by Robin Hobb
‘Where is Bee?’ I demanded of him.
His good eye found me and wandered over my face. He gave a small nod to himself. ‘The Unexpected Son. But I expected you.’ He coughed out a small laugh. ‘The upper cells were where I saw her last. Is this another rescue?’
‘It is.’ I turned.
Behind me, I heard him say, ‘I hope this one is better than the last one.’ As I moved away he called, more loudly than I liked, ‘There are others up there in those rooftop cells. Free them.’
‘Fitz?’ Spark whisper-shouted after me.
‘Free him. Then search for the hidden tunnel. I’ll be back with Bee.’
I didn’t wait for their objections. I crossed the room at a run. ‘Give me some space,’ I whispered to Lant and Per as I drew out my own lock picks. It was dark, but Chade had made me practise endlessly by touch. I wordlessly thanked the old man as I probed, pushed, and levered until I heard the satisfaction of a latch giving way. ‘Stay back,’ I warned the others.
Again, I eased a door open and peered out. It was the guards’ chamber. A table, four chairs. Dice abandoned beside a half-eaten peach and three cups. I slipped into the room. There was fading warmth on the chair, and the fruit looked freshly bitten. I went back to the others.
‘Come, but quietly. The guards from this chamber were called away. I fear the whole castle is alerted. They’re searching for an escaped prisoner.’
Another door, another lock, but I picked it quickly. Again, I cautioned them to wait and eased a tall, heavy door open. I peered in both directions down a long curving corridor with many doors. There was no one in sight. On shelves at intervals fat lamps burned some fragrant oil. All was calm.
It was jolting to step from a place of bars and torture and bored guards into a gently-lit corridor, panelled in a white wood I’d never seen before, the floor meticulously clean, with framed portraits on the wall. It was like stepping from a nightmare into a dream.
I weighed my plans. I was not cheered to know that all doors on this level would be locked after the guards had searched each room. If we had to retreat to hiding, there would be nowhere to go. One by one, we slipped out. I led the way. Per was behind me with his short sword out. Lant came last, sword in hand. I carried my knife in my left and the ship’s hatchet in my right. My pathetic invasion force, challenging a fortified stronghold. But there was no other choice. The corridor curved gently away from me in both directions. At wide intervals, there were tall double doors covered with decorative carving. All was quiet. I recalled what the Fool had told me as we created our map. This ground floor would be audience chambers and waiting rooms and private greeting rooms for very important guests. There were several stairs to the next level. I chose to go to the right.
I tested the first two doors we passed. Locked. I hoped that meant we were following the patrol. But if they turned back this way, we had nowhere to hide.
‘What’s that sound?’ Per demanded.
‘I don’t know.’ It was a muttering, an uneven roar. Lant was looking up, Per behind us. I had no time to worry about it. ‘We have to find Bee.’ I led them on.
We were like rats as we ran, hugging the walls.
Rounding the curve in the corridor, I saw the staircase. A pale grey fog was drifting down it. I slowed, stared, and then smelled it clearly. Smoke. Now I understood. Above us was the roaring laughter of the fire on the upper storeys. I heard distant shouts and cries of fear. ‘She’s up there,’ I said, and ran. I took the stairs two at a time. On the first landing, Per passed me. I lost sight of him in the turning of the stairs. I sheathed my knife, hooked my hatchet in my belt and followed.
I heard the slapping of footsteps, coughing and a woman wailing. Four people fled past me, racing down the stairs. ‘Fire!’ one shouted at me as he passed. Behind me I heard Lant shout and assumed they’d collided with him.
What had been haze became grey, stinking smoke. A dozen more steps, and the smoke was strangling me. My eyes streamed. I stumbled, went down to my knees on the steps and found slightly cooler and cleaner air. I pressed my sleeve to my nose and mouth and crawled three steps higher. It was only smoke. How could it stop me? I’d reached the top of the stairs. There was a landing. Past it, more steps. I couldn’t see Per. Bee had been on the rooftop. I continued my upward crawl. Where was Per?
