by Robin Hobb
He gave me a fleeting smile, and turning, raced off toward the smiths’ street. I envied him the easy movement of his body. I turned back towards Buckkeep Castle.
Halfway up the hill road to the Castle, I met Burrich coming down. Swift rode behind him, his hands clutching his father’s waist.
I strained to look back at them after they had passed, but I refused it. I feared too terribly that Burrich would be looking back at me.
The rest of the walk to Buckkeep Castle seemed cold and dreary. I went to the steams. The guardsmen, coming and going, left me alone. I had hoped the moist heat would ease some of my aches, but it didn’t. The long climb up to our chambers hurt, and I knew that if I sat still, I would stiffen, but all I could think of was my bed.
The day had been a wretched waste, I told myself. I doubted that even my efforts with Dutiful and Thick would bear fruit.
As I approached the door to our chambers, it opened. The garden maid came out of it. Garetha bore a basket of dried flowers. As I gazed at her, startled, she glanced up and her eyes met mine. She suddenly flushed a scarlet that all but obscured her freckles. Then she looked away from me and rushed off down the hall, but not before I had caught sight of the necklace she wore. It was a single charm on a leather strand. The little carded rose was painted white, with a stem inked black. I knew the Fool’s work when I saw it. Had he taken my ill-conceived advice? Inexplicably, my heart sank in my chest. I tapped cautiously at the door and announced myself before I entered. As I shut the door behind me and looked round, I found a perfectly poised Lord Golden ensconced in the cushioned chair before the hearth. For an instant, his amber eyes widened at the sight of my bruises, but just as swiftly he had control of himself.
‘I thought you were going out for the day, Tom Badgerlock,’ he observed convivially.
‘I did,’ I said, and I thought that was all I was going to say. But I found myself rooted to the spot, regarding him as he sat looking back at me, so carefully contained. ‘I had a conversation with Hap. I told him that loving someone and bedding someone were two different things.’
Lord Golden blinked slowly. Then he asked, ‘And did he believe you?’
I took a breath, ‘I don’t think he completely understood me. But in time, I expect he will.’
‘Many things take time,’ he observed. He swung his gaze back to the fire, and my hopes, that had leapt high but a moment before, moderated themselves. I nodded a silent agreement to his words and went into my room.
I stripped off my clothes and lay down on my narrow bed. I closed my eyes.
The day had taken more from me than I realized. I slept, not just that afternoon, but into the night. Deep and dreamless was my rest, until in the dark of night I found myself nudged from that blissfully empty sleep into that hovering place that is between sleep and waking. What had roused me, I wondered, and then became aware of it. Outside my Skill-walls, Nettle wept. She no longer assaulted those walls or entreated me angrily. She simply stood outside them and mourned. Endlessly.
I lifted my hands and covered my eyes as if that would hold her at bay. Then, I drew a deep breath and let my walls collapse. A single step carried my thoughts to hers. I wrapped her in comfort and told her, You worry needlessly, my dear. Both your father and your brother are on their way home to you. They are safe. I promise you this is true. Now. Stop your fretting and rest.
But… how can you know this?
Because I do. And I offered her my absolute certainty, and my brief glimpse of Burrich and Swift riding double on a horse.
For a moment, she collapsed into formlessness, so great was her relief. I began to withdraw, but she clutched at me suddenly. It has been so horrid here. First Swift disappeared, and we thought something awful had befallen him. Then the smith in town told Papa that he had asked him which roads led to Buckkeep Castle. Then Papa was furious and rode off in a temper, and Mama has done nothing but either weep or rant since then. She says that of all places in the world, Buckkeep is the most dangerous for Swift. But she will not say why. It frightens me when she is like this. Sometimes she looks at me, and her eyes don’t even see me. Then she either shouts at me to make myself useful or she starts weeping and cannot stop. None of it makes sense. We all have been creeping about the house like mice. And Nim feels as if half of himself is missing, and somehow it is his fault.
I interrupted her cascading words. Listen to me. It is going to be all right…
I believe you. But how can I make them know that?
