well as nuts and raisins accompanied my letter about Nettle. That won me a brief reply from Molly, written on the bottom of my own letter, saying she welcomed news of Nettle but would I kindly stop attempting to make the boys sick with sweets.

My next month’s letter duly reported on Nettle and gave news of Swift, who had taken the blotch-fever along with all the other youngsters at Ripplekeep in Beams, but had recovered well and seemed none the worse for it. The Duchess herself had taken an interest in the lad and was teaching him much about hawks. Personally, I wondered how much, but left that speculation out of my letter. Instead of sweets, I sent two pouches of baked clay marbles, an exceptionally nice hoofpick in a leather sheath and two wooden practice-swords.

Riddle was amused to report that Hearth had clouted Just with one of swords before he had even got off his horse, and refused to trade with Nimble for the bag of marbles that had been intended for him. I took it as a good sign that Riddle knew the boys by name now, and that they had all come out of the house to greet him.

The note from Molly was less heartening. Just had suffered a considerable lump to the back of his head, for which she blamed me. The boys had also been disappointed at the lack of sweets with the letter, for which she also blamed me. The letters were welcome but I should stop disrupting her family with inappropriate gifts. There was also a note from Chivalry, stiffly thanking me for the hoofpick. He asked if I knew of a source of saff oil, for one of the mares had a stubborn infection in one hoof and he thought he recalled his father using saff oil.

I did not wait a month. I found saff oil immediately, and sent it back to Chivalry, with instructions to wash out all her hooves with vinegar, move her into a different stall and then apply saff oil to all four hooves, inside and out. I further suggested that he put a good bed of hearth ash down in her old stall and leave it there for three days before sweeping it out and then mopping the stall with vinegar and letting it dry well before stabling any other horses in it. And with the saff oil and letter to Chivalry, I defiantly sent barley-sugar sticks, with the request that he ration them out so that no one suffered from bellyaches.

He returned a note, thanking me for the oil and saying he had forgotten about the vinegar portion of the remedy. He asked if I knew the correct proportions for a certain liniment that Burrich used to make, for his attempt at it had come out too runny. And he assured me that the barley sugar would only be distributed as it was earned. Molly sent a note, but it was clearly marked To Nettle.

‘But Steady told me that they had actually all liked the peppermint better,’ Riddle informed me as he gave me Chivalry’s missive. ‘Steady seems to me to be the quiet one. You know, the good lad who is often overlooked amongst rowdier boys.’ With a liar’s grin, he added, ‘I was like that myself, as a lad.’

‘Surely you were,’ I agreed sceptically.

‘Any response?’ Riddle asked me, and I told him I needed some time to think about it.

It took me several days of experiments at the worktable to compound correctly the liniment. It made me realize how much I had forgotten. I made several pots of it and sealed them well. Chade paid one of his rare visits to the old workroom we once had shared. He sniffed the air speculatively and asked what I was concocting.

‘Bribes,’ I answered him honestly.

‘Ah,’ he said, and when he asked no more, I knew that Riddle was still reporting to him as well. ‘Made a few changes up here, I see,’ he added, looking about the room.

‘Mostly with a broom and some water. I’d give a great deal to have a window.’

He gave me an odd look. ‘The room next to this one is always left empty. It used to belong to Lady Thyme. I understand there are rumours she haunts it still. Strange odours, you know, and sounds in the night.’ He grinned to himself. ‘She was a useful old hag. I bricked up the connecting door years and years ago. It used to be behind that wall hanging. You could probably knock through the wall if you went about it quietly.’

‘Knock through the wall quietly?’

‘It might be a bit difficult.’

‘A bit. I may try it. I’ll let you know.’

‘Or you could move Nettle out of your old room down below and have the use of it.’

I shook my head. ‘I still hope there may come a time when she would want to use that passage to come up and talk with me of an evening.’

‘But not much progress there yet.’

‘No. I’m afraid not.’

‘Ah, she’s as hard-headed as you were. Don’t trust her near the mantel with a fruit-knife.’

I looked at the one that still stood there, driven in as deep as my boyish anger could sink it. ‘I’ll remember that.’

‘Remember, too, that you forgave me. Eventually.’

I tried to send off the liniment by Riddle with a sack of peppermint drops, some spice tea and a small marionette of a deer. ‘That won’t do,’ he told me. ‘At least put in some tops, so there’s something for each of them.’ And so it was done. He suggested penny whistles as well, quite innocently, but I pointed out I was trying to win my way in, not provoke Molly to murder me. He grinned, nodded and rode off and stayed away an extra two days because of a snowstorm.

