by Robin Hobb
‘As have I,’ Kettle observed quietly.
We both turned to stare at her. She feigned not to notice as she tried on the mitten and admired its fit.
‘No.’ I spoke bluntly. Bad enough to look forward to dying pack animals. I was not going to witness the death of another friend. It was too obvious to voice that she was hopelessly too old for such a trek.
‘I thought you might stay here, in my home,’ the Fool offered more gently. ‘There is plenty of firewood for the rest of the winter and some supplies of meal and –’
‘I expect to die on the journey, if it’s any comfort to you.’ She took off the mitten and set it with its mate. Casually she inspected what was left of her skein of wool. She began to cast on stitches, the yarn flowing effortlessly through her fingers. ‘And you needn’t worry about me before then. I’ve made provision for myself. Done a bit of trading, and I have the food and such that I’ll need.’ She glanced up at me from her needles, and added quietly, ‘I have the wherewithal to see this journey through to the end.’
I had to admire her calm assumption that her life was still her own, to do with as she wished. I wondered when I had begun to think of her as a helpless old woman that someone would have to look after now. She looked back down to her knitting. Needlessly, for her fingers continued to work whether she watched them or not. I see you understand me,’ she said quietly. And that was that.
I have never known any expedition to get off exactly as planned. Generally, the larger one is, the more difficulties it has. Ours was no exception. The morning before we were scheduled to depart, I was rudely shaken out of my sleep.
‘Get up, Fitz, we have to leave now,’ Kettricken said tersely.
I sat up slowly. I was wide awake instantly, but my healing back still did not encourage me to move swiftly. The Fool was sitting on the edge of his bed, looking more anxious than I had ever seen him. ‘What is it?’ I demanded.
‘Regal.’ I had never heard so much venom in one word. Her face was very white and she knotted and unknotted her fists at her side. ‘He has sent a courier under a truce flag to my father, saying that we harbour a known traitor to the Six Duchies. He says that if we release you to him, he will see it as a sign of good faith with the Six Duchies and will not consider us an enemy. But if we do not, he will loose the troops he has poised on our borders, for he will know that we plot with his enemies against him.’ She paused. ‘My father is considering what to do.’
‘Kettricken, I am but the excuse,’ I protested. My heart was hammering in my chest. Nighteyes whined anxiously. ‘You must know it has taken him months to mass those troops. They are not there because I am here. They are in place because he plans to move against the Mountain Kingdom no matter what. You know Regal. It is all a bluff to see if he can get you to turn me over to him. Once you do, he will find some other pretext to attack.’
‘I am not a simpleton,’ she said coldly. ‘Our watchers have known of the troops for weeks. We have been doing what we can to prepare ourselves. Always our mountains have been our strongest defence. But never before have we confronted an organized foe in such numbers. My father is Sacrifice, Fitz. He must do whatever will best serve the Mountain Kingdom. So now he must ponder if by turning you over, he will have a chance to treat with Regal. Do not think my father is stupid enough to trust him. But the longer he can delay an attack against his people, the better prepared they will be.’
‘It sounds as if there is little left to decide,’ I said bitterly.
‘There was no reason for my father to make me privy to the courier’s message,’ Kettricken observed. ‘The decision is his.’ Her eyes met mine squarely, and held a shadow of our old friendship. ‘I think perhaps he offers me a chance to spirit you away. Before I would be defying his orders to turn you over to Regal. Perhaps he thinks to tell Regal you have escaped but he intends to track you down.’
Behind Kettricken, the Fool was pulling on leggings under his nightshirt.
‘It will be harder than I had planned,’ Kettricken confided in me. ‘I cannot involve any other Mountain folk in this. It will have to be you, I and Starling. Alone. And we must leave now, within the hour.’
‘I’ll be ready,’ I promised her.
‘Meet me behind Joss’s woodshed,’ she said, and left.
I looked at the Fool. ‘So. Do we tell Kettle?’
‘Why are you asking me?’ he demanded.
