by Robin Hobb
From a world away I heard Starling cry out in fear, ‘What’s wrong with him?’ And Chade replied gruffly, ‘It’s only a seizure, such as he has from time to time. His head, Fool, hold his head or he’ll dash his own brains out.’ Distantly I felt hands gripping and restraining me. I surrendered myself to their care and sank into the darkness. I came to, for a bit, some time later. I recall little of it. The Fool raised my shoulders and steadied my head that I could drink from a cup a concerned Chade held to my lips. The familiar bitterness of elfbark puckered my mouth. I had a glimpse of Kettle standing over me, lips folded in a tight line of disapproval. Starling stood away, her eyes huge as a cornered animal’s, not deigning to touch me. ‘That should bring him round,’ I heard Chade say as I sank into a deep sleep.
The next morning I arose early despite my pounding head and sought the baths. I slipped out so silently that the Fool did not waken, but Nighteyes arose and ghosted out with me.
Where did you go, last night? he demanded, but I had no answer for him. He sensed my reluctance to think about it. I go to hunt now, he informed me tartly. I advise you to drink but water after this. I assented humbly and he left me at the door of the bathhouse.
Within was the mineral stink of the hot water that bubbled up from the earth. The Mountain folk trapped it in great tanks, and channelled it through pipes to other tubs so that one might choose the heat and depth one wished. I scrubbed myself off in a washing tub, then submerged myself in the hottest water I could stand and tried not to recall the scalding of the Skill on Verity’s forearms. I emerged red as a boiled crab. At the cool end of the bath-hut there were several mirrors on the wall. I tried not to see my own face as I shaved. It reminded me too vividly of Verity’s. Some of the gauntness had left it in the last week or so, but the streak of white at my brow was back and showed even more plainly when I bound my hair back in a warrior’s tail. I would not have been surprised to see Verity’s handprint on my face, or to find my scar eradicated and my nose straightened, such had been the power of that touch. But Regal’s scar on my face stood out pallidly against my steam-reddened face. Nothing had improved the broken nose. There was no outward sign of my encounter last night at all. Again and again, my mind circled back to that moment, to that touch of purest power. I fumbled to recall it and almost could. But the absolute experience of it, like pain or pleasure, could not be recalled in full, but only in pale memory. I knew I had experienced something extraordinary. The pleasures of Skilling, which all Skill-users were cautioned against, were like a tiny ember compared to the bonfire of knowing, feeling and being that I had briefly shared last night.
It had changed me. The anger I had been nursing toward Kettricken and Chade was gutted. I could find the emotion still, but I could not bring it back in force. I had briefly seen, not only my child, but the entire situation from all possible views. There was no malice in their intent, nor even selfishness. They believed in the morality of what they did. I did not. But I could no longer deny entirely the sense of what they sought. It left me feeling soulless. They would take my child away from Molly and me. I could hate what they did, but I could not focus that anger at them.
I shook my head, drawing myself back to the moment. I looked at myself in the mirror, wondering how Kettricken would see me. Did she still see the young man who had dogged Verity’s steps and so often served her at court? Or would she look at my scarred face and think she did not know me, that the Fitz she had known was gone? Well, she knew by now how I had gained my scars. My queen should not be surprised. I would let her judge who stood behind those marks.
I braced my nerves, then turned my back to the mirror. I looked over my shoulder. The centre of injury in my back reminded me of a sunken red starfish in my flesh. Around it the skin was tight and shiny. I flexed my shoulders and watched the skin tug against the scar. I extended my sword arm and felt the tiny pull of resistance there. Well, no sense worrying about it. I pulled on my shirt.
I returned to the Fool’s hut to clothe myself afresh and found to my surprise that he was dressed and ready to accompany me. Clothes were laid out on my cot: a white loose-sleeved shirt of soft warm wool, and dark leggings of a heavier woollen weave. There was a short dark surcoat to match the leggings. He told me that Chade had left them. It was all very simple and plain.
