‘I think per­haps the present Duke of Far­row should have a care for his health,’ I mused.

  ‘He shares his older sis­ter’s fond­ness for fine wine and in­tox­ic­ants. Well sup­plied with these, and care­less of all else, I sus­pect he will live a long life.’

  ‘As per­haps King Shrewd might?’ I ven­tured care­fully.

  A spasm of pain twitched across the Fool’s face. ‘I doubt that a long life is left to him,’ he said quietly. ‘But what is left might be an easy one, rather than one of blood­shed and vi­ol­ence.’

  ‘You think it will come to that?’

  ‘Who knows what will swirl up from the bot­tom of a stirred kettle?’ He went sud­denly to my door, and set his hand to the latch. ‘That is what I ask you,’ he said quietly. ‘To forgo your twirl­ing, Sir Spoon. To let things settle.’

  ‘I can­not.’

  He pressed his fore­head to the door, a most un-Fool-like ges­ture. ‘Then you shall be the death of kings.’ Grieved words in a low voice. ‘You know … what I am. I have told you. I have told you why I am here. This is one thing of which I am sure. The end of the Farseer line was one of the turn­ing points. Kettricken car­ries an heir. The line will con­tinue. This is what was needed. Can­not an old man be left to die in peace?’

  ‘Regal will not let that heir be born,’ I said bluntly. Even the Fool widened his eyes to hear me speak so plain. ‘That child will not come to power without a king’s hand to shel­ter un­der. Shrewd, or Ver­ity. You do not be­lieve Ver­ity is dead. You have as much as said so. Can you let Kettricken en­dure the tor­ment of be­liev­ing it is so? Can you let the Six Duch­ies go down in blood and ruin? What good is an heir to the Farseer throne, if the throne is but a broken chair in a burned-out hall?’

  The Fool’s shoulders slumped. ‘There are a thou­sand cross­roads,’ he said quietly. ‘Some clear and bold, some shad­ows within shad­ows. Some are nigh on cer­tain­ties; it would take a great army or a vast plague to change those paths. Oth­ers are shrouded in fog, and I do not know what roads lead out to them, or to where. You fog me, Bas­tard. You mul­tiply the fu­tures a thou­sand­fold, just by ex­ist­ing. Cata­lyst. From some of those fogs go the black­est, twis­ted threads of dam­na­tion, and from oth­ers shin­ing twines of gold. To the depths or the heights, it seems, are your paths. I long for a middle path. I long for a simple death for a mas­ter who was kind to a freak­ish, jeer­ing ser­vant.’

  He made no more re­buke than that. He lif­ted the latches and un­did the bolts and left quietly. The rich cloth­ing and care­ful walk made him ap­pear de­formed to me, as his mot­ley and capers never had. I closed the door softly be­hind him and then stood lean­ing against it as if I could hold the fu­ture out.

  I pre­pared my­self most care­fully for din­ner that even­ing. When I was fi­nally dressed in Mis­tress Hasty’s latest set of clothes for me, I looked al­most as fine as the Fool. I had de­cided that as yet I would not mourn Ver­ity, nor even give the ap­pear­ance of mourn­ing. As I des­cen­ded the stairs, it seemed to me that most of the keep was con­ver­ging on the Great Hall this even­ing. Evid­ently all had been summoned to at­tend, grand folk and humble.

  I found my­self seated at a table with Burrich and Hands and other of the stable-folk. It was as humble a spot as I had ever been given since King Shrewd had taken me un­der his wing, and yet the com­pany was more to my lik­ing than that of the higher tables, for the hon­oured tables of the Great Hall were packed with folk little known to me, the dukes and vis­it­ing no­bil­ity of Tilth and Far­row for the most part. There were a scat­ter­ing of faces I knew, of course. Pa­tience was seated as al­most be­fit­ted her rank, and Lacey was ac­tu­ally seated at a table above me. I saw no sign of Molly any­where. There were a scat­ter­ing of folk from Buck­keep Town, most of them the well-to-do, and most of them seated more fa­vour­ably than I would have ex­pec­ted. The King was ushered in, lean­ing on the newly el­eg­ant Fool, fol­lowed by Kettricken.

  Her ap­pear­ance shocked me. She wore a simple robe of drab brown, and she had cut her hair for mourn­ing. She had left her­self less than a hand’s-width of hair and, bereft of its rich weight, it stuck out about her head like a dan­delion gone to seed. Its col­our seemed to have been cut away with its length, leav­ing it as pale as the Fool’s. So ac­cus­tomed had I been to see­ing the heavy gold braids of her hair that her head now ap­peared oddly small upon her wide shoulders. Her pale blue eyes were made strange by eye­lids reddened by weep­ing. She did not look like a mourn­ing queen. Rather she ap­peared bizarre, a new kind of Fool for the court. I could see noth­ing of my queen, noth­ing of Kettricken in her garden, noth­ing of the bare­foot war­rior dan­cing with her blade; only a for­eign wo­man, newly alone here. Regal, in con­trast, was as lav­ishly clothed as if to go a-court­ing, and moved as surely as a hunt­ing cat.

