by Robin Hobb
There followed another day of discomfort and random abuse. So I see it now. So I think I knew it then, in my heart of hearts. But ever he spoke of proving us worthy, of making us tough and strong. He made it an honour to be standing out in the cold, bare feet going numb against the chill stone. He roused in us a competition, not just against each other, but against his shabby images of us. ‘Prove me wrong,’ he said over and over again. ‘I beg you, prove me wrong, that I may show the King at least one pupil worthy of my time.’ And so we tried. How strange now to look back on it all and wonder at myself. But in the space of one day, he had succeeded in isolating us and plunging us into another reality, where all rules of courtesy and common sense were suspended. We stood silently in the cold, in various uncomfortable positions, eyes closed, wearing little more than our undergarments. And he walked among us, dealing out cuts from his silly little whip, and insults from his nasty little tongue. He cuffed occasionally, or shoved, something that is much more painful when one is chilled to the bone.
Those who flinched or wavered were accused of weakness. During the day he berated us with our unworthiness and repeated that he had only consented to try to teach us at the King’s behest. The women he ignored, and though he often spoke of past princes and kings who had wielded the Skill in defence of the realm, he never once mentioned the queens and princesses who had done likewise. Nor did he ever once give us an overview of what he was attempting to teach us. There was only the cold and the discomfort of his exercises, and the uncertainty of when we would be struck. Why we struggled to endure it, I don’t know. So quickly were we all made accomplices in our own degradation.
The sun finally ventured once again toward the horizon. But Galen had saved two final surprises for us that day. He let us stand, open our eyes and stretch freely for a few moments. Then he gave us a final lecture, this one to warn us against those among us who would undermine the training of all by foolish self-indulgences. He walked slowly among us as he spoke, wending his way in and out of our rows, and I saw many a rolling eye and intake of breath as he passed. Then, for the first time that day, he ventured over to the women’s corner of the court.
‘Some,’ he cautioned us as he strolled, ‘think themselves above rules. They think themselves worthy of special attention and indulgences. Such illusions of superiority must be driven from you before you can learn anything. It is hardly worthy of my time for me to have to teach these lessons to such laggards and dolts as need them. It is a shame that they have even found their way into our gathering. But they are among us, and I will honour the will of my king, and attempt to teach them. Even though there is only one way I know to waken such lazy minds.’
To Merry he gave two quick cuts with the quirt. But Serene he shoved down onto one knee, and struck four times. To my shame, I stood there with the rest, as each cut fell, and hoped only that she would not cry out and bring more punishment on herself.
But Serene rose, swayed once, and then stood again, still, looking out over the heads of the girls before her. I breathed a sigh of relief. But then Galen was back, circling like a shark around a fishing-boat, speaking now of those who thought themselves too good to share the discipline of the group, of ones who indulged in meat in plenty while the rest limited ourselves to wholesome grains and pure foods. I wondered uneasily who had been so foolish as to visit the kitchen after hours.
Then I felt the hot lick of the whip on my shoulders. If I had thought he was using the lash to his full capability before, he proved me wrong now.
‘You thought to deceive me. You thought I would never know if Cook saved her precious pet a plate of tidbits, didn’t you? But I know all that happens in Buckkeep. Don’t deceive yourself about that.’
It dawned on me that he was speaking of the meat scraps I’d taken up to Smithy.
‘That food wasn’t for me,’ I protested, and then could have bitten my tongue out.
His eyes glittered coldly. ‘You’d lie to save yourself a little just pain. You’ll never master the Skill. You’ll never be worthy of it. But the King has commanded that I try to teach, and so I will try. Despite you or your low birth.’
In humiliation I took the welts he dealt me. He berated me as each fell, telling the others that the old rules against teaching the Skill to a bastard had been to prevent just such a thing as this.
Afterwards, I stood, silent and shamed, as he went down the rows, dealing a perfunctory swat with the quirt to each of my fellows, explaining as he did so that we all must pay for the failures of the individuals. It did not matter that this statement made no sense, or that the whip fell lightly compared to what Galen had just inflicted on me. It was the idea that they were all paying for my transgression. I had never felt so shamed in my life.
