by Robin Hobb
I knew then to expect a summons from Chade that night.
But I could not resist going to Molly. Seeing the King as a king again had fanned my failing hope. I promised myself my visit would be brief, just to talk to her, to let her know I appreciated all she did. I would be in my chambers before the small hours Chade favoured for our conversations.
I knocked on her door furtively, she let me in quickly. She must have seen how driven I was, for she came immediately into my arms, without questions or qualms. I stroked her shining hair, I looked down into her eyes. The passion that came over me suddenly was like a spring flood that bursts suddenly down a creek, flinging all winter’s debris out of its way. My intentions of quietly talking were swept away. Molly gasped as I held her to me fiercely, then surrendered herself to me.
It seemed months rather than days since we had last been together. When she kissed me hungrily, I felt suddenly awkward, uncertain as to why she would desire me. She was so young and so beautiful. It seemed vanity to believe she could want someone as battered and worn down as me. She did not allow me to keep my doubts, but drew me down on top of her without hesitation. Deep in that sharing, I finally recognized the reality of the love in her blue eyes. I gloried in the passionate way she pulled me to her and clasped me in her strong, pale arms. Later, I would recall glimpses of golden hair spread across a pillow, the scents of honeywood and mountainsweet on her skin, even the way she threw back her head and gave soft voice to her fervour.
Afterwards, Molly whispered in amazement that my intensity made me seem a different man. Her head was pillowed on my chest. I kept silent, and stroked the dark hair that smelled always of her herbs. Thyme and lavender. I closed my eyes. I knew I had warded well my thoughts. It had long ago become a habit when I was with Molly.
Verity, then, had not.
I had not willed what had happened. I doubted that anyone had. Perhaps, I hoped, I was the only one who had sensed it fully. Then there might be no real harm done, as long as I never spoke of it. As long as I could blot forever from my mind the sweetness of Kettricken’s mouth, and the softness of her white, white skin.
NINETEEN
Messages
King-in-Waiting Verity departed Buckkeep at the beginning of the third winter of the Red Ship Wars. He took with him a small group of hand-picked followers who would accompany him on his quest, as well as his personal guard who would travel with him as far as the Mountain Kingdom, and remain there to await his return. His reasoning was that a smaller expedition needed a smaller baggage train, and travelling through the mountains in winter demanded that all food supplies be carried with him. He had also decided that he did not wish to convey a martial aspect to the Elderlings. His real mission was disclosed to few except his companions. Ostensibly he went to the Mountain Kingdom to treat with his queen’s father, King Eyod, about possible military support against the Red Ships.
Of those he asked to accompany him, there are several worth noting. Hod, Armsmaster for Buckkeep, was one of the first he selected. Her grasp of tactics was not exceeded by any within the realm and her prowess with weapons was still remarkable despite her years. Charim, Verity’s body-servant, had been with him so long and accompanied him on so many campaigns, it was unthinkable to either of them that he be left behind. Chestnut, brown as his name, had been a member of Verity’s military guard for over a decade of years. He was missing an eye and most of an ear, but despite that seemed twice as alert as any other man. Keef and Kef, born twins and, like Chestnut, members of Verity’s honour-guard for years, went also. One other, Burrich, the master of stables at Buckkeep, joined the party of his own accord. When his leaving Buckkeep was protested, he pointed out that he left an able man in charge of Buckkeep’s stables, and that the party would need a man who was knowledgeable of animals in order to get the beasts alive through the mountains in mid-winter. His abilities as a healer, and his experience as a King’s Man to Prince Chivalry were also qualifications he pointed out, but this last one was known to but a few.
The night before Verity was to leave, he summoned me to his study. ‘You don’t approve of this, do you? You think it’s a fool’s errand,’ he greeted me.
I had to smile. Inadvertently, he had exactly stated what I thought. ‘I am afraid I have serious doubts,’ I agreed cautiously.
‘As do I. But what else is left to me? This, at least, is a chance for me to actually do something myself. Other than sit in that bedamned tower and Skill myself to death.’