I pondered. Should she tell Molly she had a dream? No. You can’t. I’m afraid they must endure. So, be strong for them, knowing all will be well. Help your mother, care for your little brothers, and wait. If I know your father at all, he will be at your side as soon as his horse can bear them there.
You know my father?
Such a question. Very well indeed. And then I knew I had gone too far, that I had given her words that were dangerous to both of us. So I Skill-suggested to her, more gently than a willow leaf moves in a breeze, that she would sleep now, truly sleep, and wake refreshed in the morning. Her grip on me weakened and I slipped away from her, back behind the safety of my walls. I opened my eyes to the dark of my own chamber. I took a deep breath, rolled over, and shouldered deeper into my bedding. I was hungry, but morning and breakfast would come soon enough.
A fumbling thought intruded, wafting on music. The Skilling was hesitant, not with lack of ability but with a squeamish reluctance to touch his mind to mine. You made her stop crying at last. Now Thick can sleep, too.
His touch vanished from my mind, leaving me to stare restlessly at my ceiling. But even as I re-centered my mind and tried to convince myself that Thick’s Skilling to me should be viewed as a positive step, not an invasion, another mind touched mine. It was distant and immense, and impossibly foreign. There was nothing human to the way her thoughts moved as she observed with bitter amusement, Now perhaps you will learn not to dream so loud. He is not the only one it bothers. Nor is he the only one you reveal yourself to, little man. What are you? What do you mean to me?
Then her thoughts abandoned me as a retreating wave leaves a drowned man on a beach. I rolled to the edge of my bed and retched dryly, more battered by that prodigious mind contact than by the beating I’d taken from Rory. The foreignness of the being which had pressed against my mind disrupted me, gagging my thoughts as if I had tried to breathe oil or drink flame. Panting in the dark, I felt the sweat slide down my brow and back and wondered what my errant Skilling had awakened in the world.
SEVENTEEN
Explosions
‘… And overheard a conversation between Erikska and the captain. He complained that the wind battled the ship, as if El himself begrudged bearing their home-coming. Erikska laughed at him, and mocked him for believing in “such old gods. They have grown feeble of muscle and wit. It is the Pale Lady who commands the winds now. As she is displeased with the Narcheska, she makes all of you suffer”. At her words, the captain turned aside from her. His face was angry, as an Outislander looks angry because he hates to show fear.’
Of the handmaid you bid me especially watch, I have seen no sign. Either she has remained within the Narcheska’s cabin for this entire voyage, or she is not aboard this vessel. I think the second is likelier.
— Unsigned report to Chade Fallstar on the Narcheska’s journey home
Sleep was gone. I ended up rising, dressing, and ascending to my tower. It was cold up there, and dark save for a few coals in the fireplace. I lit candles from the embers on the hearth and restored the fire. I damped a cloth in water and held it to my aching face. For a time I just stared into the fire. Then, in a useless effort to distract myself from all the questions I could not answer, I sat down at the table and tried to study the current set of scrolls that Chade had left out on the tabletop. These were the Outislander dragon legends, but there were two there that were new, the ink clean and black on the pale cream vellum. He would not have left them there if he had not wa
nted me to see them. One dealt with a report of a silver-blue dragon seen over Bingtown Harbour during a decisive battle between the Bingtown Traders and the Chalcedeans. The other looked like a child’s practice of the alphabet, the letters sprawling and malformed. But long ago he had taught me several ciphers by which we could leave messages for one another, and this parchment rapidly gave way to my efforts to decode it. Indeed, so simple was the secret of it that I scowled, wondering if Chade were losing his grip on our need for secrecy or if the quality of spies he retained had somehow lessened. For that is what it proved to be, an early report from the spy he had sent off to the Out Islands. It was mostly an account of gossip, rumours and overheard conversations on the Narcheska’s ship during the voyage to the Out Islands. I found little that was immediately useful there, though a reference to a Pale Woman did disturb me. It was as if an old shadow out of my previous life had reached out toward me, with claws instead of insubstantial fingers.