Then he released us, to go down to another cheerless meal, much the same as yesterday’s. This time no one spoke on the stairs or at the meal. And afterwards, I went straight up to my room.
Meat soon, I promised the hungry pup that waited for me. Despite my aching back and muscles, I forced myself to clean up the room, scrubbing up Smithy’s messes, and then making a trip for fresh strewing reeds. Smithy was a bit sulky at being left alone all day, and I was troubled when I realized I had no idea how long this miserable training would last.
I waited until late, when all ordinary folk of the keep were in their beds, before venturing down to get Smithy’s food for him. I dreaded that Galen would find out, but what else was I to do? I was halfway down the big staircase when I saw the glimmering of a single candle being borne toward me. I shrank against the wall, suddenly sure it was Galen. But it was the Fool who came toward me, glowing as white and pale as the wax candle he carried. In his other hand was a pail of food and a beaker of water balanced on top of it. Soundlessly he waved me back to my room.
Once inside, the door shut, he turned on me. ‘I can take care of the pup for you,’ he told me dryly. ‘But I can’t take care of you. Use your head, boy. What can you possibly learn from what he’s doing to you?’
I shrugged, then winced. ‘It’s just to toughen us. I don’t think it will go on much longer before he gets down to actually teaching us. I can take it.’ Then, ‘Wait,’ I said, as he fed bits of meat to Smithy from the pail. ‘How do you know what Galen’s been putting us through?’
‘Ah, that would be telling,’ he said blithely. ‘And I can’t do that. Tell, that is.’ He dumped the rest of the pail out for Smithy, replenished his water, and stood.
‘I’ll feed the puppy,’ he told me. ‘I’ll even try to take him outside for a bit each day. But I won’t clean up his messes.’ He paused at the door. ‘That’s where I draw the line. You’d better decide where you will draw the line. And soon. Very soon. The danger is greater than you know.’
And then he was gone, taking his candle and warnings with him. I lay down and fell asleep to the sounds of Smithy worrying a bone and making puppy growls to himself.
FIFTEEN
The Witness Stones
The Skill, at its simplest, is the bridging of thought from person to person. It can be used a number of ways. During battle, for instance, a commander can relay simple information and commands directly to those officers under him, if those officers have been trained to receive it. One powerfully Skilled can use his talent to influence even untrained minds or the minds of his enemies, inspiring them with fear or confusion or doubt. Men so talented are rare. But, if incredibly gifted with the Skill, a man can aspire to speak directly to the Elderlings, those who are below only the gods themselves. Few have ever dared to do so, and of those who did, even fewer attained what they asked. For it is said, one may ask of the Elderlings, but the answer they give may not be to the question you ask, but to the one you should have asked. And the answer to that question may be one a man cannot hear and live. For when one speaks to the Elderlings, then is the sweetness of using the Skill strongest and most perilous. And this is the thing that every practitioner of the Skill, weak or strong, must always guard against. For in usi
ng the Skill, the user feels a keenness of life, an uplifting of being, that can distract a man from taking his next breath. Compelling is this feeling, even in the common uses of the Skill, and addictive to any not hardened of purpose. But the intensity of this exultation when speaking to the Elderlings is a thing for which we have no comparison. Both senses and sense may be blasted forever from a man who uses the Skill to speak to an Elderling. Such a man dies raving, but it is also true he dies raving of his joy.
The Fool was right. I had no idea of the peril I faced. I plunged on doggedly. I have no heart to detail the weeks that followed. Suffice to say that with each day Galen had us more under his sway, and that he also became more cruel and manipulative. Some few pupils disappeared early on. Merry was one. She stopped coming after the fourth day. I saw her only once after that, creeping about the keep with a face both woebegone and shamed. I learned later that Serene and the other women had shunned her after she had dropped the training, and when they later spoke of her, it was not as if she had failed at a test, but rather had committed some low and loathsome act for which she could never be forgiven. I know not where she went, only that she left Buckkeep and never returned.
