by Robin Hobb
Thick took a long breath and sighed it out. I resumed my grooming of him. I think the stroking of the comb and the tickling of the falling hair had half-stupefied him. I doubted that anyone touched him much, and seldom with gentleness. His muscles were loosening like a stroked puppy. He made an affirmative noise.
‘So. After all that. What did you tell him about?’ I kept my voice very soft.
‘Oh, nothing. Only about the old man. How to stack his wood. Not to shake the wine bottles when I bring them to him. To take away the dirty dishes and old food every morning. Not to move his papers, even though he lets you move his papers. That he says I have to do what you say, even though I don’t want to come to you. About you want to talk to me. And they said, “don’t go! Say you forgot!” About how you talk at night sometimes.’
‘Who talks? Chade and I?’ I drew the comb slowly through his hair and trimmed the hair below it. The damp black points fell to the floor as my heart rose hammering in my throat at his next words.
‘Yeah. That you talk about Skill and Old Blood. That he calls you a different name. Fizshovly. That you don’t like me to know about the girl who cries.’
The sharp fear from his mangled naming of me was swallowed in his mention of ‘the girl’. ‘What girl?’ I asked dully, longing for him to say only, ‘that girl’ or ‘I don’t know’. My guts were water inside me.
‘She cries and cries,’ Thick said softly.
‘Who does?’ I asked again with a sinking heart.
‘That girl. That Nettle that whimpers at night and won’t stop.’ He cocked his head, making my scissors take too deep a cut. ‘She cries right now.’
That stretched the bowstring of my fear tighter. ‘Does she?’ I asked. Gingerly, I lowered my walls. I opened myself to Nettle, but felt nothing. ‘No. She’s quiet now,’ I observed.
‘She cries to herself. In a different place.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘In the empty place.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I repeated with a growing sense of alarm.
He frowned intently for a moment, then suddenly his face eased. ‘Never mind. She stopped.’
‘Just like that?’ I asked incredulously. I set my scissors and comb down.
‘Yeah.’ His finger casually investigated his nose. ‘I’m going now,’ he announced suddenly. He stood up and glanced around the room. ‘Don’t eat my cake!’ he warned me abruptly.
‘I won’t. Are you sure you won’t stay and eat it?’ A kind of shock had left me immune to all feeling. Had Laudwine untangled my true name from Thick’s maiming of it? He definitely knew my daughter’s name. Danger yawned below us, and I spoke to a half-wit about sugar cakes.
‘If I eat it, then it would be gone.’
‘There might be another.’
‘There might not,’ he pointed out with incontrovertible logic.
‘I’ve an idea.’ I went to one of Chade’s less cluttered shelves and began to move things. ‘We’ll make a spot for you, here. And we’ll put Thick’s things on this shelf. So they’ll always be where you can find them.’
For some reason, this seemed a difficult idea for him to master. I explained it several ways, and then had him put both the sugar cake and the feather on the shelf. Hesitantly, he picked up the bowl that had held the raisins and nuts. Only a handful of the sugared nuts remained. ‘You can put that there, too,’ I told him. ‘And I will try to put more nice things to eat in it.’ So he did, and then stood and admired it for a time.
‘Going to go now,’ he abruptly announced again.
‘Thick,’ I began carefully. ‘Tomorrow, on washing day. Will a man come to take you to One-arm?’
‘Don’t talk about him.’ He was adamant. Adamant and scared. I could hear the roiling of his Skill-music.
‘Do you want to go, Thick? To see the one-arm man?’
‘I have to go.’
‘No, you don’t. Not any more. Do you want to go?’
This seemed to require a lot of thought. Then, ‘I want the pennies. To buy the sweet.’
‘If you told me where One-arm is, I could go for you. And get the pennies for you, and bring you the sweet.’
He scowled and shook his head. ‘I get my pennies for myself. I like to buy it myself.’ He was suspicious again, edging away from me.
I took a breath and counselled myself to patience. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, for our lessons, then.’