I was making myself tea when Chade arrived. He thrust the scroll-rack door open and staggered in. His cheeks and nose were red, and for a shocked moment, I thought the old man was drunk. He clutched at the table edge and seated himself in my chair and said plaintively, ‘Fitz?’
‘What’s happened?’ I asked him as I went to him.
He stared at me, and then said over-loudly, ‘I can’t hear you.’
‘What’s happened to you?’ I asked again, more loudly.
I don’t think he heard those words either, but he explained, ‘It blew up. I was working on that same mix, the one I showed you at your cottage. This time it worked too well. It blew up!’ He lifted his hands to his face, patting at his cheeks and brow. His face was tragic. I immediately knew what troubled him. I went and got him a looking-glass. He stared into it while I fetched a fresh basin of water and a cloth. I wet it for him, and he held it against his face for a moment. When he took it away, some of the flush had gone from his skin, but most of his eyebrows had, also.
‘It looks as if a great flash of fire hit you. Part of you hair is singed, too.’
‘What?’
I motioned to him to lower his voice.
‘I can’t hear you,’ he repeated plaintively. ‘My ears are ringing as if my stepfather had boxed them for me. Gods, I hated that man!’
That he spoke of him at all was a measure of his distress. Chade had never told me much about his childhood. He lifted his hands and fingered his ears as if to be sure they were still there, and then plugged and unplugged them with his fingers. ‘I can’t hear,’ he repeated yet again. ‘But my face isn’t too bad, is it? I’m not going to be scarred, am I?’
I shook my head at him. ‘Your eyebrows will grow back. This—’ I touched his cheek lightly, ’seems no worse than a sunburn or wind-scald. It will go away. And I think your deafness will pass, also.’ I had no basis for saying the last, save that I hoped it so devoutly.
‘I can’t hear you,’ he agonized.
I patted his shoulder comfortingly and put my cup of tea in front of him. I touched my mouth to draw his attention to my lips and then said carefully, ‘Is your apprentice all right?’ Well I knew he would not be conducting such experiments alone at such an hour.
He watched my mouth move, and after a moment he seemed to comprehend my words because he said, ‘Don’t worry about that. I took care of her.’ Then, at my shocked look at his use of the feminine pronoun, he exclaimed angrily, ‘Mind your own business, Fitz!’
His irritation was directed more at himself than at me, and if I had not been so worried about him, I would have laughed. Her. So I’d been replaced with a girl. I reined my mind away from considering who she was, or why Chade had chosen her, to giving Chade what comfort I could. After a time, I ascertained that Chade could hear me, but not well. I tried to convey to him that I hoped his hearing would recover. He nodded and waved a hand dismissively, but I could see the haunting worry in his eyes. If his deafness remained, it would severely compromise his ability to counsel the Queen.
Nevertheless, he bravely tried to ignore his injury, asking me loudly if I’d seen the scrolls on the table, and then asking me what on earth I’d done to my face. To keep him from shouting more questions, I wrote down brief answers to his questions. I dismissed my injuries as the result of getting accidentally involved in a random tavern brawl. He was too preoccupied with his own problems to question that. Next he wrote on the scrap of paper we were using, ‘Did you speak with Burrich?’
‘I judged it best not to,’ I inked in reply. He pursed his lips, sighed, and said nothing, but I could tell that there was much he wished to say. He’d save it for later when conversation might be easier. Then we went over the spy-scrolls, pointing out interesting bits to one another even as we agreed that there was nothing there that was immediately useful. Chade wrote that he was hoping to hear soon from a spy that he’d sent out to Aslevjal Isle, to see if there was any scrap of truth to the legend.
I wanted to discuss my progress with Thick and Dutiful, but deferred that not only on account of his dampened hearing but because I was still trying to sort out how well I was doing. I’d already decided that I’d take my efforts with Thick further tomorrow.
It was then that I realized tomorrow was nearly upon us. Chade seemed to realize the same thing. He told me that he would seek his own bed, and plead a stomach affliction when the servant came to wake him.
