by Robin Hobb
"I was not offered the selection of weapons," I said, a bit testily, and then added, "my prince."
"No. You won't be." He seemed to speak from afar. A slight tension in the air told me that he Skilled out even as we spoke. "Yet I'm afraid I must send you out again. I think you are perhaps right. I have watched what is happening long enough. The Forged ones are converging on Buckkeep. I cannot fathom why, and yet perhaps knowing that is not as important as preventing them from attaining their goal. You will again undertake the removal of this problem, Fitz. Perhaps this time I can keep my own lady from becoming involved in it. I understand that if she wishes to go riding, she now has a guard of her own?"
"As you have been told, sir," I told him, cursing myself for not coming to speak to him sooner of the Queen's guard.
He turned to regard me levelly. "The rumor I heard was that you had authorized the creation of such a guard. Not to steal your glory, but when such rumor reached me, I let it be supposed that I had requested it of you. As, I suppose, I did. Very indirectly."
"My prince," I said, and had the good sense to keep quiet.
"Well. If she must ride, at least she is guarded now. Though I would greatly prefer she had no more encounters with Forged ones. Would I could think of something to busy her," he added wearily.
"The Queen's Garden," I suggested, recalling Patience's account of it.
Verity cocked his eye at me.
"The old ones, atop the tower," I explained. "They have been unused for years. I saw what was left of them, before Galen ordered us to dismantle them to clear space for our Skill lessons. It must have been a charming place at one time. Tubs of earth and greenery, statuary, climbing vines."
Verity smiled to himself. "And basins of water, too, with pond lilies in them, and fish, and even tiny frogs. The birds came there often in summer, to drink and to splash. Chivalry and I used to play up there. She had little charms hung on strings, made of glass and bright metal. And when the wind stirred them, they would chime together, or flash like jewels in the sun." I could feel myself warming with his memory of that place and time. "My mother kept a little hunting cat, and it would lounge on the warm stone when the sun struck it. Hisspit; that was her name. Spotted coat and tufted ears. And we would tease her with string and tufts of feathers, and she would stalk us among the pots of flowers. While we were supposed to be studying tablets on herbs. I never properly learned them. There was too much else to do there. Except for thyme. I knew every kind of thyme she had. My mother grew a lot of thyme. And catmint." He was smiling.
"Kettricken would love such a place," I told him. "She gardened much in the Mountains."
"Did she?" He looked surprised. "I would have thought her occupied with more… physical pastimes."
I felt an instant of annoyance with him. No, of something more than annoyance. How could it be that I knew more of his wife than he did? "She kept gardens," I said quietly. "Of many herbs, and knew all the uses of those that grew therein. I have told you of them myself."
"Yes, I suppose you have." He sighed. "You are right, Fitz. Visit her for me, and tell her of the Queen's Garden. It is winter now, and there is probably little she can do with it. But come spring, it would be a wondrous thing to see it restored…"
"Perhaps, you yourself, my prince," I ventured, but he shook his head.
"I haven't the time. But I trust it to you. And now, downstairs. To the maps. I have things I wish to discuss with you."
I turned immediately toward the door. Verity followed more slowly. I held the door for him and on the threshold he paused and looked back over his shoulder at the open window. "It calls me," he admitted to me, calmly, simply, as if observing that he enjoyed plums. "It calls to me, at any moment when I am not busied. And so I must be busy, Fitz. And too busy."
"I see," I said slowly, not at all sure that I did.
"No. You don't." Verity spoke with great certainty. "It is like a great loneliness, boy. I can reach out and touch others. Some, quite easily. But no one ever reaches back. When Chivalry was alive… I still miss him, boy. Sometimes I am so lonely for him; it is like being the only one of something in the world. Like the very last wolf, hunting alone."
A shiver went down my spine. "What of King Shrewd?" I ventured to ask.
He shook his head. "He Skills seldom now. His strength for it has dwindled, and it taxes his body as well as his mind." We went down a few more steps. "You and I are the only ones now to know that," he added softly. I nodded.
