by Robin Hobb
I put my face down in my hands. Yes. I should have heeded Chade. I had precipitated this. ‘I suppose I should have let them kill Civil. And then run and reported the murder.’
‘That would have been one way,’ Chade agreed. ‘But I think it would have damaged your relationship with Dutiful, even if you had concealed that you could have prevented his friend’s death. And now, I think that is enough for today. Back to bed with you.’
‘No. Finish this, at least. What did you do about the scrolls accusing Dutiful?
‘Do? Nothing, of course. We ignored them as ridiculous. And we took great care that there was no royal interest in Lord Golden’s serving-man confined in a cell. The city guard had their murderer. Let justice take its course. The posted accusations were ridiculous, a wild attempt by someone to smear the Prince’s good name. It was doubly ridiculous, in that the Prince still bore the deep scratches from his good friend’s hunting cat. Surely a coursing beast would not attack a Witted one. All know the power Witted have over animals. And so on. In time, it was shown that the dead men were no better than common thieves. There was nothing of the Wit in what had happened, and certainly no royal interference. Thieves had been killed by a good servant protecting his master’s property.’
‘So. The Wit accusation was why you had to leave me there to rot.’ I tried to put acceptance into my words. Part of me understood. Part of me hated him.
He winced at my choice of words, but nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Fits. We had no choice.’
‘I know. And my own actions had brought it upon me.’ I tried to keep bitterness out of my voice and nearly succeeded. I was suddenly horribly tired, but there was more I needed to know. ‘And Civil?’
‘Once I discovered who was dead, I knew I had to question him. I squeezed it all out of him. And what had triggered his action also. His mother killed herself, Fitz. She had sent the lad a message, begging his forgiveness, but saying she could not go on as things were. That she could not live with what he must be doing to buy her safety, even when it was a false sanctuary where men assaulted her at will.’
The ugliness of what he implied sickened me. ‘Then Civil had meant to let them kill him.’
‘His mother was dead. I think he meant to kill them, not caring if he died in the attempt, but he didn’t even know how to begin. He was full of lofty ideals of duels and fair challenges. Laudwine never even gave him a chance to demand his right of combat,’
‘What now for Civil?’
Chade took a breath. ‘It’s complicated. Dutiful insisted on being with him while I questioned him. Civil is Dutiful’s man now, heart and soul. His prince defended him to me. If he must have a Witted one serving him, we have at least pulled that one’s teeth. The Prince is fully convinced, and I almost am, that the Bresingas acted under duress. If the Piebalds ever held any of Civil’s loyalty, his mother’s suicide and their previous treatment of her have purged it from him. He hates them more than we ever could. Lady Bresinga was pressured into presenting the cat to the Prince, under threat that the Piebalds would betray her son and herself as Witted. But once she had done so, she was completely within their power. She was not only Witted; she had committed a treasonous act against the Prince. The Piebalds separated them, mother from son. Civil was sent to Buckkeep. They ordered him to maintain his friendship with Dutiful, to draw him deeper into the Wit, and to spy for them. If he did so, they promised his mother would be safe. His mother’s home, Galekeep, became her prison. The Piebalds swiftly became greedy. First, it was her home, her wine cellar, her wealth. If she did not accommodate them, they threatened her son. Eventually, some of the men evidently availed themselves of the lady herself. She could not live with that. I think they misjudged her strength of will, and that of her son.’
It was an ugly, sobering story. But I did not let my mind dwell on it. I had more immediate concerns. ‘What of Henja? Did the Prince tell you that I saw her?’
His face grew more grave. ‘He did. But… is it possible you were mistaken? For my spies in town have heard not a whisper of her.’
I forced myself to consider the memory of that glimpse. ‘I was hurt and it was dark. But… I do not think I was mistaken. And I believe she was the woman who was there when Thick was. She offered gold to Padget and Laudwine for the Fool and me… I think. It was hard to decide what she was trying to buy from them. Laudwine didn’t like her. She seems to be involved in all of this somehow.’
