“But if noble ladies do all those things, they’ll ruin their hands with the work, and the wind will dry their hair and tan their faces. Surely Verity doesn’t deserve a woman who looks like a deckhand?”
“Surely he does. Far more than he deserves a woman who looks like a fat red carp kept in a bowl.”
Molly giggled.
“Someone to ride beside him on a morning when he takes Hunter out for a gallop, or someone who can look at a section of map he’s just finished and actually understand just how fine a piece of work it is. That’s what Verity deserves.”
“I’ve never ridden a horse,” Molly objected suddenly. “And I know few letters.”
I looked at her curiously, wondering why she seemed so suddenly downcast. “What matter is that? You’re clever enough to learn anything. Look at all you’ve taught yourself about candles and herbs. Don’t tell me that came from your father. Sometimes when I come by the shop, your hair and dress smell all of fresh herbs and I can tell you’ve been experimenting to get new perfumes for the candles. If you wanted to read or write more, you could learn. As for riding, you’d be a natural. You’ve balance and strength . . . look at how you climb the rocks on the cliffs. And animals take to you. You’ve fair won Smithy’s heart away from me.”
“Fa!” She gave me a nudge with her shoulder. “You talk as if some lord should come riding down from the keep and carry me off.”
I thought of August with his stuffy manners, or Regal simpering at her. “Eda forbid. You’d be wasted on them. They wouldn’t have the wit to understand you, or the heart to appreciate you.”
Molly looked down at her work-worn hands. “Who would, then?” she asked softly.
Boys are fools. The conversation had grown and twined around us, my words coming as naturally as breathing to me. I had not intended any flattery, or subtle courtship. The sun was beginning to dip into the water, and we sat close by one another and the beach before us was like the world at our feet. If I had said at that moment, “I would,” I think her heart would have tumbled into my awkward hands like ripe fruit from a tree. I think she might have kissed me, and sealed herself to me of her own free will. But I couldn’t grasp the immensity of what I suddenly knew I had come to feel for her. It drove the simple truth from my lips, and I sat dumb and half a moment later Smithy came, wet and sandy, barreling into us, so that Molly leaped to her feet to save her skirts, and the opportunity was lost forever, blown away like spray on the wind.
We stood and stretched, and Molly exclaimed about the time, and I felt all the sudden aches of my healing body. Sitting and letting myself cool down on a chill beach was a stupid thing I certainly wouldn’t have done to any horse. I walked Molly home and there was an awkward moment at her door before she stooped and hugged Smithy good-bye. And then I was alone, save for a curious pup demanding to know why I went so slowly and insisting he was half-starved and wanting to run and tussle all the way up the hill to the keep.
I plodded up the hill, chilled within and without. I returned Smithy to the stables, and said good night to Sooty, and then went up to the keep. Galen and his fledglings had already finished their meager meal and left. Most of the keep folk had eaten, and I found myself drifting back to my old haunts. There was always food in the kitchen and company in the watch room off the kitchen. Men-at-arms came and went there all hours of the day and night, so Cook kept a simmering kettle on the hook, adding water and meat and vegetables as the level went down. Wine and beer and cheese were also there, and the simple company of those who guarded the keep. They had accepted me as one of their own since the first day I’d been given into Burrich’s care. So I made myself a simple meal there, not near as scanty as Galen would have provided me, nor yet as ample and rich as I craved. That was Burrich’s teaching; I fed myself as I would have an injured animal.
And I listened to the casual talk going on around me, focusing myself into the life of the keep as I hadn’t for months. I was amazed at all that I had not known because of my total immersion in Galen’s teaching. A bride for Verity was most of the talk. There was the usual crude soldiers’ jesting one could expect about such things, as well as a lot of commiseration over his ill luck in having Regal choose his future spouse. That the match would be based on political alliances had never been in question; a prince’s hand could not be wasted on something as foolish as his own choice. That had been a great part of the scandal surrounding Chivalry’s stubborn courtship of Patience. She had come from within the realm, the daughter of one of our nobles, and one already very amicable to the royal family.
No political advantage at all had come out of that marriage.
But Verity would not be squandered so. Especially with the Red-Ships menacing us all along our straggling coastline. And so speculation ran rife. Who would she be? A woman from the Near Islands, to our north in the White Sea? The islands were little more than rocky bits of the earth’s bones thrusting up out of the sea, but a series of towers set among them would give us earlier warning of the sea raiders’ ventures into our waters. To the southwest of our borders, beyond the Rain Wilds where no one ruled, were the Spice Coasts. A princess from there would offer few defensive advantages, but some argued for the rich trading agreements she might bring with her. Days to the south and east over the sea were the many big islands where grew the trees that the boat builders yearned for. Could a king and his daughter be found there who would trade her warm winds and soft fruits for a keep in a rocky ice-boundaried land? What would they ask for a soft southern woman and her tall-timbered island trade? Furs said some, and grain said another. And there were the mountain kingdoms at our backs, with their jealous possession of the passes that led into the tundra lands beyond. A princess from there would command warriors of her folk, as well as trade links to the ivory workers and reindeer herders who lived beyond their borders. On their southern border was the pass that led to the headwaters of the great Rain River that meandered through the Rain Wilds. Every soldier among us had heard the old tales of the abandoned treasure temples on the banks of that river, of the tall carved gods who presided still over their holy springs, and of the flake gold that sparkled in the lesser streams. Perhaps a mountain princess, then?
Each possibility was debated with far more political savvy and sophistication than Galen would have believed these simple soldiers capable of commanding. I rose from their midst feeling ashamed of how I had dismissed them; in so short a time Galen had brought me to think of them as ignorant sword wielders, men of brawn with no brain at all. I had lived among them all my life. I should have known better. No, I had known better. But my hunger to set myself higher, to prove beyond doubt my right to that royal magic had made me willing to accept any nonsense he might choose to present me. Something clicked within me, as if the key piece to a wood puzzle had suddenly slid into place. I had been bribed with the offer of knowledge as another man might have been bribed with coins.
I did not think very well of myself as I climbed the stairs to my room. I lay down to sleep with the resolve that I would not let Galen deceive me any longer, nor persuade me to deceive myself. I also resolved most firmly that I would learn the Skill, no matter how painful or difficult it might be.
And so dark and early the next morning I plunged fully back into my lessons and routine. I attended Galen’s every word, I pushed myself to do each exercise, physical or mental, to the extreme of my ability. But as the week, and then the month, wore painfully on, I felt like a dog with his meat suspended just beyond the reach of his jaws. For the others, something was obviously happening. A network of shared thought was building between them, a communication that had them turning to one another before they spoke, that let them perform the shared physical exercises as one being. Sullenly, resentfully, they took turns being partnered with me, but from them I felt nothing, and from me they shuddered and pulled back, complaining to Galen that the force I exerted toward them was either like a whisper or a battering ram.