He nodded sombrely and left Chade’s chambers. I went over and picked up his wet trousers from the floor. I hung them on the chair back again. I doubted that anyone would wonder about the robe Thick now wore. It was a style long outdated for Buckkeep Castle, and servants, especially the lowest level of servants, were often dressed in their master’s cast-offs. I sighed and sat down in the chair and stared into the fire. What was I going to do?
I wished I could make Thick tell me where Laudwine was, or at least who took him to the Piebald leader. I couldn’t force the information out of him without frightening him and shattering the fragile trust we’d built today. I could shadow Thick into Buckkeep Town tomorrow, but I was reluctant to do so; I’d be putting the little man into danger if Laudwine or anyone else recognized me following him. If I followed him and he met with Laudwine, what would I do then? Charge in, betraying myself to Laudwine or allow Laudwine to question the little man again, and gain still more knowledge of us? I considered watching Thick until the Buckkeep man came to take him down to town, then capture the go-between. I suspected I could wring Laudwine’s location out of him, but when he didn’t keep the rendezvous, Laudwine would be alerted. I didn’t want to do anything that might startle that bird into flying before my nets were ready. My last available tactic seemed the simplest: find a ploy to keep Thick from going down to Buckkeep tomorrow. Distract him with toys, or simply busy him where no one could take him away without being noticed. Yet that would not put me one step closer to having a line on Laudwine. And I desperately wanted to have that man in my power.
I ached to kill him. No enemy, I knew, is more to be feared than the one you have grievously injured. And I had taken not just Laudwine’s arm, but his sister’s stunted life, and ended their vain grasp for power. Perhaps at one time he had dreamed of building power for his Piebald group; now I suspected he was driven more by hatred of me and a lust for revenge on the Farseers. Would any revenge he could take against me be too cruel to consider? I doubted it.
I crossed my arms on my chest and leaned back, scowling at the fire. Perhaps I had it all wrong. Perhaps Laudwine had come to town only to be an emissary from the Witted to Kettricken. Perhaps his spying was only caution. But I doubted it. I doubted it deeply.
I did not want to discuss it with Chade. Mine was the name Laudwine knew, mine was the child he threatened. What to do about him was my decision now. Later, perhaps, Chade would rant and scold at me. But he could do that later, when Nettle and Dutiful were no longer in any danger.
The more I pondered the situation, the greater my frustration with it. I left Chade’s chambers and went down the stairs and through my room. Neither the Fool nor Lord Golden was there. That did not lessen my exasperation. I needed to think, yet I could not keep still. I went down to the snowy practice courts. I took my old ugly blade. The fine sword that the Fool had given me remained hanging on the wall, a mute and unforgiving reminder of my own foolishness.
Luck favoured me and Wim was there. I did my limbering up with my real blade, soon warming myself despite the chill day. Wim and I switched to dulled practice weapons for our more intent work. Wim seemed to sense that I only wanted to move my weapon and my body, not my tongue, nor engage my mind at all beyond the work of my body. I pushed all my concerns aside and focused only on attempting to kill him. When Wim abruptly stepped back and announced, ‘Enough!’ I thought he intended for us to pause and breathe. Instead, he lowered the tip of his blade to touch the ground and announced, ‘I think that you have come back to what you used to be. Whatever that
was, Tom.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said after a moment of watching him blowing.
He dragged in a deeper breath. ‘When first we began to whet our blades on one another, I felt you were a fighter trying to recall what it was to be a fighter. Now you simply are. You’ve stepped back into your old skin, Tom Badgerlock. I can keep up with you, but only that. And full glad will I be to continue to sharpen my skills against you. But if you want a true challenge to your skills, or someone to teach you something new, you’ll have to look beyond Wim now.’
And then he transferred his blade to his left hand and stepped forward to clasp hands with me. I felt a surge of warmth throughout my whole body. It had been years since I had felt a glow of pride such as that, and yet it was not for myself, but that this veteran fighter saw fit to honour me with such words. I went from the practice courts still bearing every problem that I had brought there with me, but buoyed with the idea that perhaps I possessed the wherewithal to face them.