He brought back letters, one for me and one for Nettle, and the news that he’d eaten with the family and spent the night in the stables after a half-dozen games of Stones with Steady each evening. ‘I spoke you well, when Chivalry asked after you. Said you spent your nights at your scroll-work and were fair to turn into a scribe if you didn’t watch yourself. So then Hearth asked, “what, is he fat, then?” for I gather the scribe at their town is quite a portly man. So I said, no, quite the opposite, that I thought you’d lost flesh and grown quieter of late. And that you spent more time alone than was healthy for any man.’

I tilted my head at him. ‘Could you have made me sound any more pathetic?’

He mimicked the tip of my head. ‘Is there any of it not true?’

The note was from Chivalry, thanking me for the liniment and recipe.

I don’t know what was in Molly’s note to Nettle. The next morning, she lingered after the Skill-lesson. Dutiful called to ask if she was coming, for he and Elliania and Civil and Sydel intended to go riding, if she’d care to come. She told him to go ahead and she would catch up easily, for it didn’t take her forever to primp her hair before riding out.

She turned back to catch me smiling, and said, ‘I speak him formal when others are about. It’s only here that I talk to him like that.’

‘He likes it. He was elated when he first discovered he had a cousin. He said it was nice to know a girl who spoke her mind to him.’

That stopped her cold, and I regretted the remark, for I thought I had put her off whatever it was she was about to say. But she met my eyes and lifting her chin, set her fists to her hips. ‘Oh. And should I speak my mind to you?’

I wasn’t sure. ‘You could,’ I suggested.

‘My mother writes that she is well, and that my little brothers quite enjoy Riddle’s visits. She wonders if you are afraid of my brothers, that you don’t come yourself.’

I slouched back in my chair and looked down at the tabletop. ‘I’m more likely to be afraid of her. Time was, she had quite a temper.’ I picked at my thumbnail.

‘Time was, I understand you were excellent at provoking it.’

‘I suppose that is true. So. Do you think she would welcome a visit from me?’

She stood quite a time, not answering. Then she asked, ‘And are you afraid of my temper as well?’

‘A bit,’ I admitted. ‘Why do you ask?’

She walked to Verity’s window and stared out over the sea as he used to. In that pose, she looked as much a Farseer as I did. She ran her hands back through her hair distractedly. Truly, she could have given a bit more care to ‘primping’. Her shortened hair stood up like the hair on an angry cat’s back. ‘Once, I thought we were going to be friends. Then I discovered that you were my father. From that moment on, you haven’t much tried even to speak to me.’

‘I thought you didn’t want me to.’

‘Perhaps I wanted to see how hard you’d try.’ She turned back to look at me accusingly. ‘You didn’t try, at all.’

I sat a long time in silence. She turned and started toward the door.

I stood up. ‘You know, Nettle, I was raised by a man among men. Sometimes, I think that is the greatest disadvantage a man can have when it comes to dealing with women.’

She turned and looked back at me. I spoke from the heart. ‘I don’t know what to do. I want you to at least know me as a person. Burrich was your father and he did well at it. Perhaps it’s too late for me to have that place in your life. Nor can I find a place in your mother’s life for me. I love her still, just as much as I did when she left me. I thought then that, when all my tasks were done, I would find her and somehow we would be happy together. And here we are, sixteen years later, and I still haven’t managed to find my way back to her.’

She stood, her hand on the door, looking uncomfortable. Then she said, ‘Perhaps you are telling these things to the wrong woman.’ And she slipped quietly out of it, letting it close behind her.

A few days later, Riddle found me at the guards’ table eating breakfast. He slid onto the bench opposite me. ‘Nettle has given me a letter to deliver to her mother and brothers. She said to take it whenever I made my next journey for you.’ He reached across the table and took a hunk of bread from my plate. He bit into it and asked with his mouth full, ‘Will that be soon?’

I thought about it. ‘Tomorrow morning,’ I suggested.

He nodded. ‘I thought it might be about then.’

I rode Myblack down to the market in Buckkeep Town, chaffering with her all the way. She had had half a year with a stableboy whose idea of exercising her was to take her out and let her run as much as she wanted and then bring her back. She was wilful and rude, tugging at her bit and ignoring the rein. I was ashamed of myself for neglecting her. I visited the winter market and rode home with sugared ginger and two arm-lengths of red lace. I put them in a basket with a purloined bottle of dandelion wine. I sat all night with a piece of good paper in front of me and managed to find three sentences. ‘I remember you in red skirts. You climbed up the beach cliffs in front of me, and I saw your bare, sandy ankles. I thought my heart would leap out of my chest.’ I wondered if she would even remember that long ago picnic when I had not even dared to kiss her. I sealed the note with a blotch of wax. Four times I unsealed it, trying to think of better words. Eventually, I entrusted it to Riddle as it was, and walked about for the next four days wishing I hadn’t.

