by Robin Hobb
Verity gave a small laugh. “I have no Skill, you have no Skill, but if we did, we could heal one another. Woman, this is like a tangle of rope with no ends. How is the knot to be undone, save with a sword?”
“We have a sword, my king. FitzChivalry. The Catalyst. ”
“Ah. That old legend. My father was fond of it. ” He looked at me consideringly. “Do you think he is strong enough? My nephew August was Skill-burned and never recovered. For him, I sometimes thought it a mercy. The Skill was leading him down a path ill-suited to him. I think I suspected then that Galen had done something to the coterie. But I had so much to do. Always so much to do. ”
I sensed my king’s mind wavering. I stepped forward resolutely. “My lord, what is it you wish me to attempt?”
“I wish you to attempt nothing. I wish you to do. There. That is what Chade often said to me. Chade. Most of him is in the dragon now, but that is a bit I left out. I should put that in the dragon. ”
Kettle stepped closer to him. “My lord, help me to free my Skill. And I will help you to fill the dragon. ”
There was something in the way she said those words. She spoke them aloud before us all, yet I felt that only Verity truly knew what she said. At last, very reluctantly, he nodded. “I see no other way,” he said to himself. “No other way at all. ”
“How am I to do a thing, when I don’t even know what that thing is?” I complained. “My king,” I added, at a rebuking look from Kettricken.
“You know as much as we do,” Verity rebuked me quietly. “Kestrel’s mind was burned with the Skill, by her own coterie, to condemn her to isolation for the rest of her life. You must use what Skill you have in any way you can, to try to break through the scarring. ”
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“I have no idea how to begin,” I began. But then Kettle turned and looked at me. There was pleading in her old eyes. Loss, and loneliness. And Skill-hunger that had built to the point at which it was devouring her from within. Two hundred and twenty-three years, I thought to myself. It was a long time to be exiled from one’s homeland. An impossible time to be confined to one’s own body. “But I will try,” I amended my words. I put out my hand to her.
Kettle hesitated, then set her hand in mine. We stood, clasping hands, looking at one another. I reached for her with the Skill, but felt no response. I looked at her and tried to tell myself I knew her, that it should be easy to reach Kettle. I ordered my mind and recalled all I knew of the irascible old woman. I thought of her uncomplaining perseverance, of her sharp tongue, and her clever hands. I recalled her teaching me the Skill game, and how often we had played it, heads bent together over the gamecloth. Kettle, I told myself sternly. Reach for Kettle. But my Skill found nothing there.
I did not know how much time had passed. I only knew that I was very thirsty. “I need a cup of tea,” I told her, and let go of her hand. She nodded at me, keeping her disappointment well hidden. It was only when I let go her hand that I became aware of how the sun had moved above the mountaintops. I heard again the scrape, scrape, scrape of Verity’s sword. Kettricken still sat, silently watching him. I did not know where the others had gone. Together we left the dragon and walked down to where our fire still smoldered. I broke wood into pieces as she filled the kettle. We said little as it heated. There were still herbs that Starling had gathered earlier for tea. They were wilted, but we used them, and then sat drinking our tea together. The scraping of Verity’s sword against the stone was a background noise, not unlike an insect sound. I studied the old woman beside me.
My Wit-sense told me of a strong and lively life within her. I had felt her old woman’s hand in my own, the flesh soft on the swollen, bony fingers save where work had callused her skin. I saw the lines in her face around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. Old, her body said to me. Old. But my Wit-sense told me that there sat a woman of my own years, lively and wild-hearted, yearning for love and adventure and all that life might offer. Yearning, but trapped. I willed myself to see, not Kettle, but Kestrel. Who had she been before she had been buried alive? My eyes met hers. “Kestrel?” I asked her suddenly.
“So I was,” she said quietly, and her grief was still fresh. “But she is no more, and has not been for years. ”
When I said her name, I had almost sensed her. I felt I held the key, but did not know where the lock was. There was a nudge at the edge of my Wit. I looked up, annoyed at the interruption. It was Nighteyes and the Fool. The Fool looked tormented and I ached for him. But he could not have picked a worse time to come to speak to me. I think he knew it.
