by Robin Hobb
"Fa!" She gave me a nudge with her shoulder. "You talk as if some lord should come riding down from the keep and carry me off."
I thought of August with his stuffy manners, or Regal simpering at her. "Eda forbid. You'd be wasted on them. They wouldn't have the wit to understand you, or the heart to appreciate you."
Molly looked down at her work-worn hands. "Who would, then?" she asked softly.
Boys are fools. The conversation had grown and twined around us, my words coming as naturally as breathing to me. I had not intended any flattery, or subtle courtship. The sun was beginning to dip into the water, and we sat close by one another and the beach before us was like the world at our feet. If I had said at that moment, "I would," I think her heart would have tumbled into my awkward hands like ripe fruit from a tree. I think she might have kissed me, and sealed herself to me of her own free will. But I couldn't grasp the immensity of what I suddenly knew I had come to feel for her. It drove the simple truth from my lips, and I sat dumb and half a moment later Smithy came, wet and sandy, barreling into us, so that Molly leaped to her feet to save her skirts, and the opportunity was lost forever, blown away like spray on the wind.
We stood and stretched, and Molly exclaimed about the time, and I felt all the sudden aches of my healing body. Sitting and letting myself cool down on a chill beach was a stupid thing I certainly wouldn't have done to any horse. I walked Molly home and there was an awkward moment at her door before she stooped and hugged Smithy good-bye. And then I was alone, save for a curious pup demanding to know why I went so slowly and insisting he was half-starved and wanting to run and tussle all the way up the hill to the keep.
I plodded up the hill, chilled within and without. I returned Smithy to the stables, and said good night to Sooty, and then went up to the keep. Galen and his fledglings had already finished their meager meal and left. Most of the keep folk had eaten, and I found myself drifting back to my old haunts. There was always food in the kitchen and company in the watch room off the kitchen. Men-at-arms came and went there all hours of the day and night, so Cook kept a simmering kettle on the hook, adding water and meat and vegetables as the level went down. Wine and beer and cheese were also there, and the simple company of those who guarded the keep. They had accepted me as one of their own since the first day I'd been given into Burrich's care. So I made myself a simple meal there, not near as scanty as Galen would have provided me, nor yet as ample and rich as I craved. That was Burrich's teaching; I fed myself as I would have an injured animal.
And I listened to the casual talk going on around me, focusing myself into the life of. the keep as I hadn't for months. I was amazed at all that I had not known because of my total immersion in Galen's teaching. A bride for Verity was most of the talk. There was the usual crude soldiers' jesting one could expect about such things, as well as a lot of commiseration over his ill luck in having Regal choose his future spouse. That the match would be based on political alliances had never been in question; a prince's hand could not be wasted on something as foolish as his own choice. That had been a great part of the scandal surrounding Chivalry's stubborn courtship of Patience. She had come from within the realm, the daughter of one of our nobles, and one already very amicable to the royal family.
No political advantage at all had come out of that marriage.
But Verity would not be squandered so. Especially with the Red-Ships menacing us all along our straggling coastline. And so speculation ran rife. Who would she be? A woman from the Near Islands, to our north in the White Sea? The islands were little more than rocky bits of the earth's bones thrusting up out of the sea, but a series of towers set among them would give us earlier warning of the sea raiders' ventures into our waters. To the southwest of our borders, beyond the Rain Wilds where no one ruled, were the Spice Coasts. A princess from there would offer few defensive advantages, but some argued for the rich trading agreements she might bring with her. Days to the south and east over the sea were the many big islands where grew the trees that the boat builders yearned for. Could a king and his daughter be found there who would trade her warm winds and soft fruits for a keep in a rocky ice-boundaried land? What would they ask for a soft southern woman and her tall-timbered island trade? Furs said some, and grain said another. And there were the mountain kingdoms at our backs, with their jealous possession of the passes that led into the tundra lands beyond. A princess from there would command warriors of her folk, as well as trade links to the ivory workers and reindeer herders who lived beyond their borders. On their southern border was the pass that led to the headwaters of the great Rain River that meandered through the Rain Wilds. Every soldier among us had heard the old tales of the abandoned treasure temples on the banks of that river, of the tall carved gods who presided still over their holy springs, and of the flake gold that sparkled in the lesser streams. Perhaps a mountain princess, then?
