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.
cTH. WEMDEL, JOURNEYMAN TO SKILLMASTER QUILO, ".OBSERVATIONS"
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 savor. 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 landsand keep. The rains came down. The Old Blood folk had leftus what they could of supplies, but it was not much. At thefirst small town we came to, we spent the night in a dismalinn. There Lord Golden paid handsomely for a messenger totake a scroll by the swiftest way possible to "his cousin" inBuckkeep Town. Then we struck out cross-country, headingfor the next settlement that offered a ferry across the BuckRiver. The detours took us two extra days. We camped in therain, ate our scanty rations, and slept cold and wet. I knewthe Fool anxiously counted the dwindling days before thenew moon and the Prince's betrothal ceremony. Nonetheless, we went slowly, and I suspected that Lord Goldenbought time for his messenger to reach Buckkeep and alertthe Queen to the circumstances of our return. It might havebeen, also, that he tried to give both the Prince and me sometime to deal with our bereavement before we returned to theclatter 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 gray 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 eame 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 were 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 delay 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 farther 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 gray 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 traveling in disguise, he did not show them. Hooded and cloaked, he stood dripping on the porch with me until a servingboy 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 draft 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 for 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 theminstrel. 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 offense. 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 servingboy 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 part 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 only said, "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.
I 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 farther 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. Goldenseal. 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 washer folk, 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 seems 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 skeptical laugh. "You're too rude. You don't care if I like you; you don't try to win my confidence or my favor. 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 animal I had ever bonded to, I had attached myself to him. I had feared the Stablemaster and 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 counseled myself that Dutiful's turning to me prob' ably 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 'Councillor 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 JST, have begged my leave to extinguish the candles. And to go to sleep. Good night, 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 someday. 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 centered myself. As gingerly as if I handled broken glass, I reached toward 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. 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 bed, his chin propped on his fist. He looked weary, but insufferably pleased about something. The effect made him look years younger.
" 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 inyours.
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 toward 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 colored 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 per-mission."
"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 some. 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 set 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 impor' tant 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, un-fearing 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 somber, 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 inquire as to when you wished to depart for Buck-keep. 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 motioned me to the table. 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 favor, 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. 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 lev-elly. 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 sv, 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 hasten 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 kitchen 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 think 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 nonexistent 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 practice 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 two 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 color 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 candor 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 toward 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."
XXVIII
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 rumors of a Pale Woman at his side.
-, FEDWREN'S "AN ACCOUNT OF THE RED SHIT 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 demeanor. 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 was 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, or 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 on to 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 honor her with his attention was no small coup for her. I wondered if she would try to continue their connection when we returned to Buck-keep 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 practice 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 overeager 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 seemed to have used them to fly here with the wind's own wings. The treaty galleys arrived at noon with the Princess's honor 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 forward. Laurel matched him. The Prince and I accompanied, 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 scarcely remembered, and Dutiful fell behind. We shadowed the keep wall until we came to the place the wolf had shown me so long ago. Thick thistles 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 reenter 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 bJealcly- Overhead the clouds were growing thicker, and the wind began to pick up. "What do we do now?" the Prince asked softly.
"We wait."
"Waiting." He sighed. "If a man can become perfect at something by practicing 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. "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 no other words. 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 sword belts, 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 Beams 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 reveling 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 honor 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 honor 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 tradesfolk 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 stableboys to take the horses, struggling hard to keep up with the influx 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 stableboys 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 drifted 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 chivying a third about a girl whom 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 scarcely could turn his head. I recalled how Mistress Hasty had once tormented me about my 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 was 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 stairs 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 jewelry 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. Someday, 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 suppose 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 wine bottle 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 energized 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 prodded.
«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, urg' ing her to respect the traditions of the folk she has come to rule, for she»
"Traditions!" I burst out. "Murder and torture as 'tradi' tions'?"
"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 fit. 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 Councillor 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 center 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 Councillor 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 toward me and said, "Very well. Shall I report now?"