‘It suits you,’ the Fool observed. He himself was dressed much as he did every day, in a woollen robe, but this one was dark blue with embroidery at the sleeves and hem. It was closer to what I had seen the Mountain folk wear. It accentuated his pallor far more than the white one had, and made plainer to my eyes the slight tawniness his skin, eyes and hair were beginning to possess. His hair was as fine as ever. Left to itself, it still seemed to float freely around his face, but today he was binding it back.
‘I did not know Kettricken had summoned you,’ I observed, to which he grimly replied, ‘All the more reason to present myself. Chade came to check on you this morning, and was concerned to find you gone. I think he half fears that you have run off with the wolf again. But in case you had not, he left a message for you. Other than those who have been in this hut, no one in Jhaampe has been told your true name. Much as it must surprise you to find that the minstrel had that much discretion. Not even the healer knows who she healed. Remember, you are Tom the shepherd until such time as Queen Kettricken feels she can speak more plainly to you. Understand?’
I sighed. I understood all too well. ‘I never knew Jhaampe to host intrigue before,’ I observed.
He chuckled. ‘You have visited here only briefly before this. Believe me, Jhaampe breeds intrigues every bit as convoluted as Buckkeep did. As strangers here, we are wise to avoid being drawn into them, as much as we can.’
‘Save for the ones we bring with us,’ I told him, and he smiled bitterly as he nodded.
The day was bright and crisp. The sky glimpsed overhead through the dark evergreen boughs was an endless blue. A small breeze ran alongside us, rattling dry snow crystals across the frozen tops of the snow banks. The dry snow squeaked under our boots and the cold roughly kissed my freshly-shaven cheeks. From further off in the village, I could hear the shouts of children at play. Nighteyes pricked his ears to that, but continued to shadow us. The small voices in the distance reminded me of sea-birds crying and I suddenly missed the shores of Buck acutely.
‘You had a seizure last night,’ the Fool said quietly. It was not quite a question.
‘I know,’ I said briefly.
‘Kettle seemed very distressed by it. She questioned Chade most closely about the herbs he prepared for you. And when they did not rouse you as he had said they would, she went off in her corner. She sat there most of the night, knitting loudly and peering at him disapprovingly. It was a relief to me when they all finally left.’
I wondered if Starling had stayed, but did not ask it. I did not even want to know why it mattered to me.
‘Who is Kettle?’ the Fool asked abruptly.
‘Who is Kettle?’ I asked, startled.
‘I believe I just said that.’
‘Kettle is …’ It suddenly seemed odd that I knew so little about someone I had travelled with so long. ‘I think she grew up in Buck. And then she travelled, and studied scrolls and prophecies, and returned to seek the White Prophet.’ I shrugged at the scantiness of my knowledge.
‘Tell me. Do you find her … portentous?’
‘What?’
‘Do you not feel there is something about her, something that …’ He shook his head angrily. It was the first time I had ever seen the Fool searching for words. ‘Sometime
s, I feel she is significant. That she is wound up with us. Other times, she seems but a nosy old woman with an unfortunate lack of taste in her choice of companions.’
‘You mean me,’ I laughed.
‘No. I mean that interfering minstrel.’
‘Why do you and Starling dislike one another so?’ I asked tiredly.
‘It is not dislike, dear Fitzy. On my part, it is disinterest. Unfortunately, she cannot conceive of a man who could look at her with no interest in bedding her. She takes my simple dismissal of her as an insult, and strives to make of it some lack or fault in me. Whilst I take offence at her proprietary attitude toward you. She has no true affection for Fitz, you know, only for being able to say she knew FitzChivalry.’
