I seized on one piece of in­form­a­tion. ‘You could teach me to Skill?’

  ‘If I had time. A great deal of time. You’re a lot like Chiv and I were, when we learned. Er­ratic. Strong, but with no idea of how to bring that strength to bear. And Ga­len has … well, scarred you, I sup­pose. You’ve walls I can’t be­gin to pen­et­rate, and I am strong. You’d have to learn to drop them. That’s a hard thing. But I could teach you, yes. If you and I had a year, and noth­ing else to do.’ He pushed the soup aside. ‘But we don’t.’

  My hopes crashed again. This second wave of dis­ap­point­ment en­gulfed me, grind­ing me against stones of frus­tra­tion. My memor­ies all re-ordered them­selves, and in a surge of an­ger, I knew all that had been done to me. Were it not for Smithy, I’d have dashed my life out at the base of the tower that night. Ga­len had tried to kill me, just as surely as if he’d had a knife. No one would even have known of how he’d beaten me, save his loyal co­terie. And while he’d failed at that, he had taken from me the chance to learn Skilling. He’d crippled me, and I would … I leaped to my feet, furi­ous.

  ‘Whoa. Be slow and care­ful. You have a griev­ance, but we can­not have dis­cord within the keep it­self right now. Carry it with you un­til you can settle it quietly, for the King’s sake.’ I bowed my head to the wis­dom of his coun­sel. He lif­ted the cover from a small roast fowl, dropped it again. ‘Why would you want to learn this Skill any­way? It’s a miser­able thing. No fit oc­cu­pa­tion for a man.’

  ‘To help you,’ I said without think­ing, and then found it true. Once it would have been to prove my­self a true and fit son to Chiv­alry, to im­press Burrich or Chade, to in­crease my stand­ing in the keep. Now, after watch­ing what Ver­ity did, day after day, with no praise or ac­know­ledge­ment from his sub­jects, I found I only wanted to help him.

  ‘To help me,’ he re­peated. The storm winds were slack­en­ing. With ex­hausted resig­na­tion, he lif­ted his eyes to the win­dow. Take the food away, boy. I’ve no time for it now.’

  ‘But you need strength,’ I pro­tested. Guiltily, I knew he had taken time with me he should have taken for food and sleep.

  ‘I know. But I have no time. Eat­ing takes en­ergy. Odd to real­ize that. I have none ex­tra to give to that just now.’ His eyes were quest­ing afar now, star­ing through the sheet­ing rain that was just be­gin­ning to slacken.

  ‘I’d give you my strength, Ver­ity. If I could.’

  He looked at me oddly. ‘Are you sure? Very sure?’

  I could not un­der­stand the in­tens­ity of his ques­tion, but I knew the an­swer. ‘Of course I would.’ And more quietly, ‘I am a King’s man.’

  ‘And of my own blood,’ he af­firmed. He sighed. For a mo­ment he looked sickened. He looked again at the food, and again out of the win­dow. ‘There is just time,’ he whispered. ‘And it might be enough. Dam­na­tion to you, Father. Must you al­ways win? Come here, then, boy.’

  There was an in­tens­ity to his words that frightened me, but I obeyed. When I stood by his chair, he reached out a hand. He placed it on my shoulder, as if he needed as­sist­ance to rise.

  I looked up at him from the floor. There was a pil­low un­der my head, and the blanket I had brought up earlier had been tossed over me. Ver­ity stood, lean­ing out of the win­dow. He was shak­ing with ef­fort, and the Skill he ex­er­ted was like bat­ter­ing waves I could al­most feel. ‘Onto the rocks,’ he said with deep sat­is­fac­tion, and whirled from the win­dow. He grinned at me, an old, fierce grin that faded slowly as he looked down on me.

  ‘Like a calf to the slaughter,’ he said rue­fully. ‘I should have known that you didn’t know what you were talk­ing about.’

  ‘What happened to me?’ I man­aged to ask. My teeth chattered against each other, and my whole body shook as with a chill. I felt I would rattle my bones out of their joints.

  ‘You offered me your strength. I took it.’ He poured a cup of the tea, then knelt to hold it to my mouth. ‘Go slowly. I was in a hurry. Did I say earlier that Chiv­alry was a bull with his Skill? What must I say about my­self then?’

  He had his old bluff hearti­ness and good nature back. This was a Ver­ity I had not seen for months. I man­aged a mouth­ful of the tea, and felt the elf­bark sting my mouth and throat. My shiv­er­ing eased. Ver­ity took a cas­ual gulp from the mug.

