And then Chade began a long dis­cus­sion of Eld­er­lings, based on what little we knew of them. We chat­ted of how it would be if Ver­ity suc­ceeded, and spec­u­lated what form the Eld­er­lings’ aid would take. Chade seemed to speak with great hope and sin­cer­ity, even en­thu­si­asm. I tried to share it, but my be­lief was that the sal­va­tion of the Six Duch­ies de­pended on elim­in­at­ing the vi­per in our midst. It was not long be­fore he sent me back to my own room. I lay down on the bed, in­tend­ing to rest for just a few minutes be­fore fa­cing the day, but in­stead fell into a deep sleep.

  We were blessed with storms for a time. Each day that I woke to driv­ing wind and rain against my shut­ters was a day to be treas­ured. I tried to be un­ob­trus­ive about the keep, avoid­ing Regal even if it meant tak­ing all my meals in the watch-room, drift­ing out of any room that Justin and Se­rene might enter. Will, too, had re­turned from his Skill post at the Red Tower in Bearns. On rare oc­ca­sions I saw him in com­pany with Se­rene and Justin. More of­ten he dawdled in the hall at table, his half-lid­ded eyes al­ways seem­ing on the verge of clos­ing. His dis­like of me was not the fo­cused hatred that Se­rene and Justin shared for me, but all the same I avoided him as well. I told my­self I was wise, but feared my­self a cow­ard. I at­ten­ded my king as of­ten as I was al­lowed to. It was not of­ten enough.

  There came a morn­ing when I was jol­ted awake by someone pound­ing on my door and yelling my name. I stumbled from my bed and jerked the door open. A white-faced stable-boy stood shak­ing on my door­step. ‘Hands says, come to the stables. Right now!’

  He gave me no time to reply to his ur­gent mes­sage, but raced off as if seven kinds of demons were after him.

  I pulled on yes­ter­day’s clothes. I thought of splash­ing my face with wa­ter, or smooth­ing my hair back into its tail afresh, but those thoughts oc­curred to me halfway down the stairs. As I raced across the court­yard, I could already hear the raised voices of a quar­rel in the stable. I knew Hands would not have called me for a simple squabble among stable-hands. I could not ima­gine what he would call me for. I pushed open the stable doors, then shoved my way past a gaggle of stable-boys and grooms to get to the centre of the com­mo­tion.

  It was Burrich. He was no longer shout­ing. Travel­worn and weary, he now stood si­lent. Hands was be­side him, white-faced but stand­ing firm. ‘I had no choice,’ he said quietly in an­swer to some­thing Burrich had said. ‘You would have had to do the same.’

  Burrich’s face looked rav­aged. His eyes were un­be­liev­ing, empty with shock. ‘I know,’ he said after a mo­ment. ‘I know.’ He turned to look at me. ‘Fitz. My horses are gone.’ He swayed slightly on his feet.

  ‘It wasn’t Hands’ do­ing,’ I said quietly. Then I asked, ‘Where is Prince Ver­ity?’

  His brows knit and he looked at me oddly. ‘You did not ex­pect me?’ He paused, said more loudly, ‘Mes­sages were sent ahead of me. Didn’t you get them?’

  ‘We’ve heard noth­ing. What happened?’ Why are you back?

  He looked around at the gap­ing stable-boys, and some­thing of the Burrich I knew came into his eyes again. ‘If you have not heard yet, then it is not for gos­sip and com­mon talk. I must go straight to the King.’ He drew him­self up straight, looked around again at the boys and grooms. The old whip­lash was back in his voice as he de­man­ded, ‘Have you no work to do? I shall be look­ing over how you have cared for things in my ab­sence as soon as I re­turn from the keep.’

  Like fog in the sun­light, the work­ers dis­sip­ated. Burrich turned to Hands. ‘Would you care for my horse? Poor Ruddy’s been poorly treated these last days. Treat him well, now that he’s home.’

  Hands nod­ded. ‘Of course. Shall I send for the healer? I could have him wait­ing here for you when you come back.’

  Burrich shook his head. ‘What can be done for this, I can do for my­self. Come, Fitz. Give me your arm.’

  In dis­be­lief, I offered my arm and Burrich took it, lean­ing on me heav­ily. For the first time, I glanced down. What I had taken to be heavy winter leg­gings at first glance was ac­tu­ally a thick wrap of bandaging on his bad leg. He fa­voured it, put­ting most of his weight on me as he limped along. I could feel the ex­haus­tion thrum­ming through him. Up close, I could smell the sweat of pain on him. His cloth­ing was stained and torn, his hands and face be­grimed. This was as un­like the man I knew as any­thing I could ima­gine. ‘Please,’ I said quietly as I helped him to­ward the castle. ‘Is Ver­ity all right?’