I gave a small shrug. Then I got up and began dressing hastily. I thought of all the small ways in which I was not prepared and then gave it up as useless. In a very short time, the Fool and I shouldered our packs. Nighteyes rose, stretched thoroughly, and went to the door to precede us. I shall miss the fireplace. But the hunting will be better. He accepted all so calmly.
The Fool took a careful look around the hut, and then closed the door behind us. ‘That’s the first place I’ve ever lived that was solely mine,’ he observed as we walked away from it.
‘You leave so much behind to do this,’ I said awkwardly, thinking of his tools, his half-finished puppets, even the plants growing inside by the window. Despite myself, I felt responsible for it. Perhaps it was because I was so glad that I was not going on alone.
He glanced over at me and shrugged. ‘I take myself with me. That’s all I truly need, or own.’ He glanced back at the door he had painted himself. ‘Jofron will take good care of it. And of Kettle, too.’
I wondered if he left behind more than I knew.
We were nearly to the woodshed when I saw some children racing down the path toward us. ‘There he is!’ one cried, pointing. I shot a startled glance at the Fool, then braced myself, wondering what was to come. How could one defend oneself against children? At a loss, I awaited the attack. But the wolf did not wait. He sank low to his belly in the snow, even his tail flat. As the children closed the distance, he suddenly shot forward straight at the leader. ‘NO!’ I cried aloud in horror, but none of them paid me any heed. The wolf’s front paws struck the boy’s chest, to drive him down hard in the snow. In a flash Nighteyes was up and after the others, who fled, shrieking with laughter as one after another he caught up with them and mowed them down. By the time he’d felled the last one, the first boy was up and after him, vainly trying to keep up with the wolf and making wild grabs at his tail as Nighteyes flashed by him, tongue lolling.
He felled them all again, twice more, before he halted in one of his racing loops. He watched the children getting to their feet, then glanced over his shoulder at me. He folded his ears down abashedly, then looked back to the children, his tail wagging low. One girl was already digging a chunk of fatbread out of her pocket while another teased him with a strip of leather, snaking it over the snow and trying to get him involved in a tug-of-war. I feigned not to notice.
I’ll catch up with you later, he offered.
No doubt, I told him drily. The Fool and I kept walking. I glanced back once to see the wolf, teeth set in the leather and all four feet braced while two boys dragged at the other end of it. I surmised that I now knew how he had been spending his afternoons. I think I felt a pang of envy.
Kettricken was already waiting. Six laden jeppas were roped together in a train. I wished now I had taken the time to learn more about them, but I had assumed the others would have the care of them. ‘We’re still taking all of them?’ I asked in dismay.
‘It would take too long to unpack the loads and repack with only what we need. Perhaps later we’ll abandon the extra supplies and animals. But for now, I simply wish to be gone as soon as possible.’
‘Then let’s leave,’ I suggested.
Kettricken looked pointedly at the Fool. ‘What are you doing here? Wishing Fitz farewell?’
‘I go where he does,’ the Fool said quietly.
The Queen looked at him and something in her face almost softened. ‘It will be cold, Fool. I have not forgotten how you suffered from the cold on the way here. Where we go, now, the cold will linger long after spring has reached Jhaampe.�
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‘I go where he does,’ the Fool repeated quietly.
Kettricken shook her head to herself. Then she shrugged. She strode to the head of the line of jeppas and snapped her fingers. The lead animal flapped his hairy ears and followed her. The others followed him. Their obedience impressed me. I quested briefly toward them and found such a strong herd instinct at work that they scarcely thought of themselves as separate animals. As long as the lead animal followed Kettricken, there would be no problems with the others.
Kettricken led us along a trail that was little more than a path. It wound mostly behind the scattered cottages that housed the winter residents of Jhaampe. In a very short time we left the last of the huts behind and travelled through ancient forest. The Fool and I walked behind the string of animals. I watched the one in front of us, marking how his wide, flat feet spread on the snow much as the wolf’s did. They set a pace slightly faster than a comfortable walk.
We had not gone too far before I heard a shout behind us. I flinched and glanced hastily over my shoulder. It was Starling, coming at a run, her pack jouncing on her shoulders. When she came up to us, she said accusingly, ‘You left without me!’