I was silent, fearing that what he said was true. And so we came to the palace at Jhaampe. It was as unlike Buckkeep as I could imagine. I have heard it said that the dwellings at Jhaampe owe their origins to the dome-shaped tents some of the nomadic tribes still use. The smaller dwellings were still tent-like enough that they did not startle me as the palace still did. The living heart tree that was its centrepole towered immensely above us. Other secondary trees had been patiently contorted over years to form supports for the walls. When this living framework had been established, mats of bark cloth had been draped gracefully over them to form the basis for the smoothly curving walls. Plastered with a sort of clay and then painted in bright colours, the houses would always remind me of tulip buds or mushroom caps. Despite its great size, the palace seemed organic, as if it had sprouted up from the rich soil of the ancient forest that sheltered it.
Size made it a palace. There were no other outward signs, no flags, no royal guards flanking the doors. No one sought to bar our entrance. The Fool opened the carved wood-framed doors of a side entrance, and we went in. I followed him as he threaded his way through a maze of freestanding chambers. Other rooms were on platforms above us, reached by ladders or, for the grander ones, staircases of wood. The walls of the chambers were flimsy things, with some temporary rooms of no more than barkcloth tapestries stretched on frameworks. The inside of the palace was only slightly warmer than the forest outside. The individual chambers were heated by free-standing braziers in the winter.
I followed the Fool to a chamber whose outer walls were decorated with delicate illustrations of water birds. This was a more permanent room, with sliding wooden doors likewise carved with birds. I could hear the notes of Starling’s harp from within and the murmur of low voices. He tapped at the door, waited briefly and then slid it open to admit us. Kettricken was within, and the Fool’s friend Jofron and several other people I did not recognize. Starling sat on a low bench to one side, playing softly while Kettricken and the others embroidered a quilt on a frame that almost filled the room. A bright garden of flowers was being created on the quilt top. Chade sat not far from Starling. He was dressed in a white shirt and dark leggings with a long wool vest, gaily embroidered, over the shirt. His hair was pulled back in a grey warrior’s tail, with the leather band on his brow bearing the buck sigil. He looked decades younger than he had at Buckkeep. They spoke together more softly than the music.
Kettricken looked up, needle in hand, and greeted us calmly. She introduced me to the others as Tom, and politely asked if I were recovering well from my injury. I told her I was, and she bade me be seated and rest myself a bit. The Fool circled the quilt, complimented Jofron on her stitchery, and when she invited him, he took a place beside her. He took up a needle and floss, threaded it and began adding butterflies of his own invention to one corner of the quilt while he and Jofron talked softly of gardens they had known. He seemed very at ease. I felt at a loss, sitting idly in a room full of quietly occupied people. I waited for Kettricken to speak to me, but she went on with her work. Starling’s eyes met mine and she smiled, but stiffly. Chade avoided my glance, looking past me as if we were strangers.
There was conversation in the room, but it was soft and intermittent, mostly requests for a skein of thread to be passed, or comments on each other’s work. Starling played the old familiar Buck ballads, but wordlessly. No one spoke to me or paid me any mind. I waited.
After a time, I began to wonder if it were a subtle form of punishment. I tried to remain relaxed, but tension repeatedly built up in me. Every few minutes I would remember to unclench my jaws and loosen my shoulders. It took some time for me to see a similar anxiety in Kettricken. I had spent many times attending my lady in Buckkeep when she had first come to court. I had seen her lethargic at her needlework, or lively in her garden, but now she sewed furiously, as if the fate of the Six Duchies depended on her completing this quilt. She was thinner than I recalled, the bones and planes of her face showing more plainly. Her hair, a year after she had cut it to mourn Verity, was still too short for her to confine it well. The pale strands of it constantly crept forward. There were lines in her face, around her eyes and mouth and she frequently chewed on her lips, a thing I had never seen her do before.
