by Robin Hobb
Even so, I rose reluctantly. He watched me with an impassive interest as I straightened the clothes I'd slept in, splashed my face, and then tore into the bread he'd brought. "I don't want to go," I told him as I finished the first roll and took up the second. "I don't see what it can accomplish."
"I don't know why he bothers with you," the Fool agreed. The familiar cynicism was back.
"Galen? He has to, the King ..."
"Burrich."
"He just likes bossing me about," I complained, and it sounded childish, even to me.
The Fool shook his head. "You haven't even a clue, have you?"
"About what?"
"About how the stablemaster dragged Galen from his bed, and from thence to the Witness Stones. I wasn't there, of course, or I would be able to tell you how Galen cursed and struck at him at first, but the stablemaster paid no attention. He just hunched his shoulders to the man's blows, and kept silent. He gripped the Skillmaster by the collar, so the man was fair choked, and dragged him along. And the soldiers and guards and stable boys followed in a stream that became a torrent of men. If I had been there, I could tell you how no man dared to interfere, for it was as if the stablemaster had become as Burrich once was, an iron muscled man with a black temper that was like a madness when it came on him. No one, then, dared to brook that temper, and that day, it was as if Burrich was that man again. If he limped still, no one noticed it at all.
"As for the Skillmaster, he flailed and cursed, and then he grew still, and all suspected that he turned what he knew upon his captor. But if he did, it had no effect, save that the stablemaster tightened his grip on the man's neck. And if Galen strove to sway others to his cause, they did not react. Perhaps being choked and dragged was sufficient to break his concentration. Or perhaps his Skill is not so strong as it was rumored. Or perhaps too many remember his mistreatment of them too well to be vulnerable to his wiles. Or perhaps-"
"Fool! Get on with it! What happened?" A light sweat cloaked my body and I shivered, not knowing what I hoped for.
"I wasn't there, of course," the Fool asserted sweetly. "But I have heard it said that the dark man dragged the skinny man all the way up to the Witness Stones. And there, still gripping the Skillmaster so he could not speak, he asserted his challenge. They would fight. No weapons, but hands only, just as the Skillmaster had assaulted a certain boy the day before. And the Stones would witness, if Burrich won, that Galen had had no call to strike the boy, nor had he the right to refuse to teach the boy. And Galen would have refused the challenge and gone to the King himself, except that the dark man had already called the Stones to witness. And so they fought, in much the same way that a bull fights a bale of straw when he tosses and stamps and gores it. And when he was done, the stablemaster bent and whispered something to the Skillmaster, before he and all others turned and left the man lying there, with the Stones witness to his whimpering and bleeding."
"What did he say?" I demanded.
"I wasn't there. I saw and heard nothing of it." The Fool stood and stretched. "You'll be late if you tarry," he pointed out to me, and left. And I left my room, wondering, and climbed the tall tower to the Queen's stripped garden and was still in time to be the first one there.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Lessons
ACCORDING TO ANCIENT CHRONICLES, Skill users were organized in coteries of six. These groups did not usually include any of exceptional royal blood, but were limited to cousins and nephews of the direct line of ascension, or those who showed an aptitude and were judged worthy. One of the most famous, Crossfire's Coterie, provides a splendid example of how they functioned. Dedicated to Queen Vision, Crossfire and the others of her coterie had been trained by a Skillmaster called Tactic. The partners in this coterie were mutually chosen by one another, and then received special training from Tactic to bind them into a close unit. Whether scattered across the Six Duchies to collect or disseminate information, or when massed as a group for the purpose of confounding and demoralizing the enemy, their deeds became legendary. Their final heroism, detailed in the ballad "Crossfire's Sacrifice," was the massing of their strength, which they channeled to Queen Vision during the battle of Besham. Unbeknownst to the exhausted Queen, they gave to her more than they could spare themselves, and in the midst of the victory celebration the coterie was discovered in their tower, drained and dying. Perhaps the people's love of Crossfire's Coterie stemmed in part from their all being cripples in one form or another: blind, lame, harelipped, or disfigured by fire were all of the six, yet in the Skill their strength was greater than that of the largest warship, and more important to the defense of the Queen.