He had painstakingly recopied Kettricken’s map over the last few days. As I watched, he rolled it carefully and slid it into a leather case. The difference the last week had made in the man amazed me. He was still grey, his body still worn and sadly dwindled from too many months of sitting. But he moved with energy, and both he and Kettricken had graced the Great Hall every evening since the decision had been made. It had been a pleasure to watch him eat with an appetite, and once more linger over a glass of wine while Mellow or another of the minstrels entertained us all. The renewed warmth between Kettricken and him was another appetite he had recovered. Her eyes seldom left her lord’s countenance when they were at table. While the minstrels entertained, her fingers were always resting on the back of his forearm. She glowed in his presence like a burning candle. Shield myself as I might, I was all too aware of how much they enjoyed their nights. I had attempted to hide from their passions by immersing myself in Molly. I ended up feeling guilty that Molly was so pleased with my renewed ardour. How would she feel if she knew my appetites were not entirely my own?
The Skill. I had been warned of its powers and pitfalls, of how it might call to a man, and drain him of everything except a hunger for its use. This was one trap I had never been warned about. In some ways, I was looking forward to Verity leaving so I could call my soul my own again.
‘What you do in that tower is not a lesser task. If folk could but understand how you burn yourself for them …’
‘As you understand only too well. We’ve grown close this summer, boy. Closer than I’d ever have thought possible. Closer than any man has been to me since your father died.’
Closer even than you might suspect, my prince. But I did not utter those words. ‘We have.’
‘I’ve a favour to ask you. Two, actually.’
‘You know that I won’t refuse you.’
‘Never say that so easily. The first is that you look after my lady. She has grown wiser in Buckkeep ways, but she is still far too trusting. Keep her safe until I return.’
‘That is always yours without asking, my prince.’
‘And the other.’ He took a breath, sighed it out. ‘I wish to try to stay here, as well. In your mind. For as long as I can.’
‘My prince.’ I hesitated. He was right. This was not a thing I wished to grant him. But I had already said I would. I knew that, for the sake of the kingdom, it was a wise thing to do. But for myself? Already I had felt the boundaries of my self eroding before Verity’s strong presence. We were not talking about a contact of hours now, or days, but of weeks and likely months. I wondered if this was what happened to coterie members, if eventually they ceased having separate lives. ‘What of your coterie?’ I asked quietly.
‘What of them?’ he retorted. ‘I leave them in place, in the watchtowers and on my ships for now. Whatever messages they must send, they can send to Serene. In my absence, she will take them to Shrewd. If there is anything they feel I must know, they can Skill me.’ He paused. ‘There will be other sorts of information that I would seek through you. Things I would prefer kept private.’
Tidings of his queen, I thought to myself. How Regal would employ his powers in his brother’s absence. Gossips and intrigues. In one sense, trifling things. In another, the detail that secured Verity’s position. I wished for the thousandth time that I could Skill reliably of my own accord. If I had had that ability, Verity would not have needed to ask this of me. I would have been able to reach out to him at any time. But as matters stood, the t
ouch-imposed Skill bond we had used over the summer was our only resource. Through it, he could be aware of what went on at Buckkeep when he chose to, and I could receive instructions from him. I hesitated, but already knew that I would accede. From loyalty to him and to the Six Duchies, I told myself. Not from any Skill hunger in myself. I looked up at him. ‘I will do it.’
‘Knowing well that this is how it begins,’ he said. It was not a question. Already, this was how accurately we could read one another. He did not wait for my answer. ‘I will be as inconspicuous as I can,’ he promised. I walked to him. He lifted a hand and touched my shoulder. Verity was with me again, as he had not consciously been since the day in his study when he had bid me to shield myself.
The day of the departure was fine, crisply cold, but the skies were clear blue. Verity, true to his word, had kept his expedition to a minimum. Riders had been dispatched the morning after the council, to precede him on his route and arrange supplies and lodgings in the towns where he would pass. This would allow him to travel swiftly and lightly through much of the Six Duchies.
