by Robin Hobb
It began to rain. I felt two warm drops fall onto my wrist. No. Blood. My nose was bleeding. I reached up and pinched it shut.
What if it doesn’t stop?
It always stops.
And your body always heals itself.
After a time, I let go of my nose. No more blood. See?
No response.
‘Wolf. Are you still with me?’
A sulky acknowledgement.
A thought came to me. ‘If you had to. If something happened to me, could you go to Bee? And be with her the rest of her life?’
I would be the shadow of a shadow.
‘Could you do it?’
Perhaps. If her walls were down and everything was right. But I would not.
‘Why not?’
Fitz. I am not a thing you can give away. We are interwoven.
I poked the fish out of the fire. With a twig, I dusted off the ash. In a less hungry time, I would have peeled back the skin to reveal the flesh and then discarded the skin. Now I scarcely waited for it to cool before I was juggling steaming chunks of fish to cool them before pushing them into my mouth. After the fish was gone, I went back to the water and drank. I felt better.
I looked up at a clear blue sky. Even in summer, nights in the Mountains were chill. I decided I should get firewood. My path out of the quarry took us past abandoned blocks of cut stone. As I headed toward the forest, Nighteyes spoke. I like that piece.
It’s not very big.
There are only two of us.
To placate him, I walked over to the chunk of rock. I saw why it had been discarded. It had been part of a larger piece that had broken along a thick silver vein. It was gleaming black and richly streaked with threads of Silver. Not near as large as what Verity had used. This stone was about the side of a pony cart. I set my hand on top of it. It was a very strange sensation. Raw Skill-stone was empty, I discovered. Empty and waiting to be filled. It had an indefinable tactile sensation. I wanted to touch it. The sun had warmed it pleasantly. If I’d been a cat, I would have curled up on top of it.
You are so stubborn.
And you are not?
I was as a cub. I wanted to hate you. Do you remember how savage I was when you first saw me in the cage? Even as you were carrying me off, I was trying to bite you through the bars.
You were not much more than a cub. And you’d been treated badly. You had no reason to trust me or listen to what I told you.
True.
He’d been dirty and smelly and bone-thin. Riddled with parasites and full of anger. But that anger was what had drawn us together. Our parallel fury at the paths we were trapped on had linked our minds and for those first few moments, I had not realized our minds were joined. That we had the beginning of a deep Wit-bond, whether we wanted it or not.
‘Oh, cub,’ I said out loud.
So you called me then.
I realized what we had done. The fused memory had poured from us into the stone. I could feel it under my hand and I knew exactly what I would find when I moved my hand. There was a patch of fur on the back of Nighteyes’ neck, where the black guard hairs had a sort of gentle swirl on top of his thick grey-and-black fur. I had a sensory memory of how it had felt to put my hand on him there. Often, I’d put my hand on his back, as we walked side by side, or as we sat on the cliff’s edge looking out over the sea. It had been the natural place for my hand to fall. The touch that had renewed our bond like a repeated vow.
It felt good to feel that again.
Lifting my hand was an act of will. And there it was, on the stone. It was not hair and fur and a warm breathing animal beneath it. But it was exactly the size and the shape of my hand, and where my palm had touched, I could see each individual guard hair.
I drew a deep breath. Not yet. No. I walked away.
Nighteyes was silent within me.
I had to pass our old campsite. Kettricken had been so young. The Fool and I of an age and yet not. Old Kettle with her wise old eyes in their nests of wrinkles and her deep-kept secrets. And Starling. Starling, who could annoy me like a humming gnat. I looked around at the view. The trees were taller. Underfoot, on the stone, only sodden and rotted bits of fabric and line. I kicked at it and turned up a layer that had kept its colour. That blue had been Kettricken’s cloak. I stooped and touched it. My queen, I thought to myself and smiled. I nudged the rotting cloth. Beneath it, the pitted and corroded head of our old hatchet was scarcely recognizable. I stood and walked on.
