by Robin Hobb
"Sleep well, most gracious Prince." Another snort from him. Then silence, save for the rain thundering on the roof and splatting on the inn yard mud. Silence, save for the soft crackling of the fire, and the distant music from the common room below. Silence but for unsteady footsteps making their way past our door. But most of all, the crashing silence in my heart where for so long Nighteyes' awareness had been a steady beacon in my darkness, a warmth in my winter, a guide star in my night. My dreams were thin, illogical human things now that frayed at a moment's waking. Tears flooded warm under my closed eyelids. I opened my mouth to breathe silently through my constricted throat and lay on my back.
I heard the Prince shift in his bedding, and shift again. Very quietly, he rose from his bed and went to the window. For a time he gazed out at the rain falling in the muddy inn yard. "Does it go away?" He asked the question in a very soft voice, but I knew it was for me.
I took a breath, forced steadiness into my voice. "No."
"Not ever?"
"There may be another for you someday. But you never forget the first."
He did not move from the windowsill. "How many bond-animals have you had?"
I nearly didn't answer that. Then, "Three," I said. He turned away from the night and looked at me through the darkness.
"Will there be another one for you?"
"I doubt it."
He left the window and returned to his bed. I heard him pull up his blankets and settle into them. I thought he would go to sleep, but he spoke again. "Will you teach me the Wit also?"
Someone had better teach you something, if it's only not to trust so quickly. "I haven't said I'd teach you anything."
He was silent for a time. He sounded almost sulky when he said, "Well, it were better if someone taught me something."
A long silence followed and I hoped he had gone to sleep. The uncanny way his words echoed my thought unnerved me. Rain beat against the thick whorl of glass in the window, and dark flowed into the room. I closed my eyes and centered myself. As gingerly as if I handled broken glass, I reached toward him.
He was there, still and taut as a crouching cat. I sensed him waiting and watching for me, yet unaware I stood at the borders of his mind. His rough Skill-sense was an awkward, unhoned tool. I drew back a bit and studied him from all angles, as if he were a colt I was thinking of breaking. His wariness was a mix of apprehension and aggression. It was a weapon as much as a shield that he inexpertly wielded. Nor was it pure Skill. It is a hard thing to describe, but his Skill was like a white beacon edged with green darkness. His Wit-awareness of me was what he used to focus. The Wit does not reach from a man's mind to another man's mind, but the Wit can make me aware of the animal that the man's mind inhabits. So it was with Dutiful. Bereft of the cat as a focus, his Wit was a wide-flung web, seeking a kinship. As was mine, I suddenly realized.
I recoiled from that and found myself back in my own flesh. I set my walls against the untrained fumbling of his Skill. Yet even as I did so, there were two things I could not deny. The thread of Skill that connected me to Dutiful grew stronger each time I ventured along it. And I had no idea of how to sever it, let alone remove my Skill-command from his mind.
The third piece of knowledge was as bitter as the other parts were disturbing. I quested. I had no desire to form a bond with another animal. But without Nighteyes to contain it, my Wit sprawled out like seeking roots. Like water that overbrims a vessel and must seek a place to flow, the Wit went forth from me, silent yet reaching. Earlier I had seen need in the Prince's eyes, a desperate longing for connection and belonging. Did I radiate that same privation? I closed my heart and willed myself to stillness. Time would heal my grief. I repeated that lie until sleep claimed me. I awoke when the light spilling in the window touched my face. I opened my eyes but lay still. The pale light filling the room after the dark of the storm was like being immersed in clear water. I felt curiously empty, as one does when one has been ill for a long time and then begins to mend. I caught at the edges of a fleeing dream, but clutched only the edges of a shining morning, the sea below me and wind in my face. Sleep had left me, but I had no inclination to rise and face the day. I felt as if I were inside a bubble of safety, and that if I remained motionless, I could cling to this moment in peace. I lay on my side, my hand and arm under the flat pillow. After a time, I became aware of the feathers under my hand.
I lifted my head, intending to look at them, but the room swung suddenly about me as if I'd had too much to drink. The realities of the day to come the long ride to Buckkeep, the meetings with Chade and Kettricken that would follow, the resumption of my life as Tom Badgerlock crashed down on me. I sat up slowly.