  He gave me a ghost of a smile. ‘You think our prince could be dead, and I still be alive? You in­sult me. Be­sides, use your wits. You’d know if he was dead. Or in­jured.’ He paused and stud­ied me care­fully. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  It was plain what he spoke of. Ashamedly, I ad­mit­ted, ‘Our link is not re­li­able. Some things are clear. Some are not. Of this, I knew noth­ing. What’s happened?’

  He looked thought­ful. ‘Ver­ity said he would try to send word through you. If you’ve re­layed no tid­ings to Shrewd, then this in­form­a­tion should first go to the King.’

  I asked no more ques­tions.

  I had for­got­ten how long it had been since Burrich had seen King Shrewd. Morn­ings were not the King’s best times, but when I men­tioned this to Burrich, he said he would rather re­port im­me­di­ately at a bad time than delay in­form­a­tion. So we knocked, and to my sur­prise, were ad­mit­ted. Once within, I real­ized this was be­cause Wal­lace was nowhere about.

  In­stead, as I entered, the Fool asked me gra­ciously, ‘Back for more Smoke?’ Then, as he caught sight of Burrich, the mock­ing grin faded from his face. His eyes met mine. ‘The Prince?’

  ‘Burrich has come to re­port to the King.’

  ‘I shall try to rouse him. Though the way he has been of late, one might as well re­port to him sleep­ing as awake. He takes as much no­tice either way.’

  Ac­cus­tomed as I was to the Fool’s mock­ery, this still jarred me. The sar­casm bit wrong, for there was too much resig­na­tion in his voice. Burrich looked at me wor­riedly. He whispered, ‘What is wrong with my king?’

  I shook my head at him for quiet and tried to get him to take a seat.

  ‘I stand be­fore my king, un­til he bids me be seated,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘You are in­jured. He would un­der­stand.’

  ‘He is my king. That is what I un­der­stand.’

  So I gave off ur­ging him. We waited for a time, and more than a time. At last the Fool came out of the King’s bed­cham­ber. ‘He is not well,’ he cau­tioned us. ‘It has taken me a time to make him un­der­stand who is here. But he says he will hear your re­port. In his cham­bers.’

  So Burrich leaned on me as we went into the dim­ness and fog of the King’s bed­cham­ber. I saw Burrich wrinkle his nose in dis­taste. Ac­rid fumes of Smoke hung heavy here, and sev­eral small censers burned. The Fool had drawn back the bed-cur­tains, and as we stood, he pat­ted and poked cush­ions and pil­lows be­hind the King’s back un­til Shrewd waved him aside with a small ges­ture.

  I looked at our mon­arch and wondered how I had not seen the signs of his dis­ease. They were plainly there when one looked. The gen­eral wast­ing of his body, the sour edge to his sweat, the yel­low in the whites of his eyes: these were the least things I should have seen. The shock on Burrich’s face told me plainly that the change since Burrich had last seen him was im­mense. But he covered it well and drew him­self up straight.

  ‘My king, I have come to re­port,’ he said form­ally.

  Shrewd blinked slowly. ‘Re­port,’ he said vaguely, and I was not sure if he gave Burrich an or­der, or simply re­peated the word. Burrich took it as a com­mand. He was as thor­ough and ex­act as he had al­ways in­sisted I be. I stood, and he sup­por­ted his weight on my shoulder as he told of jour­ney­ing with Prince Ver­ity through the winter snows, trav­el­ling al­ways to­ward the Moun­tain King­dom. He did not mince words, but spoke plainly. The jour­ney had been full of hard­ships. Des­pite mes­sen­gers sent ahead of Ver­ity’s ex­ped­i­tion, hos­pit­al­ity and aid along the way had been poor. Those nobles whose homes lay along their route pro­fessed to have known noth­ing of Ver­ity’s com­ing. In many cases, they found only ser­vants to greet them, and the hos­pit­al­ity no more than what would have been offered to any or­din­ary trav­el­ler. Sup­plies and ex­tra horses that should have been wait­ing for them at as­signed loc­a­tions were not. The horses had suffered more griev­ously than the men. The weather had been sav­age.

  As Burrich re­por­ted, I felt a tremor run through him from time to time. The man was at the edge of com­plete ex­haus­tion. But each time he shook, I felt him take a deep breath, steady him­self, and go on.