  What I wit­nessed that even­ing was as clev­erly-paced and care­fully-led as a pup­pet-play. There was old King Shrewd, dod­der­ing and thin, nod­ding off over his din­ner, or mak­ing vague and smil­ing con­ver­sa­tion to no one in par­tic­u­lar. There was the Queen-in-Wait­ing, un­smil­ing, barely eat­ing, si­lent and mourn­ing. Presid­ing over it all was Regal, the du­ti­ful son seated next to the fail­ing father, and be­side him the Fool, mag­ni­fi­cently clad and punc­tu­at­ing Regal’s con­ver­sa­tion with wit­ti­cisms to make the Prince’s con­ver­sa­tion more spark­ling than it truly was. The rest of the high table was the Duke and Duch­ess of Far­row, and the Duke and Duch­ess of Tilth, and their cur­rent fa­vour­ites among the lesser no­bil­ity of those duch­ies. Bearns, Rip­pon and Shoaks duch­ies were not rep­res­en­ted at all.

  Fol­low­ing the meat, two toasts were offered to Regal. The first came from Duke Holder of Far­row. He toasted the Prince lav­ishly, de­clar­ing him the de­fender of the realm, prais­ing his swift ac­tion on be­half of Neat Bay and laud­ing also his cour­age in tak­ing the meas­ures ne­ces­sary for the best in­terests of the Six Duch­ies. That made me prick up my ears. But it was all a bit vague, con­grat­u­lat­ing and prais­ing, but never quite lay­ing out ex­actly what Regal had de­cided to do. Had it gone on any longer, it would have been suit­able as a eu­logy.

  Early into the speech, Kettricken had sat up straighter and looked in­cred­u­lously at Regal, ob­vi­ously un­able to be­lieve that he would quietly nod and smile to praises not his due. If any­one be­sides my­self no­ticed the Queen’s ex­pres­sion, none com­men­ted on it. The second toast, pre­dict­ably, came from Duke Ram of Tilth. He offered a toast to the memory of King-in-Wait­ing Ver­ity. This was a eu­logy, but a con­des­cend­ing one, speak­ing of all that Ver­ity had at­temp­ted and in­ten­ded and dreamed of and wished for. His achieve­ments already hav­ing been heaped on Regal’s plate, there was little left to add. Kettricken grew, if any­thing, whiter and more pinched about the mouth.

  I be­lieve that when Duke Ram fin­ished, she was on the verge of rising to speak her­self. But Regal arose, al­most hast­ily, hold­ing up his newly-filled glass. He mo­tioned all to si­lence, then ex­ten­ded that glass to­ward the Queen.

  ‘Too much has been said of me this night, and too little of our most fair Queen-in-Wait­ing, Kettricken. She has re­turned home to find her­self most sadly be­reaved. Yet I do not think my late brother Ver­ity would wish sor­row for his death to over­shadow all that is due his lady by her own ef­fort. Des­pite her con­di­tion,’ (and the know­ing smile of Regal’s face was per­il­ously close to a sneer), ‘she deemed it in the best in­terests of her ad­op­ted king­dom to ven­ture forth to con­front the Red Ships her­self. Doubt­less many Raid­ers fell to her vali­ant sword. No one can doubt that our sol­diers were in­spired by the sight of their queen, de­term­ined to do battle on their be­half, re­gard­less of what she risked.’

  Two spots of high col­our began to glow on Kettricken’s cheeks. Regal con­tin­ued, shad­ing his ac­count of Kettricken’s deeds with con­des­cen­sion and flat­tery. The in­sin­cer­ity of his courtier’s phrases some­how di­min­ished her deed to some­thing done for show.

  I looked in vain for someone at the high table to cham­pion her. For me to rise from my com­mon place and pit my voice against Regal’s would have seemed al­most more mock­ing. Kettricken, never sure of her place in her hus­band’s court, and now without him to sus­tain her, seemed to shrink in on her­self. Regal’s re­tell­ing of her ex­ploits made them seem ques­tion­able and reck­less rather than dar­ing and de­cis­ive. I saw her dwindle be­fore her­self, and knew she would not speak up for her­self now. The meal re­sumed with a very sub­dued queen at­tend­ing to the addled King Shrewd be­side her, grave and si­lent to the King’s vague ef­forts at con­ver­sa­tion.