The Prince slept on in his bed. I turned and found the Fool regarding me sleepily. He lay on his side in bed, his chin propped on his fist. He looked weary, but insufferably pleased about something. The effect made him look years younger.
"I didn't expect to see you in your bed this morning," I greeted him, and then, "How did you get in? I latched that door last night."
"Did you? Interesting. But you can scarcely be more surprised to see me in my own bed than I am to see you in yours.
I let that barb go past me. I scratched the bristle on my cheek. "I should shave," I said to myself, dreading the idea. I hadn't touched a blade to my face since we'd left Galekeep.
"Indeed you should. I'd like us to look as presentable as possible when we return to Buckkeep."
I thought of my cat-shredded shirt, but nodded acquiescence. Then I recalled the feathers. "I've something I want to show you," I began, reaching under the pillow, but just then the Prince drew a deeper breath and opened his eyes.
"Good morning, my Prince," Lord Golden greeted him.
"Morning," he acknowledged wearily. "Lord Golden, Tom Badgerlock." He looked and sounded marginally better than he had at the end of yesterday's ride. His formality toward me was back in place. I felt relief.
"Good morning, my Prince," I greeted him. And so the day began. We ate in our room. Our cleaned and mended clothing arrived shortly after our breakfasts. Lord Golden looked almost restored to his former glory, and the Prince looked tidy if not exactly royal. As I had suspected, washing had done little to make my clothing more presentable. I begged a needle and thread from the servant who brought our food, saying I wished to tighten the sleeve in my mended shirt. The reality was that I required a pocket in it. Lord Golden looked at me and sighed. "Keeping you decently clothed may become the most expensive part of keeping you as a servant, Tom Badgerlock. Well, see what you can do with the rest of yourself."
I was the only one with any need to shave. Lord Golden commanded hot water and a razor and glass for me. He sat by the window, gazing out over the little landing town as I worked. I had scarcely begun my task when I became aware of the Prince's scrutiny. For a time, I ignored his intense fascination. The second time I nicked myself, I suppressed a curse, but did demand, "What? Have you never seen a man shave himself before?"
He colored slightly. "No." He looked away as he added, "I have spent little time in the company of men. Oh, I've dined with our nobles, and hawked with them, and taken my sword lessons with the other lads of good houses. But…" He seemed at a loss suddenly.
Just as abruptly, Lord Golden arose from his window seat. "I've a mind to see a bit of this town before we depart it. I think I shall take a stroll about it. With my Prince's permission."
"Of course, Lord Golden. As you will." When he left, I expected the Prince to go with him. Instead, he lingered with me. He watched me finish shaving, and when I rinsed the last of the soap from my smarting face, he asked with intense curiosity, "It hurts, then?"
"Stings some. Only if you hurry, as I always seem to do, and cut myself in the process." My mourning-shortened hair stuck up in thickets. Starling would have cut it for me, I thought, and then damned the thought and plastered it down to my head with water.
"It won't stay. Once it dries, it will just stick up again," the Prince pointed out helpf
ully.
"I know that. My Prince."
"Do you hate me?"
He asked it so casually, it set me completely off balance. I set aside the towel and met his earnest gaze. "No. I do not hate you."
"Because I would understand if you did. Because of your wolf and all."
"Nighteyes."
"Nighteyes." He said the name carefully. Then he looked aside from me suddenly. "I never knew my cat's name." I knew tears threatened to choke him. I sat carefully still and silent, waiting for him. After a moment, he drew a deep breath. "I don't hate you, either."
"That's good to know," I admitted. Then I added, "The cat told me to kill her." Despite my effort, the words sounded defensive.
"I know. I heard her." He sniffed a little, then tried to disguise it as a cough. "And she would have forced you to kill her. She was completely determined."
"I think I knew that," I replied ruefully, and touched the renewed bandages at my throat. The Prince actually smiled, and I found myself returning the smile.
He asked the next question quickly, as if it were important to ask, so important that he feared the answer. "Will you be staying?"
"Staying?"
"Will I see you around Buckkeep Castle?" He sat down suddenly at the table across from me and met my eyes directly with Verity's blunt stare. "Tom Badgerlock. Will you teach me?"
