by Robin Hobb
Thick’s eyes wandered to me. ‘That girl’s crying again,’ he informed me, as if it were my fault.
‘Well. I’ll attend to that later, I told him firmly as my heart gave a lurch.
‘What girl?’ The Prince demanded instantly.
‘It’s nothing to worry about.’ Thick, let’s not talk about the girl just now. We’re here to do lessons.
Slowly, Thick stopped scratching. He dropped his hand to the tabletop and stared at me earnestly. ‘Why you do that? Talk in my head like that?’
‘To see if I could make you hear me.’
He sniffed thoughtfully. ‘I heard you.’ Dogstink.
Don’t do that to me.
‘Are you Skilling to each other?’ the Prince asked with earnest curiosity.
‘Yes.’
‘Then why can’t I hear it?’
‘Because we are selecting only one another to Skill to.’
Dutiful’s brow furrowed. ‘How did he learn to do that when I cannot?’
‘I don’t know,’ I had to admit. ‘Thick seems to have developed his Skill-abilities on his own. I don’t really know all he can and can’t do with them.’
‘Can he stop making that music all the time?’
I unfolded my own Skill-awareness. I hadn’t realized that I had been straining Thick’s thoughts free of the music that surrounded them. I turned to him now. ‘Thick, can you stop making the music? Can you think only the thoughts to me, without the music?’
He looked at me blankly. ‘Music?’
‘Your mother-song. Can you make it be quiet?’
He considered this for a time, chewing on his fat little tongue. ‘No,’ he decided abruptly.
‘Why can’t you stop the music?’ the Prince demanded. He had been sitting quietly. I suspected he had been trying to sort through the music and see if he could pick out Thick and me Skilling to one another. He sounded frustrated. Frustrated, and jealous.
Thick looked at him, a look both dull and uncaring. ‘I don’t want to.’ He looked away from the Prince and went back to scratching behind his ear.
Dutiful looked shocked. He took a breath. ‘And if, as your prince, I command it?’ There was suppressed fury in his voice.
Thick looked at him. Then he swung his gaze to me. His tongue thrust out a bit farther as he pondered something. Then he asked me, ‘Both students here?’
I had not expected that from Thick. I hadn’t expected him to hold tenaciously to that idea, let alone apply it. It gave me both new hopes and new fears. ‘Both students here,’ I confirmed for him. He sagged back in his chair and crossed his stubby arms on his chest.
‘And I am the teacher,’ I continued. ‘And students obey the teacher. ‘Thick. Can you stop your music?’
He looked at me for a time. ‘Don’t want to,’ he said, but in a different tone.
‘Perhaps not. But I am the teacher and you are the student. The student obeys the teacher.’
‘Students obey, like servants?’ He stood up to go.
It was hopeless but I tried anyway. ‘Students obey like students. So that they can learn. So that everyone can learn. If Thick obeys, then Thick is still a student. If Thick won’t obey, then Thick is not a student. Then we send Thick away, to be a servant instead.’
He stood for a time, silent. I could not tell if he was thinking. I could not tell if he had understood what I said at all. Dutiful sat slumped in his chair, chin sunk to his chest and arms crossed, glowering. He plainly hoped that Thick would leave. But after a moment, the little man sat down again. ‘Stop the music,’ he said. He closed his eyes. Then he opened them again and squinting at me, said, ‘There.’
I had not realized how his steady Skilling had been battering my walls. In the stillness that followed, I felt an immense sense of relief. It was like the pause in the storm, when suddenly the winds cease howling and silence flows in. I gave a great sigh of relief and Dutiful suddenly sat up straight. He rubbed at his ears, looking puzzled, then looked at me. ‘All of that was him?’
I nodded slowly, still recovering myself.
A great uncertainty dawned over Dutifuls face. ‘But I thought… I thought that was the Skill itself. The great river you speak about…’ He looked at Thick again, but his attitude towards the little man had changed. It wasn’t respect, but it was wariness, which often precedes respect.
Then, like a sudden curtain of rain, the music swept to life again around my thoughts, separating me from Dutiful like hunters fogged from one another by mist. I glanced at Thick. His face had fallen back into its normal lax lines. The realization came to me that Skilling was to him, the natural state. Not Skilling was what required his effort. And where had he learned that? :
Did your mother talk to you, like this?