As his expedition set off that chill morning, I alone of the crowd did not bid Verity farewell. He nestled inside my mind, small and silent as a seed waiting for spring. As unnoticed, almost, as Nighteyes. Kettricken had chosen to watch the departure from the frosty walls of the Queen’s Garden. She had said her farewells to him earlier, and chosen this spot so that if she wept, none would take it amiss. I stood at her side, and endured the resonance of what she and Verity had come to share in the last week. I was both glad for her, and heartsick that what she had so recently found must so quickly be taken from her. Horses and men, pack-animals and banners finally passed behind a shoulder of hills and out of our sight. Then I felt that which sent a chill up my spine. She Wit-quested after him. Very faintly, it was true, but enough that somewhere in my heart, Nighteyes sat up, eyes aflame, and asked, What’s this?
Nothing. Nothing to do with us, anyway. I added, We hunt together soon, my brother, as we have not for too long.
For a few days after the cavalcade’s departure, I almost had my own life again. I had dreaded Burrich’s leaving with Verity. I understood what drove him to follow his King-in-Waiting, but felt uncomfortably exposed with them both gone. That told me much about myself that I really did not want to know. But the other side of that coin was that, with Burrich gone and Verity’s presence inside me coiled tight, Nighteyes and I were finally free to use the Wit as openly as we wished. Almost every dawn I was with him, miles from the keep. On the days when we sought Forged ones, I rode Sooty, but she did not ever feel completely comfortable around the wolf. After a time, there seemed far fewer of them, and no more coming into the area. We began to be able to hunt game for ourselves. For that, I went afoot, for we hunted more companionably that way. Nighteyes approved of my physical improvement over the summer. That winter, for the first time since Regal had poisoned me, I felt I had the full use of my body and strength again. The vigorous mornings of hunting and the deep hours of the night with Molly would have been enough life for any man. There is something completely satisfying about simple things such as these.
I suppose I wanted my life to be always this simple and complete. I tried to ignore things I knew were dangerous. The continued fine weather, I told myself, would assure Verity a fine start to his journey. I put from my mind whether there would be any end-of-season raids from the Red Ships while we were so unprotected. I avoided, too, Regal and the sudden round of social occasions that filled Buckkeep with his followers and kept the torches burning late every night in the Great Hall. Serene and Justin were also much more in evidence about Buckkeep. I never entered a room where they were but that I felt the arrows of their dislike. I began to avoid the common rooms in the evenings, where I must either encounter them, or Regal’s guests who had come to swell our winter court.
Verity had not been gone more than two days before I heard rumours that the true purpose of his quest was to seek the Elderlings. I could not blame these on Regal. Those Verity had hand-chosen had known of their true mission. Burrich had ferreted it out for himself. If he could, so could another, and noise it about. But when I overheard two pantry-boys laughing about ‘King Wisdom’s folly, and Prince Verity’s myth’ I suspected the ridicule was Regal’s doing. Verity’s Skilling had made him too much the recluse. Folk wondered what he did so long alone in his tower. That is, they knew he Skilled, but that was too tame a topic for gossip. His preoccupied stare, his odd hours for eating and rest, his silent ghosting through the castle while other folks were abed were all grist for this mill. Had he lost his mind, and set out on a madman’s errand? Speculation began to grow, and Regal gave it fertile ground. He found excuses and reasons for all sorts of banquets and gatherings of his nobles. King Shrewd was seldom well enough to be present and Kettricken did not enjoy the company of the witty knaves that Regal cultivated. I knew enough to stay away. I had only myself and Chade to grumble to about the cost of these parties when Regal had insisted that there were scarcely funds for Verity’s expedition. Chade only shook his head.
The old man had become more close-mouthed of late, even with me. I had the uncomfortable feeling that Chade kept a secret from me. Secrets in themselves were nothing new. The old assassin was stuffed full of secrets. I simply could not be rid of the feeling that this secret somehow touched on me directly. I could not ask him outright, but I watched him. His work table showed signs of heavy use when I was not about. Even stranger, all messes associated with that work had been cleaned meticulously whenever he summoned me. This was bizarre. For years I had tidied up after him and his ‘cooking’. Now, for him to straighten up after himself seemed either a sharp rebuke to me or a concealment of whatever he had been doing.