I went through the steams, still carefully not thinking about what I would do next. I emerged cleansed, my will firmed and my mind clear. I went down to Buckkeep Town.
I had specific errands, I told myself. To see Hap. To buy a knife and a red scarf. And perhaps to discover a busy street where a goat might bleat while blacksmith hammers rang in the distance.
NINETEEN
Laudwine
Now King Shield was a merry man, as all well knew, fond of wine and jest. The Skillmistress of his reign was Solem, and often he made a jest of her name, saying she was as solemn as she was called. For her part, she found him overly given to banter and humour. He came to be King when she was all of seventy summers, and with his crown he inherited the coterie that she had trained for Queen Perceptive. They had served his mother full well before him, but like their Skillmistress, their years far outnumbered the King’s. Oft he complained that both Skillmistress and coterie treated him as a child, and Solem, secure in her years, would disdainfully reply that it was because he so often behaved childishly.
To escape his ageing court and advisors, King Shield would sometimes by stealth leave Buckkeep, to travel the roads in disguise. Dressed as a roving tinker, it pleased him to mix with his common folk in inns and taverns of the ruder sort, where it was his pleasure to tell bawdy stories and sing comical songs for the entertainment of the folk who frequented such places. It was on one such evening when he was well in his cups that he began to tell his stories and ribald riddles. Now there was a youth working in the tavern, a lad of no more than eleven and unschooled in everything save how to draw a mug of ale and wipe a table. Yet as the King posed each riddle, this boy spoke the answers, not only correctly but also in the King’s own well-rehearsed words. At first the King was not pleased to have his acclaim thus stolen. But soon he perceived that his irritation with the lad’s too-swift answers was affording his audiences as much pleasure as the jests themselves. Before he left the inn that evening, he called the boy to his side and asked him, quietly, how it was that he knew the answers to so many riddles. The lad professed surprise. ‘Were not you yourself whispering them to me, even as you told the riddle?’ he asked.
Now the King was as perceptive as he was merry. That very night he took the boy back with him to Buckkeep and delivered him over to the Skillmistress, saying, ‘This merry lad comes to you well started on the Skill-path. Find others like him, and train for me a coterie that can laugh as well as Skill.’ And so the boy became known as Merry and the coterie that formed around him was Merry’s Coterie.
Slek’s Histories
It was a crisp, cold day. Packed snow squeaked under my boots as I strode down to Buckkeep Town. When I heard hoof-beats on the road behind me, I stepped aside to let horse and rider pass. I settled my hand on my sword hilt as I did so. Instead, Starling reined in and paced me with her mount. I glanced up at her and said nothing. She was almost the last person I wished to see today. She spoke to me anyway. ‘Did Chade give you my message?’
I nodded and kept walking.
‘And?’
‘And I don’t think I have anything to say to it.’
She reined in her horse so sharply that he snorted in protest. Then she jumped off him and ran around to stand in front of me. I stopped walking. ‘What is the matter with you? What do you want from me?’ she demanded. ‘What can you possibly expect from me that I haven’t already given you?’ Her voice shook and to my astonishment, tears stood in her eyes.
‘I … nothing. I don’t … What do you want from me?’
‘What we had before. Friendship. Talking to each other. Being someone the other person can count on.’
‘But … Starling, you’re married.’
‘So you can’t even talk to me any more? Can’t even smile when you see me in the Great Hall? You act as if I don’t even exist. Fifteen years, Fitz. We’ve known each other damn near fifteen years, and you discover I’m married and suddenly you can’t even say hello to me?’
I gaped at her. Starling has often had that effect on me, but I’ve never become accustomed to it. My astonishment lasted too long. She attacked again.
‘Last time I saw you … I needed a friend. And you thrust me aside. I was a friend to you when you needed one, for many years. Damn you, Fitz, I shared your bed for seven years! But you couldn’t even be bothered to ask how I had been. And you refused to ride with me, as if I carried some disease you feared to catch!’