I halted, chest pressed to the last step before the landing. To my left was a corridor thick with smoke, cloaking the dark orange glow of a fire. I put my arm across my mouth and breathed through my shirt. Squinting, I made out flames licking a panelled wall. I heard a pop followed by the sound of falling crockery. Fire skated toward me, gliding on oil as if it were ice.
I recoiled, and felt a body under my hand. ‘Per?’ I gasped.
I heard shouts above me, panicked cries for help. Someone trod on me as he staggered down the stairs and two others followed, coughing and blindly stumbling over me. Choking on smoke and desperate to escape, they cared nothing for me or the boy sprawled on the steps.
My eyes streamed so that I could not see and the air was becoming too hot to breathe. I shook Per. ‘Help me,’ he gasped hoarsely.
‘Bee,’ I groaned. If she was up above us, she was likely dead. I wanted to surge to my feet and try to run up those stairs to her. Was she trapped in a cell as smoke choked and flames roared? Dead already? I wanted to die trying to reach her.
If I left him, Per would die.
I seized his arm and crawled backwards down the steps, bumping him along behind me. It took more strength than it should have. As the smoke lessened, I saw that Per had a tight grip on someone else. A child, a young White by his garb, that Per dragged with us. I gasped in a breath. The smoke in my lungs choked me and fought to be released. A shape reared up out of the haze and seized Per’s other arm. Lant. ‘Down!’ he gasped.
Together we thudded Per and the unconscious child down the remaining steps. When we reached the ground floor, I tumbled onto the floor beside them, barking out smoke. I rolled over onto my back and wiped my sleeve across my eyes. The smoke was not gone; it crawled along the high ceiling of this corridor as a thin grey mist. Lant knelt beside me. He would wheeze in a breath and then choke it out. Two other people clattered and staggered down the stairs. A woman exclaimed at sight of us. The man leaning on her said, ‘We must get out!’ They left us, hacking and gasping as they ran.
Per and the child were tangled on the floor between Lant and me. ‘You idiot!’ I wheezed at Per, and then choked. ‘Move! Crawl! We have to get back to the others, and then get out of here.’
Per coughed, opened his eyes, and then closed them again. When he didn’t respond, Lant and I staggered to our feet. We dragged them laboriously away from the stairs.
When the sound and stink of the fire on the upper storeys faded behind us, we halted. Lant and I both sat down, panting cleaner air into our lungs. The top floors would all be ablaze now. Would the stronghouse collapse on top of us? ‘We have to get back to the others,’ I said dully. Our quest to save Bee was over. We had to get out. I staggered upright again and stooped to seize the front of Per’s shirt. ‘Get up!’ I ordered him.
Per coughed and tried to stand up. ‘Bee,’ he gasped.
‘Gone.’ I spoke the horrid truth. ‘We can’t get up there. I doubt she’s still alive.’ My eyes were already stinging and running from the smoke. True tears mingled. It seemed an impossible cruelty that I’d come so close to her and then failed.
‘Bee!’ Per cried out and rolled free of my grip. It unbalanced me and I fell. I had never known that smoke could so disable a man. I crouched on my hands and knees, wheezing. Per tugged at the unconscious child he’d dragged down with us. ‘Bee, I’ve come to save you,’ he said faintly. Then his words shattered into coughing.
The child’s clothes were scorched and smudged with soot and his face disfigured by scars. The flesh around his closed eyes was thickened like that of a veteran brawler. There was a scar on his left brow and a split from a more recent beating at th
e corner of his mouth. The marks spoke of a short life best left behind.
Then the boy opened his eyes and Bee looked at me. We stared at one another. Her mouth formed a word that her breath could not push. ‘Da?’
So small. So scarred. She lifted her hands toward me and life surged through me again. ‘Oh, Bee,’ I said, and had no more words. I reached for her and pulled her to me. Her arms went tight around my neck and I held her close. ‘I will never leave you again!’ I promised her, and her grip on me tightened.
I rose onto my knees, Bee still clasped to me. Per staggered upright. He was weeping. ‘We found her. We saved her,’ he said.