On the fourth night, I worked the lever that opened the door in Nettle’s bedchamber. I did not go in and summon her, as Chade had me. Instead, I went halfway down those steep steps and left a candle burning there. Then I went back up and waited.

The wait seemed to last forever. I do not know which wakened her at last, the light or the draught, but I finally heard her hesitant tread on the stair. I had built up the fire well in the comfortable end of the room.

She peered round the corner of the concealed door, saw me, but still came in cautious as a cat. She walked slowly past the worktable with the stained scrolls stretched out on it, and more slowly past the work-hearth with its racks of tongs and measures and stained pans. She came at last to the chairs by the fireside. She had on a nightgown and a woven shawl across her shoulders. She was shivering.

‘Sit down,’ I invited her, and she did, slowly. ‘This is where I work,’ I told her. The kettle was just on the boil and I asked her, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘In the middle of the night?’

‘I do a lot of my work in the middle of the night.’

‘Most people sleep then.’

‘I am not like most people.’

‘That’s so.’ She stood up and studied the items on the mantel above the hearth. There was a carving of the wolf that the Fool had done, and next to it, the memory stone with a similar image turned face out. She touched the handle of the fruit knife embedded there and gave me a puzzled glance. Then she reached up and set her hand to the hilt of Chivalry’s sword.

‘You can take it down if you like. It was your grandfather’s. Be careful. It’s heavy.’

She took her hand away. ‘Tell me about him.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Is it another secret then?’

‘No. I can’t tell you because I never knew him. He gave me to Burrich when I was five or six. I never saw him, that I can recall. I believe he looked in on me with the Skill from time to time, through Verity’s eyes. But I knew nothing of that, then.’

‘It sounds like you and me,’ she said slowly.

‘Yes, it does,’ I admitted. ‘Except that I have a chance to know you now. If we are both bold enough to take it.’

‘I’m here,’ she pointed out, settling deeper into the chair. And then she fell silent and I could not think of anything to say. Then she pointed at the Fool’s carving. ‘Is that your wolf? Nighteyes?’

‘Yes.’

She smiled. ‘He looks exactly like I thought you would. Tell me more about him.’

And so I did.

Riddle returned three days later, complaining of bad roads and the cold. A storm had followed him home. I scarcely heard him. I took the little roll of bark paper he offered me and carried it carefully up to my lair before I opened it. At first glance, it looked like a drawing. Then I realized it was a hastily-sketched map. There were only a few words on the bottom of the page. ‘Nettle said you were having a hard time finding your way back to me. Perhaps this will help.’

A deep wet snow was falling outside Buckkeep Castle. The clouds were heavy; I did not expect it would stop soon. I went to my workroom and stuffed a change of clothing into a saddlebag. I Skilled to Chade. I’ll be gone for a while.

Very well. We can finish working on that scroll-translation tonight.

You misunderstand me. I’ll be gone several days at least. I’m going to Molly.

He hesitated and I could feel how badly he wanted to object. There was too much going on for me to leave. There were translations, the refinement of his powder that I’d been helping him with, and the Calling to arrange. The scrolls cautioned that the people of the kingdom had to be prepared for the Calling, lest parents or friends think those who heard voices in their heads were going mad. Yet it also cautioned that the exact day of the Calling be kept secret, to prevent charlatans from wasting the time of the Skillmaster.

Irritably I pushed such considerations aside. I waited.

Go then. And good luck. Have you told Nettle?

Now it was my turn to hesitate. I’ve told only you. Do you think I should tell her?

The things you ask my advice on! Never the ones I hope you’ll ask me about, always the ones that … never mind. Yes. Tell her. Only because not telling her might seem deceptive.

So I reached out to my daughter and said, Nettle. I’ve had a note from Molly. I’m going to go visit her. And then the obvious occurred to me. Do you want to go along?

It’s storming outside, with worse to come by the look of it. When are you leaving?

Now.

It isn’t wise.

I’ve never been wise. The words echoed oddly in my mind, and I smiled.

Go then. Dress warmly.

I shall. Farewell.

And I went. Myblack was not pleased at being taken from her warm, dry stall to face the storm. It was a cold, wet and tedious journey. The one inn I stopped at was full of trapped travellers and I had to sleep on the floor near the hearth wrapped in my cloak. The next night, a farmer allowed me to shelter in his barn overnight. The storm did not let up and the journey only became more unpleasant, but I pushed on.