No.
Then how did you learn to do this?
He frowned. She sang to me. We sang together. And she made the bad boys not see me.
Excitement filled me. Thick. Where is your mother? Do you have brothers or—
‘Stop that! It isn’t fair!’ The Prince sounded as petulant as a child.
It startled me from my thoughts. ‘What isn’t fair?’
‘You two Skilling to each other where I can’t hear. It’s rude. It’s like whispering behind someone’s back.’
I heard the jealousy in his voice as well. Thick, the half-wit, was doing something that the Prince of all the Six Duchies could not. And I was obviously enthused about it. I’d have to go carefully here. I suspected that Skillmaster Galen would have created a rivalry between them, to urge each to try harder. But that was not my goal. Instead, these two must be hammered into a unit.
‘I’m sorry. You’re right, that was not courteous. Thick just told me that his mother used the Skill to sing to him, and that they sang together. And that sometimes she used it to make bad boys not see him.’
‘Then his mother has the Skill? Is she a half-wit, also?’
I saw Thick wince at the words, as I had once cowered from the word ‘bastard’. That cut me. I wanted to correct the Prince, sharply, but knew that was hypocrisy. Was not that how I thought of Thick, as ’the half-wit’? For now, I would let it pass, but I would make sure that Thick never again heard that epithet from our lips.
‘Thick, where is your mother?’
For a time, he just stared at me. Then, with the inflection of a wounded child, he said slowly, ‘She di-ed.’ His voice drew out the word. He looked around himself as if he had lost something.
‘Can you tell me about it?’
He scowled in thought. ‘We come to town with the others. For the crowd time, for the Springfest. Yes.’ He nodded at having recalled the right name for it. ‘Then, one morning, she didn’t wake up. And the others took my stuff and said I didn’t travel with them any more.’ He scratched the side of his face miserably. ‘Then, it was all done, all gone, and I was here. And then… I was here.’
It was not a very satisfactory account, but I doubted I would get more from him. It was Dutiful who asked gently, ‘What did your mother and the others do when they travelled?’
Thick took a deep breath, as if aggrieved. ‘Oh, you know. Find the big crowd. Mother sings and Prokie drums and Jimu dances. And Mother goes “don’t see him, don’t see him” while I go about and get the purses with my little silver scissors. Only Prokie took them, and my tassel hat and my blanket.’
‘You were a cut-purse?’ Dutiful asked incredulously.
What a use for the Skill - to hide your son while he cut purses, I thought silently.
Thick nodded, more to himself than to us. ‘And if I do good, I get my own penny, to buy a sweet. Every day.’
‘Had you any brothers or sisters, Thick?’
He scowled, pondering. ‘Mother was old, too old for babies. So I was born stupid. Prokie said so.’
‘My, Prokie sounds charming,’ the Prince muttered sarcastically. Thick swung a suspicious glare to him.
I clarified it for him. ‘The Prince is saying that he thinks
Prokie was cruel to you.’
Thick sucked at his upper lip for a moment, then nodded as he warned us, ‘Don’t call Prokie “Papa”. Not ever.’
‘Not ever,’ Dutiful agreed whole-heartedly. And I think that moment was when Dutiful’s feelings towards Thick changed. He cocked his head as he regarded the grimy, misshapen little man. ‘Thick. Can you Skill to me? So that only I can hear, not Tom?’
‘Why?’ Thick demanded.
‘To be a student here, Thick,’ I intervened. To be a student and not a servant.’
For a time, Thick sat silent. The end of his tongue curled over his upper lip. Then the Prince laughed aloud. ‘Dogstink? Why do you call him dogstink?’
Thick made a face and then rolled one shoulder as if he didn’t know. And in the moment I sensed a secret. It wasn’t that he didn’t know why. He held something back. Did he fear something?
I feigned a laugh I didn’t feel. ‘It’s okay, Thick. Go ahead and tell him, if you want.’
