by Robin Hobb
He made no reply and I sensed no lessening in his coldness toward me, but at least he didn’t strike out at me. I knew who might have honey. I left the tent and headed up the hill to where the larger tents for the Narcheska and the Prince had been pitched. Between them, and slightly above them, the Fool’s multicoloured dwelling billowed softly in the wind. Amid the deepening darkness, it seemed to gleam from within.
I hesitated outside it. The flap was tied securely shut. Once before, when I was a boy, I had entered the Fool’s private chambers uninvited. I had lived to regret that intrusion, not only because it posed more mysteries than it solved, but also because it had made a small crack in the trust we had shared. Without ever uttering them, the Fool had taught me well the rules that governed retaining his friendship. He answered only the questions he wished to answer about himself, and any prying by me was regarded as an infringement of his privacy. This included efforts by me to find out anything about him other than what he had chosen to tell me himself. And so, I paused there, in the wind sweeping past me from the island’s ice pack, and wondered if I wanted to take this chance. Were not there already too many cracks in our much-tested friendship?
Then I stooped, untied the door-flap and slipped inside.
The tent was made from a fabric I didn’t know, some sort of silk perhaps, but so tightly woven that no breath of air stirred inside it. The glow had come from a tiny brazier, set in a small pit dug in the floor of the chamber. The silk walls caught the heat it generated and held it well, while the light seemed multiplied by the sheen of the fabric. Even so, it was not bright inside the tent: rather it was lit warmly and intimately. A thin rug covered the rest of the floor, and a simple sleeping pallet of woollen blankets lay in one corner. To my wolf’s nose, it smelled of the Fool’s perfumes. In another corner was a small kit of clothing and a few significant items. I saw that he had brought the featherless Rooster Crown. Somehow it did not surprise me. The feathers from Others’ Island, the ones I had thought would fit in the crown, were in my sea-chest. Some things are too significant to leave unattended.
He had a meagre supply of foodstuffs and a single cooking pot: obviously he had relied on our arrival for his long-term survival. I saw no sort of weapon amongst his things; the only knives were ones suitable for cooking. I wondered what ship he had found that had dropped him off here, and why he had not supplied himself better. Among his victuals I found a small pot of honey. I took it.
There was no scrap of paper to leave him a note. All I had wanted to say to him was that I had not wanted him to come here to die, and that was why I had done what I could to thwart him. In the end, I moved the Rooster Crown into the middle of his bed. I turned the simple wooden circlet in my hands, the dim light catching for an instant in one rooster’s sparkling gem eye. The Fool would know that I had set it there, and why. I did not want him to think, even for a moment, that I had tried to conceal this visit. As I left, I re-tied the tent flap with my knots.
Thick had almost dozed off, but when I poured tea and added sweetening to it, he sat up to take the mug from me. I had been generous with the honey. He drank off half of it, and sighed heavily. ‘That’s better.’
‘Do you want more?’ It would leave little for me, but I wouldn’t lose any opportunity to regain his favour.
‘A little bit. Please.’
I sensed a lowering of the wall. ‘Give me your mug, then.’ As I poured and sweetened the brew, I said, ‘You know, Thick, I’ve missed us being friends. I’m really tired of your being angry with me.’
‘I am, too,’ he admitted as he took the mug from me. ‘And it’s harder than I thought it would be.’
‘Is it? Then why do it?’
‘To help Nettle be angry with you.’
‘Ah.’ I did not let myself dwell on that, but only commented, ‘She probably made it sound like a very good idea.’
‘Ya,’ he drawled sadly.
I nodded slowly. ‘But she’s all right, isn’t she? She’s not hurt or in danger?’
‘She’s angry. Cause she had to leave her home. Because of the dragon. So that was scary for her, and I told her, she could come here, because we’re going to cut a dragon’s head off. But she said, don’t worry; my Papa will kill the dragon for me. So, she’s safe.’