We went down the stairs slowly. "Has the healer looked at your arm?" he queried.
I shook my head.
"Nor Burrich."
He was stating this as fact, already knowing it was true.
I shook my head again. The marks of Nighteyes' teeth were too plain upon my skin, although he had given those bites in play. I could not show Burrich the marks of the Forged ones without betraying my wolf to him.
Verity sighed. "Well. Keep it clean. I suppose you know as well as any how to keep an injury clean. Next time you go out, remember this, and go prepared. Always. There may not always be one to step in and aid you."
I came to a slow stop on the stairs. Verity continued down. I took a deep breath. "Verity," I asked quietly. "How much do you know? About… this."
"Less than you do," he said jovially. "But more than you think I do."
"You sound like the Fool," I said bitterly.
"Yes. Sometimes. He is another one who has a great understanding of aloneness, and what it can drive a man to do." He took a breath, and almost I thought he might say that he knew what I was, and did not condemn me for it. Instead, he continued, "I believe the Fool had words with you, a few days ago.
I followed him silently now, wondering how he knew so much about so many things. The Skilling, of course. We came to his study and I followed him in. Charim, as ever, was already waiting for us. Food was set out, and mulled wine. Verity set upon it with a great appetite. I sat across from him, mostly watching him eat. I was not very hungry, but it built my appetite to watch how much he enjoyed this simple, robust meal. In this he was still a soldier, I thought. He would take this small pleasure, this good, well-served food when he was hungry, and relish it while he could. It gave me much satisfaction to see him with this much life and appetite to him. I wondered how he would be next summer, when he would have to Skill for hours every day, keeping watch for Raiders off our coast, and using the tricks of his mind to set them astray while giving our own folk early warning. I thought of Verity as he had been last summer by harvest time, worn to thinness, face lined, without the energy to eat save that he drank the stimulants that Chade put in his tea. His life had become the hours he spent Skilling. Come summer, his hunger for the Skilling would replace every other hunger in his life. How would Kettricken react to that? I wondered.
After we had eaten, Verity went over his maps with me. There was no longer any mistaking the pattern that emerged.
Regardless of what obstacles, forest or river or frozen plains, the Forged ones were moving toward Buckkeep. It made no sense to me. The ones I had encountered seemed all but bereft of their senses. I found it difficult to believe that any one of them would conceive of traveling overland, despite hardships, simply to come to Buckkeep. "And these records you've kept indicate that all of them have. All of the Forged ones that you've identified seem to be moving toward Buckkeep."
"Yet you have difficulty seeing it as a coordinated plan?" Verity asked quietly.
"I fail to see how they could have any plan at all. How have they contacted each other? And it doesn't seem a concerted effort. They aren't meeting up and traveling here in bands. It simply seems that each and every one sets out this way, and some of them fall in together."
"Like moths drawn to a candle flame," Verity observed.
"Or flies to carrion," I added sourly.
"The ones to fascination, the others to feed," Verity mused. "I wish I knew which it is that draws the Forged ones to me. Perhaps another thing entirely.
"
"Why do you think you must know why they come? Do, you think you are their target?"
"I do not know. But if I find out, I may understand my enemy. I do not think it chance that all the Forged ones make their way to Buckkeep. I think they move against me, Fitz. Perhaps not of their own will, but it is still a move against me. I need to understand why."
"To understand them, you must become them."
"Oh." He looked less than amused. "Now who sounds like the Fool?"
The question made me uneasy and I let it slip by me. "My prince, when the Fool mocked me the other day…" I hesitated, still stung by the memory. I had always believed the Fool to be my friend. I tried to push the emotion aside. "He put ideas in my mind. In his teasing way. He said, if I understand his riddles aright, that I should be seeking for others who are Skilled. Men and women from your father's generation, trained by Solicity before Galen became Skill Master. And he seemed also to say that I should be finding out more about the Elderlings. How are they summoned, what can they do? What are they?"