For a moment, it seemed to confuse him. Had someone told him that I must not be told something? Chade? He had a small frown on his brow as he regarded Dutiful. Then he spoke. I expected him to reveal to the Prince that he knew I had the Wit, and that somehow he had sensed that my Wit-beast had been a wolf. Instead, he said words that made me sick with fear. ‘S’what they call him when they ask me about him. The town ones that give me pennies for nuts and sweets. “Stinking dog of a traitor”.’ He turned to me, smirking and I forced my rictus grin wide. I chuckled.
‘They do, do they? Those rascals!’ Smile, Dutiful. Laugh aloud, but do not Skill back to me. I kept the sending as small and tight as I could. Even so, I saw Thick’s gaze flicker from me to the Prince. Dutiful’s face was white, but he laughed aloud, a stark ‘ha-ha-ha’ that sounded more like a man retching than laughter. I took a last chance. ‘That would be the one-armed man that says it most, isn’t it?’
Thick’s smile grew uncertain. I thought I had guessed wrong, but then he said, ‘No. Not him. He’s new. He hardly talks. But when I tell, and they give me pennies, then he says, sometimes, “Watch that bastard. Watch him well”. And I say, I do. I do.’
‘Well. And a fine job you do, Thick. A fine job and you earn your pennies well.’
He rocked back and forth in his chair, pleased with himself. ‘I watch the gold man, too. He’s got a pretty little horse. And a hat, with eye feathers in it.’
‘Yes, he does,’ I admitted, my mouth dry. ‘Like the eye feather you wanted.’
‘I can have it, when he’s gone,’ Thick told me complacently. ‘The town ones said so.’
I felt I could not find air to breathe. Thick sat there, nodding and pleased. Chade’s dim servant, too dim to know a secret if it bit him, had sold us for pennies. What had he seen, and to whom had he told it? And all because I was too dim to see that he who walks unknowingly among one man’s secrets may still carry other secrets of his own. ‘Lessons are over for today,’ I managed to say. I hoped he would just go, but he sat still, musing.
‘I do a fine job. I do. Not my fault the rat died. I didn’t want him anyway. He said, “the rat will be your friend”, and I said no, I got bit by a rat once, but they said “take him anyway, this rat is nice. Bring him food and bring him back to visit us each week”. So I did. Then he died, under the bowl. I think the bowl fell on him.’
‘Probably so, Thick. Probably so. But that’s not your fault. Not at all-’ I wanted to race through the corridors of Buckkeep and find Chade. But the slow, cold truth was rising up around me. Chade hadn’t seen this. Chade hadn’t known about this. Chade could no longer protect his apprentice. It was time I learned to fend for myself. I lifted a finger as if I had suddenly recalled something. ‘Oh, Thick. Today isn’t the day you go to see them, is it?’
Thick looked at me as if I were stupid. ‘No. Not on the bread-making day. On the washing day. When the sheets hang to dry. Then I go, and I get my pennies.’
‘On the washing day. Of course. That’s tomorrow. That’s good, then. Because I didn’t forget about the pink sugar cake. I wanted to give it to you today. Could you wait for me in Chade’s room for a while? I might not be fast, but I want to bring it to you.’
‘A pink sugar cake.’ I watched him search his mind. I don’t think he even recalled that I had promised him one. I tried to remember what else he had asked for. A scarf like Rowdy’s. A red one. Raisins. My mind raced. It was like one of Chade’s old games for me. What else? A knife. And a peacock feather. And pennies for sweets, or the sweets themselves. I’d have to get them all before tomorrow.
‘Yes. A pink sugar cake. Not a burned one. I know you like them.’ I prayed there would be such a thing in the kitchens.
‘Yes!’ His little eyes lit with an expression I’d never seen on his face before. Joyful anticipation. ‘Yes. I’ll wait. You’ll bring it soon,’
‘Well, not very soon. Not very fast. But today. You will wait for me there, and not go anywhere else?’
He had frowned when I said ‘not fast’, but he nodded grudgingly.
‘That’s good, Thick. You’re a very good student. You go there now, and wait for me.’
As soon as the mantel door swung shut behind him, Dutiful opened his mouth to speak. I made a hand motion to silence him. I waited until I was sure that even Thick’s plodding pace would have carried him far out of hearing. Then I sank down onto a chair.
