He poin­ted out where I should kindle the sig­nal fire that brought the boat back to us. They sent a dory ashore for him, and he got into it without a word. That showed how spent he was: he simply as­sumed I would be able to get our weary horses aboard the ship. So my pride forced me to man­age that task, and once aboard, I slept as I had not for days. Then again we of­f­loaded, and made a weary trek back to Neat­bay. We came in dur­ing the small hours of the morn­ing and Lady Thyme once more took up res­id­ence in the inn.

  By af­ter­noon of the next day, I was able to tell the innkeeper that she was do­ing much bet­ter and would en­joy a tray from her kit­chens if she would send one round to the rooms. Chade did seem bet­ter, though he sweated pro­fusely at times, and at such times smelled ran­cidly sweet of car­ris seed. He ate raven­ously, and drank great quant­it­ies of wa­ter. But in two days he had me tell the innkeeper that Lady Thyme would be leav­ing on the mor­row.

  I re­covered more read­ily, and had sev­eral af­ter­noons of wan­der­ing Neat­bay, gawk­ing at the shops and vendors and keep­ing my ears wide for the gos­sip that Chade so treas­ured. In this way we learned much what we had ex­pec­ted to. Ver­ity’s dip­lomacy had gone well, and Lady Grace was now the darling of the town. Already I could see an in­crease in the work on the roads and for­ti­fic­a­tions. Watch Is­land’s tower was now manned with Kelvar’s best men, and folk re­ferred to it as Grace Tower now. But they gos­siped, too, of how the Red Ships had crept past Ver­ity’s own towers, and of the strange events at Forge. I heard more than once about sight­ings of the Pocked Man. And the tales they told about the inn fire of those who lived in Forge now gave me night­mares.

  Those who had fled Forge told soul-cleav­ing tales of kin­folk gone cold and heart­less. They lived there now, just as if they were still hu­man, but those who had known them best were the least cap­able of be­ing de­ceived. Those folk did by day what had never been known to hap­pen at any time in Buck­keep. The evils folk whispered were bey­ond my ima­gin­ings. Ships no longer stopped at Forge. Iron ore would have to be found else­where. It was said that no one even wanted to take in the folk that had fled, for who knew what taint they car­ried. After all, the Pocked Man had shown him­self to them. Yet some­how it was harder still to hear or­din­ary folk say that soon it would be over, that the creatures of Forge would kill one an­other and thank all that was di­vine for that. The good folk of Neat­bay wished death on those who had once been the good folk of Forge, and wished it as if it were the only good thing left that might be­fall them. As well it was.

  On the night be­fore Lady Thyme and I were to re­join Ver­ity’s ret­inue to re­turn to Buck­keep, I awoke to find a single candle burn­ing and Chade sit­ting up, star­ing at the wall. Without my say­ing a word, he turned to me. ‘You must be taught the Skill, boy,’ he said as if it were a de­cision pain­fully come by. ‘Evil times have come to us, and they will be with us for a long time. It is a time when good men must cre­ate whatever weapons they can. I will go to Shrewd yet again, and this time I will de­mand it. Hard times are here, boy. And I won­der if they will ever pass.’

  In the years to come, I was to won­der that of­ten.

  EL­EVEN

  For­gings

  The Pocked Man is a well-known fig­ure in the folk­lore and drama of the Six Duch­ies. It is a poor troupe of pup­pet­eers who does not pos­sess a ma­ri­on­ette of the Pocked Man, not only for his tra­di­tional roles, but also for his use­ful­ness as an omen of dis­aster to come in ori­ginal pro­duc­tions. Some­times the Pocked Man pup­pet is merely dis­played against the back­drop, to cast an omin­ous note to a scene. Among the Six Duch­ies, he is a uni­ver­sal sym­bol.

  It is said the root of his le­gend reaches back to the first peopling of the duch­ies, not the con­quer­ing by the Farseer Outis­landers, but the most an­cient set­tling of the place by earlier im­mig­rants. Even the Outis­landers have a ver­sion of the most ba­sic le­gend. It is a warn­ing story, of the wrath of El the Sea God at be­ing for­saken.

