I awoke with a head­ache and a crick in my back from a stone I’d slept on. The sun had only be­gun to crack the sky, but I rose any­way, to go to a well and draw wa­ter for wash­ing, and to drink as much as I could hold. Burrich had once told me that drink­ing a lot of wa­ter was a good way to stave off hun­ger. It was a the­ory I’d have to test today. I put an edge on my knife, con­sidered shav­ing, then de­cided against it. Bet­ter to let my beard grow over the scar as swiftly as pos­sible. I rubbed re­luct­antly at the coarse growth that already ir­rit­ated me. I went back to where the oth­ers still slept.

  They were just be­gin­ning to stir when a bulky little man ap­peared, to call shrilly that he would hire a man to help move his sheep from one pen to an­other. It was only a morn­ing’s work, if that, and most of the men shook their heads, wish­ing to re­main where they might be hired for a drover’s trip to Blue Lake. He al­most pleaded, say­ing he must move the sheep through the city streets, hence he needed to get it done be­fore the day’s com­mon traffic began. Fi­nally, he offered to in­clude break­fast, and I really think that was why I nod­ded to him and fol­lowed him. His name was Da­mon and he talked the whole time we walked, flut­ter­ing his hands about, ex­plain­ing need­lessly to me just how he wanted these sheep handled. They were good stock, very good stock, and he didn’t want them in­jured or even flustered. Calmly, slowly, that was the best way to move sheep. I nod­ded word­lessly to his wor­ry­ing and fol­lowed him to a pen far down the slaughter street.

  It soon be­came ap­par­ent why he was so anxious to move his sheep. The next pen must have be­longed to the luck­less Hen­cil. A few sheep still baa­hed in that pen, but most of them were down, dead or dy­ing of flux. The stench of their sick­ness ad­ded a new foul note to the other smells in the air. Some men were there, tak­ing the skins off the dead an­im­als to sal­vage what they could from the flock. They were mak­ing bloody, messy work of it, leav­ing the skinned dead an­im­als right there in the pen with the dy­ing ones. It re­minded me in some grue­some way of a bat­tle­field, with loot­ers mov­ing among the fallen. I turned my eyes from the sight and helped Da­mon bunch up his sheep.

  Try­ing to use the Wit on sheep is al­most a waste of time. They are flighty of thought. Even those ones who ap­pear most pla­cid are so be­cause they have for­got­ten what they were think­ing about. The worst of them are cap­able of an in­or­din­ate amount of war­i­ness, be­com­ing sus­pi­cious of the simplest act. The only way to deal with them is much as herd dogs do. Con­vince them they have had a good idea about where they wish to go, and en­cour­age them in it. I amused my­self briefly by con­sid­er­ing how Nighteyes would have bunched up and moved these woolly fools, but my even think­ing of a wolf caused a few of them to halt in their tracks sud­denly and glance about wildly. I sug­ges­ted to them they should fol­low the oth­ers be­fore they were lost, and they star­ted as if sur­prised at the no­tion, then crowded in amongst the rest of the sheep.

  Da­mon had given me a gen­eral idea of where we were go­ing, and a long stick. I worked the back and sides of the flock, run­ning and soon pant­ing like a dog, while he led the way and kept the flock from scat­ter­ing at every in­ter­sec­tion. He took us to an area on the out­skirts of town, and we put the sheep into one of the ram­shackle pens there. An­other pen held a very fine red bull, while there were six horses in yet an­other. After we had caught our breath, he ex­plained that to­mor­row a cara­van would be form­ing up here to travel to Blue Lake. He had bought these sheep just yes­ter­day, and in­ten­ded to take them to his home there to add to his flocks. I asked him if he might want an­other hand to herd the sheep to Blue Lake, and he gave me a con­sid­er­ing look but no an­swer.

  He was as good as his word about break­fast. We had por­ridge and milk, plain fare that tasted won­der­fully good to me. It was served to us by a wo­man who lived in a house near the hold­ing pens and made her liv­ing keep­ing watch over the an­im­als penned there and provid­ing meals and some­times beds for those in charge of them. After we had eaten, Da­mon la­bor­i­ously ex­plained to me that yes, he was in need of an ex­tra hand, pos­sibly two, for the trip, but that he judged by the cut of my clothes that I knew little of the type of work I was seek­ing. He’d taken me on this morn­ing be­cause I was the only one who looked really awake and eager for the work. I told him my story of my heart­less sis­ter, and as­sured him that I was fa­mil­iar with hand­ling sheep, horses or cattle. After much dither­ing and druther­ing, he hired me. His terms were that he would provide my food for the jour­ney, and at the end of it would pay me ten sil­ver bits. He told me to run and fetch my things and say my good­byes, but to be cer­tain to be back here by the even­ing, or he would hire an­other to take my place.

