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.
I knew her at once by her close-cropped head. But there her resemblance to my dream-image of her stopped. The traveling 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 traveling 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, in a wolfish way, 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 aging 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 callused. 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 savored 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 kitchens 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 nearsightedly. 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 rumors, 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, though 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 crackled 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 traveling 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 color 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 rumor. That tinker, Cottlesby, 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 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 gray 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, and 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, or 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 rim, 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 traveling, 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. 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 backward 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, is 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 slackened 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 dampened 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 quarreling, 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 councilor 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 lackluster 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 valor. 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 do that. So, he hears only what you tell me to say to him."
Her shoulders lowered a trifle as she relaxed. "Sometimes my councilor 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 wineglass 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 make 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 someday be King."
"Then you counsel me to ignore my councilor'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 honor 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 fiancee, 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.