’s Fate

NINE The Tarman

Even before King Shrewd rather unwisely chose to strictly limit Skill-instruction to the members of the royal family only, the magic was falling into disuse. When I was in my 22nd year, a blood-cough swept through all the coastal duchies. The young and the old were carried off in droves. Many aged Skill-users died in that plague, and with them died their knowledge of the magic.

When Prince Regal found that scrolls about Skill-magic commanded a high price from foreign traders, he began secretly to deplete the libraries of Buckkeep. Did he know that those precious scrolls would ultimately fall into the hands of the Pale Woman and the Red-Ship Raiders? That is a matter that has long been debated among Buck nobility, and as Regal has been dead and gone for many years, it is likely we shall never know the truth about that.

On the decline of knowledge of Skill during the reign of King Shrewd,

Chade Fallstar

We trooped down together to the dock to watch the Tarman arrive in Kelsingra. I had grown up in Buckkeep Town where the docks were of heavy black timbers redolent of tar. Those docks seemed to have stood since El brought the sea to our shores. This dock was recently built, of pale planks with some pilings of stone and some of raw timber. New construction had been fastened to the ancient remains of an Elderling dock. I pondered that, for I did not judge this the best location for a dock. The half-devoured buildings at the river’s edge told me that the river often shifted in its bed. The new Elderlings of Kelsingra needed to lift their eyes from what had been and consider the river and the city as it was now.

Above the broken cliffs that backed the city, on the highest hills, the snow had slumped into thin random fingers. In the distance, I could see the birches blushing pink and the willows gone red at the tips of their branches. The wind off the river was wet and cold, but the knife’s edge of winter was gone from it. The year was turning and with it the direction of my life.

A sprinkling rain fell as the Tarman approached. Motley clung to Perseverance’s shoulder, her head tucked tight against the rain. Lant stood behind him. Spark stood next to Amber. We clustered near enough to watch and far enough back that we were not in the way. Amber’s gloved hand rested on the back of my wrist. I spoke to her in a low voice. ‘The river runs swift and deep and doubtless cold. It is pale grey with silt, and smells sour. Once there was more shore here. Over decades, the river has eaten its way into Kelsingra. There are two other ships docked here. They both appear idle.

‘The Tarman is a river barge. Sweeps, oars, long and low to the water. One powerful woman is on the steering oar. The ship has travelled upriver on the far side of the river, and now it’s crossed the current, turned back and is moving with the current. No figurehead.’ I was disappointed. I’d heard that the figureheads on liveships could move and speak. ‘It has eyes painted on his hull. And it’s coming fast with the current, and two deckhands have joined the steerswoman on the rudder. The crew is battling the current to bring the ship in here.’

As the Tarman neared the docks and its lines were tossed to folk on the dock, where they were caught and snubbed off around the cleats, the barge reared like a wilful horse and water piled up against its stern. There was something odd about the way the barge fought the current but I could not place it. Water churned all around it. Lines and dock timbers creaked as they took its weight.

Some lines were tightened and others loosened until the captain was satisfied that his craft was well snugged to the dock. The longshoremen were waiting with their barrows and one tall Elderling on the dock was grinning in the way that only a man hoping to see his sweetheart grins. Alum. That was his name. I watched the deck and soon spotted her. She was in constant motion, relaying commands and helping to make the Tarman fast to the dock, but twice I caught her eyes roving over the welcoming crowd. When she saw her Elderling sweetheart, her face lit, and she seemed to move even more efficiently as if to flaunt her prowess.

A gangplank was thrown down and about a dozen passengers disembarked, their possessions in bags or packs. The immigrants came ashore uncertainly, staring up in wonder or perhaps dismay at the half-ruined city. I wondered what they had imagined, and if they would stay. On a separate gangplank, the longshoremen began to come and go like a line of ants as the ship disgorged cargo. ‘That’s the boat we’ll travel on?’ Spark asked doubtfully.

‘That’s the one.’

‘I’ve never been on a boat.’

‘I’ve been out in little boats before. Rowing boats on the Withy. Nothing like that.’ Perseverance’s eyes roved over the Tarman. His mouth was slightly ajar. I could not tell if he were anxious or eager.

‘You’ll be fine,’ Lant assured them. ‘Look how stable that ship is. And we’re only going to be on a river, not the sea.’

I noted to myself that Lant was speaking to the youngsters more as if they were his younger siblings than his servants.

‘Do you see the captain?’