As the ocean sorts pebbles from sand on a beach and stratifies them at the tide mark, so did the poundings and caressings of Galen separate his students. Initially, all of us strove to be his best. It was not because we liked or admired him. I do not know what the others felt, but there was nothing in my heart but hate for him, a hatred so strong that it spawned a resolution not to be broken by such a man. After days of his abuse, to wring a single grudging word of acknowledgement from him was like a torrent of praise from any other master. Days of his belittling should have made me numb to his mockery. Instead, I came to believe much of what he said, and tried futilely to change.
We vied constantly with one another to come to his attention. Some emerged clearly as his favourites. August was one, and we were often urged to imitate him. I was clearly his most despised. And yet this did not stop me from burning to distinguish myself before him. After the first time, I was never last on the tower top. I never wavered from his blows. Nor did Serene, who shared my distinction of being despised. Serene became Galen’s grovelling follower, never breathing a word of criticism about him after that first lashing. Yet he constantly found fault with her, berated and reviled her, and struck her far more often than he struck any of the other women. This, however, made her only more determined to prove she could withstand his abuse, and she, after Galen, was the most intolerant of any who wavered or doubted in our teaching.
Winter deepened. It was cold and dark on the tower top, save for what light came from the stairwell. It was the most isolated place in the world, and Galen was its god. He forged us into a unit. We believed ourselves élite, superior and privileged to be instructed in the Skill. Even I, who endured mockery and beatings, believed this to be so. Those of us he broke, we despised. We saw only one another for this time, we heard only Galen. At first I missed Chade. I wondered what Burrich and Lady Patience were doing. But as months went by, such lesser occupations no longer seemed interesting. Even the Fool and Smithy came to be almost annoyances to me, so single-mindedly did I pursue Galen’s approval. The Fool came and went silently then. There were times, though, when I was sorest and weariest, when the touch of Smithy’s nose against my cheek was the only comfort I had, and times when I felt shamed by how little time I was giving to my growing puppy.
After three months of cold and cruelty, Galen had whittled us down to eight candidates. The real training finally began then, and also he returned to us a small measure of comfort and dignity. These seemed by then not only great luxuries, but gifts from Galen to be grateful for. A bit of dried fruit with our meals, permission to wear shoes, brief conversation allowed at the table – that was all, and yet we were grovellingly grateful for it. But the changes were only beginning.
It comes back in crystal glimpses. I remember the first time he touched me with the Skill. We were on the tower top, spaced even further now that there were fewer of us, and he went from one of us to the next, pausing a moment before each, while the rest of us waited in reverent silence. ‘Ready your minds for the touch. Be open to it, but do not indulge in the pleasure of it. The purpose of the Skill is not pleasure.’
He wended his way among us, in no particular order. Spaced as we were, we could not see one another’s faces, nor did it ever please Galen that our eyes follow his movements. And so we heard only his brief, stern words, then heard the in-drawn gasp of each touched one. To Serene he said in disgust, ‘Be open to it, I said. Not cower like a beaten dog.’
And last he came to me. I listened to his words, and as he had counselled us earlier, I tried to let go of every sensory awareness I had, and be open only to him. I felt the brush of his mind against mine, like a soft tickle on my forehead. I stood firm before it. It grew stronger, a warmth, a light, but I refused to be drawn into it. I felt Galen stood within my mind, sternly regarding me, and using the focusing techniques he had taught us (imagine a pail of purest white wood, and pour yourself into it) I was able to stand before him, waiting, aware of the Skill’s elation, but not giving in to it. Thrice the warmth rushed through me, and thrice I stood before it. And then he withdrew. He gave me a grudging nod, but in his eyes I saw not approval but a trace of fear.
That first touch was like the spark that finally kindles the tinder. I grasped what it was. I could not do it yet; I could not send my thoughts out from me, but I had a knowledge that would not fit into words. I would be able to Skill. And with that knowing my resolve hardened, and there was nothing, nothing Galen could have done that would stop me learning it.
