by Robin Hobb
Patience took down a basket and began loading the medicines into it. ‘Well, what are you standing about for?’ she snapped at me as I waited. ‘Go back to your room and see what you can do for him. We’ll be up in a moment with these.’
I spoke bluntly. ‘I don’t think he’ll let you help.’
‘We’ll see,’ Patience said calmly. ‘Now go see that there is hot water.’
The buckets of water I had asked for were outside my door. By the time the water in my kettle was boiling, people had begun to converge on my room. Cook sent up two trays of food, and warmed milk as well as hot tea. Patience arrived and began to set out her herbs on my clothing chest. She quickly sent Lacey to fetch a table for her, and two more chairs. Burrich slept on in my chair, deeply asleep despite occasional bouts of shivering.
With a familiarity that astounded me, Patience felt his forehead, then searched under the angle of his jaw for swelling. She crouched slightly to look into his sleeping face. ‘Burr?’ she queried quietly. He did not even twitch. Very gently, she stroked his face. ‘You are so thin, so worn,’ she grieved softly. She damped a cloth in warm water and gently wiped his face and hands as if he were a child. Then she swept a blanket off my bed and tucked it carefully about his shoulders. She caught me staring at her, and glared at me. ‘I need a basin of warmed water,’ she snapped. As I went to fill one, she crouched before him and calmly took out her silver shears and snipped up the side of the bandaging wrapping his leg. The stained wrappings did not look as if they had been changed since his dunk in the river. It went up past his knee. As Lacey took the basin of warmed water and knelt next to her, Patience opened the soiled bandaging as if it were a shell.
Burrich came awake with a groan, dropping his head forward onto his chest as his eyes opened. For a moment he was disoriented. He looked at me standing over him, and then at the two women crouched by his leg. ‘What?’ was all he managed.
‘This is a mess,’ Patience told him. She rocked back on her heels and confronted him as if he’d tracked muck on a clean floor. ‘Why haven’t you at least kept it clean?’
Burrich glanced down at his leg. Old blood and river silt were caked together over the swollen fissure down his knee. He recoiled visibly from it. When he replied to Patience, his voice was low and harsh. ‘When Ruddy took me into the river, we lost everything. I had no clean bandaging, no food, nothing. I could have bared it and washed it, and then frozen it. Do you think that would have improved it?’
‘Here is food,’ I said abruptly. It seemed the only way to prevent their quarrelling was to prevent them from talking to each other. I moved the small table laden with one of Cook’s trays over beside him. Patience stood to be out of his way. I poured him a mug of the warmed milk and put it into his hands. They began to shake slightly as he raised it to his mouth. I had not realized how hungry he was.
‘Don’t gulp that!’ Patience objected. Both Lacey and I shot her warning looks. But the food seemed to take Burrich’s attention completely. He set down the mug and took a warm roll that I had slathered butter onto. He ate most of it in the space of time it took me to refill his mug. It was odd to see him begin to shake once he had the food in his hands. I wondered how he had managed to hold himself together before that.
‘What happened to your leg?’ Lacey asked him gently. Then, ‘Brace yourself,’ she warned him, and placed a warm, dripping cloth onto his knee. He gave a shudder and went paler, but refrained from making a sound. He drank some more milk.
‘An arrow,’ he said at last. ‘It was just damnably bad luck that it struck where it did. Right where that boar ripped me, so many years ago. And it lodged against the bone. Verity cut it out for me.’ He leaned back suddenly in the chair, as if the memory sickened him. ‘Right on top of the old scar,’ he said faintly. ‘And every time I bent my knee, it pulled open and bled some more.’
‘You should have kept the leg still,’ Patience observed sagely. All three of us stared at her. ‘Oh, I suppose you couldn’t, really,’ she amended.
‘Let’s take a look at it now,’ Lacey suggested and reached for the wet cloth.
Burrich fended her off with a gesture. ‘Leave it. I’ll see to it myself, after I’ve eaten.’
‘After you’ve eaten, you’ll rest,’ Patience informed him. ‘Lacey, please move aside.’