‘You did,’ I told him. With my free hand, I seized Per’s upper arm. ‘Lant! Come on!’ I stood and made a staggering run, dragging poor stumbling Per and jouncing Bee’s face against my collarbone. Lant caught up and took Per’s other arm. Joggling along, bumping into one another, we fled the smoke down the long gently curving corridor until suddenly my head spun and I crashed to my knees. I managed not to drop Bee but Per fell beside me and Lant went to one knee.
‘Oh, Bee,’ I managed to say. I lowered her to the floor. She was gasping spasmodically, as if she had nearly drowned. Her eyes had closed again. But she lived. She lived. I touched her face as Per scrabbled over to us.
‘Bee, please,’ he said. He looked up at me and as if he were a very young child, he pleaded, ‘Make her be alive. Heal her.’
‘She’s alive,’ Lant assured him. He leaned on the wall to stand. Then he stood over us, his sword in his hand again. He’d protect us.
She stared up at me wordlessly. I shook my head, too heart-stricken to find even a word for her. My finger traced the line of Molly’s jaw, touched her mother’s mouth. She coughed and I drew my hand back. No, this was not the little girl I had come to rescue. This scarred and beaten creature was no longer my Bee. I did not know who she was. Still small for her years, as young as I had been when I had begun to act on all Chade had taught me. Bee Farseer. Who was she now?
She rolled her head to look at Per, her breath wheezing in and out. ‘You came. The crow said …’ Her words trailed away.
‘We came to find you,’ Per assured her, and went off into another coughing fit. He reached over and took her hand in his. ‘Bee. You’re safe now. We have you!’
‘None of us is safe, Per. We have to get her out of here.’ No time for reunions and apologies, no time for tender words. I lifted my eyes. I looked up at the panelled ceiling above us and the massive beams that supported it. Wood would burn, but stone did not. Fires always climbed. We might be safe on this level, at least until the heavy timbers that supported the stone scorched and flamed.
Where were we? Had we passed the door and the stairs to the lower levels? We had to find them. Perhaps they’d found the tunnel. If not, we had to fight our way out before the whole stronghouse came down on us.
I coughed again, and rubbed my cuff over my streaming eyes. Time to move. ‘We have to go,’ I told Per. ‘Can you walk?’
‘Of course I can.’ He staggered to his feet, then bent over, hands on his knees, to cough for a long time. I watched him and slowly it came to me that I knew where to go. I knew where to get help. I had that moment of utter relief one has when the obvious solution to a problem becomes clear. It seemed ridiculous that I had not thought of it before. I came to one knee and lifted Bee carefully. She did not weigh much. Through the loose garments she wore, I could feel her ribs and the knobs of her spine. I stood. I began to walk and Per straightened and staggered along at my side. Lant sheathed his sword. I glanced at him and saw that he, too, felt the same relief. I smiled to see that Per held his knife out and ready. I knew we would not need it.
My brother. Where are we going?
More welcome than cool air or fresh water was the touch of Nighteyes on my mind. I felt my spirits lift and suddenly I knew now that everything would be fine. Where have you been? I cried out to him. Why did you abandon me?
I was with the cub. She needed me far more than you did. But once she learned to raise her walls, I could not escape them. My brother, where are we going now? Why are you not running? Where is the Scentless One?
I know a place of safety. I know people who will help us.
I saw them, revealed by the gentle curve of the corridor. A troop of twelve guards, weapons drawn, was coming toward us. Spark and Prilkop were with them, guarded by them on all sides. The Fool hung limp between two guards. Leading the way was a small, stout man with a toadish face and bloodshot eyes. A tall old woman hobbled along behind him, clasping her side and two men, one garbed in green and one in yellow, walked beside her. I smiled to see them, and the small man’s face broke into a grin. He motioned the guards to halt and they did. They awaited us.
‘Vindeliar, I am astonished,’ the old woman said. ‘You are truly a wonder.’
‘You should never have doubted me,’ he replied.
My brother, this is wrong. This joy you feel is false.
‘I am so sorry,’ the woman apologized to their leader. ‘From henceforth, you will be honoured as you deserve.’
The men nodded agreement to that, their faces wreathed in doting smiles.
‘Fitz? What are we doing? They will kill us!’ Per shouted.