Unable to resist, I watched him whenever I could. I learned nothing of his secret, but saw much that I had previously missed. Chade was getting old. Never tolerant of cold, the stiffness it brought to his joints no longer yielded to the cosy evenings before his hearth. He was Shrewd’s elder half-brother, bastard as I was, and despite his stiffness, he still seemed the younger of the two. But he held scrolls farther from his nose when he read now, and avoided reaching for anything over his head. To watch these changes in him was as painful as to know he kept a secret from me.
Twenty-three days after Verity left, I came back from a dawn hunt with Nighteyes to find the keep abuzz. The feeling was that of a stirred ant-nest, but with none of their purposefulness. I went straight to Cook Sara and asked her what had happened. The kitchen of any keep is the heart of the rumour-mill, second only to the guard-room. At Buckkeep, the kitchen gossip was usually more accurate.
‘A rider come in, his horse near to dead. Said there’s been a raid up at Ferry. The whole city near gone from the fires they set. Seventy folk Forged. How many dead, there’s no telling yet. And more will die, made homeless in this cold. Three shiploads of Raiders, the boy said. He went straight to Prince Regal, he did, and reported. Prince Regal sent him here to be fed; he’s in the guard-room now, asleep.’ She lowered her voice. ‘That boy came all this way on his own. Got fresh horses in towns he went through, coming down the coast road, but wouldn’t let no one else carry his message for him. He told me that every leg of the way, he kept expecting to find help coming, to hear from someone that they already knew and that ships had been sent out. But there was nothing.’
‘From Ferry? Then it’s been at least five days since it happened. Why weren’t the signal tower fires lit?’ I demanded. ‘Or the message birds sent to Gulls and Sealbay? King-in-Waiting Verity left a patrol ship in that area. The patrol ship should have been able to see the light from Gulls or Ferry. And there’s a coterie member, Will, at Red Tower. He should have seen the signal fires. He should have sent word back here, to Serene. How could it be that no word was received here; how could we know nothing at all of this?’
Cook lowered her voice even more, gave the dough she was kneading a meaningful thump. ‘Boy said the signal fires were l
it, at Ferry and at Ice Town. He says the birds were sent to Gulls. The ship never came.’
‘Then why didn’t we know?’ I took a deep shuddering breath, set aside by useless anger. Within me, I felt a faint stirring of concern from Verity. Too faint. The Skill bond was fading, just when I wished it strong. ‘Well, I suppose it’s no good asking that just now. What has Regal done? Sent out the Rurisk? I wish I’d been here to go with them.’
Cook snorted and paused to throttle the dough a bit. ‘Go now, then, for you won’t be late. Nothing’s been done, no one sent that I’ve heard. No one sent, no one is being sent. No one. You know I’ve no tongue For gossip, Fitz, but what was whispered was that Prince Regal did know of it. When the boy came in, oh, the Prince was so kind, so full of sympathy as to make the ladies’ hearts melt. A meal, a new coat, a small purse for his troubles. But he told the boy it was too late now. The Raiders would be long gone. No sense to send a ship out now, or soldiers.’
‘Too late to fight Raiders, perhaps. But what of those burned out in Ferry? A contingent of workers to help repair houses, some wagons of food …’
‘Says there’s no coin for it,’ Cook bit each word off separately. She began to break her dough into rolls and to slap each one down to rise. ‘Says the treasury was drained to build ships and man them. Said Verity took what little was left for this expedition to find Elderlings.’ A world of disdain on the last word. Cook paused to wipe her hands on her apron. ‘Then he said he was very sorry. Very truly sorry.’
A cold fury uncoiled inside me. I patted Cook’s shoulder and assured her that everything would be all right. Like a man in a daze, I left the kitchen and went to Verity’s study. Once inside the study, I paused, groping. One clear glimpse of Verity’s intent. In the back of a drawer, I would find an antique emerald necklace, the stones set in gold. It had been his mother’s mother’s. It would be enough to hire men, and buy grain to send with them. I pushed open the study door, and halted.