Chade lifted a hand, palm up. ‘If she is, she has covered her tracks well. There is no sign of her in Buckkeep Town that I can discover.’
That was small comfort. His spies had not found Laudwine either. I kept that complaint to myself.
‘We still have a Piebald spy here in Buckkeep. The man who led Thick to Laudwine.’
Chade’s voice was neutral. ‘Civil’s groom met with a most unfortunate accident. He was found dead in a stud horse’s stall, kicked to death. Why he would have gone into the stall at all is a mystery.’
I nodded. Another thread tied off. ‘And Civil’s mother and his holdings?’
Chade looked away from me. ‘The tragic news reached us the day after you were taken prisoner. Lady Bresinga died of food poisoning. A number of her guests and servants died with her. It was horribly sad, but not the least bit shameful or scandalous. Her body was discovered first, but over the next few days, others sickened and swiftly died. Tainted fish is what I heard. Lady Bresinga’s body was sent to her mother’s home for burial. Civil is attending to that sad duty. Prince Dutiful sent his own honor guard with him as a token of the high esteem he holds him in. Civil understands that when the details have been settled, he will return to Buckkeep, to remain at the castle until he reaches his majority. Galekeep will be shuttered, though our Lady Queen has lent Civil staff and a steward to maintain the place in his absence.’
I nodded slowly. The Prince might call Civil friend, but he would be Chade’s well-kept and pampered prisoner for the next few years. It was an apt solution. He could perceive it as protection or as a cage. All had been neatly managed. I wondered if Lady Rosemary had found a sudden reason to visit her friend at Galekeep, or if the spy that Chade had in place there had done the poisoning. It may would have been difficult for Rosemary to travel, burned as she was. Then I suddenly turned to look at Chade. He met my scrutiny with a puzzled expression. I leaned forward suddenly and before he could draw back, touched his cheek. No paint came off on my fingers. Sound, pink flesh. No trace of healing burns.
‘Oh, Chade,’ I rebuked him, and my voice shook with shock. ‘Have a care, man! You charge in blindly and none of us know the cost. None of us.’
He allowed himself a smile. ‘I care little for the cost, when I know the benefit so well already. My burns are healed. For the first time in years, I walk with no pains in my knees and hips. I sleep free of pain at night. I even see more clearly.’
‘You are not doing this alone.’
He looked at me, refusing to answer, and I knew the answer.
‘You’ve been tapping Thick’s strength,’ I accused him in a low voice.
‘He doesn’t mind.’
‘You don’t know the dangers. He doesn’t understand the risks.’
‘And neither do you!’ he replied sharply. ‘Fitz, there are times to be cautious and times to be bold. The time has come for us to take these risks. We need to discover all the Skill can truly do. When the Prince goes on his quest to slay Icefyre, you will go with him. And you must know the Skill’s powers by then, and must be capable of wielding them. This,’ and he slapped his chest soundly, ‘This is a miracle and a wonder. If we had had this at our disposal when Shrewd was ill, he never would have died. Think what that would have meant!’
‘Yes, think,’ I rejoined. ‘Think of Shrewd, alive still and ruling here. Then ask yourself, why isn’t that so? For he was not trained by Galen. Solicity was his Skillmistress. Can not we assume that he knew far more of the Skill than we do? Perhaps even how to prolong his life? So then, let us ask, wh
y did he not do it? Why did not Solicity herself do it? Did they know that there was a price attached to that, a price too high to pay?’
‘Or did he merely lack a coterie to assist him in his efforts?’ Chade countered.
‘He could have used Galen’s Coterie, if that was the case.’
‘Pah! You don’t know that, and neither do I. Why must you be so pessimistic? Why must you always assume the worst?’
‘Maybe I learned caution from a wise old man. One who is now behaving foolishly.’