“I tried to stay away,” he said quietly. “Starling told me what you were doing. She told me all that was said while I was gone. I know I should wait, that what you do is vital. But . . . I cannot. ” He suddenly had trouble meeting my eyes. “I betrayed you,” he whispered softly. “I am the Betrayer. ”
Linked as we were, I knew the depth of his feelings. I tried to reach through that, to make him feel what I felt. He had been used against me, yes, but it was no doing of his own. But I could not reach him. His shame, guilt, and remorse stood between us, and blocked him from my forgiveness. Blocked him, too, from forgiving himself.
“Fool!” I suddenly exclaimed. I smiled at him. He looked horrified that I could smile at all, least of all at him. “No, it is all right. You have given me the answer. You are the answer. ” I took a breath and tried to think carefully. Go slowly, be careful, I cautioned myself, and then, No, I thought. Now. Now is the only time in which to do this. I bared my left wrist. I held it out to him, my palm up. “Touch me,” I commanded him. “Touch me with the Skill on your fingers, and see if I feel you have betrayed me. ”
“No!” Kettle cried, aghast, but the Fool was already reaching for me like a man in a dream. He took my hand in his right hand. Then he laid three silver fingertips against my upturned wrist. As I felt the cold burn of his fingers on my wrist, I reached over and grabbed Kettle’s hand. “KESTREL!” I cried aloud. I felt the stir of her, and I pulled her into us.
I was the Fool and the Fool was me. He was the Catalyst and so was I. We were two halves of a whole, sundered and come together again. For an instant I knew him in his entirety, complete and magical, and then he was pulling apart from me, laughing, a bubble inside me, separate and unknowable, yet joined to me. You do love me! I was incredulous. He had never truly believed it before. Before, it was words. I always feared it was born of pity. But you are truly my friend. This is knowing. This is feeling what you feel for me. So this is the Skill. For a moment he reveled in simple recognition.
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Abruptly, another joined us. Ah, little brother, you find your ears at last! My kill is ever your kill, and we shall be pack forever!
The Fool recoiled at the wolf’s friendly onslaught. I thought he would break the circle. Then suddenly he leaned into it. This? This is Nighteyes? This mighty warrior, this great heart?
How to describe that moment? I had known Nighteyes so completely for so long, it shocked me to see how little the Fool had known of him.
Hairy? That was how you saw me? Hairy and drooling?
Your pardon. This from the Fool, quite sincerely. I am honored to know you as you are. I had never suspected such nobility within you. Their mutual approval was almost overwhelming.
Then the world settled around us. We have a task, I reminded them. The Fool lifted his touch from my wrist, leaving behind three silver prints on my skin. Even the air pressed too heavily against that mark. For a time, I had been somewhere else. Now I was once more within my own body. It all had taken but moments.
I turned back to Kettle. It was an effort to look only through my eyes. I still gripped her hand. “Kestrel?” I said quietly. She lifted her gaze to mine. I looked at her and tried to see her as she had once been. I do not think she even knew then of that tiny hair of Skill between us. In the moment of her shock at the Fool touching
me, I had pressed past her guard. It was too fine a line to be called a thread. But I now knew what choked it. “All this guilt and shame and remorse you carry, Kestrel. Don’t you see? That is what they burned you with. And you have added to it, all these years. The wall is of your own making. Take it down. Forgive yourself. Come out. ”
I caught at the Fool’s wrist and held him beside me. Somewhere I felt Nighteyes as well. They were back within their own minds, but I could reach them easily. I drew strength from them, carefully, slowly. I drew their strength and love and turned it against Kettle, trying to force it into her through that tiny chink in her armor.
Tears began to trickle down her seamed cheeks. “I can’t. That is the hardest part. I can’t. They burned me to punish me. But it was not enough. It would never be enough. I can never forgive myself. ”
Skill was starting to seep from her as she reached to me, trying to make me understand. She reached, to clasp my hand between both of hers. Her pain flowed through that clasp to me. “Who could forgive you then?” I found myself asking.