My head swam. It was definite then. The message bird had reached Buckkeep, and the Queen had acted swiftly to take Nettle into shelter. And someone – Kettricken or Burrich – had told her that she was my daughter. Why they had done it now or how they had phrased the words suddenly did not matter. Nettle knew. And she was angry with me, but had still found a way to send me a message through Thick that told me that she knew who I was, and that I had believed I had done what I did to protect her. All the things I felt seemed to conflict with one another. I wondered if she knew all of what I was, or only that there was another man who had fathered her, and by his bloodline exposed her to danger. Had anyone explained the Skill to her? Did she know I was Witted? I had wanted to tell her myself that I was her father, if I had ever decided that she must know. Would it have been easier for her, or harder? I did not know. There was so much I did not know, and so much that she did not know about me.
Then another aspect of it washed over me like a wave. If Nettle was in Buckkeep, and if she would open her mind to our Skilling, we could communicate with the Queen and tell her all that was going on. A strange little thrill washed through me. Prince Dutiful had a working coterie now.
I came out of my reverie when Thick handed the mug back to me. It was empty. ‘Are you a little warmer now?’ I asked him.
‘A little,’ he admitted.
‘So am I,’ I told him, but it had nothing to do with how cold the night was. There are moments that leave a man’s heart pumping so strong and free that no chill can touch him. I felt alive and completed, vindicated in all I had done. Thick huddled back into his bed, my blanket still clutched around his shoulders. I didn’t mind. I spoke cautiously. ‘If Nettle comes to your dreams tonight, will you tell her –’ That I love her. No. It was far too soon to say such words, and when I spoke them, she should hear them first from me. Now they would be empty utterances from a shadow father she had never met. No. ‘Will you tell her to let the Queen know we are all well, and safely arrived at the island?’ Deliberately I kept the message a general one. I had no assurance that the dragon Tintaglia could not listen in on what passed between Thick and Nettle.
‘Nettle doesn’t like the Queen. She is too nice, with lots of pretty skirts for Nettle and pretty smells and shiny things. She isn’t Nettle’s mother! But she makes her stay close and only lets her out with a guard. Nettle hates that. And she’s had enough of lessons, thank you very much!’
Despite my worries, I smiled. I did not like to think that Nettle would clash with Kettricken, but in retrospect I saw it as inevitable. It was the way Nettle’s words came out in Thick’s voice. And it was a relief that too many skirts and lessons were Nettle’s greatest threat right now. I felt almost fatuously happy despite all the ways it would complicate my life.
Thick was going to sleep but I wished to think a while longer. I went out to the dying fire, closing the tent-flap behind me. I scraped the left over porridge from the kettle and ate it. As last man to eat, it fell to me to clean the pot for tomorrow. I scrubbed it out with sand and sea-water and never once felt the cold water or the rough sand. My thoughts were elsewhere. Would Kettricken have put her in my old room? Did my daughter now wear the jewels and garb of a princess? I poured what was left of the tea into my cup and dumped out the dregs from the pot. But when I went to sweeten my brew, I could not find the pot of honey in the dark. So I drank it as it was, thick and bitter and delicious with the change that had visited my life that night.
FOURTEEN
The Black Man
Just as a Skill-coterie may use its talents to influence the waking mind of others and persuade their target that certain things are true, so a Skill-dreamer uses his Skill upon his own sleeping mind
to create a world which is, to him, as real as our waking one. The Skill-dreamer in a sense turns the Skill against his own thoughts. Whereas most of us have no control over what we dream at night, the Skill-dreamer is more likely never to have experienced random dreams and may even have difficulty in perceiving what one would be like or that other people dream in such a fashion.
Skill-Dreaming by Skillmaster Solicity
I slept well, without dreams of any kind, and woke to the sound of the waves against the beach. Dawn had barely found us, but already both guardsmen and Hetgurd warriors were up and about. I splashed my face in the icy stream. The incoming tide had covered the carved dragon, but now that I knew it was there, I could feel it as a sort of Wit-humming from beneath the waves. I glanced out toward the anchored ships. I wanted to ask Web what he thought of the dragon, and yet I felt guilty at the thought. I hadn’t kept faith with him; I hadn’t come to allow him to teach me. Did I have the right to ask him to use his knowledge for my benefit, when I would not learn it for myself? I knew how I would react to Swift behaving so. I grimly reminded myself that there was only so much time in a day, and of late every moment in mine seemed to have been spoken for.