  When the sea was young, El the first Elder be­lieved in the people of the is­lands. To that folk he gave his sea, and with it all that swam within it, and all lands it touched for their own. For many years, the folk were grate­ful. They fished the sea, lived on its shores wherever they would, and raided any oth­ers who dared to take up abode where El had given them reign. Oth­ers who dared to sail their sea were the right­ful prey of the folk as well. The folk prospered and grew tough and strong for El’s sea win­nowed them. Their lives were harsh and dan­ger­ous, but it made their boys grow to strong men and their maids fear­less wo­men at hearth or on deck. The folk re­spec­ted El and to that Elder they offered their praises and only by him did they curse. And El took pride in his folk.

  But in El’s gen­er­os­ity, he blessed his folk too well. Not enough of them died in the harsh win­ters, and the storms he sent were too mild to con­quer their seaman­ship. So the folk grew in num­ber. So grew also their herds and flocks. In fat years, weak chil­dren did not die, but grew, and stayed at home, and put land to the plough to feed the swollen flocks and herds and other weak­lings like them­selves. The soil-grub­bers did not praise El for his strong winds and raid­ing cur­rents. In­stead, they praised and cursed only by Eda, who is the Elder of those who plough and plant and tend the beasts. So Eda blessed her weak­lings with the in­crease of their plants and beasts. This did not please El, but he ig­nored them, for he still had the hardy folk of the ships and the waves. They blessed by him and they cursed by him, and to en­cour­age their strength he sent them storms and cold win­ters.

  But as time went on, those loyal to El dwindled. The soft folk of the soil se­duced the sail­ors, and bore them chil­dren fit only for tend­ing to the dirt. And the folk left the winter shores and ices­trewn pas­tures, and moved south, to the soft lands of grapes and grain. Fewer and fewer folk came each year to plough the waves and to reap the fish that El had de­creed to them. Less and less of­ten did El hear his name in a bless­ing or a curse. Un­til at last there was a day when there was only one left who only blessed or cursed in El’s name. And he was a skinny old man, too old for the sea, swollen and aching in his joints with few teeth left in his head. His bless­ings and curses were weak things and in­sul­ted more than pleased El, who had little use for rick­ety old men.

  At last there came a storm that should have ended the old man and his small boat. But when the cold waves closed over him, he clung to the wreck­age of his craft, and dared to cry El for mercy, though all know mercy is not in him. So en­raged was El by this blas­phemy that he would not re­ceive the old man in to his sea, but in­stead cast him up upon the shore, and cursed him that he could never more sail, but neither could he die. And when he crawled from the salt waves, his face and body were pocked as if barnacles had clung to him, and he staggered to his feet and went forth into the soft lands. And every­where he went, he saw only soft soil-grub­bers. And he warned them of their folly, and that El would raise up a new and har­dier folk and give their her­it­age to them. But the folk would not listen, so soft and set had they be­come. Yet every­where the old man went, dis­ease fol­lowed in his wake. And it was all the pox dis­eases he spread, the ones that care not if a man is strong or weak, hard or soft, but take any and all that they touch. And this was fit­ting, for all know that the poxes come up from bad dust and are spread by the turn­ing of the soil.

  Thus is the tale told. And so the Pocked Man has be­come the har­binger of death and dis­ease, and a re­buke to those who live soft and eas­ily be­cause their lands bear well.

  Ver­ity’s re­turn to Buck­keep was gravely marred by the events at Forge. Ver­ity, prag­matic to a fault, had him­self left Bay­guard as soon as Dukes Kelvar and Shem­shy had shown them­selves in ac­cord re­gard­ing Watch Is­land. Ver­ity and his picked troops had ac­tu­ally left Bay­guard be­fore Chade and I re­turned to the inn. So the trek back had a hol­low feel to it. Dur­ing the days, and around the fires at night, folk spoke of Forge, and even within our cara­van, the stor­ies mul­ti­plied and em­broidered them­selves.

  My jour­ney home was spoiled by Chade’s re­sump­tion of his noi­some charade as the vile old lady. I had to fetch and wait upon her, right up to the time that her Buck­keep ser­vants ap­peared to es­cort her back up to her cham­bers. ‘She’ lived in the wo­men’s wing, and though I de­voted my­self in the days to come to hear any and all gos­sip about her, I heard noth­ing ex­cept that she was re­clus­ive and dif­fi­cult. How Chade had cre­ated her and main­tained her fic­ti­tious ex­ist­ence, I never com­pletely dis­covered.