To my amazement, Burrich said nothing more. Lacey stepped back, out of the way, and Lady Patience knelt before the Stablemaster. He watched her, a strange expression on his face, as she lifted the cloth away. She damped the corner of the cloth in clean water, wrung it out, and deftly sponged the wound. The warm wet cloth had loosened the crusted blood. Cleaned, it did not look as evil as it had at first. It was still a nasty injury, and the hardships that Burrich had endured would complicate its healing. The parted flesh gaped and proud flesh had formed where it should have closed. But everyone visibly relaxed as Patience cleaned it. There was redness, and swelling, and infection at one end. But there was no putrefaction, no darkening of the flesh around it. Patience studied it a moment. ‘What do you think?’ she asked aloud, of no one in particular. ‘Devil’s club root? Hot, mashed in a poultice? Do we have any, Lacey?’
‘Some, my lady,’ and Lacey turned to the basket they had brought and began to sort through it.
Burrich turned to me. ‘Are those pots from my room?’
At my nod, he nodded in return. ‘I thought so. That fat little brown one. Bring it here.’
He took it from my hands and lifted the stopper from its mouth. ‘This. I had some of this, when I set out from Buckkeep, but it was lost with the pack-animals, during the first ambush.’
‘What is it?’ Patience asked. She came, devil’s club root in hand, to gaze curiously.
‘Chickweed and plantain leaves. Simmered in oil, then worked with beeswax into a salve.’
‘That should work well,’ she conceded. ‘After the root poultice.’
I braced myself for his argument, but he only nodded. He suddenly looked very tired. He leaned back and pulled the blanket more closely about himself. His eyes sagged shut.
There was a knock at my door. I went to answer it, and found Kettricken standing there, with Rosemary at her elbow. ‘One of my ladies told me there was a rumour that Burrich had returned,’ she began. Then she looked past me into the room. ‘It’s true, then. And he’s hurt? What of my lord, oh, what of Verity?’ She went suddenly paler than I thought she could be.
‘He’s fine,’ I reassured her. ‘Come in.’ I cursed myself for my thoughtlessness. I should have sent word to her immediately of Burrich’s return and of the tidings he carried. I should have known that otherwise she would not be told. As she entered, Patience and Lacey looked up from the devil’s club root they were steaming, to welcome her with quick curtsies and murmurs of greeting.
‘What’s happened to him?’ Kettricken demanded. And so I told her, reporting to her all that Burrich had told King Shrewd, for I thought she had as much right to word of her husband as Shrewd had to word of his son. She blanched again at mention of the attack on Verity, but kept silent until my telling was done. ‘Thank all our gods that he draws closer to my mountains. There he will be safe, from men at least.’ That said, she drew closer to where Patience and Lacey were preparing the root. It had been steamed soft enough to crush into a pliable mass, and they were letting it cool before applying it to the infection.
‘Mountain ash berry makes an excellent wash for such an injury,’ she suggested aloud.
Patience looked up at her shyly. ‘I have heard of that. But this warmed root will do much to draw the infection from th
e wound. Another good wash for proud flesh such as this is raspberry leaf and slippery elm. Or as a poultice.’
‘We have no raspberry leaf,’ Lacey reminded Patience. ‘The damp got into it somehow and it mouldered.’
‘I have raspberry leaf if you are in need of it,’ Kettricken said softly. ‘I had prepared it for a morning tea. It was a remedy my aunt taught me.’ She looked down and smiled oddly.
‘Oh?’ Lacey asked in sudden interest.
‘Oh my dear,’ Patience suddenly exclaimed. She reached to take Kettricken’s hand with a sudden, strange familiarity. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I am. At first I thought it was just … But then I began to have the other signs. Some mornings, even the smell of the sea can make me so miserable. And all I want to do is sleep.’
‘But you should,’ Lacey exclaimed with a laugh. ‘As for the queasiness, it passes, after the first few months.’
I stood very still, foreign, excluded, forgotten. All three women suddenly laughed together. ‘No wonder you were so anxious to have word of him. Did he know, before he left?’