“Gull. My sister Gull!” The name was torn from her, and I sensed she had refused to think of it, let alone utter it, for years. Her sister, not just her coterie-mate, but her sister. And she had killed her in a fury when she had found her with Stanchion. The leader of the coterie?
“Yes,” she whispered, though no words were needed between us now. I was past the burn wall. Strong, handsome Stanchion. Making love to him, body and Skill, an experience of oneness like no other. But then she had come upon them, him and Gull, together, and she had . . .
“He should have known better,” I cried out indignantly. “You were sisters and members of his own coterie. How could he have done that to you? How could he?”
“Gull!” she cried out loud, and for an instant I saw her. She was behind a second wall. Both of them were. Kestrel and Gull. Two little girls, running barefoot down a sandy shore, just out of reach of the icy waves licking up the sand. Two little girls, as like as apple pips, their father’s joy, twins, racing to meet the little boat coming in to shore, hurrying to see what Papa had caught in his nets today. I smelled the salt wind, the iodine of the tangled, squidgy kelp as they dashed through it squealing. Two little girls, Gull and Kestrel, locked and hidden behind a wall inside her. But I could see them even if she could not.
I see her, I know her. And she knew you, through and through. Lightning and thunder, your mother called you, for while your temper flashed and was gone, Gull could carry a grudge for weeks. But not against you, Kestrel. Never against you, and not for years. She loved you, more than either of you loved Stanchion. As you loved her. And she would have forgiven you. She would never have wished this on you.
I . . . don’t know.
Yes, you do. Look at her. Look at you. Forgive yourself. And let the part of her within you live again. Let yourself live again.
She is within me?
Most certainly. I see her, I feel her. It must be so.
What do you feel? Cautiously.
Only love. See for yourself. I took her deep inside her mind, to the places and memories she had denied to herself. It was not the burn-walls her coterie had imposed on her that had hurt her most. It was the ones she had put up between herself and the memory of what she had lost in a moment of fury. Two girls, older now, wading out to seize the line their father threw to them, and helping to pull his laden boat up onto the beach. Two Buck girls, still as alike as apple pips, wanting to be the first ones to tell their Papa they had been chosen for Skill-training.
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Papa said we were one soul in two bodies.
Open, then, and let her out. Let both of you out to live.
I fell silent, waiting. Kestrel was in a part of her memories she had denied for longer than other folk lived. A place of fresh wind and girlish laughter, and a sister so like yourself you scarcely needed to speak to one another. The Skill had been between them from the moment they were born.
I see what I must do now. I felt her overwhelming surge of joy and determination. I must let her out, I must put her into the dragon. She will live forever in the dragon, just as we planned it. The two of us, together again.
Kettle stood up, letting go of my hands so suddenly that I cried out at the shock. I found myself back in my body. I felt I had fallen there from a very great distance. The Fool and Nighteyes were still near me, but no longer a part of a circle. I could scarcely feel them for all else I felt. Skill. Racing through me like a riptide. Skill. Emanating from Kettle like heat from a smith’s furnace. She glowed with it. She wrung her hands, smiled at the straightened fingers.
“You should go and rest now, Fitz,” she told me gently. “Go on. Go to sleep. ”
A gentle suggestion. She did not know her own Skill-strength. I lay back and knew no more.
When I awoke, it was full dark. The weight and warmth of the wolf’s body were comfortable against me. The Fool had tucked a blanket around me and was sitting by me, staring raptly into the fire. When I stirred, he clutched at my shoulder with a sharp intake of breath.
“What?” I demanded. I could make no sense of anything I heard or saw. Fires had been kindled up on the stone dais beside the dragon. I heard the clash of metal against stone, and voices lifted in conversation. In the tent behind me, I heard Starling trying notes on her harp.