‘Starling!’ I shouted at her to break into her tirade. I didn’t mean it as harshness, but she gasped suddenly and then burst into tears. And the reflexes of seven years put my arms around her and pulled her close to my chest. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ I said by her ear. Her silky hair tangled against my chest, and the old familiar scent of her filled my nostrils. And I suddenly felt I had to explain what she already knew. ‘You hurt me, when I discovered that I wasn’t the only man in your life. Perhaps I was foolish ever to imagine that I was. You never told me I was. I know I deceived myself. But it did hurt me.’
She only sobbed harder, clinging to me. Her horse shifted restlessly and stepped on his reins. One arm still around Starling, I managed to step sideways and catch hold of them. Calmness. Wait, I told him, and he lowered his head a trifle.
I held her, thinking she would stop crying soon, but still she wept. I had thought her heartless. Careless was a better word for her, like a child who takes what she wants with no thoughts for the consequences. I knew more than she about consequences, and I should have behaved better. I spoke quietly, and as I had hoped, her sobbing softened so she could hear my words. ‘I want you to know the truth about something. What I said last time, about thinking of Molly when you were in my arms. That wasn’t true. Never. It was an unworthy thing for me to say, belittling to both of you. When you were in my arms, you filled my senses. I’m sorry that I tried to hurt you with a lie.’ Her tears still did not calm. ‘Starling. Talk to me. What’s wrong?’
‘It’s not … it’s not all from you being cruel to me. It’s –’ She took a shuddering breath. ‘I think … I suspect my husband is … That night, he had said he had never realized how much he might want a child. Even though he cannot inherit and needs no heir of his own, he said that. And … and I think he is, or might be …’ Her voice trailed off, unable to form the words of her greatest dread.
‘Has he taken a mistress?’ I asked quietly.
‘I think so!’ she wailed suddenly. ‘When first we were wed, he wanted me every night! Well, I knew that would not last forever, but when his heat cooled, he still … but lately, he hardly seems to notice me. Even when I have been away from him for a few days, he no longer seems full of desire for me. He stays up late gaming with his friends, and comes to bed drunk. Dresses, jewellery, perfume, no matter how I adorn myself, he pays no heed.’ Her words came out in a flood with her tears. Her sleeve smeared her wet face without drying it. I found a handkerchief and offered it to her.
‘Thank you.’ She wiped her face again. She took a
sudden deep breath that lifted her shoulders and exhaled it again. ‘I think he is tired of me. That he looks at me and sees an old woman. I stand before my glass, and I look at my breasts and my belly and the lines in my face … Fitz, have I aged that much? Do you think he regrets marrying a woman so many years older than he?’
I had no way of knowing the answers to her questions. I put my arm around her. ‘It’s cold here. Let’s keep walking,’ I said to gain a few moments to think. She kept her arm around my waist as we set off, her horse trailing us. For a time we both walked silently.
Then she said quietly, ‘I married him to be safe, you know. Finally safe. He did not need children, he had wealth, he was comely, and he found me exciting. I overheard him once, telling a friend what a keen pleasure it was that he never needed to introduce me as other than his wife. That my name as the Queen’s minstrel was known to all. He took such satisfaction in my fame that it gave me new pride in it. When he asked me to marry him and always be his, it was … it was like coming into safe harbour, Fitz. After all the years of wondering what would become of me when my voice faded or if I fell out of favour with the Queen. I never thought that to have him I must lose you. Then, when you insisted that was so, well … I was angry with you. I had come to think of our times together as a thing we owned. It shocked me that you could take them away from me, whether I would or not. But even so, I still had my Lord Fisher. And I told myself that losing you was a small price to pay for security when I was old.’
She fell silent for a time and the wind blew between us. I thought she had finished and then she said, ‘But if he takes a mistress and gets her with child, or merely finds her more interesting than me … then I will have lost you for nothing, and still come up with my nets empty.’
‘Starling. How can you imagine that Queen Kettricken and Chade would ever let you lack for anything? You know you will always be provided for.’