Chade, my old master, had asked me and I'd been able to say no. The Fool, my oldest friend, had asked me to return to Buckkeep, and I'd refused him. If the Queen herself had asked me, I could have said no. The best I could manage with this Farseer heir was, "I don't know that much to teach. What your father taught me, he taught me in secret, and he seldom had time for lessons."
He regarded me soberly. "Is there anyone who knows more of the Skill than you do?"
"No, my Prince." I did not add that I'd killed them all. I could not have said why I suddenly added his title. Only that something in his manner demanded it. "Then you are Skillmaster now. By default."
"No." That I could answer, my tongue moving as swiftly as my thoughts. I took a breath. "I'll teach you," I said. "But it will be as your father taught me. When I can and what I can. And in secret."
Without a word, he reached his hand across the table to me, to seal the agreement with a touching of hands. Two things happened as our hands met. "The Wit and the Skill," he stipulated. As the skin of my palm touched his, the leap of Skill-spark between us sang. Please.
His plea was sloppily done, pushed by the Wit, not the Skill. "We'll see," I said aloud. I was already regretting it. "You may change your mind. I'm neither a good teacher, nor a patient one."
"But you treat me like a man, not the Prince. As if your expectations of a man were higher than those for a prince."
I didn't reply. I looked at him, waiting. He spoke hesitantly, as if the answer shamed him. "To my mother, I am a son. But I am also, always, the Prince and Sacrifice for my people. And to all others, always, I am the Prince. Always. I am no one's brother. I am no man's son. I am not anyone's best friend." He laughed, a small strangled laugh. "People treat me very well as my Prince. But there is always a wall there. No one speaks to me as, well, as me." He shrugged one shoulder and his mouth twisted to one side wryly. "No one except you has ever told me I was stupid, even when I was most definitely being stupid."
I understood suddenly why he had so swiftly succumbed to the Piebalds' plot. To be loved, in a familiar, unfearing way. To be someone's best friend, even if that someone was only a cat. I could recall a time when I thought Chade was the only one in the world who would give me that. I recalled how terrifying the threat of losing that had been. I knew that any boy, prince or beggar, needed that from a man. But I wasn't sure I was a wise choice for that. Chade, why couldn't he have chosen Chade? I was still formulating an answer to that when there was a knock at the door.
I opened it to discover Laurel. Reflexively, I looked past her for Lord Golden. He wasn't there. She glanced over her own shoulder with a small frown, and then back to my face. "May I come in?" she asked pointedly.
"Of course, my lady. I just thought—"
She entered and I closed the door behind her. She considered Prince Dutiful for a moment, and something almost like relief dawned on her face as she made a courtesy to him. She smiled as she greeted him with, "Good morning, my Prince."
"Good morning, Huntswoman." His reply was solemn, but he did reply. I glanced at the boy, and realized what she saw. The Prince had come back to himself. His face was somber, his eyes shadowed, but he was with us. He no longer stared within himself to a distance no one else could see.
"It is good to see you so well recovered, my Prince. I came to inquire as to when you wished to depart for Buckkeep. The sun is climbing and the day looks fair, if cold."
"I am pleased to leave that decision to Lord Golden."
"An excellent decision, my Prince." She glanced about the room and then asked, "Lord Golden is not here?"
"He said he was going out," I replied. My words startled her. It was almost as if a chair had spoken, and then I realized fully my error. In the presence of the Prince, a mere servant like myself would not presume to speak out. I glanced down at my feet so no one would see the chagrin in my eyes. Yet again, I resolved to focus more closely on the role I must play. Had I forgotten all of Chade's earlier training?
She glanced at Dutiful, but when he added nothing to my words, she said slowly, "I see."
"You are, of course, welcome to wait here for his return, Huntswoman." His words said one thing, his tone another. I had not heard it done so well since Shrewd was King.
"Thank you, my Prince. But if I may, I think I will seek my own room until I am sent for."
"As you wish, Huntswoman." He had turned to look out the window.
"Thank you, my Prince." She dipped a courtesy to his back. Our eyes met for a fleeting moment as she went to the door, but I read nothing there. When the door had closed behind her, the Prince turned back to me.
"There. Do you see what I mean, Tom Badgerlock?"