Luck had it that the snow would stop and the clouds blow clear one valley before I reached Burrich’s holding. As I pushed Myblack down the buried road toward the house, the place looked like something out of a tale. Snow was heaped on cottage and stable roof. Smoke curled up from the chimney into the blue sky. A path was already worn between the house and the barns. I pulled in Myblack and sat looking down on it. As I watched, Chivalry opened a barn door and then trundled out a barrow of dirty straw. I whistled to give him warning of a visitor and then rode Myblack down the hill. He stood unmoving, watching me come. In the yard before the house I pulled her in and sat still, trying to think of a greeting. Myblack tugged twice at her bit, and then threw her head back irritably.

‘That horse wants training,’ Chivalry observed with disapproval. He came closer, then stopped. ‘Oh. It’s you.’

‘Yes.’ The hard words. ‘May I come in?’ He might be barely fifteen, but he was the man of these holdings now.

‘Of course.’ But there was no smile with the words. ‘I’ll take your horse for you.’

‘I’d rather put her up myself, if you don’t mind. I’ve neglected her and it shows. I’ll need to handle her a lot to undo it.’

‘As you will. This way.’

I dismounted and glanced toward the cottage, but if anyone inside was aware of me, it did not show. I led Myblack and followed Chivalry into a well-ordered stable. Nimble and Just were mucking out stalls. Steady came in, carrying buckets of water. They all halted at the sight of me. I suddenly felt surrounded and the ghost of a memory floated to the surface of my mind. Nighteyes, standing at the outskirts of the pack’s gathering. Wanting to go in, so badly, but knowing that if he approached them the wrong way they would drive him out.

‘I see your father’s hands everywhere here,’ I said, and it was true. I knew at once that Burrich had built this building to meet his own demands. The stalls were larger than the ones at Buckkeep. When the storm shutters were opened, air and light would flood in. I saw Burrich in the way the brushes were stored and the tack put up. I could almost feel him here. I blinked and came back to myself, suddenly aware of Chivalry watching me.

‘You can put her in there,’ he said, gesturing to a stall. They went about their work as I cared for Myblack. I watered her and grained her lightly and left her clean and dry. Chivalry came to look over the door of the stall at her, and I wondered if my work would pass his inspection. ‘Nice horse,’ was all he said.

‘Yes. She was a gift from a friend. The same one who sent Malta to your father when he knew he wouldn’t need her any more.’

‘Now there’s a mare!’ Chivalry exclaimed, and I followed him down the stalls to look at her. I saw Brusque, a four-year-old stallion out of Ruddy that Chivalry had wanted to use to stud her. And I visited Ruddy. I think the old stallion almost remembered me. He came and rested his head against my shoulder for a time. He was old and getting tired.

‘This will probably be the last foal he sires,’ I said quietly. ‘I think that’s why Burrich wanted to use him. One last chance to get that cross of bloodlines. He was a fine stud in his day.’

‘I remember when he first came. Barely. Some woman came down the hill with two horses and just gave them to my father. We didn’t even have a barn then, let alone a stable. Papa moved all the wood out of the woodshed that night so the horses wouldn’t be left outside.’

‘I’ll bet Ruddy was glad to see him.’

Chivalry gave me a puzzled look.

‘You didn’t know Ruddy was your father’s horse, long before that? Verity gave him the pick of the two-year-olds. He chose Ruddy. He’d known this horse since the day his dam dropped him. The night the Queen had to flee Buckkeep for her life, Burrich put her on this horse. He carried her all the way to the Mountains. Safely.’

He was properly amazed. ‘I didn’t know that. Papa didn’t talk much about his days at Buckkeep.’

And so I ended up helping with the mucking out and the feeding before ever I went in to see Molly. I told stories of horses I had known and Chivalry walked me through the barns with pardonable pride. He’d done a good job of keeping it all up and I told him so. He showed me the mare with the infected hoof, sound now, and then I walked through the shed to the milk cow and the dozen chickens.

By the time Chivalry led me back to the cottage with the lads trooping behind us, I felt I had acquitted myself well with them. ‘Mother, you’ve a visitor,’ Chivalry called as he pushed open the door. I stamped snow and manure from my feet and followed him in.

She had known I was out there. Her cheeks were pink and her shortened hair smoothed back. She saw me looking at it and lifted a self-conscious hand to it. In that moment, we were both reminded of why it was shortened and Burrich’s shadow stepped between us.

‘Well, chores are done and I’m off to Staffman’s,’ Chivalry announced before I could even greet her.

‘I want to go, too! I want to see Kip and play with the puppies,’ Hearth announced.

Molly bent down to the boy. ‘You can’t always go with Chivalry when he goes to visit his sweetheart,’ she admonished him.

‘He can today,’ Chivalry announced abruptly. He gave me a sideways glance, as if making sure I knew he was doing me a vast favour. ‘I’ll put him up behind me; his pony can’t deal with this snow. Hurry up and get ready.’