Each possibility was debated with far more political savvy and sophistication than Galen would have believed these simple soldiers capable of commanding. I rose from their midst feeling ashamed of how I had dismissed them; in so short a time Galen had brought me to think of them as ignorant sword wielders, men of brawn with no brain at all. I had lived among them all my life. I should have known better. No, I had known better. But my hunger to set myself higher, to prove beyond doubt my right to that royal magic had made me willing to accept any nonsense he might choose to present me. Something clicked within me, as if the key piece to a wood puzzle had suddenly slid into place. I had been bribed with the offer of knowledge as another man might have been bribed with coins.
I did not think very well of myself as I climbed the stairs to my room. I lay down to sleep with the resolve that I would not let Galen deceive me any longer, nor persuade me to deceive myself. I also resolved most firmly that I would learn the Skill, no matter how painful or difficult it might be.
And so dark and early the next morning I plunged fully back into my lessons and routine. I attended Galen's, every word, I pushed myself to do each exercise, physical or mental, to the extreme of my ability. But as the week, and then the month, wore painfully on, I felt like a dog with his meat suspended just beyond the reach of his jaws. For the others, something was obviously happening. A network of shared thought was building between them, a communication that had them turning to one another before they spoke, that let them perform the shared physical exercises as one being. Sullenly, resentfully, they took turns being partnered with me, but from them I felt nothing, and from me they shuddered and pulled back, complaining to Galen that the force I exerted toward them was either like a whisper or a battering ram.
I watched in near despair as they danced in pairs, sharing control of one another's muscles, or as one walked blindfolded the maze of the coals, guided by the eyes of his seated partner. Sometimes I knew I had the Skill. I could feel it building within me, unfolding like a growing seed, but it was a thing I could not seem to direct or control. One moment it was within me, booming like a tide against rock cliffs, and the next it was gone and all within me was dry deserted sand. At its strength, I could compel August to stand, to bow, to walk. The next he would stand glaring at me, daring me to contact him at all.
And no one seemed able to reach inside me. "Drop your guard, put down your walls," Galen would angrily order me as he stood before me, vainly trying to convey to me the simplest direction or suggestion. I felt the barest brush of his Skill against me. But I could no more allow him inside my mind than I could stand complacent while a man slid a sword between my ribs. Try as I might to compel myself, I shied from his touch, physical or mental, and the touches of my classmates I could not feel at all.
Daily they advanced, while I watched and struggled to master the barest basics. A day came when August looked at a page, and across the rooftop, his partner read it aloud, while another set of two pairs played a chess game in which those who commanded the moves could not physically see the board at all. And Galen was well pleased with all of them
, save me. Each day he dismissed us after a touch, a touch I seldom felt. And each day I was the last free to go, and he coldly reminded me that he wasted his time on a bastard only because the King commanded him to do so.
Spring was coming on and Smithy grown from a puppy to a dog. Sooty dropped her foal while I was at my lessons, a fine filly sired by Verity's stallion. I saw Molly once, and we walked together near wordlessly through the market. There was a new stall set up, with a rough man selling birds and animals, all captured wild and caged by him. He had crows, and sparrows, and a swallow, and one young fox so weak with worms he could scarcely stand. Death would free him sooner than any buyer, and even if I had had the coin for him, he had reached a state where the worm medicines would only poison him as well as his parasites. It sickened me, and so I stood, questing toward the birds with suggestions of how picking at a certain bright bit of metal might unpin the doors of their cages. But Molly thought I stared at the poor beasts themselves, and I felt her grow cooler and farther from me than ever she had been before. As we walked her home Smithy whined beggingly for her attention, and so won from her a cuddle and a pat before we left. I envied him the ability to whine so well. My own seemed to go unheard.