  But worse was to come. At the end of the meal, Regal once more called for si­lence. He prom­ised the as­sembled folk that there would be min­strels and pup­pet­eers to fol­low the meal, but asked them to en­dure while he an­nounced but one more thing. After much grave con­sid­er­a­tion and great con­sulta­tion, and with great re­luct­ance, he had real­ized what the at­tack at Neat Bay had just proven. Buck­keep it­self was no longer the safe and se­cure place it was once. It was cer­tainly no place for any­one of del­ic­ate health. And so, a de­cision had been reached that King Shrewd (and the King lif­ted up his head and blinked about at the men­tion of his name) would be jour­ney­ing in­land, to reside in safety at Trade­ford on the Vin River in Far­row un­til his health had im­proved. Here he paused to lav­ishly thank Duke Holder of Far­row for mak­ing Trade­ford Castle avail­able to the royal fam­ily. He ad­ded too that he was greatly pleased it was so ac­cess­ible to both the main castles of Far­row and Tilth, for he wished to re­main in good con­tact with these most loyal dukes, who had so of­ten of late jour­neyed so far to as­sist him in these troubled, troubled times. It would please Regal to bring the life of the royal court to the ones who had pre­vi­ously had to travel far to en­joy it. Here he paused to ac­cept their nod­ded thanks and mur­murs of con­tin­ued sup­port. They sub­sided in im­me­di­ate obed­i­ence when he next raised his hand.

  He in­vited, nay, he en­treated, he begged, the Queen-in-Wait­ing to join King Shrewd there. She would be more safe, she would find it more com­fort­able, for Trade­ford Castle had been built as a home, not a fort­ress. It would put the minds of her sub­jects at rest to know that the com­ing heir and his mother were well-cared-for and well away from the dan­ger­ous coast. He prom­ised that every ef­fort would be made to make her feel at home. He prom­ised her a merry court would re-form there. Many many of the fur­nish­ings and treas­ures of Buck­keep were to be moved there when the King went, to make the move less up­set­ting for him. Regal smiled all the while that he re­leg­ated his father to a po­s­i­tion of eld­erly idiot and Kettricken to brood-mare. He dared to pause to hear her ac­cept­ance of her fate.

  ‘I can­not,’ she said with great dig­nity. ‘Buck­keep is where my Lord Ver­ity left me, and be­fore he did so, he com­men­ded it to my care. Here I shall stay. This is where my child will be born.’

  Regal turned his head, os­tens­ibly to hide a smile from her, but ac­tu­ally to dis­play it bet­ter to the as­semblage. ‘Buck­keep shall be well guarded, my lady queen. My own cousin, Lord Bright, heir to Far­row, has ex­pressed an in­terest in as­sum­ing the de­fence of it. The full mi­li­tia will be left in place here, for we have no need of them at Trade­ford. I doubt that they shall need the as­sist­ance of one more wo­man hampered by her skirts and a bur­geon­ing belly.’

  The laughter that erup­ted shocked me. It was a crude re­mark, a wit­ti­cism more worthy of a tav­ern brawny than a prince in his own keep. It re­minded me of noth­ing so much as of Queen De­sire when she was at her worst, in­flamed with wine and herbs. Yet they laughed, at the high table, and not a few at the lower tables joined them. Regal’s charms and en­ter­tain­ments had served him well. No mat­ter what in­sult or buf­foon­ery he served up to­night, these fawn­ers would sit and ac­cept it with the meat and wine they gobbled at his table. Kettricken seemed in­cap­able of speech. She ac­tu­ally rose and would have left the table, had not the King reached out a trem­bling hand. ‘Please, my dear,’ he said, and his fal­ter­ing voice car­ried all too clearly. ‘Do not leave me. I wish you at my side.’

  ‘You see, it is the wish of your King,’ Regal hast­ily ad­mon­ished her, and I doubt that even he could fully token the good luck that had led the King to make such a re­quest of her at such a time. Kettricken sank back un­will­ingly in her seat. Her lower lip trembled and her face flushed. For one ter­ri­fy­ing in­stant, I thought she would burst into tears. It would have been the fi­nal tri­umph for Regal, a be­trayal of her emo­tional weak­ness as a breed­ing fe­male. In­stead, she took a deep breath. She turned to the King and spoke low but aud­ibly as she took his hand. ‘You are my King, to whom I am sworn. My liege, it shall be as you wish. I shall not leave your side.’