‘Would you like a cup of tea, Fitz? You must be cold.’

‘Actually, there’s nothing like stable chores for warming a man after a long ride. But yes, I would.’

‘The boys put you to work in the stable? Oh, Chiv, he’s a guest!’

‘He knows his way around a shovel,’ Chivalry said, and it was a compliment. Then, ‘Hurry up, Hearth. I’m not going to wait all day for you.’

There were a few moments of noisy chaos that seemed necessary for preparing a six-year-old boy to going anywhere, for no one but me was astonished at it. It made the guards’ mess seem a calm place by comparison. By the time the two were out of the door, Steady had already retreated to the loft while Just and Nimble had seated themselves at the table. Nimble pretended to be cleaning his nails, while Just stared at me frankly.

‘Fitz, please, sit down. Nimble, move your chair over, make room. Just, I could do with more kindling.’

‘You’re just sending me outside to get me out of the way!’

‘How perceptive of you! Now go. Nimble, you may help him. Clear some of the snow from the wood stack, and move some of it into the woodshed to dry.’

They both went out, but not quietly or graciously. When the door had closed behind them, Molly took a deep breath. She removed a kettle from the fire, poured hot water over spice tea in a large pot and then brought it to the table. She set out cups for us, and a pot of honey. She sat down across from me.

‘Hello,’ I said.

She smiled. ‘Hello.’

‘I asked Nettle if she wanted to come with me, but she didn’t want to ride through the storm.’

‘I can’t blame her. And I think it’s hard for her to come home, sometimes. Things are far humbler here than at Buckkeep Castle.’

‘You could move to Withywoods. It’s yours now, you know.’

‘I know.’ A shadow passed over her face and I wished I hadn’t mentioned it. ‘But it would be too many changes, too fast. The boys are still becoming accustomed to the idea that their father is never coming back. And, as you see, Chivalry is courting.’

‘He seems very young for that,’ I ventured.

‘He’s a young man with a large holding. Another woman in the house would make things much easier for all of us. What should he wait for, if he’s found a woman who loves him?’ she countered. When I had no answer to that, she added, ‘If they marry, I don’t think Thrift will want to move far from her parents’ home. She is very close to her sister.’

‘I see.’ And I did. I suddenly saw that Molly was no longer someone’s daughter, to be whisked off from her father’s house and become mine. She was the centre of a world here, with roots and ties.

‘Life is complicated, isn’t it?’ she said to my silence.

I looked at her, in her simple, sombre-hued robe. Her hands were no longer smooth and slender; there were lines in her face that had not been there when she was mine. Her body had softened and rounded with the years. She was no longer the girl in the red skirts, running down the beach before me.

‘I have never wanted anything so much in my life as I’ve always wanted you.’

‘Fitz!’ she exclaimed, glancing up at the loft, and I suddenly realized I had spoken the words aloud. Her cheeks glowed and she lifted both hands to cover her mouth with her fingertips.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I know it’s too soon. You’ve told me that. And I will wait. I’ll wait however long you want me to wait. I just want to be sure you know that I am waiting.’

I saw her swallow. She said huskily, ‘I don’t know how long it will take.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ I stretched out my hand, palm up, on the tabletop. She hesitated, and then set hers in it. And we sat, not speaking, until the boys came in with a load of snowy kindling to be scolded by their mother for not wiping their feet.

I stayed until afternoon. We drank tea and I talked about Nettle at the court, and told the boys stories of Burrich when he had been a younger man. I saddled Myblack and bid them farewell before Chivalry and Hearth returned. Molly walked out to say goodbye and kissed me. On the cheek. And I rode three days back to Buckkeep Castle.

Riddle continued to carry letters between her cottage and Buckkeep Castle. They all came up for Spring Fest, and I managed to dance with Molly once. It was the first time I had ever danced with her, and the first time I’d attempted to dance in years. I danced with Nettle, afterwards, who advised me never to attempt it again. But she smiled as she said it.

I saw Hap in the early days of spring. He and Sawtongue came through Buck at the beginning of their summer travels. Hap was taller and leaner and seemed content with his life. He’d seen a great deal of Bearns and now was off to Rippon and then Shoaks. He’d made two songs of his own, both humorous and both seemed well received when he sang them for us at the lesser hearth. Web and Swift came back to Buckkeep later that month. Swift had widened through the shoulders and was more introspective than I recalled him. Web stayed at Buckkeep while Swift went home to spend a week with his family. He returned with news that Chivalry would be getting married in three months.