I checked on the tent where Thick slept on. Coward that I was, I decided to leave him in peace. I wandered over to the guards’ cook-fire where the porridge was just beginning to boil. Longwick had no immediate task for me. I glanced out at the anchored ships, but saw no signs of life there. They had probably stayed up late talking. I visited the quarry again. By the light of day, I thought I glimpsed bones and the round of a human skull under the rainwater, but the sides of the quarry were steep and I had no desire to investigate. Whatever had happened there had happened long ago. My own problems were more immediate. I drifted over to where the Hetgurd men had their tents. They were gathered outside them, and at first I thought they were having breakfast from a stone table. Then, as I ventured closer, I realized that the sporadic conversation was an ongoing argument. I halted where I was, making a show of scratching and stretching while gazing seaward. Then I went down on one knee as if adjusting my shoe, all the while listening closely. They were muttering their complaints to one another, so it was not easy to understand them. When I had heard enough to realize that they had left an offering for the Black Man at the traditional spot, on this stone table, and that it had not been taken, I stood up and ventured near.
With an oafish smile on my face and using my broadest Six Duchies accent, I asked them brokenly if they knew when the Narcheska’s party might come ashore. A broad man with a stylized bear on his cheek told me that they would arrive when they arrived. I nodded pleasantly with the slightly unfocused look of a man who is not certain of what has just been said to him. Then, nodding at the stone table, I asked what they were having for dinner. I took three steps toward it before two men stepped in between the table and me to block my access to it.
The Bear explained to me that this was not a meal, but an offering, and that I should probably go down to my own fellows and eat with them, as they had no use for beggars here. I peered at him, my mouth movements echoing his as if puzzling out his words, and then smiled broadly and wished them all a good day and left. I’d had my glimpse of the stone table. On it was a clay pot, a small loaf of dark bread and a dish of salted fish doused in oil. It had not looked appetizing, even to my morning hunger, and I scarcely blamed the Black Man for leaving it untouched. Their distress over this apparent rejection was interesting to me. From their words, they had expected some island denizen to come and stealthily take the offering. That he had not worried them. These were hardened warriors, selected by the Hetgurd to be single-minded in their task. Most warriors I had been around were pragmatic about matters of religion and superstition. They might make a ‘good luck’ toss of the salt, but only a few cared much for omens such as the wind catching it and blowing it aside. My evaluation was that these men had expected the Black Man to accept their gifts, and by that acceptance, signal his permission for them to be here. He had not, and that unsettled them. I wondered how much that would affect their attitude toward our quest?
As I walked back to my tent, I reflected that this belief of theirs indicated that in the past, someone or something had accepted such offerings. Was there someone actually living on the island; or was it, more likely, some creature like the robber-rat that Swift had wanted to befriend which had taken the food?
I found Thick waking. He seemed a trifle more kindly disposed toward me this day, and accepted my aid in getting himself warmly dressed. He had one coughing spell that left him red-cheeked and breathless. It troubled me more than I let show. Lingering coughs could take down large warriors, and Thick was neither big nor hearty. He had been battling this lung ailment too long, and now faced a time of living in a draughty tent in a chilly spring. But I said nothing of my worries to him as we walked over to the fire for our share of hot porridge and tea.
Riddle and the other guardsmen were in that bitter good-humour that is typical of men facing a difficult and perhaps unpleasant task. They traded crude jests, complained about the food and made disparaging remarks about our Hetgurd ‘nannies’. Longwick sat a little apart from us, and when the food was finished, found tasks to occupy the others. He had accepted that my duties for the Crown were supervising Thick, and offered me no other chores. So I took the little man for a walk. He had no comments on the quarry or the icy stream, no observations on the blue glacier crouching above us. But as I deliberately led him on a stroll along the beach and past the submerged dragon, he shook his head and told me solemnly, ‘This isn’t a good place.’ He looked around slowly and then added, ‘Bad things happened here. And it feels like it’s now.’