I think he knew it, for he turned on me in the days that followed with a cruelty that I now find incredible. Hard words and blows he dealt me, but none could turn me aside. He struck me once in the face with his quirt. It left a visible welt, and it chanced that when I was coming into the dining hall, Burrich was also there. I saw his eyes widen. He started up from his place at table, his jaw clenched in a way I knew too well. But I looked aside from him and down. He stood a moment, glaring at Galen, who returned his look with a supercilious stare. Then, fists clenched, Burrich turned his back and left the room. I relaxed, relieved there would be no confrontation. But then Galen looked at me, and the triumph in his face made my heart cold. I was his now, and he knew it.
Pain and victories mixed for me in the next week. He never lost an opportunity to belittle me. And yet, I knew I excelled at each exercise he gave us. I sensed the others groping after his touch of Skill, but for me it was as simple as opening my eyes. I knew one moment of intense fear. He had entered my mind with the Skill, and given me a sentence to repeat aloud. ‘I am a bastard, and I shame my father’s name,’ I said aloud, calmly. And then he spoke again within my mind. You draw strength from somewhere, bastard. This is not your Skill. Do you think I will not find the source? And then I quailed before him, and drew back from his touch, hiding Smithy within my mind. His smile showed all his teeth to me.
In the days that followed, we played a game of hide and seek. I must let him into my mind, to learn the Skill. Once there, I danced on coals to keep my secrets from him. Not just Smithy, but Chade and the Fool did I hide, and Molly and Kerry and Dirk, and other, older secrets I would not reveal even to myself. He sought them all, and I juggled them desperately out of his reach. But despite all that, or perhaps because of it, I felt myself growing stronger in the Skill. ‘Don’t mock me!’ he roared after one session, and then grew infuriated as the other students exchanged shocked glances. ‘Attend to your own exercises!’ he roared at them. He paced away from me, then spun suddenly and flung himself at me. Fist and boot, he attacked me and, as Molly once had, I had no more thought than to shield my face and belly. The blows he rained on me were more like a child’s tantrum than a man’s attack. I felt their ineffectiveness and then realized with a chill that I was repelling at him. Not so much that he would sense it, just eno
ugh that not one of his blows fell exactly as he had intended. I knew, more, that he had no idea what I was doing. When at last he dropped his fists and I dared to lift my eyes, I felt momentarily that I had won, for all the others on the tower top were looking at him with gazes mingled of disgust and fear. He had gone too far for even Serene to stomach. White-faced, he turned aside from me. In that moment, I felt him reach a decision.
That evening in my room, I was horribly tired, but too enervated to sleep. The Fool had left food for Smithy, and I was teasing him with a large beef knuckle. He had set his teeth in my sleeve and was worrying it while I held the bone just out of his reach. It was the sort of game he loved, and he snarled with mock ferocity as he shook my arm. He was near as big as he would get, and I felt with pride the muscles in his thick little neck. With my free hand, I pinched his tail and he spun snarling to this new attack. From hand to hand I juggled his bone, and his eyes darted back and forth as he snapped after it. ‘No brain,’ I teased him. ‘All you can think of is what you want. No brain, no brain.’
‘Just like his owner.’
I startled, and in that second Smithy had his bone. He flopped down with it, giving the Fool no more than a perfunctory wag of his tail. I sat down, out of breath. ‘I never even heard the door open. Or shut.’
He ignored that and went straight to his topic. ‘Do you think Galen will allow you to succeed?’
I grinned smugly. ‘Do you think he can prevent it?’
The Fool sat down beside me with a sigh. ‘I know he can. So does he. What I cannot decide is if he is ruthless enough. But I suspect he is.’
‘So let him try,’ I said flippantly.
‘I have no choice in that.’ The Fool was adamantly serious. ‘What I had hoped to do was dissuade you from trying.’
‘You’d ask me to give up? Now?’ I was incredulous.