With spring in the air, all in the seaport braced, for soon it would be raiding weather. I ate with the guards every night now and listened well to all the rumors. Forged ones had become robbers all along our highways, and the stories of their depravities and depredations were all the tavern talk now. As predators, they were more devoid of decency and mercy than any wild animal could be. It was easy to forget they had ever been human, and to hate them with a venom like nothing else.
The fear of being Forged increased proportionately. Markets carried candy-dipped beads of poison for mothers to give their children in the event the family was captured by raiders. There were rumors that some seacoast villagers had packed up all their belongings in carts and moved inland, forsaking their traditional occupations as fishers and traders to become farmers and hunters away from the threat of the sea. Certainly the population of beggars within the city was swelling. A Forged one came into Buckkeep Town itself and walked the streets, as untouchable as a madman as he helped himself to whatever he wanted from the market stalls. Before a second day had passed, he had disappeared, and dark whispers said to watch for his body to wash up on the beach. Other rumors said a wife had been found for Verity among the mountain folk. Some said it was to secure our access to the passes; others that we could not afford a potential enemy at our backs when all along our seacoast we must fear the Red-Ships.. And there were yet other rumors, no, the barest whispers, too brief and fragmented to be rumors, that all was not well with Prince Verity. Tired and sick said some, and others sniggered about a nervous and weary bridegroom. A few sneered that he had taken to drink and was only seen by day when his headache was worst.
I found my concern over these last rumors to be deeper than I would have expected. None of the royals had ever paid much mind to me, at least not in a personal way. Shrewd saw to my education and comfort and had long ago bought my loyalty, so that now I was his without even giving thought to any alternative. Regal despised me, and I had long learned to avoid his narrow glance, and the casual nudges or furtive shoves that had once been enough to send a smaller boy staggering. But Verity had been kind to me, in an absentminded sort of way, and he loved his dogs and his horse and his hawks in a way I understood. I wanted to see him stand tall and proud at his wedding, and hoped someday to stand behind the throne he would occupy much as Chade stood behind Shrewd's. I hoped he was well, and yet there was nothing I could do about it if he were not, nor even a way I could see him. Even if we had been keeping the same hours, the circles we moved in were seldom the same.
It was still not quite full spring when Galen made his announcement. The rest of the keep was making its preparations for Springfest. The stalls in the marketplace would be sanded clean and repainted in bright colors, and tree branches would be brought inside and gently forced so that their blossoms and tiny leaves could grace the banquet table on Springseve. But tender new greens and eggcake with carris seed toppings were not what Galen had in mind for us, nor puppet shows and hunt dances. Instead, with the coming of the new season, we would be tested, either to be proven worthy or discarded.
"Discarded," he repeated, and if he had been condemning those unchosen to death, the attention of his other students could not have been more intent. I numbly tried to understand in full what it would mean to me when I failed. I had no belief that he would test me fairly, or that I could pass such a test even if he did.
"You shall be a coterie, those of you who prove yourselves. Such a coterie as has never been before, I would think. At the height of Springfest, I myself will present you to your king, and he shall see the wonder of what I have wrought. As you have come this far with me, you know I will not be shamed before him. So I myself will test you, and test you to your limits, to be sure that the weapon I place in my king's hand holds an edge worthy of its purpose. One day from now, I will scatter you, like seeds in the wind, across the kingdom. I have arranged that you will be taken hence, by swift horse, to your destinations. And there each of you will be left, alone. Not one of you will know where any of the others are." He paused, I think to let each of us feel the tension thrumming through the room. I knew that all the others vibrated in tune, sharing a common emotion, almost a common mind as they received their instruction. I suspected they heard far more than the simple words from Galen's lips. I felt a foreigner there, listening to words in a language whose idiom I could not grasp. I would fail.