I responded to Amber’s question. ‘I see a man past his middle years approaching Reyn. He has been larger in his life, I think, but looks gaunt now. They greet one another fondly. I suspect that is Leftrin and the woman with him would be Alise. She has a great deal of very curly reddish hair.’ Amber had shared with me the scandalous tale of how Alise had forsaken her legal but unfaithful Bingtown husband to take up with the captain of a liveship. ‘They are both exclaiming over Phron. They look delighted.’

Her hand tightened slightly on my arm as she fastened a smile onto her face.

‘Here they come,’ I added quietly. Lant stepped up beside me. Behind me, Per and Spark fell silent. We waited.

A smiling Reyn introduced us. ‘And here are our Six Duchies visitors! Captain Leftrin and Alise of the liveship Tarman, may I present Prince FitzChivalry Farseer, Lady Amber and Lord Lant of the Six Duchies?’

Lant and I bowed, and Amber fell and rose in a graceful curtsey. Leftrin sketched a startled bow and Alise deployed a respectable curtsey before rising to stare at me in consternation. A smile passed over her face before she seemed to recall her manners. ‘We are pleased to offer you passage on Tarman to Trehaug. Malta and Reyn have told us that Ephron’s renewed health is due to your magic. Thank you. We have no children of our own, and Ephron has been as dear to us as he is to his parents.’

Captain Leftrin nodded gravely. ‘As the lady says,’ he added gruffly. ‘Give us a day or so to get our cargo on the beach, give our crew a bit of shore time and we’ll be ready to carry you down river. Quarters on Tarman are not spacious. We’ll do our best to make you comfortable but I’m sure it won’t be the sort of travel a prince is used to, nor a lord and a lady.’

‘I am sure we will be most content with whatever you offer us. Our goal is not comfort but transport,’ I replied.

‘And that Tarman can provide, swifter and better than any on this river.’ He spoke with the pride of a captain who owns his ship. ‘We’d be pleased to welcome you aboard now and show you the quarters we’ve readied for you.’

‘We would be delighted,’ Amber replied warmly.

‘This way, please.’

We followed them onto the dock and up the gangplank. The way was narrow and I worried that Amber might make a misstep, but as I stepped onto the barge’s deck, that worry was replaced with a new one. The liveship resonated against both my Wit and Skill. A liveship indeed, as alive as any moving and breathing creature I’d ever known! I was certain the Tarman was as aware of me as I was of him. Lant was looking around with a wide grin on his face, as pleased as a boy on an adventure, and Per echoed him. Motley had lifted herself from the boy’s shoulder and circled the barge suspiciously, flapping hard to keep her place against the river wind. Spark was more reserved than Lant and Per, almost wary. Amber put her hand back on my arm as soon as she could and gripped it tightly. Alise stepped onto the ship, followed by Leftrin. Both halted as abruptly as if encountering a wall.

‘Oh, my,’ Alise said softly.

‘A little more than that,’ Leftrin said tightly. He froze, and the communication between him and his ship was like a plucked string thrumming. He fixed me with a stare. ‘My ship is … I must ask. Are you claimed by a dragon?’

We both stiffened. Had the ship sensed the dragon-blood she had consumed? She let go of my arm and stood alone, ready to let any blame fall on herself. ‘I think what your ship senses about me is actually—’

‘Beg pardon, ma’am, it’s not you unsettling my ship. It’s him.’

‘Me?’ Even to myself I sounded foolishly startled.

‘You,’ Leftrin confirmed. His mouth was pinched. He glanced at Alise. ‘My dear, perhaps you could show the ladies their quarters while I settle this?’

Alise’s eyes were very large. ‘Of course I could,’ and I knew that she was helping him separate me from my companions though I could not guess why.

I turned to my tiny retinue. ‘Spark, if you would, guide your mistress while I have a word with the captain? Lant and Per, you will excuse us.’

Spark registered the unspoken warning and swiftly claimed Amber’s arm. Lant and Perseverance had already moved down the deck, examining the ship as they went. ‘Tell me all about the ship, Spark,’ Amber requested in an unconcerned voice. They moved off slowly, following Alise, and I heard the girl adding descriptions to everything Alise said to them.

I turned back to Leftrin. ‘Your ship dislikes me?’ I asked. I was not reading that from my sense of the Tarman, but I’d never been aboard a liveship before.