I went down for the wedding. Watching him stand before Thrift and pledge himself to her while she blushed and smiled, scarcely able to look at him, envy burned in me. It would be so simple for them. They met, they loved, they married. I suspected they’d have a baby in the cradle before the year was out. And I could get no closer to Molly than the touch of her hand and a kiss on the cheek.

Summer grew strong and hot. It was a good summer. Elliania was pregnant and the whole of the Six Duchies seemed abuzz with it. The crops seemed to grow before my eyes. Myblack learned the way to Molly’s cottage and back. I helped Chivalry raise the beams on the extra rooms he was building, and watched Molly and Thrift cook companionably together. I watched her as she moved around the room at her simple tasks, watched her laugh and stir the soup and brush her lengthening hair back from her eyes. I had not been so fevered with desire since I was fifteen years old. I could not sleep at night, and when I did, I had to ward my dreams. I could see Molly and speak to her, but it was always in Burrich’s house or with Burrich’s sons clinging to her hands. There seemed no place in her world that I could claim, and I grew irritable with everyone.

I went to see Patience and Lacey, as I had promised, making the long journey in the hot and dusty days of high summer, and Chade swore I was so fractious that he was glad to be rid of me for a time. I didn’t blame him. Lacey had become frailer and Patience had hired two women to help care for her old servant. Walking in her gardens with Patience’s worn hand on my arm, seeing how she had converted the bloody soil of Regal’s King’s Circle to a haven of greenery, beauty and peace gave me the first rest I had known in a long time. She gave me some of my father’s things from her clutter: a plain sword belt he had preferred, letters Burrich had sent to him that mentioned me, and a jade ring. The ring fit my hand perfectly. I wore it home.

Nettle lingered after our Skill-lesson the first morning I was back. Chade did also, but at a look from me, he sighed and left me alone with my daughter. ‘You were gone a long time. Weeks,’ she said.

‘I hadn’t seen Patience in a long time. And she’s getting old.’

She nodded. ‘Thrift is pregnant.’

‘That’s wonderful news.’

‘It is. We’re all very excited. But my mother says it makes her feel old, to know she’ll be a grandmother soon.’

That gave me a moment’s pause.

‘She said to me, “Time goes faster when you’re older, Nettle.” Isn’t that an odd thought?’

‘I’ve known it for some time.’

‘Do you? I think women know it better perhaps.’

I looked at Nettle directly and said nothing. ‘Perhaps not,’ she said then, and went away.

Four days later, I saddled Myblack again and set out for Molly’s. Chade sternly warned me that I must be back in time for the Calling and I promised him that I would be. The day was fine and Myblack well behaved and in good condition for the journey. The summer evenings were long and I made the journey in two days instead of three. I found myself very welcome, for Chivalry was replacing the posts in the paddock fence. Swift and Steady were helpful in pulling up the old rotted posts and Just and Hearth dug the holes bigger. Chivalry and I came behind, setting each pole straight and tall. He spoke to me about becoming a father and how exciting it was until he realized that my silences were growing longer and longer. Then he declared he was going to take the boys down to the creek and let them swim for a time, for he’d had enough of hot, sweaty work for the day. He asked if I’d come but I shook my head.

I was pouring a bucket of cool water from the well over my head when Molly came out with a basket on her arm. ‘Thrift is napping. The heat is hard on her. It is, when you’re carrying. I thought we’d leave the house quiet for her, and perhaps find if there are any blackberries ripe enough to be sweet yet.’

We climbed the gentle hill behind the house. The shouts of the boys splashing in the creek below faded. We went past Molly’s neat straw hives, gently humming with the warm day. The blackberry tangle was beyond them and Molly led me to the far south side of it, saying the berries always ripened there first. Her bees were busy there, too, some among the last blackberry flowers and some after the juice from the bursting ripe fruit. We picked berries until the basket was half full. Then, as I bent a high prickly branch to bring it down so Molly could reach the top fruit, I offended a bee. It rushed at me, first tangling in my hair and then bumbling down my collar. I slapped at it and cursed as it stung me. I stumbled back from the berry bushes, batting at two others that were suddenly buzzing round my head.

‘Move away quickly,’ Molly warned me, and then came to take my hand and hurry me down the hill. A second one stung me behind the ear before they gave off the chase.

‘And we’ve left the basket back there with all the berries. Shall I try to go back for it?’

‘Not yet. Wait a time until they settle. Here, don’t rub that, the stinger is probably still in it. Let me see.’

I sat down in the shade of an alder and she bent my head forward to look at the sting behind my ear. ‘It’s really swelling. And you’ve pushed the stinger right in. Sit still, now.’ She picked at it with her fingers. I flinched and she laughed. ‘Sit still. I can’t get it with my nails.’ She leaned forward and put her mouth on it. I felt her tongue find the stinger, and then she gripped it between her teeth and pulled it out. She brushed it from her lips onto her fingers. ‘See. You’d pushed it all the way in. Is there another one?’