  She bowed her head, and Regal nod­ded af­fably, and a gen­eral out­break of con­ver­sa­tion con­grat­u­lated it­self on her agree­ment. Regal nattered on a bit longer when the din died down, but he had already achieved his goal. He spoke mostly of the wis­dom of his de­cision, and how Buck­keep would be bet­ter able to de­fend it­self without fear­ing for its mon­arch. He even had the au­da­city to sug­gest that by re­mov­ing him­self and the King and Queen-in-Wait­ing, he would be mak­ing Buck­keep a lesser tar­get for the Raid­ers, as they would have less to gain by cap­tur­ing it. It was all a noth­ing, a wind­ing-down for show. Not long after, the King was taken away, car­ted off back to his cham­ber, his dis­play-duty done. Queen Kettricken ex­cused her­self to ac­com­pany him. The feast broke down into a gen­eral ca­co­phony of en­ter­tain­ments. Kegs of beer were brought out, along with casks of the lesser wines. Vari­ous In­land min­strels held forth at op­pos­ite corners of the Great Hall, while the Prince and his co­horts chose the amuse­ment of a pup­pet show, a bawdy piece en­titled The Se­duc­tion of the Inn Keeper’s Son. I pushed back my plate and looked to Burrich. Our eyes met, and we rose as one.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Skilling

  ‘The Forged ones ap­peared to be in­cap­able of any emo­tion. They were not evil, they did not take joy in their wicked­ness or crimes. When they lost their ca­pa­city to feel any­thing for fel­low hu­mans, or any other creatures of the world, they lost their abil­ity to be part of so­ci­ety. An un­sym­path­etic man, a harsh man, an in­sens­it­ive man still re­tains enough sens­ib­il­ity to know that he can­not al­ways ex­press how little he cares for oth­ers, and still be ac­cep­ted into the kin­ship of a fam­ily or a vil­lage. The Forged ones had lost even the abil­ity to dis­semble that they felt noth­ing for their fel­lows. Their emo­tions did not simply stop; they were for­got­ten, lost to them so en­tirely that they could not even pre­dict the be­ha­viour of other hu­mans based on emo­tional re­ac­tion.

  ‘A Skilled one might be seen as the other end of this spec­trum. Such a man can reach forth, and tell from afar what oth­ers are think­ing and feel­ing. He can, if strongly Skilled, im­pose his thoughts and feel­ings on oth­ers. In this in­creased sens­it­iv­ity to the emo­tions and thoughts of oth­ers, he has a sur­feit of what Forged ones lack en­tirely.

  ‘King-in-Wait­ing Ver­ity con­fided that the Forged ones seemed im­mune to his Skilling abil­it­ies. That is, he could not feel what they felt, nor dis­cover their thoughts. This does not, how­ever, mean that they were in­sens­ible to the Skill. Could Ver­ity’s Skilling have been what drew them to Buck­keep? Did his reach­ing out awaken in them a hun­ger, a re­mem­brance per­haps of what they had lost? Drawn as they were, through ice and flood, to travel al­ways to­ward Buck­keep, the mo­tiv­a­tion must have been in­tense. And when Ver­ity de­par­ted Buck­keep on his quest, the move­ment of Forged ones to­ward Buck­keep seemed to abate.’

  – Chade Fall­star

  We ar­rived at King Shrewd’s door and knocked. The Fool opened it. I had marked well that Wal­lace was one of the feasters be­low, and had re­mained when the King had de­par­ted. ‘Let me in,’ I said quietly while the Fool glared at me.

  ‘No,’ he said flatly. He star­ted to close the door.

  I put my shoulder to it, and Burrich as­sisted. It was the first and last time I would ever use force against the Fool. I took no joy in prov­ing that I was phys­ic­ally stronger than he was. The look in his eyes as I forced him aside was some­thing no one should ever see in a friend’s face.

  The King was sit­ting be­fore his hearth, mum­bling rap­idly. The Queen-in-Wait­ing sat des­ol­ately be­side him, while Rose­mary dozed at her feet. Kettricken rose from her seat to re­gard us with sur­prise. ‘FitzChiv­alry?’ she asked quietly.

  I went swiftly to her side. ‘I have much to ex­plain, and a very little time in which to do it. For what I need to do must be done now, to­night.’ I paused, tried to de­cide how best to ex­plain it to her. ‘Do you re­mem­ber when you pledged your­self to Ver­ity?’

  ‘Of course!’ She looked at me as if I were crazy.

  ‘He used Au­gust, then, a co­terie mem­ber, to come and stand with you in your mind, to show you his heart. Do you re­mem­ber that?’

  She col­oured. ‘Of course I do. But I did not think any­one else knew ex­actly what had happened then.’

  ‘Few did.’ I looked around, to find Burrich and the Fool fol­low­ing the con­ver­sa­tion wide-eyed.

  ‘Ver­ity Skilled to you, through Au­gust. He is strong in the Skill. You know that, you know how he guards our coasts with it. It is an an­ces­tral ma­gic, a tal­ent of the Farseer line. Ver­ity in­her­ited it from his father. And I in­her­ited a meas­ure of it from mine.’