I had no such luxury of bed rest. Instead, I retreated to my room to put on fresh clothing before I made the trek to Verity’s tower to await my students. I am sure I dreaded the day’s lesson more than either of them, for my head still pounded. I clenched my brow against it as I built a fire in the tower hearth and kindled some candles on the table. Sometimes I could not recall the last time I had been completely free of Skill-pain. I considered going back to my room for elfbark. When I rejected the notion, it was not because I feared it would damage my ability to Skill. It was that I connected the drug too strongly with my stupid quarrel with the Fool. No. No more of that.
I heard Dutiful’s footfall on the stair outside the door, and there was no time to ponder such things any more. He shut the door firmly behind him and came to the table. I sighed silently. His posture plainly said that he had not completely forgiven me. The first words out of his mouth were, ‘I don’t want to learn the Skill with a half-wit as my partner. There must be someone else.’ Then he stared at me. ‘What happened to you?’
‘I got in a fight.’ I made the reply short, to let him know that was as much as I would say. ‘And as far as Thick working with you on the Skill, I know of no other suitable candidates. He’s our only choice.’
‘Oh, he can’t be. Have you made an organized search for ones?’
‘No.’
Then, before I could say anything further, he picked up the little figurine from the table. The chain dangled from it. ‘What’s this?’ he asked.
‘It’s yours. You found it on that beach where we encountered an Other. Don’t you remember it?’
‘No.’ He stared at it with dread. Then, unwillingly, ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’ He swayed in his chair, looking at it. ‘It’s Elliania, isn’t it? What does it mean, Tom? That I found it there, before I’d ever even met her?’
‘What?’ I held out my hand for it, but he didn’t seem to notice. Instead he just sat, staring at it. I got up and walked around the table. When I looked at the small face and the coils of black hair, and bared breasts and the black, black eyes, I suddenly saw he was right. It was Elliania. Not as she was now, but as she would be, when she was a woman grown. The blue ornament carved in the woman’s hair was identical to the one that the Narcheska had worn. I drew a deep breath. ‘I don’t know what it means.’
The Prince spoke as a man does when he dreams. He looked down into the doll’s face. ‘That place where we were, that beach… it was like a vortex. Like a whirlpool that draws magic to itself. All sorts of magic.’ He closed his eyes for an instant. He still clutched the carved figurine in his hand. ‘I nearly died
there, didn’t I? The Skill sucked me in and pulled me to pieces. But you came after me and… someone helped you. Someone—’ He groped helplessly for a word. ‘Someone great. Someone bigger than the sky.’
It was not how I would have expressed it, but I knew what he meant. I suddenly recognized how reluctant I had been to discuss the events on the beach or even think about them. There was a nimbus around the hours we had spent there, a light that obscured rather than illuminated. It filled me with dread. It was why I hadn’t shown the feathers to the Fool or discussed them with anyone. They were a vulnerability. They were a door to the unknown. When I picked them up, I had set something larger in motion, something that was beyond anyone’s controlling. Even now, my mind cringed away, as if by refusing to remember, I could undo those events.
‘What was that? Who was it, that we encountered there?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said shortly.
A deep enthusiasm suddenly kindled in the Prince’s eyes. ‘We have to find out.’
‘No. We don’t.’ I took a breath. ‘In fact, I think we should be very careful to avoid finding out.’
He stared at me in consternation. ‘But why? Don’t you remember what it felt like? How wonderful it was?’
I remembered only too well, especially now that we spoke of it together. I shook my head, and suddenly wished I’d kept the figurine hidden. The sight of her was pulling all the memories back into my mind, just as a familiar perfume or the few notes of a song will suddenly recall all of an evening’s foolishness. ‘Yes. It was wonderful. And it was dangerous. I didn’t want to come back from there, Dutiful. Neither did you. She made us.’
‘She? It wasn’t a she. It was like… like a father. Strong and safe. Caring.’
‘I don’t think it was either of those things,’ I said unwillingly. ‘I think that we each shaped it into what we wanted it to be.’