  His voice quavered only slightly as he told how they had been am­bushed on the plains of Far­row, be­fore they came in sight of Blue Lake. He drew no con­clu­sions him­self, but only ob­served that these high­way­men fought in a mil­it­ary style. While they wore no duke’s col­ours, they seemed well-dressed and well-armed for brig­ands. And Ver­ity was ob­vi­ously their in­ten­ded tar­get. When two of the bag­gage an­im­als broke loose and fled, none of their at­tack­ers broke away to fol­low them. Ban­dits usu­ally would have pre­ferred chas­ing laden pack-beasts to fight­ing armed men. Ver­ity’s men had fi­nally found a place to take a stand, and had suc­cess­fully stood them off. Their at­tack­ers had fi­nally given up when they real­ized that Ver­ity’s guard would die to the last man be­fore sur­ren­der­ing or giv­ing way. They had rid­den off, leav­ing their fallen dead in the snow.

  ‘They had not de­feated us, but we were not un­scathed. We lost a good por­tion of our sup­plies. Seven men and nine horses were killed out­right. Two of us were in­jured ser­i­ously. Three oth­ers took minor in­jur­ies. It was Prince Ver­ity’s de­cision to send the in­jured back to Buck­keep. With us he sent two sound men. His plan was to con­tinue his quest, to take his guard with him as far as the Moun­tain King­dom, and to have them stay there to await his re­turn. Keen was placed in charge of those of us re­turn­ing. To him, Ver­ity en­trus­ted writ­ten in­form­a­tion. I do not know what that in­form­a­tion packet con­tained. Keen and the oth­ers were killed five days ago. We were am­bushed just out­side the bor­der of Buck, as we were trav­el­ling by the Buck River. Arch­ers. It was very … quick. Four of us went down right away. My horse was struck in the flank. Ruddy’s a young beast. He pan­icked. He plunged over an em­bank­ment into the river, and I with him. The river is deep there, and the cur­rent strong. I clung to Ruddy, but we were both swept down­river. I heard Keen shout­ing to the oth­ers to ride, that some must make it back to Buck­keep. But none of them did. When Ruddy and I man­aged to clam­ber out of the Buck, we went back. I found the bod­ies. The pa­pers Keen had car­ried were gone.’

  He stood straight as he re­por­ted, and his voice was clear. His words were simple. His re­port was a simple de­scrip­tion of what had happened. He men­tioned noth­ing of what he had felt at be­ing sent back, or at be­ing the sole sur­vivor to re­turn. He would drink him­self sod­den to­night, I sus­pec­ted. I wondered if he would want com­pany for that. But, for now, he stood, si­lent, await­ing his King’s ques­tions. The si­lence stretched over long. ‘My king?’ he ven­tured.

  King Shrewd shif­ted in the shad­ows of his bed. ‘It re­minds me of my younger days,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Once I could sit a horse and hold a sword. When a man loses that – well, once that is gone, he has ac­tu­ally lost far more than that. But your horse was all right?’

  Burrich fur­rowed his brow. ‘I did what I could for him, my king. He will take no per­man­ent harm from it.’

  ‘Well. At least there is that, then. At least there is that.’ King Shrewd paused. For a mo­ment we listened to his breath­ing. He seemed to be work­ing at it. ‘Go and get some rest, man,’ he said at last, gruffly. ‘You look ter­rible. I may.’ He paused and took two breaths. ‘I will call you back later. When you are res­ted. I am sure there are things to ask …’ His voice trailed off, and again he simply breathed. The deep breaths a man takes when the pain is al­most too much to bear. I re­membered how I had felt last night. I tried to ima­gine listen­ing to Burrich re­port while en­dur­ing such pain. And strug­gling not to show it. The Fool leaned in over the King to look into his face. Then he looked at us and gave a tiny shake to his head.

  ‘Come,’ I said softly to Burrich. ‘Your king has given you an or­der.’

  He seemed to lean on me more heav­ily as we left the King’s bed­cham­ber.

  ‘He did not seem to care,’ Burrich said quietly, care­fully to me as we moved la­bor­i­ously down the cor­ridor.

  ‘He does. Trust me. He cares deeply.’ We had come to the stair­case. I hes­it­ated. A flight down, through the hall, the kit­chen, across the court, and into the stables. Then up the steep stairs to Burrich’s loft. Or up two flights of steps and down the hall to my room. ‘I’m tak­ing you up to my room,’ I told him.

  ‘No. I want to be in my own place.’ He soun­ded fret­ful as a sick child.