“The last time I saw you sleep like that, we had just taken an arrow out of your back and I thought you were dying of infection. ”
“I must have been very tired,” I smiled at him, able to trust he understood. “Are not you wearied? I took strength from you and Nighteyes. ”
“Tired? No. I feel healed. ” He did not hesitate, but added, “I think it is as much that the false coterie has fled my body, as knowing that you do not hate me. And the wolf. Now, he is a wonder. Almost, I can still sense him. ” A very strange smile touched his face. I felt him groping out for Nighteyes. He had not the strength to truly use the Skill or the Wit on his own. But it was unnerving to feel him try. Nighteyes let his tail rise and fall in one slow wag.
I’m sleepy.
Rest then, my brother. I set my hand to the thick fur of his shoulder. He was life and strength and friendship I could trust. He gave one more slow wag to his tail and lowered his head again. I looked back to the Fool and gave a nod toward Verity’s dragon.
“What goes on, up there?”
“Madness. And joy. I think. Save for Kettricken. I think her heart eats itself hollow with jealousy, but she will not leave. ”
“What goes on up there?” I repeated patiently.
“You know more of it than I do,” he retorted. “You did something to Kettle. I could understand part of it, but not all. Then you fell asleep. And Kettle went up there and did something to Verity. I know not what, but Kettricken said it left them both weeping and shaking. Then Verity did something to Kettle. And they both began to laugh and to shout and to cry out it would work. I stayed long enough to watch both of them start attacking the stone around the dragon with chisels and mallets and swords and anything else that was to hand. While Kettricken sits silent as a shadow and watches them mournfully. They will not let her help. Then I came down here and found you unconscious. Or asleep. Whichever you prefer. And I have sat here a long time, watching over you and making tea or taking meat to anyone who yells at me for some. And now you are awake. ”
I recognized his parody of me reporting to Verity, and had to smile. I decided that Kettle had helped Verity unlock his Skill and that work was proceeding on the dragon. But Kettricken. “What makes Kettricken sad?” I asked.
“She wishes she were Kettle,” the Fool explained, in a tone that said any moron would have known that. He handed me a plate of meat and a mug of tea. “How would you feel, to have come this long and weary way, only to have your spouse choose another to help him in his work? He and Kettle chatter back and forth like magpies. All sorts of inconsequent
ial talk. They work and chip, or sometimes, Verity just stands still, his hands pressed to the dragon. And he tells her of his mother’s cat, Hisspit, and of thyme that grew in the garden on the tower. And all the while, Kettle speaks to him, with no break, of Gull who did this, and Gull who did that, and all she and Gull did together. I thought they would cease when the sun went down, but that was the only time that Verity seemed to recall Kettricken was alive. He asked her to bring firewood and make fires for light. Oh, and I think he has allowed her to sharpen a chisel or two for him. ”
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“And Starling,” I said stupidly. I did not like to think of what Kettricken must be feeling. I reined my thoughts away from it.
“She works on a song about Verity’s dragon. I think she has given up on you and me ever doing anything of note. ”
I smiled to myself. “She is never about when I do anything of significance. What we wrought today, Fool, was better than any battle I have ever fought. But she will never understand all of that. ” I cocked my head toward the yurt. “Her harp sounds mellower than I recall it,” I said to myself.
In answer, he lifted his eyebrows and waggled his fingers at me.
My eyes widened. “What have you been doing?” I demanded.
“Experimenting. I think that if I survive all this, my puppets shall be the stuff of legend. I have always been able to look at wood and see what I wished to call forth. These,” and again he waggled his fingers at me, “make it so much easier. ”
“Be cautious,” I pleaded with him.
“Me? I have no caution within me. I cannot be what I am not. Where are you going?”
“Up to see the dragon,” I replied. “If Kettle can work on it, so can I. I may not be as strongly Skilled, but I’ve been linked with Verity for far longer. ”
36
The Wit
and the Sword
THE OUTISLANDERS HAVE always raided the coastline of the Six Duchies. The founder of the Farseer monarchy was, in fact, no more than a raider grown weary of the sea life. Taker’s crew overwhelmed the original builders of the wooden fort at the mouth of the Buck River and made it their own. Over a number of generations, the black stone walls of Buckkeep Castle replaced it, and the OutIslander raiders became residents and monarch.