Bee lifted her head from my shoulder. ‘Papa!’ she cried out in alarm.
‘Hush. It’s going to be all right,’ I told her.
‘All fine,’ Lant echoed me.
‘No!’ Per shouted the word. ‘No, nothing is all right! What is wrong with you? What is wrong with everyone?’
‘Papa, walls up! Walls up!’
My brother, they deceive you!
I laughed. They were being so foolish. ‘All is well. We are safe now,’ I told them and carried Bee toward the welcoming party.
THIRTY-FIVE
* * *
Confrontations
I am Bee and Bee is me. My mother knew this from the beginning. Sometimes, at the beginning of a dream, I see myself. I am a bee, gold and black, shining like sparks and charcoal. As I fly, my colours grow brighter and brighter, as does an ember when one blows on it. I am so bright I illumine places that are dark, and in those places, I see the important dreams.
From the dream journal of Bee Farseer
It felt like a dream, the simple sleeping kind, in which one dreams of what one wants most. First Per and then my father were with me, dragging me away from smoke and flame. Per spoke to me, and I heard the voice of my first and only true friend. ‘I’ve come to save you.’ The words I’d been longing to hear someone say ever since that wintry night at Withywoods. I could not breathe for smoke and I could not see him but I knew his voice.
But then, magically, it was my father bending over me. He touched my face so softly. Then he picked me up and he was carrying me. I was safe, safe in his arms. He would protect me. He would take me home. He carried me, and I knew his swinging stride from when he had perched me on his shoulders. I put my face into the angle of his neck and smelled strength and safety. His hair was greyer and the lines in his face deeper, but this was my Da and he had come to find me and take me home. I lifted my head to smile down at Perseverance. He was taller than he had been, and he looked stronger. He carried his knife before him, as my father had taught me a knife should be carried.
He turned his head and looked up at my father. ‘Fitz? What are we doing? They will kill us!’
Then the dream became nightmare.
My father carried me toward Vindeliar. Not just walking, hurrying, as if he could not wait to get there. Capra, Fellowdy and Coultrie walked with Vindeliar, and all of them were smiling. Capra clutched her belly, and a slow leak of blood showed on her garments, but still she smiled. They were so pleased with Vindeliar, so certain they had won. I stared. Did they know of my fires roaring two floors above us? I suspected not; Vindeliar had gathered them and brought them here. They knew only what his will was, and his will was my death.
‘Papa!’ I shouted at him.
‘Hush.’ He patted my back. ‘You’re safe Bee. I’m right here.’
I had held my walls so tight and so strong for so long that only now did I touch them and feel the force beating against them. I allowed myself to hear Vindeliar’s lure. Come to me, come to us. Everything will be well. We are your friends. We know what is best. We will help you.
And my father was believing them!
‘Papa! Walls up, walls up!’ I shouted the words desperately as I wriggled to get out of his arms. He looked down at me and slowly a furrow grew between his brows. I think he was starting to realize what Vindeliar was doing to him, but he was doing it too slowly. I kicked free of him, fell as I hit the floor, stood up and pulled his big knife from its sheath.
‘Kill her!’ Vindeliar shrieked as he saw me seize the weapon. ‘Kill Bee now!’ Not only his voice but his magic pushed that thought, and the eyes of every person advancing toward us narrowed with hatred as they looked at me. The guards drew their swords and even Capra drew a little belt-knife. I looked up at my father, fearing to see that he, too, would have been turned against me by Vindeliar’s magic, but instead I saw a terrible blankness on his face. I turned to face them, alone.
‘No!’
Perseverance pushed me to one side as he charged forward. Not for an instant did he hesitate. The full force of his body was behind his knife as he drove it into Vindeliar. Both went down, and Perseverance planted a knee on Vindeliar’s chest. I saw Per’s elbow draw back and then punch the knife forward again. Vindeliar’s terrible pain burst in my mind, edging my thoughts in red. His desperate magic leapt in a new direction.
No! Stop, drop the knife, no, don’t kill me, don’t hurt me!
So powerful was that sending that my father’s knife fell from my suddenly nerveless hands. I was seized with the necessity of not hurting Vindeliar.