Beyond it was the place where Verity had carved his dragon. Chips and shards still littered the empty area where his dragon had crouched. He had used a chisel with a rock for a hammer at first, until he had plunged his hands into raw Skill and carved and shaped with them. My king. Had he truly told me it was time to carve my dragon? Told me it was time to surrender Bee to someone else’s care? Time to surrender my man’s body for one of stone and Skill?
No. Tomorrow, with the dawn, I would be up and fishing. I would catch a dozen, and eat them all. Then I would catch still more and smoke them and the next morning I would begin my walk to the abandoned market pavilion. I wondered if winter had killed the old bear, or if he would trouble me.
We will die before you get there. Fitz. I know these things. Why won’t you listen to me?
I can’t.
And that was the truth. I could not let go of the hope that I could go home to Bee. Worms were not so terrible an affliction. Burrich had known half a dozen cures for them. The healers in Buckkeep grew all the herbs in the Women’s Garden. Once I reached home, I would rest and grow strong again. Bee and I would be together. We’d leave the court and all its rules. We would travel by horseback. We’d go from keep to keep, as if we were travelling minstrels and she would learn the history and geography of the Six Duchies by seeing them. The Fool would go with us, and Per. We would live simply and move easily and we would be happy.
I won’t watch you die.
I don’t intend to die.
Does anyone?
I gathered an armload of firewood. There were plenty of fallen branches. I had no way to cut the larger one. I smiled as I recalled how Verity had returned an edge to his sword before giving it to me. I went back for the corroded hatchet head. I handled it, remembering it, and then pushed the rust and corrosion away. I slid the blade between my thumb and forefinger, imagining a fresh edge. Fitting a haft to it took longer. But with it, I chopped a good supply of thicker branches, took an armful and carried it back to my fire. I could smell the fish I had cooked and wished there were more of it. I added a stick or two of wood to my fire and sat down beside it.
I jolted awake in the dead of night. I was lying on cold stone and my fire was nearly dead. I built it up again. I was glad I had enough wood to get through the night, for I had no desire to go blundering through the dark to find the chopped supply I’d left behind. I waited for the wolf to rebuke me for my stupidity and laziness.
He didn’t.
It took some time for me to realize he was gone. Just gone.
I was alone.
FORTY-SEVEN
* * *
A Wolf’s Heart
Revel, if you would, please ride into Oaksbywater today. Marly the leatherworker sent word that my order is ready. I trust you to judge its quality and accept it or ask her to re-do the work. Be sure to see that the pages are well bound to the cover, and that the paper is of a good quality, and that the embossing on the cover is cleanly impressed. Please deliver it only to me, if you find it worth the coin we spent. It is a gift for Mistress Bee and I wish to surprise her with it myself.
Among Revel’s papers at Withywoods
I continued to see Thick every night, although it made me very stupid and dull during the days. I did not care that I was chided for not knowing my Chalcedean verbs, and that I had to pick out all my embroidery stitches for making the daisies green. Every night, I went to my bed, and slept a short time before his music would gently wake me. I would hurry down the hall in my night ro
be for the best hours of my life.
I wanted to give him something. Anything. The bright kerchiefs I had bought for Revel were still in my wardrobe. It took a long time for me to decide that I could give them to Thick. But even those were not enough to express what I felt for the kindly old man. I had ink and brushes for my dream journal. With great care, I sliced a page from it and drew Smokey dancing after the spool. I coloured him, his green eyes and black pupils, his grey fur and tiny white claws.
Thick was delighted with my gifts. He promised he could keep them secret.
I returned to my room and crawled into my bed, tired and happy.
I awoke when Spark sat down on the foot of my bed. ‘Bee. Wake up!’ she ordered me.
‘What? It’s you! Where have you been? I’ve missed you!’
‘Shh.’ She tilted her head toward the adjoining chamber where Caution snored on. ‘I’m here at Buckkeep Castle. I’m busy with many things. When we returned, Lady Nettle took me aside. Lord Riddle had endorsed me. I watch over you. I keep you safe.’
‘Because I ran away on Pris that day?’ I felt a surge of unhappiness. What a foolish thing I had done. My sister did not trust me now. I didn’t deserve her trust.