‘I did not even suspect it then. I so long to tell him, to watch his face.’
‘You’re with child,’ I said stupidly. They all turned to look at me, and then burst out laughing anew.
‘It’s a secret, still,’ Kettricken cautioned me. ‘I want no rumours before the King has been told. I want to be the one to tell him.’
‘Of course not,’ I assured her. I did not tell her that the Fool already knew, and had known for days. Verity’s child, I thought to myself. A sudden strange shivering raced over me. The branching of the path that the Fool had seen, the sudden multiplying of possibilities. One factor emerged above all others: the sudden removal of Regal, pushed one more step away from the throne. One more small life standing between him and the power he craved. How little he would care for that.
‘Of course not,’ I repeated more heartily. ‘This news is best kept an absolute secret.’ For once it was out, I had no doubt that Kettricken would be in as much danger as her husband.
TWENTY-THREE
Threats
That winter saw Bearns devoured slowly, as a cliff is eaten by storm tides. At first, Duke Brawndy sent tidings to Kettricken on a regular basis. Word came to her by liveried messengers coming on horseback directly from the Duke. At first the tidings they brought were optimistic. Her opals rebuilt Ferry. The folk there sent her not only their thanks, but a small chest of the very tiny pearls so prized by them. Odd. What had been too treasured to be sacrificed even to rebuild their own village was freely offered in thanks to a queen who had surrendered her jewels that they might have shelter. I doubt that the significance of their sacrifice would have meant as much to any other. Kettricken wept over the tiny chest.
Later messengers brought grimmer tidings. Between storms, the Red Ships struck again and again. The messengers reported to Kettricken that Duke Brawndy wondered why the coterie member had left the Red Tower. When Kettricken boldly questioned Serene as to whether this was so, she said it had become too dangerous to keep Will there, for his Skill was too precious to be risked to the Red Ships. The irony was lost on few folk. With each arriving messenger, the news worsened. The Outislanders had established footholds on Hook and Besham Islands. Duke Brawndy assembled fishing vessels and warriors and boldly attacked on his own, but found the Red Ships too well-entrenched there. Ships and warriors perished, and Bearns reported gravely that there were no funds for another expedition. At that juncture, Verity’s emeralds were turned over to Kettricken. She sent them off without a qualm. If they did any good, we did not hear of it. We were not even certain they were ever received. Messages from Bearns became more erratic, and it was soon obvious that there had been tidings sent that we had not received. Communication with Brawndy broke down entirely. After two of her own messengers had been sent forth from Buckkeep, never to return, Kettricken vowed she would risk no more lives. By then, the Raiders from Hook and Besham had begun to harry further down the coast, avoiding the immediate vicinity of Buckkeep, but making feints and challenges to both the north and south of us. To all these raids, Regal remained staunchly indifferent. He claimed he was conserving resources until Verity could return with the Elderlings to drive the Raiders away once and for all. But the merriment and entertainments at Buckkeep became ever more lavish and frequent, and his gifts to his Inland dukes and nobles ever more generous.
By mid-afternoon, Burrich was back in his own chambers. I had wanted to keep him where I could watch over him, but he had scoffed at the idea. Lacey herself had seen to getting his chamber ready, and Burrich had grumbled enough about that. All she had done was to build up the fire, see water brought fresh, the bedding aired and shaken, and the floors swept and fresh rushes strewn. One of Molly’s candles burned in the centre of his table, putting a fresh, piney scent into the musty room. But Burrich had growled that it scarcely felt like his own room. I had left him there, well propped up in bed and with a bottle of brandy close to hand.
I had understood the bottle only too well. As I had helped him through the stables and up to his loft, we had passed one empty stall after another. Not only horses were missing; prime hunting dogs were gone. I had no heart to go look in the mews; I was sure I would find them likewise plundered. Hands had walked beside us, silent but stricken. His efforts were plain. The stables themselves were immaculate, the remaining horses groomed until they shone. Even the empty stalls were scrubbed and whitewashed. But an empty cupboard, no matter how clean, is no comfort to a starving man. I understood that the stables were Burrich’s treasure and home. He had come back to find both looted.