‘No. My ship wants to speak with you.’ Leftrin crossed his arms on his barrel chest, then seemed to realize how unfriendly that appeared. He loosened his arms and wiped his hands down his trouser legs. ‘Come on up to the bow rail. He talks best there.’ He walked ponderously and I followed slowly. He spoke over his shoulder to me. ‘Tarman talks to me,’ he said. ‘Sometimes to Alise. Maybe to Hennesey. Sometimes to the others, in dreams and such. I don’t ask and he doesn’t tell me. He’s not like other liveships. He’s more his own than … well, you wouldn’t understand. You aren’t Trader stock. Let me just say this. Tarman has never asked to speak to a stranger. I don’t know what he’s about, but understand that what he says, goes. The keepers made a deal with you, but if he says he doesn’t want you on his deck, that’s it.’ He drew a breath. ‘Sorry,’ he added.

‘I understand,’ I said, but I didn’t. As I moved toward the bow, my sense of the Tarman became more acute. And uncomfortable. It was like being sniffed over by a dog. A large and unpredictable dog. With bared teeth. I repressed my impulse to show my own teeth or display aggression in any way. His presence pressed more strongly against my walls.

I allow this, I pointed out to him as he pushed his senses into my mind.

As if you have the right to refuse. You tread my deck, and I will know you. What dragon has touched you?

Under the circumstances, lying would have been foolish. A dragon pushed into my dreams. I think it was a dragon named Sintara, who claims the Elderling Thymara. I have been close to the dragons Tintaglia and Heeby. Perhaps that is what you sense.

No. You smell of a dragon I have never sensed. Come closer. Put your hands on the railing.

I looked at the railing. Captain Leftrin was staring stonily across the river. I could not tell if he was aware of what his ship said to me or not. ‘He wants me to put my hands on the railing.’

‘Then I suggest you do so,’ he responded gruffly.

I looked at it. The wood was grey and fine-grained and unfamiliar to me. I drew off my gloves and placed my hands on the railing.

There. I knew I smelled him. You touched him with your hands, didn’t you? You groomed him.

I have never groomed a dragon.

You did. And he claims you as his.

Verity. It was not a thought I had intended to share. My walls were slipping before this ship’s determination to force his way into my mind. I set my boundaries tighter, trying to work subtly so the ship would not perceive I was blocking him, but wonder had set my blood to racing. Would dragons of flesh and blood truly count Verity as a dragon who could claim me? I’d dusted the leaves from his back. Was that the ‘grooming’ that this ship had sensed? And if dragons would consider Verity a dragon, then did this barge count himself as a dragon?

The ship was silent, considering. Then, Yes. That dragon. He claims you.

Overhead, Motley cawed loudly.

The hardest thing in the world is to think of nothing. I considered the pattern of the wind and the current on the river’s face. I longed to reach for Verity with a desire that almost surpassed my need to breathe. To touch that cold stone with my mind and heart, to feel that in some sense, he guarded my back. The ship broke into my thoughts.

He claims you. Do you deny it?

I am his. I was startled to find that was still true. I have been his for a very long time.

As if a human knows what ‘a very long time’ is. But I accept you as his. As Leftrin and Alise wish it, I will carry you to Trehaug. But it is your will that you do this. I am not interfering with a human claimed by a dragon.

I wondered what it meant that a liveship ‘accepted’ me and believed that a stone dragon had claimed me. I wondered how Verity had marked me as his own. Had he known he had done it? A dozen questions sprang to my mind, but Tarman had dismissed me. It was like a door closing on a noisy tavern, leaving me in dark and quiet. I felt both wild relief at how alone I was, and a sense of loss for things he could have told me. I reached, but could not sense Tarman at all. Captain Leftrin knew it at the same moment I did. For a moment he stared at me, taking my measure. Then he grinned. ‘He’s done with you. Want to see where you’ll be bunking for the trip downriver?’

‘I, uh, yes, please.’ The change in his demeanour was as abrupt as the sun emerging from a cloud bank on a blustery day.

He led me aft, past the ship’s deckhouse to two blocky structures attached to the deck. ‘These are a lot nicer now than the first time we used them. Never thought Tarman would be ferrying as many people as he carries crates of freight. But times change, and we change with them. Slowly, and sometimes without a lot of grace, but even a Rain Wilder can change. This one is for you, Lord Lant, and your boy.’ He looked uncomfortable for a moment. ‘It would be better if you and the lady had private quarters, but where would I put your serving girl? Shoreside girls don’t seem happy to share the crew’s quarters, even though on my ship there’s no danger to them. Just no privacy. We’ve given the other cabin to the women. I’m sure it’s a lot less than what a prince expects, but it’s the best we can offer.’