  ‘I have noth­ing to fetch, and no one to bid good­bye to,’ I told him. It would not be wise to go back to town, not after what I’d heard last night. I wished the cara­van were leav­ing right now.

  For an in­stant he looked shocked, but then de­cided he was well pleased. ‘Well, I have both to at­tend to, so I shall leave you here to watch over the sheep. They’ll need wa­ter hauled to them; that was one reason I was leav­ing them in the town pens, they’ve a pump there. But I didn’t like to have them so near sick sheep. You haul them wa­ter, and I’ll send a man out with a cart of hay for them. See you give them a good feed. Now, mind, I’ll judge how we are to go on to­gether by how you be­gin with me …’ And so on and so on he went, telling me to the last de­tail how he wished the an­im­als watered, and how many sep­ar­ate piles of feed to make to be sure each an­imal got a share. I sup­pose it was to be ex­pec­ted; I did not look like a shep­herd. It made me miss Burrich, and his calm as­sump­tion that I would know my busi­ness and do it. As he was turn­ing to go, he sud­denly turned back. ‘And your name, lad?’ he called to me.

  ‘Tom,’ I said after an in­stant’s hes­it­a­tion. Pa­tience had thought once to call me that, be­fore I had ac­cep­ted the name FitzChiv­alry. The re­flec­tion called to mind some­thing Regal had once flung at me. ‘You have to but scratch your­self to find Name­less the dog-boy,’ he’d sneered. I doubted he would think Tom the shep­herd much above that.

  There was a dug well, not very near the pens, with a very long rope to its bucket. By work­ing con­stantly, I fi­nally man­aged to get the wa­ter-trough filled. Ac­tu­ally, I filled it sev­eral times be­fore the sheep al­lowed it to re­main filled. About then, a cart with hay ar­rived, and I care­fully cre­ated four sep­ar­ate piles of feed in the corners of the pen. It was an­other ex­er­cise in frus­tra­tion, as the sheep bunched and fed off each pile as I cre­ated it. It was only after all but the weak­est were sa­ti­ated that I could fi­nally es­tab­lish a pile in each corner.

  I whiled away the af­ter­noon with draw­ing more wa­ter. The wo­man gave me the use of a large kettle to heat it, and a private place where I could wash the worst of the road from my body. My arm was heal­ing well. Not bad for a deadly in­jury, I told my­self, and hoped Chade would never hear of my blun­der­ing. How he would laugh at me. When I was clean, I fetched more wa­ter to heat, this for wash­ing out the clothes I’d bought from the rag wo­man. I dis­covered the cloak was ac­tu­ally a much lighter grey than I had thought it. I could not get all the smell out of it, but by the time I hung it to dry, it smelled more of wet wool and less of its pre­vi­ous owner.

  Da­mon had left me no pro­vi­sion for food, but the wo­man offered to feed me if I would haul the wa­ter for the bull and the horses, as it was a chore she’d grown much weary of do­ing for the last four days. So I did, and earned my­self a din­ner of stew and bis­cuits and a mug of ale to wash it all down. Af­ter­wards I checked on my sheep. Find­ing them all pla­cid, habit made me turn to the bull and the horses. I stood lean­ing on the fence, watch­ing the an­im­als, won­der­ing how it would be if this were all there was to my life. It made me real­ize that it would not have been bad, not if there’d been a wo­man like Molly wait­ing for me to come home at night. A rangy white mare came over to rub her nose up my shirt and beg to be scratched. I pet­ted her and found her miss­ing a freckled farm-girl who had brought her car­rots and called her Prin­cess.