Spark shook her head. ‘From the first day we returned. Years ago, your sister Nettle was a stranger at Buckkeep Castle when she was little more than a girl. She feared that there would be people who would take advantage of you. Riddle agreed. So I watch over you and every few days I report back to them.’
‘How is it I don’t see you, then? Oh.’ My eyes roved the walls of my bedchamber, seeing a spy-hole I was certain would be there.
She smiled. ‘I am better able to watch over you if I am not seen. I was taught ways of moving about Buckkeep unseen. Some day, perhaps, I will show you.’
‘Why are you here now?’
‘To let you know that Thick cannot keep a secret. He will show off his kerchiefs. He wore two of them to bed. And he will, eventually, show Smokey’s portrait to someone. He is too pleased with it to keep it to himself. The work is unmistakably yours. No one draws as you do, let alone paints in such detail.’
‘Will Nettle say I cannot be friends with Thick any more?’
She shrugged. Her hair, shortened by a mourning cut, had a strand of spiderweb on it. I reached up and took it out for her.
‘Nettle will decide. But they will know. Because I must report it back to them tomorrow.’
‘Will you tell them you warned me?’
She took a huge breath and let it pour out of her. ‘Will you tell them I warned you?’
‘No. Absolutely not.’
‘I am a terrible spy,’ she admitted. I watched her slip out of the door and smiled.
I did not sleep at all. In the morning, I begged Caution to let me breakfast in my room so that I could put off the dreaded business of dressing and hair-fussing. She worried that I was ill, and conceded. I ate, and then submitted to being groomed and decorated with clothing and having my short hair brushed and pinned up as best she could before I went off for my session as a lady to Queen Elliania. Her belly now stuck out like the prow of a ship, and all the talk was of the baby to come, and all our sewing was for the baby. Then I had my lessons, in languages and history.
I went to my midday meal full of dread for what must come. I sat on the dais with the other nobility and ate with them, and at the close of the meal, Riddle invited me to ride out with Nettle and him that afternoon. His eyes were kind, his mouth reserved. I accepted with formal courtesy, and then was trooped back to my room by Lady Simmer. Caution had set out appropriate clothing. My riding garments were green and yellow, Withywood colours. It made me consider how I fitted into the Farseer hierarchy.
I descended, resigned to a gaggle of folk to accompany us. But not even the nurse and the baby were there, and Riddle dismissed all the grooms, even Per who had been loitering hopefully nearby. Riddle tossed me up onto my horse without ceremony, and Nettle mounted hers without anyone so much as touching her elbow. We left at a sedate walk that turned into a canter as soon as we were out of the gates of Buckkeep. We did not speak as we rode, but gave the horses a good gallop on a trail through a forest that led to a secluded glen near a stream. Here we dismounted and let the horses water. And Nettle said, ‘I know that you visit Lord Thick every night. You must know it is not appropriate to be running about the keep in your nightgown.’
I bowed my head and tried to look startled.
‘Well?’ she demanded.
‘He is my friend. He is teaching me to make Skill-music. We play with his cat. He has nice things to eat. That is all.’
‘And you have learned to erect such Skill-walls that I can barely find you during the day.’
I kept my eyes on the grassy sward. ‘It is to keep the music in. He says we must not make the music too loud, for then the apprentices cannot sleep well.’
‘Will you lower your walls and let me hear the music you have learned?’
It was a test. Did I trust her enough to lower my walls, so that she might see the truth of what I had told her? If I refused … No. There was no refusing this. I dropped my walls. I felt her mind touch mine. I began the purring-cat music.
Wolf Father slammed into my awareness with such force that I sat down flat on the grass. We must get to the queen!
Queen Elliania knows of you? I felt dazed, as if the air had been knocked out of me. I could hear Nettle exclaiming and Riddle suddenly knelt beside me, but I knew the wolf was more important. ‘How are you here, when my father is dead?’ I asked him.
‘What did she say?’ Nettle asked Riddle in alarm.
He isn’t dead. Not yet. And I need to get to the queen, the one who hunted with me. Queen Kettricken. I wish to bid her farewell.
Farewell?