Chade’s cheeks flushed pink. Anger lit his eyes. ‘You are not yourself. Or, perhaps it is even worse than that. You are yourself, Listen to me, you whelp. I watched my brother die. I watched King Shrewd dwindle, and I was beside him in the days when he did not know that his mind wandered, and I was beside him in the days when he was cognizant of the weakness of his body and his mind, and shamed to tears by it. I do not know which days were worse to witness. If he had had the Skill to change that, he would have done it, no matter the cost. This is Skill knowledge that was lost to us. I intend to regain it. And to use it.’
I think he expected me to roar back at him. I half-expected myself to, and perhaps I would have if I had not felt such a combination of weakness, despair and fear. Chade had frightened me badly when his health and mind were failing and I feared we might lose his wealth of information and connections. Now, health-filled and bright-eyed, with ambition burning in him, he terrified me. I had known this side of Chade existed, known that he had always hungered to master the Skill. I had never known I’d have to confront that appetite. I took two deep breaths and spoke quietly. ‘Is that decision yours to make?’
A frown furrowed his brows. ‘What do you mean? Who else should make it?’
‘The Skillmaster, perhaps, should say how the Skill is applied at Buckkeep. Especially among inexperienced students.’ I met his gaze sternly. In truth, he was the one who had pushed me into accepting the responsibility of the position. I wondered if he winced now at how his own stubbornness in this had turned to bite him.
He was incredulous. ‘You’re saying you’d forbid me this? And expect me to obey you?’ Hands on his knees, he leaned forward in his chair to confront me.
I did not want to meet him head-on in a clash of wills. I had not the strength just now. I turned the question. ‘There was another Farseer who tried to use the Skill to his own ends. He himself was neither strong nor talented with the Skill, but he used the strength of his coterie to gain his ends. He used them ruthlessly, regardless of what it did to them, how it drained them or twisted their own wills. Will you become another Regal?’
‘I am nothing like Regal!’ Chade spat at me. ‘For one thing, his interest was all for himself. You know that I have spent my entire life laboring tirelessly for the Farseer reign. And for another difference, I will develop my own Skill. I will not long be dependent on another’s strength.’
'Chade. My voice came out in a cracked whisper. I cleared my throat, but still spoke weakly. 'Perhaps you will develop your own Skill. But not if you go on as you have, experimenting alone, taking chances with yourself, and now risking Thick, who has no concept of the danger you may represent. I wasn't sure he was listening to me. He was staring past me, his green eyes going far. I spoke on anyway, hearing my own voice failing and starting to rasp. 'You need to learn the dangers of the magic, Chade, before you wade into it and start using it for your own ends. The Skill is not a toy, nor is it something that any user should employ solely for his own benefit.
'It wasn't fair! Chade protested suddenly. 'They denied me the teaching, the teaching that I should have had. I was as much a Farseer as Shrewd. I should have been taught.
I was tiring rapidly. I had to win this, or at least fight him to a draw before I collapsed back into my bed. 'No. It wasn't fair, I agreed. 'But using Thick as your crutch and toy is not fair either. Nor will it replace the proper teaching you should have had. That you must get for yourself. Thick is strong with the Skill, and has no concept of what dangers that may present to him. Nor has he the will to resist you using his magic for your own purposes. He will not warn you when you are taking too much from him, and you will not know you have taken it until it is too late. It is wrong of you to tap his strength as if he were a bullock hitched to your cart. He may be simple, but in Skill at least he is our equal. He's a member of our coterie. As such you should be brothers, regardless of your varying abilities.
‘Coterie?’ The slack-jawed look of astonishment on his face suddenly made me realize that he had not seen what was obvious to me.