  I wondered if any­one, any­where, got to live the life he’d wanted. Per­haps Nighteyes fi­nally had. I truly hoped so. I wished him well, but was selfish enough to hope that some­times he’d miss me. Sul­lenly I wondered if per­haps that was why Ver­ity had not come back. Maybe he’d just got sick of the whole busi­ness of crowns and thrones and kicked over all his traces. But even as I thought it, I knew it was not so. Not that one. He’d gone to the Moun­tains to rally the Eld­er­lings to our aid. And if he’d failed at that task, then he’d think of an­other way. And whatever it was, he’d called me to help him do it.

  EL­EVEN

  Shep­herd

  Chade Fall­star, ad­viser to King Shrewd, was a loyal ser­vant of the Farseer throne. Few knew of his ser­vices dur­ing the years he served King Shrewd. This did not dis­please him for he was not a man who sought glory. Rather he was de­voted to the Farseer reign with a loy­alty that sur­passed his loy­alty to him­self or any other con­sid­er­a­tion most men have. He took most ser­i­ously his vow to the royal fam­ily. With the passing of King Shrewd, he pur­sued his vow to see that the crown fol­lowed the true line of suc­ces­sion. For this reason alone, he was sought after as an out­law, for he openly chal­lenged Regal’s claim to be King of the Six Duch­ies. In missives he sent to each of the dukes as well as to Prince Regal, he re­vealed him­self after years of si­lence, de­clar­ing him­self a loyal fol­lower of King Ver­ity and vow­ing he would fol­low no other un­til he was shown proof of the King’s death. Prince Regal de­clared him a rebel and a traitor and offered re­ward for his cap­ture and death. Chade Fall­star evaded him by many clever ar­ti­fices and con­tin­ued to rally the Coastal dukes to the be­lief that their king was not dead and would re­turn to lead them to vic­tory over the Red Ships. Bereft of any hope of aid from ‘King’ Regal, many of the lesser nobles clung to these ru­mours. Songs began to be sung, and even the com­mon folk spoke with hope that their Skilled King would re­turn to save them, with the le­gendary Eld­er­lings rid­ing at his back.

  By late af­ter­noon, folk began to gather for the cara­van. One wo­man owned the bull and horses. She and her hus­band ar­rived in a wagon drawn by a brace of oxen. They built their own fire, cooked their own food and seemed con­tent with their own com­pany. My new mas­ter re­turned later, a bit tipsy, and goggled at the sheep to be sure I’d fed and watered them. He ar­rived in a high-wheeled cart drawn by a sturdy pony, one he im­me­di­ately en­trus­ted to my care. He’d hired an­other man, he told me, one Creece. I should watch for him to come and show him where the sheep were. He then dis­ap­peared into a room to sleep. I sighed to my­self to think of a long jour­ney with Creece’s tongue and ab­ras­ive way to speed it, but did not com­plain. In­stead I busied my­self caring for the pony, a will­ing little mare named Drum.

  Next to ar­rive was com­pany of a mer­rier sort. They were a troupe of pup­pet­eers with a gaily-painted wagon drawn by a team of dappled horses. There was a win­dow in one side of the wagon that could be let down for pup­pet-shows, and an awn­ing that could be un­rolled from the side to roof a stage when they were us­ing the lar­ger ma­ri­on­ettes. The mas­ter pup­pet­eer was named Dell. He had three ap­pren­tices and one jour­ney pup­pet­eer, as well as a min­strel who had joined them for the trip. They did not make their own fire, but pro­ceeded to liven up the wo­man’s little house with song and the clack­ing of ma­ri­on­ettes and a num­ber of mugs of ale.

  Two team­sters came next, with two wag­ons full of care­fully-packed crock­ery, and then fi­nally the cara­van mas­ter and his four help­ers. These were the ones who would do more than guide us. The very look of their leader in­spired con­fid­ence. Madge was a stoutly-built wo­man, her slate-grey hair con­strained from her face by a band of beaded leather. Two of her help seemed to be a daugh­ter and a son. They knew the wa­ter­holes, clean and foul, would de­fend us from ban­dits, car­ried ex­tra food and wa­ter, and had agree­ments with nomads whose pas­tur­ing ter­rit­ory we’d be passing through. That last was as im­port­ant as any of the rest, for the nomads did not wel­come folk who passed through their lands with graz­ing an­im­als to eat the feed their own flocks needed. Madge called us to­gether that even­ing, to in­form us of this, and to re­mind us that they would keep or­der within our group as well. No theft or trouble-mak­ing would be tol­er­ated, the pace set would be one all could sus­tain, the cara­van mas­ter would handle all deal­ings at the wa­ter­ing places and with the nomads and all must agree to abide by the de­cisions of the cara­van mas­ter as law. I mur­mured my as­sent along with the oth­ers. Madge and her help then checked the wag­ons to be sure each was fit for travel, that the teams were sound and that there were ad­equate wa­ter and food sup­plies for emer­gen­cies. We would travel a zig-zag course from wa­ter­ing place to wa­ter­ing place. Madge’s wagon car­ried sev­eral oak casks for wa­ter, but she in­sis­ted every private wagon and team carry some for their own needs.