The morning seemed to drag on, but finally one of the young men sat up straight, then stretched and declared his eyes were getting too weary to do any more today. He asked the woman at his side if she had a mind to hunt with him today, and she readily agreed. As if this were some sort of signal, the others began to rise and stretch and make their farewells to Kettricken. I was struck at their familiarity with her, until I recalled that here she was not regarded as Queen, but as eventual Sacrifice to the Mountains. Her role among her own folk would never be seen as that of ruler, but as guide and co-ordinator. Her father King Eyod was known among his own folk as the Sacrifice, and was expected to be ever and always unselfishly available to his folk to help in any way they might require. It was a position that was both less regal than that of Buck royalty, and more beloved. I wondered idly if it might not have suited Verity more to have come here and been Kettricken’s consort.
‘FitzChivalry.’
I looked up to Kettricken’s command. Only she, I, Starling, Chade, and the Fool remained in the room. I almost looked to Chade for direction. But his eyes had excluded me earlier. I sensed I was on my own here. The tone of Kettricken’s voice made this a formal interview. I stood straight, and then managed a rather stiff bow. ‘My queen, you summoned me.’
‘Explain yourself.’
The wind outside was warmer than her voice. I glanced up at her eyes. Blue ice. I lowered my gaze and took a breath. ‘Shall I report, my queen?’
‘If it will explain your failures, do so.’ That startled me. My eyes flew to hers, but though our glances met, there was no meeting. All the girl in Kettricken had burned away, as the impurities are burned and beaten from iron ore in a foundry. With it seemed to have gone any feeling for her husband’s bastard nephew. She sat before me as ruler and judge, not friend. I had not expected to feel that loss so keenly.
Despite my better judgment, I let ice creep into my own voice. ‘I shall submit to my queen’s judgment on that,’ I offered.
She was merciless. She had me start not with my own death, but days before that, when we had first begun plotting to whisk King Shrewd secretly from Buckkeep and Regal’s reach. I stood before her, and had to admit that the Coastal Dukes had approached me with the offer of recognizing me as King-in-Waiting rather than Regal. Worse, I had to tell her that although I had refused that, I had promised to stand with them, assuming the command of Buckkeep Castle and the protection of Buck’s coast. Chade had once warned me that it was as close to treason as made
no difference. But I was tired to death of all my secrets, and I relentlessly bared them. More than once I wished Starling were not in the room, for I dreaded hearing my own words made into a song denouncing me. But if my queen deemed her worthy of confidence, it was not my place to question it.
So on I went, down the weary track of days. For the first time, she heard from me how King Shrewd had died in my arms, and how I had hunted down and killed both Serene and Justin in the Great Hall before everyone. When it came to my days in Regal’s dungeon, she had no pity on me. ‘He had me beaten and starved, and I would have perished there if I had not feigned death,’ I said. It was not good enough for her.
No one, not even Burrich, had known a full telling of those days. I steeled myself and launched into it. After a time, my voice began to shake. I faltered in my telling. Then I looked past her at the wall, took a breath, and went on. I glanced at her once, to find her gone white as ice. I stopped thinking of the events behind my words. I heard my own voice dispassionately relating all that had happened. I heard Kettricken draw in her breath when I spoke of Skilling to Verity from my cell. Other than that, there was not a sound in the room. Once my eyes wandered to Chade. I found him sitting, deathly still, his jaw set as if he endured some torment of his own.
I forged my way on through the story, telling without judgment of my own resurrection by Burrich and Chade, of the Wit-magic that made it possible and of the days that followed. I told of our angry parting, of my journeys in detail, of the times when I could sense Verity and the brief joinings we shared, of my attempt on Regal’s life, and even of how Verity had unwittingly implanted into my soul his command to come to him. On and on, my voice getting huskier as my throat and mouth dried with the telling. I did not pause nor rest until I had finished telling her of my final staggering trek into Jhaampe. And when at last my full tale of days was told out to her, I continued to stand, emptied and weary. Some people say there is a relief in the sharing of cares and pains. To me there was no catharsis, only an unearthing of rotting corpses of memories, a baring of still suppurating wounds. After a time of silence, I found the cruelty to ask, ‘Does my account excuse my failures, my queen?’