  Buck­keep, in our ab­sence, seemed to have un­der­gone a tem­pest of new events, so that I felt as if we had been gone ten years rather than a mat­ter of weeks. Not even Forge could com­pletely ec­lipse Lady Grace’s per­form­ance. The story was told and re-told, with min­strels vy­ing to see whose re­count­ing would be­come the stand­ard. I heard that Duke Kelvar ac­tu­ally went down on one knee and kissed the tips of her fin­gers after she had spoken, very elo­quently, about mak­ing the towers the grand jew­els of their land. One source even told me that Lord Shem­shy had per­son­ally thanked the lady and sought of­ten to dance with her that even­ing, and thus nearly pre­cip­it­ated an en­tirely dif­fer­ent dis­agree­ment between the neigh­bour­ing duke­doms.

  I was glad of her suc­cess. I even heard it whispered, more than once, that Prince Ver­ity should find him­self a lady of like sen­ti­ments. As of­ten as he was away, set­tling in­ternal mat­ters and chas­ing raid­ers, the people were be­gin­ning to feel the need of a strong ruler at home. The old King, Shrewd, was still nom­in­ally our sov­er­eign. But, as Burrich ob­served, the people ten­ded to look ahead. ‘And’, he ad­ded, ‘folk like to know the King-in-Wait­ing has a warm bed to come home to. It gives them some­thing to make their fan­cies about. Few enough of them can af­ford any ro­mance in their lives, so they ima­gine all they can for their king. Or prince.’

  But Ver­ity him­self, I knew, had no time to think about well-warmed beds, or any sort of bed at all. Forge had been both an ex­ample and a threat. Word of oth­ers fol­lowed, three in swift suc­ces­sion. Croft, up in the Near Is­lands, had ap­par­ently been ‘Raider-Forged’ as it came to be known, some weeks earlier. Word was slow to come from icy shores, but when it came, it was grim. Croft folk, too, had been taken host­age. The coun­cil of the town had, like Shrewd, been mys­ti­fied by the Red Ships’ ul­ti­matum that they pay trib­ute or their host­ages would be re­turned. They had not paid. And like Forge, their host­ages had been re­turned, mostly sound of body, but bereft of any of the kinder emo­tions of hu­man­ity. The whispered word was that Croft had been more dir­ect in their solu­tion. The harsh cli­mates of the Near Is­lands bred a harsh people. Yet even they had deemed it kind­ness when they took the sword to their now-heart­less kin.

  Two other vil­lages were raided after Forge. At Rock­g­ate the folk had paid the ransom. Parts of bod­ies had washed up the next day, and the vil­lage had gathered to bury them. The news came to Buck­keep with no apo­lo­gies; only with the un­voiced as­sump­tion that had the King been more vi­gil­ant, they would have had warn­ing of the raid at least.

  Sheep­mire met the chal­lenge squarely. They re­fused to pay the trib­ute, but with the ru­mours of Forge run­ning hot through the land, they pre­pared them­selves. They had met their re­turned host­ages with hal­ters and shackles. They took their own folk back, club­bing them sense­less in some cases, be­fore ty­ing them and tak­ing them back into their right­ful homes. The vil­lage was united in at­tempt­ing to bring them back to their former selves. The tales from Sheep­mire were the most told ones; of a mother who snapped at a child brought to her for nurs­ing, de­clar­ing as she cursed at it that she had no use for the whim­per­ing, wet creature. Of the little child who cried and screamed at his bonds, only to fly at his own father with a toast­ing fork as soon as the heart­broken sire re­leased him. Some cursed and fought and spat at their kin. Oth­ers settled into a life of bond­age and idle­ness, eat­ing the food and drink­ing the ale set be­fore them, but of­fer­ing no words of thanks or af­fec­tion. Freed of re­straints, those ones did not at­tack their own fam­il­ies, but neither did they work, nor even join with them in their even­ing pas­times. They stole without re­morse, even from their own chil­dren, and squandered coin and gobbled food like glut­tons. No joy they gave to any­one, not even a kind word. But the word from Sheep­mire was that the folk there in­ten­ded to per­severe un­til the ‘Red Ship sick­ness’ passed. They gave the nobles at Buck­keep a bit of hope to cling to. They spoke of the cour­age of the vil­la­gers with ad­mir­a­tion, and vowed that they, too, would do the same, if kin of theirs were Raider-Forged.

  Sheep­mire and its brave in­hab­it­ants be­came a ral­ly­ing point for the Six Duch­ies. King Shrewd levied more taxes in their name. Some went to provide grain for those so oc­cu­pied with caring for bound kin that they had no time to re­build their rav­aged flocks or re­plant their burned fields. And some went to build more ships and hire more men to patrol the coast­lines.