‘Coterie,’ I repeated. ‘You. Me. Dutiful. The Fool. And Thick.’ I paused, waiting for him to say something. Instead, I heard the soft sound of the Fool’s chair being pushed back from his desk. And the even quieter sounds of his feet as he crossed the room to stand near us. I wondered what expression he wore, but I didn’t look away from Chade’s gaze. When he continued silent, I reminded him, ‘Chade. I was there. I was not in full possession of myself, I know, but I would have had to be dead to have been unaware of what happened to me. What you all united to do to me. Didn’t you understand that that was how a coterie functioned? The pooling of strength and abilities to achieve some goal. That was what you did. Thick’s strength. Your knowledge of a man’s internal structure. Dutiful’s control and purpose. And the Fool’s link to me. All were necessary to do what you did. And can do again, if needed. Dutiful has his coterie. Not much of one, in many ways, but a coterie, nonetheless. But only if we function as one. If you lead Thick astray, to use him as your personal reservoir of strength, you’ll destroy us before we find our potential.’
I halted. My mouth was dry, and I’d run out of breath. At any other time, I would have been horrified to discover how weak I was. At the moment, I could not afford to spare it a thought. I felt I had come to a balancing point with the old man. For so many years, he had been my mentor and guide. As his apprentice, I had seldom questioned his wisdom or his ways; I had always been certain that he knew what was best. Yet, since summer, I had seen that his bright mind was failing and his memory not as tightly taloned as once it had been. But worse for both of us, I had begun to consider his decisions and even his thought processes from a man’s perspective. I was no longer willing to concede to him that he knew best in everything. And when I applied the perspective of my thirty-odd years to the decisions he had made for me and for the Farseers in the past, I was not sure that I agreed with them any longer. Now that I could see his wisdom was not absolute, I felt more justified in demanding that he recognize there were areas in which I knew more than he did. It was a strange equality I sought to claim, one that did not assert I knew as much as he did, but rather that, although he was still wiser than I in many things, there were areas in which he must give way to me.
For so long he had been my mentor and above question. Now it was hard for both of us that I saw him as a man. I hated that I had become aware of his flaws. I never wanted to be the one to hold a mirror to him and point them out. I had to admit to myself, difficult as it was, that he had always been ambitious and eager for power. Limited by politics in his quest for his magic, scarred by an accident that doomed him to working unseen, he had still become a powerful force. It was his will that had sustained the Farseer throne in the days when King Shrewd was failing and his two remaining sons vied for his throne. It had been Chade’s network of spies and servants who had assisted Queen Kettricken in retaining her power until her son could come of age. He was close now, so close, to putting another Farseer-born heir on the throne.
Yet I could look at him and see that these successes would not be enough for him. He would not count any achievement a true victory until he had acquired for himself the things he had always hungered for. Power he had now, and the trappings that went with it. He could openly wield it, and folk accepted it as his right as the Queen’s Councillor. Yet within the esteemed advisor there still lurked the deprived bastard, the disinherited child. No triumph would ever be enough f
or him until he mastered the Skill, yes, and let others know that he had mastered it.
I feared he would undermine all else he had engineered in attaining that one goal. His determination could blind him. And so I watched him as he weighed my words and thought his own thoughts about them. I studied him as I waited. He could not reverse the march of the years. Not even the Skill could make him young again. But perhaps, as Kettle had done, he could halt the progression of aging, and repair the damage it had done to him. His hair was as white, the lines in his face graven as deep. But the knobbiness of his knuckles had subsided, and his cheeks were flushed with robust health. The whites of his eyes were clear.
As I watched him, I saw him come to a decision. And my heart sank as he rose hastily, for in his rush to leave I saw his desire to end the conversation. ‘You are not well yet, Fitz,’ he said as he stood. ‘It will be days until you are strong enough to continue teaching Dutiful and Thick what you know of the Skill. And those days represent time I am not willing to waste. Therefore, while you are recuperating, I will continue my own explorations of the Skill. I will be circumspect, I promise you. I will risk no one except myself. But having begun this, having felt the first touch of what it can mean to me, I will not draw back. I will not.’
He started towards the door. I drew a ragged breath. I was very nearly at the end of my strength. ‘Don’t you understand, Chade? What you feel is the pull all students of the Skill are warned against! You venture into the Skill-current at your peril. If we lose you, the strength of the whole coterie is diminished. If you take Thick with you, the coterie is destroyed entirely.’