Yes. I felt him hide something from me. Wolf Father was very like my other father.
Very well. I will do my best. I looked up at Riddle and Nettle. There was no simple way to explain it. I would not even try. ‘I am not ill. Nighteyes has come to me. I must see Queen Kettricken right away. My father is not dead. Nighteyes wishes to bid her farewell.’ The next words came out strangled. ‘I think they are dying somewhere.’
Riddle crouched before me. He put his hands on my shoulders. ‘Explain more. From the beginning.’
I could feel the wolf’s clawing panic. I tried. ‘Sometimes, when my father could not be with me, Wolf Father would come. Into my mind. Nighteyes. I know you know who he was! He was Wit-bonded to my father, and after he died, he lived inside my father.’
I looked from one concerned face to the other. Surely they must have known this. They were looking at me as if I were mad.
‘When I was taken, Wolf Father went with me. He tried to help me, to warn me or give me ideas of what to do. But sometimes, if my walls were too tight, he could not speak to me. When I saw my father, Nighteyes went back to him. And just now, when I dropped my walls for Nettle, he came to me again. And he says he must see Lady Kettricken. Because my father is dying.’ I shook my head and demanded aloud of Nighteyes, ‘How can my father be dying when Beloved said he was dead? Why would he lie to me? Why would he leave my father alone and dying?’
He didn’t die, Bee. But alone, he will not last much longer. He believes he can rest and be well enough to come home. I know he cannot. He must stay there. It is time for us to carve our dragon.
‘Bee!’
What?
‘Bee. Answer me. Are you Witted?’ Nettle demanded.
‘No. I don’t think so.’ I hesitated. It seemed such a random question as I strove to understand what Nighteyes had told me. ‘I don’t know. Cats talk to me but they talk to everyone, or anyone who will listen. But this is not the Wit. I don’t think it’s the Wit. He is my Wolf Father. Please! Let me go to Kettricken. It’s important!’
Nettle put her hands on my shoulders. She spoke slowly. ‘Bee. Our father is dead. It’s hard to accept and even I want to pretend it’s not true. But he’s dead. The Fool t
old us all. He was trapped under a fallen timber, and he had bled heavily from a sword slash. He gave to the Fool his last strength. So he could save you. Our father could not have survived, let alone escaped.’
‘I wouldn’t bet money on that,’ Riddle said grimly. ‘Not until I see his body. Come. We need to return to Buckkeep.’
‘To the healers?’ Nettle asked doubtfully.
‘To Lady Kettricken,’ Riddle asserted. ‘Nettle, I know you must doubt this. But we must act as if it were true! We go to Kettricken, to ask what she thinks. And then we will make that other decision.’
‘To Kettricken,’ she agreed reluctantly.
The old queen had not been well before she received the news of my father’s death. On the way to her chambers, Nettle told me that some of the healers felt that news had been the tipping point for her. ‘I dread this,’ Nettle said to Riddle. ‘Might we not be bringing more distress into her life when she is already frail?’
‘I do not think “frail” is the best word to apply to her. I think she is resigned, Nettle.’
I had met with Kettricken only that one awkward time since our return. She had been truly ill that day, and full of sadness. Her rooms had been curtained and close. This day, we were admitted to a chamber where the window stood ajar and the sunlight flooded the room. It was a simple room, sparsely furnished. There were chairs to sit on, and a low table, and little else. A vase almost as tall as me held an arrangement of reeds and rushes. That was all. The flagged floor was scrubbed and bare.
Lady Kettricken entered without ceremony shortly after a servant had shown us into the room and announced us. Her grey hair was braided and coiled about her head. She wore a long, straight, pale-blue cotton robe, belted at her waist, and soft slippers. No jewellery did she wear, nor paint on her face. She could have been any old woman at a market. She regarded us with calm blue eyes. The closest she came to a complaint was to say, ‘This is a sudden visit.’
I found I was smiling at her, delighted. I almost wriggled. No. Nighteyes within me was delighted. I took a deep breath of the air, seeking her familiar scent. ‘You still walk like a forest hunter, light of foot and steady-eyed,’ I told her.