  At first folk took pride in what they would do. Those who lived on the sea-cliffs began to keep vo­lun­teer watch. Run­ners and mes­sen­ger birds and sig­nal fires were kept in place. Some vil­lages sent sheep and sup­plies to Sheep­mire, to be given to those who needed help most. But as the long weeks passed, and there was no sign that any of the re­turned host­ages had re­covered their sens­ib­il­it­ies, those hopes and de­vo­tions began to seem pathetic rather than noble. Those who had most sup­por­ted those ef­forts now de­clared that, were they taken host­age, they would choose to be hacked to pieces and thrown into the sea rather than re­turned to cause their fam­il­ies such hard­ship and heart­break.

  Worst, I think, was that in such a time the throne it­self had no firm idea of what to do. Had a royal edict been is­sued, to say either that folk must or must not pay the de­man­ded trib­ute for host­ages, it would have gone bet­ter. No mat­ter which, some folk would have dis­agreed. But at least the King would have taken a stand, and people would have had some sense that this threat was be­ing faced. In­stead, the in­creased patrols and watches only made it seem that the Buck­keep it­self was in ter­ror of this new threat, but had no strategy for fa­cing it. In the ab­sence of royal edict, the coastal vil­lages took things into their own hands. The coun­cils met, to de­cide what they would do if Forged. And some de­cided one way, and some the other.

  ‘But in every case,’ Chade told me wear­ily, ‘it mat­ters not what they de­cide; it weak­ens their loy­alty to the king­dom. Whether they pay the trib­ute or not, the Raid­ers may laugh over their blood-ale at us. For in de­cid­ing, our vil­la­gers are say­ing in their minds, not “if we are Forged” but “when we are Forged”. And thus they already have been raped in spirit if not in flesh. They look at their kin, mother at child, man at par­ents, and already they have given them up, to death or For­ging. And the king­dom fails, for as each town must de­cide alone, so it is sep­ar­ated from the whole. We will shat­ter into a thou­sand little town­ships, each wor­ry­ing only about what it will do for it­self if it is raided. If Shrewd and Ver­ity do not act quickly, the king­dom will be­come a thing that ex­ists only in name, and in the minds of its former rulers.’

  ‘But what can they do?’ I de­man­ded. ‘No mat­ter what edict is passed, it will be wrong.’ I picked up the tongs and pushed the cru­cible I was tend­ing a bit deeper into the flames.

  ‘Some­times,’ grumbled Chade, ‘it is bet­ter to be de­fi­antly wrong than si­lent. Look, boy, if you, a mere lad, can real­ize that either de­cision is wrong, so can all folk. But at least such an edict would give us a com­mon re­sponse. It would not be as if each vil­lage were left to lick its own wounds. And in ad­di­tion to such an edict, Shrewd and Ver­ity should take other ac­tions.’ He leaned closer to peer at the bub­bling li­quid. ‘More heat,’ he sug­ges­ted.

  I picked up a small bel­lows, plied it care­fully. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Or­gan­ize raids on the Outis­landers in re­turn. Provide ves­sels and sup­plies to any will­ing to un­der­take such a raid. For­bid that herds and flocks be grazed so tempt­ingly on the coast pas­tures. Sup­ply more arms to the vil­lages if we can­not give each one men to pro­tect it. By Eda’s plough, give them pel­lets of car­ris seed and night­shade, to carry in pouches about their wrists, so that if they are cap­tured in a raid, they can take their own lives in­stead of be­ing host­ages. Any­thing, boy. Any­thing the King did at this point would be bet­ter than this damned in­de­cis­ive­ness.’

  I sat star­ing at Chade. I had never heard him speak so force­fully, nor had I ever known him to cri­ti­cize Shrewd so openly. It shocked me. I held my breath, hop­ing he’d say more but al­most fear­ful of what I might hear. He seemed un­aware of my stare. ‘Poke that a bit deeper. But be care­ful. If it ex­plodes, King Shrewd may have him­self two Pocked Men in­stead of one.’ He glanced at me. ‘Yes, that’s how I was marked. But it might have well and truly been a pox, for how Shrewd hears me lately. “Ill omens and warn­ings and cau­tions fill you,” he said to me. “But I think you want the boy trained in the Skill simply be­cause you were not. It’s a bad am­bi­tion, Chade. Put it from you.” There speaks the Queen’s ghost with the King’s tongue.’

  Chade’s bit­ter­ness filled me with still­ness.