"She was not unkind to you, my Prince."
He motioned me to the table. As I took a chair opposite him, he said, "She was not anything to me. She treats me as they all do. 'As it please you, my Prince'. But in all the Six Duchies, I haven't a true friend."
I took a breath, then asked, "What of your companions? Your friends who ride and hunt with you?"
"I have far too many of them. I must call each one a friend, and to none of them may I show favor, lest the father of another one feel slighted. And Eda forbid that I should smile at a young woman. At my slightest attempt to form a friendship, she is whisked away, lest my attention be interpreted as courtship. No. I am alone, Tom Badgerlock. Forever alone." He sighed heavily and looked down at his hands on the table's edge. It was a bit too dramatic to befit the young man.
I spoke before I thought. "Oh, poor deprived lad." He lifted his head and glowered at me. I returned his look levelly. Then a slow smile came to his face. "Spoken like a true friend," he said.
A moment later Lord Golden came through the door. In a flicker of his long fingers, he showed me a bird's message-tube. In the next instant, it had vanished up his sleeve. Of course. He'd gone to see Starling, to see if we'd received word back from Buckkeep. And we had. No doubt Chade would have all in readiness for our return. In the next moment, his eyes took in the Prince seated at the other end of the table. If he thought it odd to find the Farseer heir sitting at table with me, watching me mend the sleeve of my shirt, he did not show it.
Not even a flick of his eyes betrayed that he had greeted me first. Instead, all his attention seemed fixed on the Prince as he addressed him. "Good day, my Prince. If it please you, we can ride as soon as we may."
The Prince drew a long breath. "It would please me, Lord Golden."
Now Lord Golden turned to me, and gave me a smile such as I had not seen on his face for days. "You have heard our Prince, Tom Badgerlock. Stir yourself to readiness and pa
ck our things. And you can leave off mending that, my good man, at least for now. Never can it be said that I am a niggardly master, even to such a wretched servant as yourself. Put this on, lest you shame us all riding back into Buckkeep." He tossed me a bundled packet. It proved to be a shirt of homespun, far sturdier than the tattered garment in my hands. So much for a pocket up my sleeve today.
"My thanks to you, Lord Golden," I replied with humble gratitude. "I shall strive to take better care of this one than I did of the last three."
"See that you do. Put it on, and then hasten to Mistress Laurel, to let her know we'll be riding soon. And on your way down to the stables to ask that the horses be readied, stop at the kitchen and request that they pack us a luncheon, as well. A couple of cold birds and a meat pie, two bottles of wine, and some of the fresh bread I smelled baking as I entered."
"As it please you, master," I replied.
As I was pulling the new shirt on over my head, I heard the Prince ask sourly, "My Lord Golden, is it you who think I am an idiot, that you put on this show for me? Or is it the wish of Tom Badgerlock?"
I popped my head out hastily, not wishing to miss the look on Lord Golden's face. But it was the Fool who greeted me. His grin was nothing short of dazzling, as he swept a wide minstrel's bow to Dutiful, his nonexistent hat brushing his knees. As he straightened, he gave me a look of triumph. It baffled me, but I found myself answering his grin with one of my own as he replied, "Good Prince, it is neither my wish nor that of Tom Badgerlock, but of Lord Chade. He desires that we practice as much as we may, for poor actors such as ourselves need many rehearsals if we are to fool even an eye or two."
"Lord Chade. I should have known you both belonged to him." It pleased me that he did not betray I had already told him that. He was learning some discretion at least. He gave the Fool a piercing look, one with much mistrust in it.
The look shifted sideways to include me. "But who are you?" he asked in a low voice. "Who are you, the two of you?"
Without thinking, the Fool and I exchanged a look. That we conferred before we answered incensed the Prince. I could tell by the slow spots of color that rose in his cheeks. Beyond the anger, hidden in the back of his eyes, was the boy's fear that he had made a fool of himself to me. Had his trust been won by a contrived performance? Did the affection between the Fool and me preclude any friendship I would share with him? I saw his candor begin to close; I could see him retreating behind his regal wall. I reached hastily across the table, and violated every noble protocol that existed by seizing his hand. I let honesty flow through that touch, convincing him with Skill just as Verity had once won his mother's trust.