  ‘In the old days,’ he said con­ver­sa­tion­ally, ‘a king would draw on his co­terie. Half a dozen men or more, and all in tune with one an­other, able to pool strength and of­fer it as needed. That was their true pur­pose. To provide strength to their king, or to their own key man. I don’t think Ga­len quite grasps that. His co­terie is a thing he has fash­ioned. They are like horses and bul­locks and don­keys, all har­nessed to­gether. Not a true co­terie at all. They lack the single­ness of mind.’

  ‘You drew strength from me?’

  ‘Yes. Be­lieve me, boy, I would not have, ex­cept that I had a sud­den need, and I thought you knew what you offered. You your­self named your­self as a King’s man, the old term. And as close as we are in blood, I knew I could tap you.’ He set the mug down on the tray with a thump. Dis­gust deepened his voice. ‘Shrewd. He sets things in mo­tion, wheels turn­ing, pen­du­lums sway­ing. It is no ac­ci­dent that you are the one to bring me my meals, boy. He was mak­ing you avail­able to me.’ He took a swift turn about the room, then stopped, stand­ing over me. ‘It will not hap­pen again.’

  ‘It was not so bad,’ I said faintly.

  ‘No? Why don’t you try to stand then? Or even sit up? You’re just one boy, alone, not a co­terie. Had I not real­ized your ig­nor­ance and drawn back, I could have killed you. Your heart and breath would just have stopped. I’ll not drain you like this, not for any­one. Here.’ He stopped and without ef­fort lif­ted me and placed me in his chair. ‘Sit here a bit. And eat. I don’t need it now. And when you are bet­ter, go to Shrewd for me. Say that I say you are a dis­trac­tion. I wish a kit­chen-boy to bring my meals, from now on.’

  ‘Ver­ity,’ I began.

  ‘No,’ he cor­rec­ted me. ‘Say “my prince”. For in this, I am your prince, and I will not be ques­tioned on it. Now eat.’

  I bowed my head, miser­able, but I did eat, and the elf­bark in the tea worked to re­vive me faster than I had ex­pec­ted. Soon I could stand, to stack the dishes on the tray, and then to carry them to the door. I felt de­feated. I lif­ted the latch.

  ‘FitzChiv­alry Farseer.’

  I hal­ted, frozen by the words. I turned slowly.

  ‘It’s your name, boy. I wrote it my­self, in the mil­it­ary log, on the day you were brought to me. An­other thing I had thought you knew. Stop think­ing of your­self as the bas­tard, FitzChiv­alry Farseer. And be sure that you see Shrewd today.’

  ‘Good­bye,’ I said quietly, but he was already star­ing out of the win­dow again.

  And so high sum­mer found us all. Chade at his tab­lets, Ver­ity at his win­dow, Regal court­ing a prin­cess for his brother, and I, quietly killing for my king. The In­land and Coastal Dukes took sides at the coun­cil tables, hiss­ing and spit­ting at one an­other like cats over fish. And over it all was Shrewd, keep­ing each piece of web as taut as any spider, and alert to the least thrum­ming of a line. The Red Ships struck at us, like rat­fish on beef bait, tear­ing away bits of our folk and For­ging them. And the Forged folk be­came a tor­ment to the land, beg­gars or pred­at­ors or a bur­den to their fam­il­ies. Folk feared to fish, to trade, or to farm the river­mouth plains by the sea. And yet the taxes had to be raised to feed the sol­diers and the watch­ers who seemed un­able to de­fend the land des­pite their grow­ing num­bers. Shrewd had grudgingly re­leased me from my ser­vice to Ver­ity. My king had not called for me in over a month when one morn­ing I was ab­ruptly summoned to break­fast.

  ‘It’s a poor time to wed,’ Ver­ity ob­jec­ted. ‘I have no time for it. Let us be but prom­ised for a year or so. Surely that will be enough for you.’

  I looked at the sal­low, flesh­less man who shared the King’s break­fast table and wondered if this were the bluff, hearty prince from my child­hood. He had worsened so much in just a month. He toyed with a bit of bread, set it down again. The out­doors had gone from his cheeks and eyes; his hair was dull, his mus­cu­lature slack. The whites of his eyes were yel­lowed. Burrich would have wormed him if he’d been a hound.

  Un­asked, I said, ‘I hunted with Leon two days ago. He took a rab­bit for me.’

  Ver­ity turned to me, a ghost of his old smile play­ing on his face. ‘You took my wolf­hound for rab­bits?’

  ‘He en­joyed it. He misses you, though. He brought me the rab­bit, and I praised him but it didn’t seem to sat­isfy him.’ I couldn’t tell him how the hound had looked at me, not for you as plain in his eyes as in his bear­ing.