  Creece ar­rived with the set­ting sun, after Da­mon had already gone back to his room and bed. I du­ti­fully showed him the sheep, and then listened to his grumbling that Da­mon had not provided us with a room to sleep in. It was a clear, warm night with only a bit of wind, so I saw little to com­plain about. I did not say so, but let him mut­ter and com­plain un­til he was weary of it. I slept just out­side the sheep pen, on guard lest any pred­at­ors come near, but Creece wandered off to an­noy the pup­pet­eers with his dour nature and ex­tens­ive opin­ions.

  I don’t know how long I truly slept. My dreams par­ted like cur­tains blown by a wind. I came alert to a voice whis­per­ing my name. It seemed to come from far away, but as I listened, I was com­pelled in­ex­or­ably to it as if summoned by a charm. Like an er­rant moth, I be­came aware of candle flames and was drawn to­ward them. Four candles burned brightly on a rough wooden table and their ming­ling scents sweetened the air. The two tall tapers gave off the scent of bay­berry. Two smal­ler ones burned be­fore them giv­ing off a sweet spring scent. Vi­ol­ets, I thought, and some­thing else. A wo­man leaned for­ward over them, breath­ing deeply of the rising per­fume. Her eyes were closed, her face mis­ted with sweat. Molly. She spoke my name again.

  ‘Fitz, Fitz. How could you die and leave me like this? It wasn’t sup­posed to be this way, you were sup­posed to come after me, you were sup­posed to find me so I could for­give you. You should have lit these candles for me. I wasn’t sup­posed to be alone for this.’

  The words were in­ter­rup­ted by a great gasp, as of a wrench­ing pain, and with it a wave of fear, frantic­ally fought down. ‘It’s go­ing to be all right,’ Molly whispered to her­self. ‘It’s go­ing to be all right. It’s sup­posed to be like this. I think.’

  Even within the Skill dream, my heart stood still. I looked down at Molly as she stood near the hearth in a small hut. Out­side, an au­tumn storm was ra­ging. She grasped the edge of a table and half crouched, half leaned over it. She wore only a nightrobe, and her hair was slick with sweat. As I watched aghast, she took an­other great gulp­ing breath, and then cried out, not a scream, but a thin caw of a sound as if that were all she had strength for. After a minute she straightened a bit and put her hands softly on the top of her belly. I felt diz­zied at the size of it. It was so dis­ten­ded, she looked preg­nant.

  She was preg­nant.

  If it were pos­sible to lose con­scious­ness when one is asleep, I think I would have done so. In­stead my mind reeled sud­denly, re­or­der­ing every word she had said to me when we had par­ted, re­call­ing the day when she had asked me what I would do, if she had been car­ry­ing my child. The baby was the one she had spoken of, the one she had left me for, the one she would put ahead of every other in her life. Not an­other man. Our child. She’d left to pro­tect our child. And she hadn’t told me be­cause she was afraid I wouldn’t go with her. Bet­ter not to ask than to ask and be re­fused.

  And she had been right. I wouldn’t have gone. There had been too much hap­pen­ing at Buck­keep, too press­ing the du­ties to my king. She’d been right to aban­don me. It was so like Molly to make the leav­ing and the fa­cing this alone her own choice. Stu­pid, but so like her I wanted to hug her. I wanted to shake her.

  She clutched the table again sud­denly, her eyes go­ing wide, voice­less now with the force that moved through her.

  She was alone. She be­lieved I was dead. And she was hav­ing the child alone, in that tiny windswept hut some­where.

  I reached for her, cry­ing, Molly, Molly, but she was fo­cused in­wards on her­self now, listen­ing only to her own body. I sud­denly knew Ver­ity’s frus­tra­tion those times when he could not make me hear him and most des­per­ately needed to reach me.