‘Laudwine,’ Dutiful said in a shocked whisper.
I nodded. I wasn’t ready to speak yet. Laudwine had called me ‘bastard’. A bastard or the Bastard? I wondered.
‘What shall we do?’
I lifted my eyes and looked at my prince. His dark eyes were large in his paled face. Chade’s walls and spies had failed us. Suddenly I felt that I alone stood between him and the Piebalds. Perhaps I always had. I was selfishly glad that Laurel was gone, out of Laudwine’s reach. At least I didn’t have to worry about her. ‘You must do nothing. Nothing!’ I emphasized the word as he opened his mouth to protest it. ‘You must not do anything out of the ordinary, anything that would let anyone know that we suspect a plot. Today must be like any other day. But you must stay within the walls of Buckkeep.’
He was silent for a breath. Then, ‘I promised Civil Bresinga that I’d go out riding with him. Just he and I. We were going to slip off on our own, to hunt with his cat this afternoon. He came to my room, very late last night, to ask me.’ He drew a breath and I watched him look at Civil’s invitation in a different light. His voice was lower as he said, ‘He seemed agitated. And he looked as if he had been weeping. When I asked him if he were feeling well, he assured me that the problem he had was one of his own making, and nothing a friend could help with. I assumed it had to do with a girl.’ I absorbed that information and then asked, ‘His cat is here?’
The Prince nodded shamefacedly. ‘He pays an old woman for the use of a shed, at the edge of the woods down near the river landing. She feeds the cat, but lets it come and go as it wishes. And Civil visits with her as often as he can.’ He took a breath and admitted, ‘I’ve been there with him before. Once. Late at night.’
I bit back everything I wanted to say. It was no time for angry rebukes. Most of my anger was for myself. I’d failed there, too. ‘Well. You’re not going today. You’re developing a boil on your arse. That’s why you can’t go with him. Tell him why when you excuse yourself from it.’
‘I don’t want… I won’t say that. That’s embarrassing. I’ll say I have a headache. Tom, I don’t think Civil is a traitor. I don’t think he’d betray me.’
‘You will say that, and exactly that, because it is embarrassing. A headache sounds like a ploy. A boil on your arse doesn’t.’ I took a breath, and hedged around what I suspected. ‘Maybe Civil isn’t a traitor to you. But it could be that someone else is using him to get you out and away from Buckkeep’s walls. Or it could be that someone has threatened him, saying, oh, saying that they’ll expose his mother as Witted if he doesn’t deliver you. So. Wh
ether or not you trust Civil is not the question. Buy me time. Go make your excuses. And take care to walk gingerly, and avoid anything that you would avoid if you really had a boil.’
He scowled but he nodded. It gave me a small measure of relief. But then he added, ‘It’s not going to be easy to beg off. He said he needed to ask a special favour of me today.’
‘What was it?’
‘I’m not sure. Something to do with his cat, I think.’
‘All the more reason to avoid being out with him.’ I tried to think of all the possible ramifications. Another thought intruded. ‘Has Civil brought you any other animals? Has he tried to offer you a Wit-partner?’
‘Do you think I’d be stupid enough to trust him if he did?’ The Prince was both flustered and angered by my question. ‘I’m not an idiot, Tom. No. In fact, Civil has told me that I must not bond with any creature until at least a year has passed. That is the Old Blood custom. There is a set time of mourning. It is to be sure that when the human next takes a partner, it is based on a true attraction between them, not as a replacement for one who has been lost.’
‘It sounds to me as if Civil has been telling you a great deal about the Old Blood ways.’
For a moment, Prince Dutiful was silent. Then he said coldly, ‘You declined to teach me, Tom. Yet I knew, in my guts, that this was something I had to know. Not just to protect myself, but to master my own magic. I will not be ashamed of my Wit, Tom. Conceal it I must, because of the unjust hatred many bear for it. But I will not be ashamed nor walk away from it.’
There seemed very little I could do or say about that. A traitor thought whispered that the boy was right. How much better would it have been for Nighteyes and me if I had been educated in my magic before I took up with him? Eventually, I replied stiffly, ‘I am sure that my prince will do as he thinks best.’