  Ver­ity picked up his glass. His hand quivered ever so slightly. ‘I am glad he gets out with you, boy. It’s bet­ter than …’

  ‘The wed­ding,’ Shrewd cut in, ‘will hearten the people. I am get­ting old, Ver­ity, and the times are troubled. The people see no end to their troubles, and I do not dare prom­ise them solu­tions we do not have. The Outis­landers are right, Ver­ity. We are not the war­ri­ors who once settled here. We have be­come a settled people – a settled people who can be threatened in ways that nomads and rovers have no care for. And we can be des­troyed in those same ways. When settled people look for se­cur­ity, they look for con­tinu­ity.’

  Here I looked up sharply. Those were Chade’s words, I’d bet my blood on it. Did that mean that this wed­ding was some­thing Chade was help­ing to en­gin­eer? My in­terest be­came keener, and I wondered again why I had been summoned to this break­fast.

  ‘It’s a mat­ter of re­as­sur­ing our folk, Ver­ity. You have not Regal’s charm, nor the bear­ing that let Chiv­alry con­vince any­one that he could take care of any mat­ter. This is not to slight you; you have as much tal­ent for the Skill as I have ever seen in our line, and in many eras your sol­dierly skills in tac­tics would have been more im­port­ant than Chiv­alry’s dip­lomacy.’

  This soun­ded sus­pi­ciously like a re­hearsed speech to me. I watched Shrewd pause. He put cheese and pre­serves on some bread and bit into it thought­fully. Ver­ity sat si­lent, watch­ing his father. He seemed both at­tent­ive and be­mused, like a man try­ing des­per­ately to stay awake and be alert when all he can think of is put­ting his head down and clos­ing his eyes. My brief ex­per­i­ences of the Skill and the split con­cen­tra­tion it de­man­ded to res­ist its en­tice­ments while bend­ing it to one’s will made me mar­vel at Ver­ity’s abil­ity to wield it every day.

  Shrewd glanced from Ver­ity to me and back to his son’s face. ‘Put­ting it simply, you need to marry. More, you need to be­get a child. It would put heart into the people. They would say, “well, it can­not be as bad as all that, if our prince does not fear to marry and have a child. Surely he would not be do­ing that if the whole king­dom were on the verge of crum­bling.”’

  ‘But you and I would still know bet­ter, wouldn’t we, Father?’ There was a hint of rust in Ver­ity’s voice, and a bit­ter­ness I had never heard there be­fore.

  ‘Ver­ity,’ Shrewd began, but his son cut in.

  ‘My king,’ he said form­ally. ‘You and I do know that we are on the brink of dis­aster. And now, right now, there can be no slack­en­ing of our vi­gil­ance. I have no time for court­ing and woo­ing, and even less time for the more subtle ne­go­ti­ations of find­ing a royal bride. While the weather is fine, the Red Ships will raid. And when it turns poor, and the tem­pests blow their ships back to their own ports, then we must turn our minds and our en­er­gies to for­ti­fy­ing our coast­lines, and train­ing crews to man­age raid­ing ships of our own. That is what I want to dis­cuss with you. Let us build our own fleet, not fat mer­chant ships to waddle about tempt­ing raid­ers, but sleek war­ships, such as we once had and our old­est ship­wrights still know how to make. And let us take this battle to the Outis­landers, yes, even through the storms of winter. We used to have such sail­ors and war­ri­ors amongst us. If we be­gin to build and train now, by next spring we could at least hold them away from our coast, and pos­sibly by winter we could …’

  ‘It will take money. And money does not flow fast­est from ter­ri­fied men. To raise the funds we need, we need to have our mer­chants con­fid­ent enough to con­tinue trad­ing and farm­ers un­afraid to pas­ture their flocks on the coast mead­ows and hills. It all comes back, Ver­ity, to your tak­ing a wife.’

  Ver­ity, so an­im­ated when speak­ing of war­ships, leaned back in his chair. He seemed to sag in on him­self, as if some piece of struc­ture in­side him had given way. I al­most ex­pec­ted to see him col­lapse. ‘As you will, my king,’ he said, but as he spoke he shook his head, deny­ing the af­firm­a­tion of his own words. ‘I will do as you see wise. Such is the duty of a prince to his king and to his king­dom. But as a man, Father, it is a bit­ter and empty thing, this tak­ing of a wo­man se­lec­ted by my younger brother. I will wager that hav­ing looked on Regal first, when she stands be­side me, she will not see me as any great prize.’ Ver­ity looked down at his hands, at the battle and work scars that now showed plainly against their pale­ness. I heard his name in his words when he said softly, ‘Al­ways I have been your second son. Be­hind Chiv­alry, with his beauty, strength and wis­dom. And now be­hind Regal, with his clev­erness and charm and airs. I know you think he would be a bet­ter king to fol­low after you than I. I do not al­ways dis­agree with you. I was born second and raised to be second. I had al­ways be­lieved my place would be be­hind the throne, not upon it. And when I thought that Chiv­alry would fol­low you to that high seat, I did not mind it. He gave me great worth, my brother did. His con­fid­ence in me was like an hon­our; it made me a part of all he ac­com­plished. To be the right hand of such a king was bet­ter than to be king of many a lesser land. I be­lieved in him as he be­lieved in me. But he is gone. And I tell you noth­ing sur­pris­ing when I say to you that there is no such bond between Regal and me. Per­haps there are too many years; per­haps Chiv­alry and I were so close we left no room for a third. But I do not think he has been seek­ing for a wo­man who can love me. Or one who …’