‘Down my back,’ I said, and in spite of myself, my voice shook. She stopped and looked at me. She turned her head and looked again at me, as if she had not seen me in a long time. Her voice was husky when she said, ‘Take your shirt off. I’ll see if can get it out.’

I felt dizzy as her mouth once again touched me. She presented me with the second stinger. Then she set her fingers to the arrow scar on my back and said, ‘What was this?’

‘An arrow. A long time ago.’

‘And this?’

‘That’s more recent. A sword.’

‘My poor Fitz.’ She touched the scar between my shoulder and neck. ‘I remember when you got this one. You came to my bed, still bandaged.’

‘I did.’

I turned to her, knowing that she was waiting for me. It still took all my courage. Very carefully, I kissed her. I kissed her cheeks, her throat and finally her mouth. She tasted of blackberries. Over and over, I kissed her, as slowly as I could, trying to kiss away all the years I had missed. I unlaced her blouse and lifted it over her head, baring her to the blue summer sky above us. Her breasts were soft and heavy in my hands. I treasured them. Her skirt slipped away, a blown blossom on the grass. I lay my love down in the deep wild grasses and sweetly took her to me.

It was homecoming, and completion, and a marvel worth repeating. We dozed for a time, and then woke as the shadows were lengthening. ‘We must go back!’ she exclaimed, but, ‘Not yet,’ I told her. I claimed her again, as slowly as I could bear to, and my name whispered by my ear as she shuddered beneath me was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.

We were abruptly guilty adolescents as the raised cries of ‘Mother? Fitz?’ reached our ears. We scrambled hastily back into our clothing. Molly ventured alone to retrieve our basket of berries. We dusted leaves and bits of grass from our hair, laughing breathlessly as we did so. I kissed her again.

‘We have to stop!’ Molly warned me. She returned my kiss warmly, and then lifted her voice to call, ‘I’m here, I’m coming!’

I took her hand in mine as we went round the bramble and held it as we strode back down the hill to her children.

EPILOGUE

Withywoods is a warm valley, centred on a gently-flowing river that carves a wide plain that nestles between gently rising and rolling foothills. It is a wonderful place to grow grapes and grain and bees and young boys. The manor is of timber rather than stone, and there are times when this still seems very strange to me. I sleep now in a room and in a bed that once belonged to my father, and the woman that I have loved since I was a boy sleeps beside me at night.

For three years, we were lovers in secret. It was hard for us, and yet somehow all the more delicious. Our trysts were few and uncertain, and I valued them all the more for that. Molly came with her sons to the next Harvest Fest, and I stole her away from the music and dancing and carried her off to my own bed. I had never thought to have her there, and for many nights after, her perfume lingered on my pillows and sweetened my dreams. A visit to her cottage might yield me no more than a swiftly stolen kiss, but each was worth the long ride. I do not think we deceived Chivalry for long, and certainly Nettle’s comments let me know that I was not fooling her. But we went carefully, for the sake of her little boys, and I have never regretted taking the time to win their regard.

No one was more surprised than I when Steady answered the Calling. He did not seem to be strongly Skilled at first, but we soon uncovered reserves of strength and calm that made him precisely suited to be a King’s Man. Nettle was proud and protective, and I was grateful, for her young son’s residence in Buckkeep Castle gave Molly excuses to visit more often. Steady and Nettle became the core of the new King’s coterie, for the bond the brother and sister shared was strong. Twelve others answered the Calling, four with Skill enough to become members of Nettle’s coterie and nine of lesser ability. We turned no one away from that first Calling, for as Chade himself pointed out, it sometimes takes time for the Skill to manifest itself completely. Thick and I continue to perform the duties of Solos. Chade, as always, keeps threads tied to us all and tests the boundaries of the magic, risking himself in ways he would deride as foolhardy if anyone else attempted them.

When Chivalry’s second son was born, Molly suddenly declared that it was time Thrift had her own hearth and home. She decided to take Hearth and Just to Withywoods. Nimble made the decision to stay with his older brother, for the holding was too much for one man to work alone and he had always enjoyed the horses. Molly privately told me that she thought it had more to do with a certain red-headed girl, the daughter of a wainwright in the closest town.

We wed quietly, making our promises before my king in the presence of Molly’s children, Kettricken, Elliania, Chade, Hap and Riddle. Chade wept, then hugged me fiercely and told me to be happy. Hap asked Nettle if he might kiss his new sister, and was soundly thumped by a protective Hearth for his impertinence. Thick and little Prince Prosper dozed through most of the ceremony.