After I left Burrich, I took a walk down to the barns and pens. Here the best of the breeding stock were wintered over. I found them as depleted as the stables. Prize bulls were gone. Of the curly-backed black sheep that used to fill one pen, there were only six ewes and one runty ram left. I was not as aware of what other stock had once been there, but too many pens and stalls were empty at a time of year when all were usually full.
From the barns, I wandered through the storage houses and outbuildings. Outside one, some men were loading sacks of grain into a wagon. Two other wagons, already loaded, stood nearby. I stood a bit, watching them, and then offered to help as the wagon’s load grew higher and the sacks harder to load. They accepted my help readily, and we talked as we worked. I waved them a cheery goodbye when the work was done, and walked slowly back to the keep, wondering why a full warehouse of grain was being loaded into a barge and sent upriver to Turlake.
I decided I would check on Burrich before going back to my own chambers. I climbed the steps to his chambers and was unsettled to find the door ajar. Fearing some sort of treachery, I pushed in, startling Molly who was setting out dishes on a small table beside Burrich’s chair. The sight of her there rattled me, and I stared at her. When I turned to Burrich, I found him watching me.
‘I thought you were alone,’ I said lamely.
Burrich regarded me owlishly. He had made inroads on his bottle of brandy. ‘I thought I would be,’ he said gravely. As ever, he held his spirits well, but Molly was not deceived. Her lips were set in a thin line. She continued with her duties, ignoring me. Instead she spoke to Burrich.
‘I shall not disturb you long. Lady Patience sent me to see that you had hot food, for you ate little this morning. I shall be leaving as soon as I have set out this meal.’
‘And taking my thanks with you,’ Burrich added. His eyes went from me to Mol
ly, sensing awkwardness, and also her displeasure with him. He attempted an apology. ‘I have had a harsh journey, mistress, and my injury gives me some pain. I hope I have not given offence.’
‘It is not my place to take offence at anything you wish to do, sir,’ she replied. She finished setting out the food she had brought. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you, to make you comfortable?’ she asked. There was courtesy in her voice, no more than that. She did not look at me at all.
‘You could accept my thanks. Not just for the food, but also for the candles that freshened my chamber. I understand they are your handiwork.’
I saw her thaw slightly. ‘Lady Patience asked me to bring them here. I was happy to oblige her.’
‘I see.’ The next words he spoke cost him more. ‘Then please extend my thanks to her. And to Lacey as well, I am sure.’
‘I shall. There is nothing more that you need, then? I have errands in Buckkeep Town for Lady Patience. She told me that if there was anything you required from town, I should fetch it for you.’
‘Nothing. But it was kind of her to think of it. Thank you.’
‘You are welcome, sir.’ And Molly, empty basket on her arm, marched out past me as if I were not even there.
Burrich and I were left regarding one another. I glanced after Molly, then tried to put her out of my mind. ‘It’s not just the stables,’ I told him, and briefly reported what I had seen in the barns and warehouses.
‘I could have told you a bit of that,’ he said gruffly. He looked at the food Molly had brought, then poured himself more brandy. ‘As we came down the Buck River road, there were rumours and tidings. Some said Regal sold the beasts and grain off to fund the defence of the coasts. Others that he sent the breeding stock inland to safer pastures in Tilth.’ He drank his brandy down. ‘The best of the horses are gone. I saw that at a glance when I came back. In ten years, I might breed stock up again to the quality of what we had. But I doubt it.’ He poured again. ‘There’s my life’s work gone, Fitz. A man likes to think he’ll leave his touch on the world somewhere. The horses I had brought together here, the blood-lines I was establishing — gone now, scattered throughout the Six Duchies. Oh, not that they won’t improve anything they’re bred to. But I’ll never see what would have come if I’d been allowed to continue. Steady will be studding rangy Tilth mares, no doubt. And when Ember drops her new foal, whoever rubs it off will think it just another horse. For six generations, I’ve been waiting for just that foal. They’ll take the finest coursing horse that’s ever been foaled and hook it to a plough.’