The Fool grinned. I shrugged. ‘I left when my queen commanded it,’ I observed.
She glared at us, and then hurried past us, floundering through the loose snow beside the trail to pass the jeppas and catch up with Kettricken. Their voices carried clearly in the cold air. ‘I told you I was leaving right away,’ the Queen said tersely. ‘Then I did.’
To my amazement, Starling had the sense to be quiet. For a brief time she struggled along in the loose snow beside Kettricken. Then she gradually gave it up, letting first the jeppas, and then the Fool and I pass her. She fell in behind me. I knew our pace would be difficult for her to match. I felt sorry for her. Then I thought of my daughter, and did not even look back to see if she were keeping up.
It was the beginning of a long, uneventful day. The path led always uphill, never steeply, but the constant grade was taxing. Kettricken did not let up on the pace, but kept us moving steadily. None of us talked much. I was too busy breathing, and trying to ignore the gradually increasing ache in my back. Sound flesh covered the arrow-wound now, but the muscles under it still complained of their new healing.
Great trees towered above us. Most of the trees were evergreens, some of kinds I had never seen before. They made a perpetual twilight of the brief winter day’s greyness. There was little underbrush to struggle with; most of the scenery was of the staggered ranks of immense trunks and a few low swooping branches. For the most part, the live branches of the trees began far over our heads. From time to time, we passed patches of smaller deciduous trees that had sprung up in areas of open forest made by a great tree’s demise. The path was well packed, evidently used often by animals and by folk on skis. It was narrow, and if one did not pay attention, it was easy to step off the path and sink surprisingly deep in the unpacked snow. I tried to pay attention.
The day was mild, by mountain standards, and I soon discovered that the clothing Kettricken had procured for me was very efficient at keeping me warm. I loosened my coat at the throat and then the collar of my shirt to let body heat escape. The Fool threw back the fur-rimmed hood of his coat, to reveal that he wore a gay woollen hat within it. I watched the tassel on the end of it bobbing as he walked. If the pace bothered him, he said nothing about it. Perhaps, like me, he had no breath left to complain.
Shortly after midday, Nighteyes joined us.
‘Good doggie!’ I observed aloud to him.
That pales in comparison to what Kettle is calling you, he observed smugly. I pity you all when the old bitch catches up with the pack. She has a stick.
Is she following us?
She tracks quite well, for a noseless human. Nighteyes trotted past us, moving with surprising ease even in the unpacked snow to the side of the trail. I could tell he was enjoying the ripple of unease that his scent pushed through the trailing jeppas. I watched him as he passed them all and then Kettricken. Once he was in the lead, he ranged confidently ahead, just as if he knew where we were going. I soon lost sight of him, but I did not worry. I knew he would circle back often to check on us.
‘Kettle is following us,’ I told the Fool.
He shot me a questioning look.
‘Nighteyes says she is quite angry with us.’
His shoulders rose and fell in a quick sigh. ‘Well. She has a right to her own decision,’ he observed to himself. Then, to me, he added, ‘It still unnerves me a bit when you and the wolf do that.’
‘Does it bother you? That I am Witted?’
‘Does it bother you to meet my eyes?’ he rejoined.
It was enough. We kept walking.
Kettricken held us to a steady pace for as long as the daylight lasted. A trampled area under the shelter of some of the great trees was our stopping-place. While it did not look frequently used, we were on some sort of traders’ trail to Jhaampe. Kettricken was matter-of-fact in her total command of us. She gestured Starling to a small rick of dry firewood protected from the snow by canvas. ‘Use some to get a fire started, and then take care to replace at least as much as we use. Many folk stop here, and in foul weather, a life may depend on that wood being there.’ Starling meekly obeyed.
She directed the Fool and I as we assisted her in setting up a shelter. When we were finished, we had a tent shaped rather like the cap of a mushroom. That done, she portioned out the tasks of unloading bedding and moving it into the tent, unloading the animals and picketing the lead animal, and melting snow for water. She herself shared fully in the tasks. I watched the efficiency with which she established our camp and saw to our needs. With a pang, I realized she reminded me of Verity. She would have made a good soldier.