We travelled to see Patience, who had not been able to make the journey, and to place a flower on Lacey’s grave. We stayed a month, and I thought Hearth and Just would wear Patience out with mischief and curiosity. But two days before we were scheduled to depart, Patience abruptly announced that she was tired of Tradeford and too old to run it any more and that she would come to live with us in Withywoods. To my relief, Molly was pleased at the prospect.

Hearth and Just seem to enjoy the pleasures and absurdities of having such a grandmother. Hearth has promised to seek Molly’s permission before there is any more tattooing, and Just has developed a deep interest in plants and herbs that challenges even Patience’s knowledge. Riddle turned up at Withywoods when we were scarcely settled, saying that Chade had sent him to be my man. I suspect he still spies on me for the old spider, but that is fine. I am willing to yield to Chade whatever he needs to feel he still has control of his world. Much of his power I wrested from him, bit by bit, and passed on to Dutiful as he proved ready for it. If I have never worn the crown of the Six Duchies, I am confident that I have done much to see it passed on intact.

Riddle has demonstrated that he knows much more of hiring servants and running an estate than I ever suspected. It is well, for neither Molly nor I ever expected to have to manage such things, and Patience declares she is far too old to bother. He is a solid man. The last time Nettle visited, I took him to task for being overly familiar with her, until Molly called me aside and told me quietly to mind my own business.

I am summoned often to Buckkeep, and Dutiful and Elliania have come to visit twice to go hawking, for the birding is excellent in our grain fields. I have never cared for that sport, and spent both visits playing with their son while they rode. Prosper is a hearty, healthy boy.

Chade trained arduously as prescribed in the Skill-scrolls and then made one venture through the stones. He chose to go to Aslevjal and explore for himself the Elderling ruins there. He stayed ten days and came back with his eyes full of wonder and a sack full of memory cubes. He did not find his way to Prilkop’s cave, and if he had, I am sure he would have found it long deserted. I think that when the Fool last visited Chade, he was on his way south, back to their schooling place to bring home all they had learned. I doubt he will come back this way again.

Ours was a ragged and uneven parting. Each of us had intended to see the other again. Each of us had had final words to say. My days with the Fool ended like a half-played game of stones, the outcome poised and uncertain, possibilities hovering. Sometimes it seemed to me a cruelty that so much was unresolved between us; at other times a blessing that a hope at reunion lingered. It is like the anticipation that a clever minstrel evokes when he pauses, letting silence pool before sweeping into the final refrain of his song. Sometimes a gap can be seen like a promise yet to be fulfilled.

I miss him often, but in the same way that I miss Nighteyes. I know that such a one will not come again. I count myself fortunate for what I had of them. I do not think I will ever Wit-bond again, nor know such a deep friendship as I had with the Fool. As Burrich once observed to Patience, one horse cannot wear two saddles. I have Molly and she is enough for me, and more.

I am content.

COPYRIGHT

HarperVoyager
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpervoyagerbooks.com

First published in Great Britain by Voyager 2003

Copyright © Robin Hobb 2003

Robin Hobb asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Source ISBN: 9780006486039

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2010 ISBN 9780007370467

Version 2

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robin Hobb was born in California in 1952 and majored in Communications at Denver University, Colorado. She is the author of the hugely successful FARSEER TRILOGY – Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin and Assassin’s Quest – which is set in the same world as THE LIVESHIP TRADERS series – Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship and Ship of Destiny.

ALSO BY ROBIN HOBB

As Robin Hobb

THE FARSEER TRILOGY

Assassin’s Apprentice

Royal Assassin

Assassin’s Quest

THE LIVESHIP TRADERS

Ship of Magic

The Mad Ship

Ship of Destiny

THE TAWNY MAN

Fool’s Errand

The Golden Fool

Fool’s Fate

THE SOLDIER SON

Shaman’s Crossing

Forest Mage

Renegade’s Magic

THE RAIN WILD CHRONICLES

The Dragon Keeper

Dragon Haven

City of Dragons

Blood of Dragons

As Megan Lindholm

The Reindeer People

Wolf’s Brother

Harpy’s Flight

The Windsingers

The Limbreth Gate

Luck of the Wheels

Cloven Hooves

Alien Earth

The Gypsy (with Steven Brust)

COPYRIGHT

HarperVoyager
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
77–85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpervoyagerbooks.com

Fool’s Errand Copyright © Robin Hobb 2001

The Golden Fool Copyright © Robin Hobb 2002

Fool’s Fate Copyright © Robin Hobb 2003

Robin Hobb asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2013 ISBN: 9780007532117

Version 1

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

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