Verity leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers over his chest. "Either of those quests might be enough for a dozen men. And yet, neither is even sufficient for one, for the answers to either question are so scarce. To the first, yes, there should yet be Skilled ones amongst us, folk older than my father even, trained for the old wars against the Outislanders. It would not have been common folk knowledge as to who was trained. Training was done privately, and even those in a coterie might know of few outside their own circle. Still, there should have been records. I am sure there were, at one time. But what has become of them, no one can say. I imagine that they were passed from Solicity down to Galen. But they were not found in his room or among his things after he… died."
It was Verity's turn to pause. We both knew how Galen had died, in a sense had both been there, though we had never spoken much of it. Galen had died a traitor, in the act of trying to Skill-tap Verity's strength and drain it off and kill him. Instead, Verity had borrowed my strength to aid him in draining Galen. It was not a thing either of us enjoyed recalling. But I spoke boldly, trying to keep all emotion from my voice.
"Do you think Regal would know where such records are?"
"If he does, he has said nothing of it." Verity's voice was as flat as my own, putting an end to that topic. "But I have had some small success in uncovering a few Skilled ones. The names, at least. In every case, those I have managed to discover have either already died or cannot be located now."
"Um." I recalled hearing something of this from Chade some time ago. "How did you discover their names?"
"Some my father could recall. The members of the last coterie, who served King Bounty. Others I knew vaguely, when I was very small. A few others I discovered by talking to some of the very old folk in the Keep, asking them to recall what rumors they could of who might have been trained in the Skill. Though of course I did not ask in so many words. I did not, and still do not, wish my quest to be known."
"May I ask why?"
He frowned and nodded toward his maps. "I am not as brilliant as your father was, my boy. Chivalry could make leaps of intuition that seemed nothing short of magical. What I discover are patterns. Does it seem likely to you that every Skilled one I can discover should be either dead, or unfindable? It seems to me that if I find one, and his name is known as a Skilled one, it might not be healthy for him."
For a time we sat in silence. He was letting me come to my own conclusions. I was wise enough not to voice them aloud. "And Elderlings?" I asked at last.
"A different sort of riddle. At the time they were written about, all knew what they were. So I surmise. It would be the same if you went to find a scroll that explained exactly what a horse was. You would find many passing mentions of them, and a few that related directly to shoeing one, or to one stallion's bloodline. But who amongst us would see the need to devote the labor and time to writing out exactly what a horse is?"
"I see."
"So, again, it is a sifting out of detail. I have not had the time required to devote myself to such a task." For a moment he sat looking at me. Then he opened a little stone box on his desk and took out a key. "There is a cabinet in my bedchamber," he said slowly. "I have gathered there what scrolls I could find that made even a passing mention of the Elderlings. There are also some related to the Skill. I give you leave to pore through them. Ask Fedwren for good paper, and keep notes of what you discover. Look for patterns among those notes. And bring them to me, every month or so."
I took the little brass key in my hand. It weighed strangely heavy, as if attached to the task the Fool had suggested and Verity had confirmed. Look for patterns, Verity had suggested. I suddenly saw one, a web woven from me to the Fool to Verity and back again. Like Verity's other patterns, it did not seem to be an accident. I wondered who had originated the pattern. I glanced at Verity, but his thoughts had gone afar. I rose quietly to go.
As I touched the door he spoke to me. "Come to me. Very early tomorrow morning. To my tower."
"Sir?"
"Perhaps we may yet discover another Skilled one, unsuspected in our midst."
CHAPTER TWELVE. Tasks
PERHAPS THE MOST devastating part of our war with the Red-Ships was the sense of helplessness that overpowered us. It was as if a terrible paralysis lay over the land and its rulers. The tactics of the Raiders were so incomprehensible that for the first year we stood still as if dazed. The second year of raiding, we tried to defend ourselves. But our skills were rusty; for too long they had been employed only against the chance Raiders, the opportunistic or the desperate. Against organized pirates who had studied our seacoasts, our watchtower positions, our tides and currents, we were like children. Only Prince Verity's Skilling provided any protection for us. How many ships he turned aside, how many navigators he muddled or pilots he confused, we will never know. Because his people could not grasp what he did for them, it was as if the Farseers did nothing. Folks saw only the raids that were successful, never the ships that went onto the rocks or sailed too far south during a storm. The people lost heart. The Inland Duchies bridled at taxes to protect a coastline they didn't share; the Coastal Duchies labored under taxes that seemed to make no difference. So if the enthusiasm for Verity's warships was a fickle thing, rising and falling with the folk's current assessment of him, we cannot really blame the people. It seemed the longest winter of my life.