During the peaceful' years of King Bounty's reign, the instruction of the Skill for the creation of coteries was abandoned. Existing coteries disbanded due to aging, death, or simply a lack of purpose. Instruction in the Skill began to be limited to princes only, and for a time it was seen as a rather archaic art. By the time of the Red-Ship raids, only King Shrewd and his son Verity were active practitioners of the Skill. Shrewd made an effort to locate and recruit former practitioners, but most were aged, or no longer proficient.
Galen, then Skillmaster for Shrewd, was assigned the task of creating new coteries for the defense of the kingdom. Galen chose to set aside tradition. Coterie memberships were assigned rather than mutually chosen. Galen's methods of teaching were harsh, his training goal that each member would be an unquestioning part of a unit, a tool for the King to use as he needed. This particular aspect was designed solely by Galen, and the first Skill coterie he created, he presented to King Shrewd as if it were his gift to give. At least one member of the royal family expressed his abhorrence of the idea. But times were desperate, and King Shrewd could not resist wielding the weapon that had been given into his hand.
Such hate. Oh, how they hated me. As each student emerged from the stairwell onto the tower roof to find me there and waiting, each spurned me. I felt their disdain, as palpably as if each had dashed cold water against me. By the time the seventh and final student appeared, the cold of their hatred was like a wall around me. But I stood, silent and contained, in my accustomed place, and met every eye that was lifted to mine. That, I think, was why no one spoke a word to me. They were forced to take their places around me. They did not speak to each other, either.
And we waited.
The sun came up, and even cleared the wall around the tower, and still Galen had not come. But they kept their places and waited and so I did likewise.
Finally I heard his halting steps upon the stairs. When he emerged, he blinked in the sun's pale wash, glanced at me, and visibly started. I stood my ground. We looked at one another. He could see the burden of hatred that the others had imposed on me and it pleased him, as did the bandages I still wore on my temple. But I met his eyes and did not flinch. I dared not.
And I became aware of the dismay the others were feeling. No one could look at him and not see how badly he had been beaten. The Witness Stones had found him lacking, and all who saw him would know. His gaunt face was a landscape of purples and greens washed over with yellows. His lower lip was split in the middle and cut at the corner of his mouth. He wore a long-sleeved robe that covered his arms, but the flowing looseness of it contrasted so strongly with his usual tightly laced shirts and vests that it was like seeing the man in his nightshirt. His hands, too, were purple and knobby, but I could not recall that I had seen bruises on Burrich's body. I concluded that he had used them in a vain attempt to shield his face. He still carried his little whip with him, but I doubted he had the capability to swing it effectively.
And so we inspected one another. I took no satisfaction in his bruises or his disgrace. I felt something akin to shame for them. I had believed so strongly in his invulnerability and superiority that this evidence of his mere humanity left me feeling foolish. That unbalanced his composure. Twice he opened his mouth to speak to me. The third time, he turned his back on the class and said, "Begin your physical limberi
ng. I will observe you to see if you are moving correctly."
The ends of his words were soft, spoken through a painful mouth. And as we dutifully stretched and swayed and bowed in unison, he crabbed awkwardly about the tower garden. He tried not to lean on the wall, or to rest too often. Gone was the slap, slap, slap of the whip against his thigh that had formerly orchestrated our efforts. Instead, he gripped it as if afraid he might drop it. For my part, I was grateful that Burrich had made me get up and move. My bound ribs didn't permit me the full flexibility of motion that Galen had formerly commanded from us. But I made an honest attempt at it.
He offered us nothing new that day, only going over what we had already learned. And the lessons came to an early end, before the sun was even down. "You have done well," he said lamely. "You have earned these free hours, for I am pleased you have continued to study in my absence." Before dismissing us, he called each of us before him, for a brief touch of the Skill. The others left reluctantly, with many a backward glance, curious as to how he would dial with me. As the numbers of my fellow students dwindled I braced myself for a solitary confrontation.