Once our basic camp was established, the Fool and I exchanged glances. I went to where Kettricken was checking our jeppas. Those hardy beasts were already at work nibbling bud tips and bark from the smaller trees that fronted one side of the camp. ‘I think Kettle may be following us,’ I told her. ‘Do you think I should go back and look for her?’
‘To what end?’ Kettricken asked me. The question sounded callous, but she went on, ‘If she can catch up with us, then we will share what we have. You know that. But I suspect that she will weary before she gets here, and turn back to Jhaampe. Perhaps she has already turned back.’
And perhaps she has become exhausted and sunk down by the side of the trail, I thought to myself. But I did not go back. I recognized in Kettricken’s words the harsh practicality of the Mountain folk. She would respect Kettle’s decision to follow us. Even if her attempt to do so killed her, Kettricken would not interfere with her own will for herself. I knew that among the Mountain folk, it was not unusual for an old person to choose what they called Sequestering, a self-imposed exile where cold might put an end to all infirmities. I, too, respected Kettle’s right to choose her life-path, or die in the attempt. But it did not stop me from sending Nighteyes back down our trail to see if she was still coming. I chose to believe it was only curiosity on my part. He had just returned to camp with a bloody white hare in his jaws. At my request, he stood, stretched and woefully commanded me, Guard my meat, then. He disappeared into the gathering dusk.
The evening meal of porridge and hearth-cakes was just finished cooking when Kettle came into camp with Nighteyes at her heels. She stalked up to the fire and stood warming her hands at it as she glowered at the Fool and me. The Fool and I exchanged a glance. It was a guilty one. I hastily offered Kettle the cup of tea I had just poured for myself. She took it and drank it before she said accusingly, ‘You left without me.’
‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘We did. Kettricken came to us and said we must leave right away, so the Fool and I –’
‘I came anyway,’ she announced triumphantly, cutting through my words. ‘And I intend to go on with you.’
‘We are fleeing,’ Kettricken said quietly. ‘We can’t slow our pace for you
.’
Sparks near leaped from Kettle’s eyes. ‘Did I ask you to?’ she asked the Queen tartly.
Kettricken shrugged. ‘Just so you understand,’ she said quietly.
‘I do,’ Kettle replied as quietly. And it was settled.
I had watched this interchange with a sort of awe. I felt an increase in respect for both of the women afterwards. I think I fully grasped then how Kettricken perceived herself. She was the Queen of the Six Duchies and she did not doubt it. But unlike many, she had not hidden behind a title or taken offence at Kettle’s quick reply to her. Instead, she had answered her, woman to woman, with respect but also authority. Once more I had glimpsed her mettle and found I could not fault it.
We all shared the yurt that night. Kettricken filled a small brazier with coals from our fire and brought it within. It made the shelter surprisingly comfortable. She posted a watch and included both Kettle and herself in that duty. The others slept well. I lay awake for a time. I was once more on my way to find Verity. That brought a tiny measure of release from the incessant Skill-command. But I was also on my way to the river where he had laved his hands in raw Skill. That seductive image lurked always at the edge of my mind now. Resolutely I pushed the temptation from my mind, but that night my dreams were full of it. We broke camp early, and were on our way before the day was fairly born. Kettricken bid us discard a second, smaller yurt that had been brought along to accommodate our original larger party. She left it carefully stowed at the stopping-place where another might find and make use of it. The freed beast was loaded instead with the bulk of the packs the humans had carried. I was grateful, for the throbbing of my back was unceasing now.
For four days Kettricken held us to that pace. She did not say if she truly expected pursuit. I did not ask. There were no real opportunities for private talk with anyone. Kettricken always led, followed by the animals, the Fool and me, Starling, and, often trailing us by quite a distance, Kettle. Both women kept their promises. Kettricken did not slow the pace for the old woman, and Kettle never complained of it. Each night she came into camp late, usually accompanied by Nighteyes. She was usually just in time to share our food and shelter for the night. But she arose the moment Kettricken did the next day and never complained.