  ‘He has been seek­ing a queen!’ Shrewd in­ter­rup­ted harshly. I knew then that this was not the first time this had been ar­gued, and sensed that Shrewd was most an­noyed that I had been privy to these words. ‘Regal has been seek­ing a wo­man, not for you, or him­self, or any such sil­li­ness. He has been seek­ing a wo­man to be queen of this coun­try, of these Six Duch­ies. A wo­man who can bring to us the wealth and the men and the trade agree­ments that we need now, if we are to sur­vive these Red Ships. Soft hands and a sweet scent will not build your war­ships, Ver­ity. You must set aside this jeal­ousy of your brother; you can­not fend off the en­emy if you do not have con­fid­ence in those who stand be­hind you.’

  ‘Ex­actly,’ Ver­ity said quietly. He pushed his chair back.

  ‘Where do you go?’ Shrewd de­man­ded ir­rit­ably.

  ‘To my du­ties,’ Ver­ity said shortly. ‘Where else have I to go?’

  For a mo­ment, even Shrewd looked taken aback. ‘But you’ve scarcely eaten …’ he faltered.

  ‘The Skill kills all other ap­pet­ites. You know that.’

  ‘Yes.’ Shrewd paused. ‘And I know, too, as you do, that when this hap­pens, a man is close to the edge. The ap­pet­ite for the Skill is one that de­vours a man, not one that nour­ishes him.’

  They both seemed to have for­got­ten about me en­tirely. I made my­self small and un­ob­trus­ive, nib­bling on my bis­cuit as if I were a mouse in a corner.

  ‘But what does the de­vour­ing of one man mat­ter, if it saves a king­dom?’ Ver­ity did not bother to dis­guise the bit­ter­ness in his voice, and to me it was plain that it was not the Skill alone of which he spoke. He pushed his plate away. ‘After all,’ he ad­ded with pon­der­ous sar­casm, ‘it is not as if you do not have yet an­other son to step in and wear your crown. One un­scarred by what the Skill does to men. One free to wed where he will, or will not.’

  ‘It is not Regal’s fault that he is un­Skilled. He was a sickly child, too sickly for Ga­len to train. And who could have fore­seen that two Skilled princes would not be enough?’ Shrewd pro­tested. He rose ab­ruptly and paced the length of the cham­ber. He stood, lean­ing on the win­dowsill and peer­ing out over the sea be­low. ‘I do what I can, son,’ he ad­ded in a lower voice. ‘Do you think I do not care, that I do not see how you are be­ing con­sumed?’

  Ver­ity sighed heav­ily. ‘No. I know. It is the wear­i­ness of the Skill that speaks so, not I. One of us, at least, must keep a clear head and try to grasp the whole of what is hap­pen­ing. For me, there is noth­ing but the sens­ing out, and then the sort­ing, the try­ing to fix nav­ig­ator out from oars­man, to scent out the secret fears that the Skill can mag­nify, to find the faint hearts in the crew and prey upon those first. When I sleep, I dream them, and when I try to eat, they are what sticks in my throat. You know I have never rel­ished this, Father. It never seemed to me worthy of a war­rior, to skulk and spy about in men’s minds. Give me a sword and I’ll will­ingly ex­plore their guts. I’d rather un­man a man with a blade than turn the hounds of his own mind to nip­ping at his heels.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Shrewd said gently, but I did not think he really did. I, at least, did un­der­stand Ver­ity’s dis­taste for his task. I had to ad­mit I shared it, and felt him some­how dirtied by it. But when he glanced at me, my face and eyes were empty of any judge­ment. Deeper within me was the sneak­ing guilt that I had failed to learn the Skill, and was no use to my uncle at this time. I wondered if he looked at me, and thought of draw­ing on my strength again. It was a fright­en­ing thought, but I steeled my­self to the re­quest. But he only smiled at me kindly, if ab­sently, as if no such thought had ever crossed his mind. And as he rose, and walked past my chair, he tousled my hair as if I were Leon.