‘Transport is all we desire, and I’d be happy to sleep out on the deck. It wouldn’t be the first time in my life.’

‘Ah.’ The man visibly relaxed. ‘Well. Hearing that will ease Alise’s worries. She’s been so anxious since we got the word we were going to give you passage. “A prince from the Six Duchies! What will we feed him, where will he sleep?” On and on. That’s my Alise. Always wanting to do things in the best possible way.’

He opened the door. ‘Was a time when these cabins weren’t much more than cargo crates, built big. But we’ve had close to a score of years to make them comfortable. The others ain’t been here yet, I don’t think, so you can claim the bunk you want.’

Folk who live aboard ships know how to make the best of a small space. I had braced myself for the smell of old laundry, for canvas hammocks and a splintery floor. Two small windows admitted daylight and it danced on gleaming yellow woodwork. Four bunks stacked two high, none spacious, lined two of the walls. The room smelled pleasantly of the oil that had been used to wipe down the wood. One wall was all cupboards, drawers and crannies framed around the little window. A pair of blue curtains had been pushed back from the open window to admit both light and air. ‘A more pleasant little water-cottage I could not imagine!’ I told the captain, and turned to find Alise at his elbow, beaming with pleasure at my words. Lant and Perseverance stood behind her. The lad’s cheeks were bright red with the wind and his eyes shone. His grin widened as he peered into our cabin.

‘The ladies were pleased with theirs as well,’ Alise observed happily. ‘Welcome aboard, then. You can bring your things aboard any time today, and feel free to come and go as you please. The crew will need at least a day of rest here. I know you are eager to be down the river, but …’

‘A day or even two will not disturb our plans,’ I replied. ‘Our tasks will wait until we arrive.’

‘But Paragon can’t, so a day and a half is all I can give my crew this time,’ was Leftrin’s observation. He shook his head at Alise. ‘We’ll be cutting it fine to meet Paragon in Trehaug. Time and tides wait for no man, my dear, and both ships have schedules to keep.’

‘I know, I know,’ she said, but she smiled as she said it.

He turned his smile at me. ‘The other ships make regular runs up and down the river, but neither of them ride the current as well as Tarman does when the water runs high in spring. Once the snowmelts are done and the river calms, Tarman and his crew can take a nice break while the impervious boats take their turn. When the river runs swift with snowmelt or the acid runs white in the main channel, we leave the pretty boats safely tied up and Tarman shoulders the load.’ He spoke with more pride than regret.

‘Are we going to be crowded with passengers going downriver?’ Alise asked him, a bit anxiously.

‘No. I spoke to Harrikin. If any of the new folk can’t abide the city’s muttering, he’ll send them across the river to Village to await our next run. I think he hopes that they’ll settle and work there instead of fleeing back to whatever they came from.’ He turned to me. ‘Twenty years of bringing folk here, and then taking half of them back when they can’t cut it. It makes for a crowded ship and taking turns at the galley table. But this run will be only you folks, crew, and a bit of cargo. Should be a pleasant run if the weather stays fine.’

The next morning was as clear and blue as a day could be. The wind off the river was ever present and never kind, but it was definitely spring now. I could smell the sticky new leaves unfolding and the dark earth awakening. There were a few fresh scallions mixed in with the omelette and fried potatoes at the breakfast we shared with the keepers who had gathered to say farewell. Sylve told us jubilantly that the chickens she had insisted on keeping in the garden houses over the winter were now laying reliably again.

The farewell gathering included the children and companions of the keepers. Many came to thank me again and offer parting gifts. A pragmatic man named Carson had brought us dried strips of meat in a leather pouch. ‘It will keep if you don’t let damp get to it.’ I thanked him, and had that instant sense of connection that sometimes comes, a feeling of a deep friendship that could have been.

Amber and Spark both received earrings from a woman named Jerd. ‘There’s nothing magical about them, but they’re pretty, and in a hard time you could sell them.’ She had given birth to a little girl I had healed, but oddly enough an Elderling named Sedric was raising the child with Carson. ‘I am fond of the girl, but was never meant to be a mother,’ Jerd informed us cheerily. The little girl, sitting on Sedric’s shoulders and gripping his hair in two tight handfuls appeared content with her lot. Sedric was enthusiastic about her. ‘She has begun to make sounds. She turns her head when we speak now.’ The child’s mass of coppery hair concealed her very tiny ears. ‘And Relpda now understands the problem and will help us with it. Our dragons are not cruel, but they do not always understand how a small human is meant to grow.’ And from the queen of the Elderlings, a box that held assorted teas. She smiled as she offered it to Amber. ‘A small pleasure can be a great comfort when one travels,’ she said, and Amber accepted it gratefully.