I went from Verity's study to Queen Kettricken's apartments. I knocked and was admitted by the same little page girl as previously. With her merry little face and dark curly hair, Rosemary reminded me of some pool sprite. Within, the atmosphere of the room seemed subdued. Several of Kettricken's women were there, and they all sat on stools around a frame holding a white linen cloth. They were doing edgework on it, flowers and greenery done in bright threads. I had witnessed similar projects in Mistress Hasty's apartments. Usually these activities seemed merry, with tongues wagging and friendly banter, needles flashing as they dragged their tails of bright thread through the heavy cloth. But here, it was near silent. The women worked with their heads bent, diligently, skillfully, but without gay talk. Scented candles, pink and green, burned in each corner of the room. Their subtle fragrances mingled scents over the frame.
Kettricken presided over the work, her own hands as busy as any. She seemed the source of the stillness. Her face was composed, even peaceful. Her self-containment was so evident I could almost see the walls around her. Her look was pleasant, her eyes kind, but I did not sense she was really there at all. She was like a container of cool still water. She was dressed in a long simple robe of green, more of the mountain style than of Buckkeep. She had set her jewelry aside. She looked up at me and smiled questioningly. I felt like an intruder, an interruption to a group of studying pupils and their master. So instead of simply greeting her, I tried to justify my presence. I spoke formally, mindful of all the watching women.
"Queen Kettricken. King-in-Waiting Ve
rity has asked me to bring a message to you."
Something seemed to flicker behind her eyes, and then was still again. "Yes," she said neutrally. None of the needles paused in their jumping dance, but I was sure that every ear waited for whatever tidings I might be bringing.
"Atop a tower, there was once a garden, called the Queen's Garden. Once, King Verity said, it had pots of greenery, and ponds of water. It was a place of flowering plants, and fish, and wind chimes. It was his mother's. My queen, he wishes you to have it."
The stillness at the table grew profound. Kettricken's eyes grew very wide. Carefully, she asked, "Are you certain of this message?"
"Of course, my lady." I was puzzled by her reaction. "He said it would give him a great deal of pleasure to see it restored. He spoke of it with great fondness, especially recalling the beds of flowering thyme."
The joy in Kettricken's face unfurled like the petals of a flower. She lifted a hand to her mouth, took a shivering breath through her fingers. Blood flushed through her pale face, rosing her cheeks. Her eyes shone. "I must see it," she exclaimed. "I must see it now!" She stood abruptly. "Rosemary? My cloak and gloves, please." She beamed about at her ladies. "Will not you fetch your cloaks and gloves also, and accompany me?"
"My queen, the storm is most fierce today…" one began hesitantly.
But another, an older woman with a motherly cast to her features, Lady Modesty, stood slowly. "I shall join you on the tower top. Pluck!" A small boy who had been drowsing in the corner leaped to his feet. "Dash off and fetch my cloak and gloves. And my hood." She turned back to Kettricken. "I recall that garden well, from Queen Constance's days. Many a pleasant hour I spent there in her company. I will take joy in its restoration."
There was a heartbeat's pause, and then the other ladies were taking similar action. By the time I had returned with my own cloak, they were all ready to go. I felt distinctly peculiar as I led this procession of ladies through the Keep, and then up the long climb to the Queen's Garden. By then, counting the pages and the curious, there were nearly a score of people following Kettricken and me. As I led the way up the steep stone steps, Kettricken was right on my heels. The others trailed out in a long tail behind us. As I pushed on the heavy door, forcing it open against the layer of snow outside it, Kettricken asked softly, "He's forgiven me, hasn't he?"
