I studied his face for signs of a jest. Then I waited for him to mock me for my gullibility. Finally I begged him, “Can you just explain?”
He blew out a breath. “I’m tired, Fitz. And I’ve told you as clearly as I can what I think may be happening. You seem to think we are becoming or were ‘one thing,’ as you so gracefully put it. I think that our essences may be seeping across to the other, creating a bridge between us. Or perhaps it’s a vestige of the Skill-bond we once shared.” He leaned his poor head back on the pillows. “I can’t sleep. I’m weary and tired, but not sleepy. What I am is bored. Horribly bored with pain and darkness and waiting.”
“I thought you just said that being bored—”
“Is lovely. Horribly lovely.”
Well, at least he was showing signs of his old self. “I wish I could help you. Sadly, there isn’t much I can do about your boredom.”
“You already did something for me. The sores on my back are much better. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. And now I fear I must leave you for a time. I’m supposed to meet with Lady Kettricken, as Lord Feldspar of Spiretop. I will need to dress for that role.”
“And you must go right now?”
“I should, if I’m to be properly dressed and in line for a private audience with her. I’ll come back afterward. Try to rest.”
With regret, I turned away. I knew how the time must drag for him. He had always been a lively fellow, a juggler, a tumbler, adept at sleight of hand, with a mind as quick and clever as his fingers. He had cavorted through King Shrewd’s court, quick with a witty retort, always a part of the gay whirl that Buckkeep society had been when I was very young. Now sight and clever fingers and agile body had all been taken from him. Darkness and pain were his companions.
“After Prilkop’s benefactor bought me from my ‘owner,’ at an insultingly low price I might add, we were fairly well treated. His new patron was not a noble but a fairly wealthy landowner. It was only by the greatest of good fortune that the man was well versed in the lore of the White Prophets.”
He paused. He knew I had halted, intrigued by his words. I tried to calculate how much time had passed. It was difficult to tell in the perpetual twilight of the room. “I have to leave soon,” I reminded him.
“Do you truly?” he asked, a mocking lilt in his voice.
“I do.”
“Very well.”
I turned.
“For ten days, we rested and were well fed in his home. He arranged new garments for us, packed provisions, and then he himself drove the horse and cart to Clerres. It was a journey of nearly a month to get there. Sometimes we camped, and at other times we were able to stay at inns. Both Prilkop and I worried greatly at what the man was sacrificing of pocket and time to get us there, but he would always say he was honored to do it. Our road led us through a mountain pass, nearly as frozen and cold as a Buckkeep winter, and then down, down we went. I began to recognize the scents of the trees, and I knew the names of the wayside flowers from my boyhood. Clerres itself had grown a great deal since last I had seen it, and Prilkop was astounded that the place he remembered as a simple village had grown to an edifice of walls and towers and gardens and gates.
“Yet so it was. The school had prospered, and in turn the city had prospered, for there was a trade now in the searching of prophecies to give advice to merchants and would-be brides and builders of sailing ships. From far and near they came, to pay a fee in the hope of getting an audience with the Head Servant, and then to tell their tale to him. And if he judged them worthy, they could buy a license for a day or three or twenty, and cross the causeway to the White Island. There, one of the acolyte Servants would be put to researching the prophecies to see if any pertained to that particular venture or wedding or voyage.
“But I am getting ahead of myself.”
I clenched my teeth and then let him win. “Actually, you’ve gone backward in your telling, as you well know. Fool, I desperately want to hear this story, but I must not be late to my audience.”
“As you wish.”
I had taken four steps when he added, “I only hope I am not too weary later to tell you the rest.”
“Fool! Why are you being like this?”
“Do you really want to know?” The old lilt of mockery was back in his voice.
“Yes.”
He spoke more softly and soberly than he had before. “Because I know it makes you feel better when I mock you.”
I turned to look back at him, denial on my lips. But some trick of the firelight showed him to me as he was. Not at all like my friend of old. He looked like a badly carved puppet of himself, something as battered and ragged as a beloved old toy. The light touched the scars on his face, the gray-painted eyes, and the straw-thatch of hair on his skull. I couldn’t utter a word.
“Fitz, we both know I teeter on a knife’s edge. It’s not if I will fall, but when. You are keeping me balanced there and alive. But when it happens, as I fear it must, it will not be your fault. Nor mine. Neither of us could have steered this fate.”
“I’ll stay if you want me to.” I threw aside all thoughts of courtesy to Kettricken and duty to Chade. Kettricken would understand, and Chade would have to live with it.
“No. No, thank you. Suddenly I am feeling ready to sleep.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I promised him.
His eyes had closed, and perhaps he already slept. I left quietly.
Chapter Six
The Witted
When Regal the Pretender retreated to the inland duchies, the coastal duchies were left rudderless. Strong as the dukes of Bearns, Shoaks, and Rippon were, they were each too engrossed in defending their own coasts to mount any meaningful unified response to the Red Ships. The titular Duke of Buck, a cousin to the Pretender Regal, was little more than a placeholding puppet who could do nothing to rally the nobles.
It was at this time that Lady Patience, queen of the former King-in-Waiting Chivalry, rose to prominence. What began with the selling of her jewels to keep the warships of Buck manned and active soon consumed almost all of her personal fortune as she worked to keep up the spirits of her farmers and miners, as well as rallying the lesser nobility to organize their own forces to repel the invaders.
This was the situation to which Queen Kettricken returned. Pregnant with the Farseer heir, she and her minstrel, Starling Birdsong, were transported from the Elderling lands to the battlements of Buckkeep Castle, flown there by an immense dragon. King Verity escorted her to safety before rejoining his dragon mount. With the other Elderling warriors astride their dragon steeds, he took to the air to resume the great battle he had begun against the Red Ships. Few were present to witness the king’s return to Buckkeep, and had his queen not been there to attest to his presence, with the minstrel Starling Birdsong to swear truth to it, her sudden appearance would have seemed almost magical. The sparkling dragons that filled the sky had been a terrifying sight to the defenders of Buck until the queen revealed that they were no danger to the folk of Buck, but instead were in the command of their rightful king, and had come to defend them.
On that day, before nightfall, all the Red Ships were driven from the shores of Buck. The legions of dragons swiftly spread out, securing the entire coastline of the Six Duchies before the moon had waxed twice full again. Many a shoreline defender and doughty sailor can attest to how the dragons would appear as distant sparkling lights in the sky, which grew larger and larger until their power and majesty sent the raiders fleeing.