It was noon before we processed down to the ship. Our baggage was already stowed on board, and our new gifts filled a barrow that Perseverance pushed. Tats had given an Elderling scarf to Per and he had folded it very carefully and asked quietly if he might send it to his mother from Bingtown. I assured him we could. Thymara had pulled Amber aside from us, to present her with a woven bag. I overheard her giving her yet more cautioning words about the Silver on her fingers.

The farewells at the dock seemed to take forever, but Leftrin finally gave a shout and said it was time we were away if we were to have any daylight at all. I watched Alum kiss his girl, who then hurried aboard and took charge of the deck crew. Leftrin observed me watching them. ‘Skelly’s my niece. She’ll captain Tarman some day, after I lie down on his deck and slide my memories into his timbers.’

I raised my brows.

Captain Leftrin hesitated, then laughed at himself. ‘Liveships ways are not as secret as they once were. Liveships and their families are very close. Children are born aboard the family ship, and grow to crew and then captain. When they die, the ship absorbs their memories. Our ancestors live on in our ships. He gave me an odd grin. ‘A strange immortality.’

Rather like putting memories into a stone dragon, I thought to myself. A strange immortality indeed.

He gave his grizzled head a shake and then invited us to join him and Alise in the galley for coffee while the crew went about its tasks. ‘Don’t you need to be on the deck?’ Perseverance asked him, and Captain Leftrin grinned. ‘If I can’t trust Skelly by now, I should just cut my throat today. My crew loves the ship and Tarman loves them. There’s little they can’t handle, and I enjoy my time with my lady.’

We found cramped seats around the scarred galley table. The small room was crowded in a friendly way, redolent of the year’s cooking and wet wool. The coffee added its own fragrance. I’d had the stuff once before and knew what to expect, but I watched Per pucker his mouth in surprise. ‘Oh, here, lad, you’ve no need to drink that! I can make a pot of tea just as easily.’ And with a swoop, Alise took his mug, dumped the contents back into the coffee pot and began to dipper water into a battered copper kettle. The little iron stove warmed the room almost unbearably and she soon had the kettle hissing on top of it.

I looked round at us, seated so companionably around the table. At Buckkeep Castle, Spark and Per would have been dismissed to a servant’s table, and perhaps Lant and I would have dined separately from a humble ship’s captain and his lady. The room gave a dip and a lurch. Per’s eyes went wide and Spark audibly caught her breath. The greedy current rushed us out onto the river. I craned to look out of the small window. I saw only grey river water.

Leftrin sighed with satisfaction. ‘Aye, we’re well on our way now. I’ll just step out and see if Big Eider needs a hand with the tiller. He’s a good man, if simple. Knows the river well. But we’re still missing Swarge. Thirty years that man kept us steady in the current. Well, he’s gone into Tarman now.’

‘As will we all, eventually,’ Alise affirmed with a smile ‘I must step out also. I need to ask Skelly where she stowed the last barrel of sugar.’ She looked at Spark. ‘I’ll count on you to brew the tea when the water boils. It’s in the box on the shelf by the window.’

‘Thank you, Lady Alise. I shall do so.’

‘Oh, Lady Alise!’ Her cheeks went pink and she laughed. ‘I haven’t been a lady for years! I’m just Alise. If I forget to address you as the grand folk you are, you’ll have to excuse me. I’m afraid my Bingtown manners have faded after nearly a score of years on the river.’

We laughed and all assured her that we were comfortable. And we were. I felt more at ease on Tarman than I had in the dragon city.

The opened door let in a gust of river wind and then slammed shut behind her. We were left to ourselves, and I heard Amber breathe a soft sigh of relief.

‘Do you think they’d mind if I went on deck and had a look about?’ Per asked wistfully. ‘I’d like to see how the tiller works.’

‘Go,’ I said. ‘They’ll tell you if you’re in the way, and if they tell you to move, do it fast. It’s more likely they’ll find some work for you to do.’

Lant unfolded himself as the boy stood. ‘I’ll keep an eye on him. I’d like to have a look about myself. I’ve been out fishing with friends on Buckkeep Bay, but never on a river, let alone one so large and swift.’

‘Will you still want tea?’ Spark asked them, for the kettle had begun to steam.

‘Most likely. I think it’s pretty cold out there, with the wind and all.’