"Within two days of being left, you will be summoned. By me. You will be directed who to contact, and where. Each of you will receive the information you need to make your way back here. If you have learned, and learned well, my coterie will be here and present on Springseve, ready to be presented to the King." Again the pause. "Do not think, however, that all you must do is find your way back to Buckkeep by Springseve. You are to be a coterie, not homing pigeons. How you come and in what company will prove to me that you have mastered your Skill. Be ready to leave by tomorrow morning."
And then he released us, one by one, again with a touch for each, and a word of praise for each, save me. I stood before him, as open as I could make myself, as vulnerable as I dared to be, and yet the brush of the Skill against my mind was less than the touch of the wind. He stared down at me as I looked up at him, and I did not need the Skill to feel that he both loathed and despised me. He made a noise of contempt and looked aside, releasing me. I started to go:
"Far better," he said in that cavernous voice of his, "if you had gone over the wall that night, bastard. Far better. Burrich thought I abused you. I was only offering you a way out, as close to an honorable way as you were capable of finding. Go away and die, boy, or at least go away. You shame your father's name by existing. By Eda, I do not know how you came to exist. That a man such as your father could fall to such depth as lying with something and letting you become is beyond my mind to imagine."
As always, there was that note of fanaticism in his voice as he spoke of Chivalry, and his eyes became almost blank with blind idolatry for him. Almost absentmindedly, he turned away and walked off. He reached the top of the stairs, and then turned, very slowly. "I must ask," he said, and the venom in his voice was hungry with hatred. "Are you his catamite, that he lets you suck strength from him? Is that why he is so possessive of you?"
"Catamite?" I repeated, not knowing the word.
He smiled. It made his cadaverous face even more skull-like. "Did you think I hadn't discovered him? Did you think you'd be free to draw on his strength for this test? You won't. Be assured, bastard, you won't."
He turned and went down the steps, leaving me standing there alone on the rooftop. I had no idea what his final words meant; but the strength of his hatred had left me sickened and weak as if it were a poison he'd put in my blood. I was reminded of the last time all had left me on the tower r
oof. I felt compelled to walk to the edge of the tower and look down. This corner of the keep did not face the sea, but there were still jagged rocks aplenty at the foot of it. No one would survive that fall. If I could make a decision whose firmness lasted for one second, then I could put myself out of it all. And what Burrich or Chade or anyone else might think of it would not be able to trouble me.
A distant echo of a whimper.
"I'm coming, Smithy," I muttered, and turned away from the edge.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Trial
THE MAN CEREMONY IS supposed to take place within the moon of a boy's fourteenth birthday. Not all are honored with it. It requires a Man to sponsor and name the candidate, and He must find a dozen other Men who concede the boy is worthy and ready. Living among the men-at-arms, I knew of the ceremony, and knew enough of its gravity and selectivity that I never expected to participate in it. For one thing, no one knew my birth date. For another, I had no knowledge of who was a Man, let alone if twelve Men existed who would find me worthy.
But on a certain night, months after I had endured Galen's test, I awoke to find my bed surrounded by robed and hooded figures. Within the dark hoods I glimpsed the masks of the Pillars.
No one may speak or write of the ceremony details. This, I think, I may say. As each life was put into my hands, fish, bird, and beast, I chose to release it, not to death but back to its own free existence. So nothing died at my ceremony, and hence no one feasted. But even in my state of mind at that time, I felt there had been enough blood and death around me to last a Lifetime, and I refused to kill with hands or teeth. My Man still chose to give me a name, so He could not have been totally displeased. The name is in the old tongue, which has no letters and cannot be written. Nor have I ever found any with whom I chose to share the knowledge of my Man name. But its ancient meaning, I think, I can divulge here. Catalyst. The Changer.