But even that was a disappointment. He called me before him, and I came, as silent and outwardly respectful as the others. I stood before him as they had, and he made a few brief passes of his hands before my face and over my head. Then he said in a cold voice, "You shield too well. You must learn to relax your guard over your thoughts if you are either to send them forth, or receive those of others. Go."
And I left, as the others had, but regretfully. Privately I wondered if he had made a real attempt to use the Skill on me. I had felt no brush of it. I descended the stairs, aching and bitter, wondering why I was trying.
I went to my room, and then to the stables. I gave Sooty a cursory brushing while Smithy watched. Still I felt restless and dissatisfied. I knew I should rest, that I would regret it if I did not. Stone walk? Smithy suggested, and I agreed to take him into town. He galloped and snuffled circles around me as I made my way down from the keep. It was a blustery afternoon after a calm morning; a storm was building offshore. But the wind was unseasonably warm, and I felt the fresh air clearing my head, and the steady rhythm of walking soothed and stretched the muscles that Galen's exercises had left bunched and aching. Smithy's sensory prattle grounded me firmly in the immediate world, so that I could not dwell on my frustrations.
I told myself it was Smithy who led us so directly to Molly's shop. Puppy like, he had returned to where he had been welcomed before. Molly's father had kept his bed that day, and the shop was fairly quiet. A single customer lingered, talking to Molly. Molly introduced him to me as Jade. He was a mate off some Sealbay trading vessel, not quite twenty, and he spoke to me as if I were ten, smiling past me at Molly all the while. He was full of tales of Red-Ships and sea storms. He had a red stone earring in one ear, and a new beard curled along his jaw. He took far too long to select candles and a new brass lamp, but he finally left.
"Close the store for a bit," I urged Molly. "Let's go down to the beach. The wind is lovely today."
She shook her head regretfully. "I'm behind in my work. I should dip tapers all this afternoon if I have no customers. And if I do have customers, I should be here."
I felt unreasonably disappointed. I quested toward her and discovered how much she actually wished to go. "There's not that much daylight left," I said persuasively. "You can always dip tapers this evening. And your customers will come back tomorrow if they find you closed today."
She cocked her head, looked thoughtful, and abruptly set aside the wicking she held. "You're right, you know. The fresh air will do me good." And she took up her cloak with an alacrity that delighted Smithy and surprised me. We closed up the shop and left.
Molly set her usual brisk pace. Smithy frolicked about her, delighted. We talked, in a cursory way. The wind put roses in her cheeks, and her eyes seemed brighter in the cold. And I thought she looked at me more often, and more pensively than she usually did.
The town was quiet, and the market all but deserted. We went to the beach and walked sedately where we had raced and shrieked but a few years before. She asked me if I had learned to light a lantern before going down steps at night, and that mystified me, until I remembered that I had explained my injuries as a fall down a dark staircase. She asked me if the schoolteacher and the horsemaster were still at odds, and by this I discerned that Burrich and Galen's challenge at the Witness Stones had become something of a local legend already. I assured her that peace had been restored. We spent some little time gathering a certain kind of seaweed that she wanted to flavor her chowder that evening. Then, for I was winded, we sat in the lee of some rocks and watched Smithy make numerous attempts to clear the beach of all gulls.
"So. I hear Prince Verity is to wed," she began conversationally.
"What?" I asked, amazed.
She laughed heartily. "Newboy, I have never met anyone as immune to gossip as you seem to be. How can you live right up there in the keep and know nothing of that which is the common talk of the town? Verity has agreed to take a bride, to assure the succession. But the story in town is that he is too busy to do his courting himself, so Regal will find him a lady."
