I had been swallowing a sip of ale. I choked abruptly and demanded, “What?”
“It’s a stupid joke,” Honey declared. “King Regal has had it cried about that he will give gold coin reward to any who can turn over to him a certain man, much scarred with the pox, or silver coin to any man who can give information as to where he may be found.”
“A pox-scarred man? Is that all the description?” I asked carefully.
“He is said to be skinny, and gray-haired, and to sometimes disguise himself as a woman.” Josh chuckled merrily, never guessing how his words turned my bowels to ice. “And his crime is high treason. Rumor says the King blames him for the disappearance of Queen-in-Waiting Kettricken and her unborn child. Some say he is just a cracked old man who claims to have been an adviser to Shrewd, and as such he has written to the Dukes of the Coastal Duchies, bidding them be brave, that Verity shall return and his child inherit the Farseer throne. But rumor also says, with as much wit, that King Regal hopes to hang the Pocked Man and thus end all bad luck in the Six Duchies.” He chuckled again, and I plastered a sick smile on my face and nodded like a simpleton.
Chade, I thought to myself. Somehow Regal had picked up Chade’s trail. If he knew he was pox scarred, what else might he know? He had obviously connected him to his masquerade as Lady Thyme. I wondered where Chade was now, and if he was all right. I wished with sudden desperation that I knew what his plans had been, what plot he had excluded me from. With a sudden sinking of heart, my perception of my actions flopped over. Had I driven Chade away from me to protect him from my plans, or had I abandoned him just when he needed his apprentice?
“Are you still there, Cob? I see your shadow still, but your place at the table’s gone very quiet.”
“Oh, I’m here, Harper Josh!” I tried to put some life into my words. “Just mulling over all you’ve told me, that’s all.”
“Wondering what pocked old man he could sell to King Regal, by the look on his face,” Honey put in tartly. I suddenly perceived that she saw her constant belittlement and stings as a sort of flirtation. I quickly decided I had had enough companionship and talk for an evening. I was too much out of practice at dealing with folk. I would leave now. Better they thought me odd and rude than that I stayed longer and made them curious.
“Well, I thank you for your songs, and your conversation,” I said as gracefully as I could. I fingered out a copper to leave under my mug for the boy. “And I had best take myself back to the road.”
“But it’s full dark outside!” Piper objected in surprise. She set down her mug and glanced at Honey, who looked shocked.
“And cool, my lady,” I observed blithely. “I prefer the night for walking. The moon’s close to full, which should be light enough on a road as wide as the river road.”
“Have you no fear of the Forged ones?” Harper Josh asked in consternation.
Now it was my turn to be surprised. “This far inland?”
“You have been living in a tree,” Honey exclaimed. “All the roads have been plagued with them. Some travelers hire guards, archers, and swordsmen. Others, such as we, travel in groups when we can, and only by day.”
“Cannot the patrols at least keep them from the roads?” I asked in astonishment.
“The patrols?” Honey sniffed disdainfully. “Most of us would as soon meet Forged ones as a pack of Farrowmen with pikes. The Forged ones do not bother them, and so they do not bother the Forged ones.”
“What, then, do they patrol for?” I asked angrily.
“Smugglers, mainly.” Josh spoke before Honey could. “Or so they would have you believe. Many an honest traveler do they stop to search his belongings and take whatever they fancy, calling it contraband, or claiming it was reported stolen in the last town. Methinks Lord Bright does not pay them as well as they think they deserve, so they take whatever pay they are able.”
“And Prince . . . King Regal, he does nothing?” How the title and the question choked me.
“Well, perhaps if you go so far as Tradeford, you might complain to him yourself,” Honey told me sarcastically. “I am sure he would listen to you, as he has not the dozens of messengers who have gone before.” She paused, and looked thoughtful. “Though I have heard that if any Forged ones do make it far enough inland to be a bother, he has ways of dealing with them.”
I felt sickened and wretched. It had always been a matter of pride to King Shrewd that there was little danger of highwaymen in Buck, so long as one kept to the main roads. Now, to hear that those who should guard the King’s roads were little more than highwaymen themselves was like a small blade twisted in me. Not enough that Regal had claimed the throne for himself, and then deserted Buckkeep. He did not keep up even the pretense of ruling wisely. I wondered numbly if he was capable of punishing all Buck for the lackluster way he had been welcomed to the throne. Foolish wonder; I knew he was. “Well, Forged ones or Farrowmen, I still must be on my way, I fear,” I told them. I drank off the last of my mug and set it down.
“Why not wait at least until the morning, lad, and then travel with us?” Josh suddenly offered. “The days are not too hot for walking, for there’s always a breeze off the river. And four are safer than three, these days.”
“I thank you kindly for the offer,” I began, but Josh interrupted me.
“Don’t thank me, for I wasn’t making an offer, but a request. I’m blind, man, or close enough. Certainly you’ve noticed that. Noticed, too, that my companions are comely young women, though from the way Honey’s nipped at you, I fancy you’ve smiled more at Piper than at her.”
“Father!” indignantly from Honey, but Josh plowed on doggedly.
“I was not offering you the protection of our numbers, but asking you to consider offering your right arm to us. We’re not rich folk; we’ve no coin to hire guards. And yet we must travel the roads, Forged ones or no.”
Josh’s fogged eyes met mine unerringly. Honey looked aside, lips folded tightly, while Piper openly watched me, a pleading look on her face. Forged ones. Pinned down, fists falling on me. I looked down at the tabletop. “I’m not much for fighting,” I told him bluntly.
“At least you would see what you were swinging at,” he replied stubbornly. “And you’d certainly see them coming before I did. Look, you’re going the same direction we are. Would it be that hard for you to walk by day for a few days rather than by night?”
“Father, don’t beg him!” Honey rebuked him.
“I’d rather beg him to walk with us, then beg Forged ones to let you go unharmed!” he said harshly. He turned his face back to me as he added, “We met some Forged ones, a couple of weeks back. The girls had the sense to run when I shouted at them to do so, when I could not keep up with them any longer. But we lost our food to them, and they damaged my harp, and . . .”
“And they beat him,” Honey said quietly. “And so we have vowed, Piper and I, that the next time we will not run from them, no matter how many. Not if it means leaving Papa.” All the playful teasing and mockery had gone out of her voice. I knew she meant what she said.
I will be delayed, I sighed to Nighteyes. Wait for me, watch for me, follow me unseen.
“I will travel with you,” I conceded. I cannot say I made the offer willingly. “Though I am not a man who does well at fighting.”
“As if we couldn’t tell that from his face,” Honey observed in an aside to Piper. The mockery was back in her voice, but I doubted that she knew how deeply her words cut me.