  ‘In a while. After you’ve res­ted a bit,’ I told him firmly. He did not res­ist as I eased him up the steps. I don’t think he had the strength. He leaned against the wall while I un­latched my door. Once the door was open, I helped him in. I tried to get him to lie down on my bed, but he in­sisted on the chair by the hearth. Once en­sconced here, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. When he re­laxed, all the priva­tions of his jour­ney showed in his face. Too much bone showed be­neath his flesh, and his col­our was ter­rible.

  He lif­ted his head and looked around the room as if he’d never seen it be­fore. ‘Fitz? Have you any­thing to drink up here?’

  I knew he didn’t mean tea. ‘Brandy?’

  ‘The cheap black­berry stuff you drink? I’d sooner drink horse lini­ment.’

  I turned back to him, smil­ing. ‘I might have some of that up here.’

  He didn’t re­act. It was as if he hadn’t heard me.

  I built up my fire. I quickly sor­ted through the small sup­ply of herbs I kept in my room. There wasn’t much there. I had given most of them to the Fool. ‘Burrich, I’m go­ing to go get you some food, and a few things. All right?’

  There was no reply. He was already deeply asleep sit­ting there. I went to stand by him. I did not even need to touch the skin of his face to feel the fever burn­ing there. I wondered what had happened to his leg this time. An in­jury on top of an old in­jury, and then trav­elled on. It would not be soon healed, that was plain to me. I hur­ried out of my room.

  In the kit­chens, I in­ter­rup­ted Sara at pud­ding-mak­ing, to tell her that Burrich was in­jured and sick and in my room. I lied and said he was raven­ously hungry, and to please send a boy up with food, and some buck­ets of clean hot wa­ter. She im­me­di­ately put someone else to stir­ring the pud­ding, and began to clat­ter trays and tea pots and cut­lery. I would have enough food to sup­ply a small ban­quet very quickly.

  I ran out to the stables to let Hands know that Burrich was up in my room and would be for a while. Then I climbed the steps to Burrich’s room. I had it in my mind to get the herbs and roots I would need there. I opened the door. The cham­ber was cold. The damp had got into it, and musti­ness. I made a men­tal note to have someone come up and make a fire, and bring in a sup­ply of wood, wa­ter and candles. Burrich had ex­pec­ted to be gone all winter. Char­ac­ter­ist­ic­ally, he had ti­died his room to the point of sever­ity. I found a few pots of herbal salve, but no stores of freshly-dried herbs. Either he had taken them with him, or given them away be­fore he left.

  I stood in the centre of the room and looked around me. It had been months since I’d been here. Child­hood memor­ies came crowding back into my head. Hours spent be­fore that hearth, mend­ing or oil­ing har­ness. I’d used to sleep on a mat be­fore the fire. Nosy, the first dog I’d ever bon­ded to. Burrich had taken him away, to try to break me of us­ing the Wit. I shook my head at the flood of con­flict­ing emo­tions, and quickly left the room.

  The next door I knocked on was Pa­tience’s. Lacey opened it and, at the look on my face, de­man­ded im­me­di­ately, ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Burrich’s come back. He’s up in my room. He’s badly hurt. I don’t have much in the way of heal­ing herbs …’

  ‘Did you send for the healer?’

  I hes­it­ated. ‘Burrich has al­ways liked to do things his own way.’

  ‘In­deed he has.’ It was Pa­tience, en­ter­ing the sit­ting-room. ‘What’s that mad­man done to him­self now? Is Prince Ver­ity all right?’

  ‘The Prince and his guard were at­tacked. The Prince was not harmed, and has con­tin­ued to the moun­tains. He sent back those who were in­jured, with two sound men as an es­cort. Burrich was the only one to sur­vive and get home.’

  ‘Was the jour­ney back so dif­fi­cult?’ Pa­tience asked. Lacey was already mov­ing about the room, gath­er­ing herbs and roots and ma­ter­i­als for bandaging.

  ‘It was cold and treach­er­ous. Little hos­pit­al­ity was offered them along the way. But the men died when they were am­bushed by arch­ers, just across the Buck bor­der. Burrich’s horse car­ried him off into a river. They were swept down­stream quite a way; it was prob­ably the only thing that saved him.’

  ‘How is he hurt?’ Now Pa­tience was mov­ing too. She opened a little cup­board, and began to take out pre­pared salves and tinc­tures.

  ‘His leg. The same one. I don’t know ex­actly, I haven’t looked at it yet. But it won’t take his weight; he can’t walk by him­self. And he has a fever.’