"Oh, no." My dismay was honest. I was picturing big bluff Verity paired with one of Regal's sugar-crystal women. Whenever there was a festival of any kind in the keep, Spring's Edge or Winterheart or Harvestday, here they came, from Chalced and Farrow and Beams, in carriages or on richly caparisoned palfreys or riding in litters. They wore gowns like butterflies' wings, and ate as daintily as sparrows, and seemed to flutter about and perch always in Regal's vicinity. And he would sit in their midst, in his own silk-and-velvet hues, and preen while their musical voices tinkled around him and their fans and fancywork trembled in their fingers. "Prince catchers," I'd heard them called, noblewomen who displayed themselves like goods in a store window in the hopes of wedding one of the royals. Their behavior was not improper, not quite. But to me it seemed desperate, and Regal cruel as he smiled first on this one and then danced all evening with that one, only to rise to a late breakfast and walk yet another through the gardens. They were Regal's worshipers. I tried to picture one on Verity's arm as he stood watching the dancers at a ball, or quietly weaving in his study while Verity pondered and sketched at the maps he so loved. No garden strolls; Verity took his walks along the docks and through the crops, stopping often to talk to the seafolk and farmers behind their plows. Dainty slippers and embroidered skirts would surely not follow him there.
Molly slipped a penny into my hand.
"What's this for?"
"To pay for whatever you've been thinking so hard that you've been sitting on the edge of my skirt while I've twice asked you to lift up. I don't think you've heard a word I've said."
I sighed. "Verity and Regal are so different, I cannot imagine one choosing a wife for the other."
Molly looked puzzled.
"Regal will choose someone who is beautiful and wealthy and of good blood. She'll be able to dance and sing and play the chimes. She'll dress beautifully and have jewels in her hair at the breakfast table, and always smell of the flowers that grow in the Rain Wilds."
"And Verity will not be glad of such a woman?" The confusion on Molly's face was as if I were insisting the sea was soup.
"Verity deserves a companion, not an ornament to wear on his sleeve," I protested in disdain. "Were I Verity, I'd want a woman who could do things. Not just select her jewelry or plait her own hair. She should be able to sew a shirt, or tend her own garden, and have something special she can do that is all her own, like scrollwork or herbery."
"Newboy, the like of that is not for fine ladies," Molly chided me. "They are meant to be pretty and ornamental. And they are rich. It isn't for them to have to do such work."
"Of course it is. Look at Lady Patience and her woman Lacey. They are always about and doing things. Their apartments are a jungle of the lady's plants, and the cuffs of her gowns are s
ometimes a bit sticky from her paper making, or she will have bits of leaves in her hair from her herbery work, but she is still just as beautiful. And prettiness is not all that important in a woman. I've watched Lacey's hands making one of the keep children a fishnet from a bit of jute string. Quick and clever as any webman's fingers down on the dock are her fingers; now that's a pretty thing that has nothing to do with her face. And Hod, who teaches weapons? She loves her silverwork and graving. She made a dagger for her father's birthday, with a grip like a leaping stag, and yet done so cleverly that it's a comfort in the hand, with not a jag or edge to catch on anything. Now, that's a bit of beauty that will live on long after her hair grays or her cheeks wrinkle. Someday her grandchildren will look at that work and think what a clever woman she was."
"Do you think so, really?"
"Certainly." I shifted, suddenly aware of how close Molly was to me. I shifted, yet did not really move farther away. Down the beach, Smithy made another foray into a flock of gulls. His tongue was hanging nearly to his knees, but he was still galloping.
"But if noble ladies do all those things, they'll ruin their hands with the work, and the wind will dry their hair and tan their faces. Surely Verity doesn't deserve a woman who looks like a deckhand?"
"Surely he does. Far more than he deserves a woman who looks like a fat red carp kept in a bowl."
Molly giggled.
"Someone to ride beside him on a morning when he takes Hunter out for a gallop, or someone who can look at a section of map he's just finished and actually understand just how fine a piece of work it is. That's what Verity deserves."
"I've never ridden a horse," Molly objected suddenly. "And I know few letters."
I looked at her curiously, wondering why she seemed so suddenly downcast. "What matter is that? You're clever enough to learn anything. Look at all you've taught yourself about candles and herbs. Don't tell me that came from your father. Sometimes when I come by the shop, your hair and dress smell all of fresh herbs and I can tell you've been experimenting to get new perfumes for the candles. If you wanted to read or write more, you could learn. As for riding, you'd be a natural. You've balance and strength ... look at how you climb the rocks on the cliffs. And animals take to you. You've fair won Smithy's heart away from me."