I would have liked to probe that comment, but he then lifted a stubby arm to point at the ships. ‘Here they come!’ he cried, and he was right. The small boats, laden with passengers, were headed toward the shore. We stood and watched them come. Peottre, Bloodblade and the Narcheska rode in one. Chade, the Prince, Civil, his cat and Web were in the second. The Fool, Swift and Cockle were in the last one. Cockle seemed in high spirits, explaining something with much hand-waving while Swift was grinning and obviously enjoying himself. I gave a small sigh and then smiled to myself. So swiftly had my Fool won them over with his charm. I wished he had not come; I feared his prophecies concerning himself. At the same time, I could not deny that I was glad he was here. I had missed him.
By the time the boats reached shore, Thick and I were not the only ones waiting for them. Riddle and one of the other guardsmen ran Peottre’s boat up beyond the waves’ reach. Longwick and I did the same for the Prince’s, and then the Fool’s. He disembarked without even a glance that would betray he knew me. By the time everyone stood on the sand, the Hetgurd men surrounded Arkon Bloodblade. They made no attempt to lower their voices as they explained to him that the Black Man had not accepted their offering. In light of that, they suggested we should all recognize that our mission here was deeply offensive to him. The Narcheska should change her mind and release the Prince from his task.
I had known they were upset. I didn’t realize it was that important to them, I added after I had Skilled to Chade and the Prince the morning’s event at the stone table. Neither one glanced at me as I relayed my information. They waited courteously, standing well back from the discussion around Bloodblade and Peottre. The Narcheska herself stood apart from the men, staring out over the water. She looked as if she were carved from stone: determination and resignation were etched into her face.
The Black Man discussion continued, but I was distracted from it by the Fool. He had approached, chatting amiably with Cockle and Swift. The layered black and white of his garments put me so in mind of him in the days when he had been King Shrewd’s jester that I felt my throat close. He glanced my way once, a mere flicker of his brandy eyes. Then I saw his attention snag on the conversation the Hetgurd guard was having with Peottre and Bloodblade. It was like watching a hunting dog stiffen to a scent. He focused
himself on them and drew near, careless of whether it would be seen as rude.
The conversation had become an argument, and the Out Island tongue they used had become so swift and guttural with anger that I could scarcely follow it. Peottre stepped back from the group and crossed his arms on his chest. He turned his head sideways and looked away from them, but as he did so, he clapped one hand loudly on his sword scabbard. It was not a gesture that would have been used in the Six Duchies, but its meaning was still plain to me. If anyone wished to argue further with him, they’d argue blade to blade. The circle of Hetgurd men turned their eyes away from him, plainly rejecting the challenge. Instead, they closed around Bloodblade, who gestured wide his helplessness and then flapped an arm at his daughter, shrugging as if to say that the ways of all women were beyond any man’s reasoning. That seemed to settle something.
The Hetgurd man with the bear tattoo stepped away from the others and advanced to the Narcheska. She did not look at him as he came though I am sure she was aware of him. Instead she looked out over the waters, past the ship to the horizon. The wind blew past her, stirring the edges of the hooded blue cloak she wore and tugging at her embroidered skirts. It lifted them enough to reveal her sealskin boots and the wool leggings tucked into them. She ignored the breeze’s liberty as easily as she ignored the waiting Bear. He cleared his throat, but was forced to speak before she turned to him.
‘Narcheska Elliania, I would have a word with you.’
Even when she turned to look at him, her look was the only acknowledgement she gave him. He accepted it as permission to speak to her. His words were clear and formal, and I think he intended that all should hear and understand them. The Owl drew closer to them as they spoke, probably to witness their words for posterity. Bards do not believe in privacy.
‘I am sure that you heard us speaking just now. But I shall state it plainly. Last night, we left out the offering for the Black Man, as is customary when visiting this place, for any reason. This morning it remained on the stone table, untouched. Long has it been said that no man can buy the Black Man’s approval with gifts, but when he takes them, he gives you permission to risk your life here. This morning, we knew that he did not even cede that much to us. Narcheska, we have come here with you, knowing already that the challenge you gave your suitor was inappropriate. You did not listen to us. Will you pay attention now to what the Black Man himself has shown us? We are not welcome here. Many of us expected him to be angry with you. We did not expect he would withhold his permission even from those who come to see that your challenge to the dragon is a fair one. You place not just your husband and yourself in danger, but all who are here. And should you achieve your end, we now fear that the displeasure of the gods will fall, not just on you, but on all who witness the deed.’