And again the wind slammed the door as they left. ‘What an odd little family we’ve become,’ Amber observed as Spark took down a lovely sea-green pot for the tea. She smiled and added, ‘No tea for me. I’m content with the coffee. It’s been years since I’ve had good coffee.’

‘If this is “good” coffee, I dread what bad coffee might be,’ I told her. I did as I’d seen Alise do, dumping my unwanted cupful back into the big black pot on the stove. I waited for the tea to brew.

We settled easily into life aboard ship and found a new rhythm to our days. The crew was happy to take Perseverance in and give him small tasks. When our lad was not learning his knots from Bellin, a large and near-silent woman who could manage a deck-pole as well as any man, he was put to polishing, sanding, oiling and cleaning. He took to it as a duck to water, and told me one afternoon that if he were not sworn to me, he could be happy as a ship’s boy. I felt a twinge of jealousy, but also relief to see him busy and happy.

Motley had joined us as soon as Tarman cast off from Kelsingra. The crow got over her wariness quickly and shocked all of us by preferring a perch on the bow rail. The first time she squawked ‘Tarman! Tarman!’ she won the heart of the crew and made Perseverance beam with pride.

She became a cheery presence on the boat if the weather was blustery. She happily rode on Per as he went about his tasks, but whenever Lady Amber emerged onto the deck, Motley transferred to her. The crow had learned to chuckle, and had an uncanny ability to laugh at just the right moment. Her gift for mimicry had become suspiciously good, but whenever I reached toward her with the Wit I found only the bland fog of a creature that was proudly uninterested in forming a bond. ‘How much do you understand?’ I demanded of her one afternoon. She cocked her head at me, met my gaze and demanded, ‘How much do YOU understand?’ With a chuckle, she took flight down river ahead of Tarman.

Travel aboard a vessel is either boring or terrifying. On Tarman, I was glad to be bored. The farther away from the city, the less the Skill-current pressed on my walls. Each night the tillerman steered us into moorage along the riverbank. Sometimes there was a beach and we could disembark, but often we were nudged up against a bank of trees with serpentine roots. On the third day, the river narrowed and deepened, and the current became much stronger. The forest closed in and there was no true horizon. The banks of the river were solid walls of trees with stilt roots and we moored to them at night. It began to rain, and didn’t stop. Motley moved into the galley. I moved between our cramped cabin and the ship’s steamy galley. My clothing and bedding was always slightly damp.

I tried to pass my time constructively. Amber suggested I learn Mersen, the old language of Clerres. ‘Most people will speak Common to you, but it’s useful to know what they say to one another when they think you can’t understand them.’ To my surprise, my companions joined in. In the long wet days, all of us would hunch on the cramped bunks, while Amber would drill us in vocabulary and grammar. I had always been adept at learning languages but Perseverance outshone me. Lant and Spark struggled, but we pressed on. I put Lant to helping Perseverance with his letters and numbers. Neither of them relished those tasks, but they made progress.

In the evenings after we were moored, Lant, Spark and Perseverance would join the crew in games that involved dice, cards, and some little carved rods. Imaginary fortunes changed hands often across the table.

While they gamed, Amber and I convened in her cabin. I valiantly ignored the small smiles that both Leftrin and Alise would exchange when I rejoined the company. I wished I could find humour in them, but in truth I felt as if I tormented the Fool during our private sessions. He wanted to help but the viciousness he had endured at Clerres made it hard for him to speak his memories in a coherent order. The scalding anecdotes I pried from him only made me reluctant to dig deeper. And yet I knew I must. I learned of the Four in bits and references. It was the best he could offer me.

The only one of the Four I learned about in detail was Capra. Capra seemed to take pride in being the eldest of the Four. She had long silver hair and wore blue robes weighted with pearls. She appeared gentle, kind, and wise. She had been his mentor when he had first arrived at Clerres. In his early days there, he was invited daily to her tower room after he had completed his lessons. There they would sit together on the floor before her fire while he scribed his dreams onto thick soft paper that was as yellow as a daisy’s heart. They shared delicious little cakes, exotic fruits and cheeses. She taught him about wines with tiny sips from little gold-rimmed goblets and educated him on teas. Sometimes she invited tumblers and jugglers there, simply to entertain him, and when he wished to join in, she had them teach him their skills. She praised him and he blossomed in her care. When she spoke his name, Beloved, he believed she meant it. He spoke of an adolescence I envied. Pampered, praised, educated—any child’s dream. But we all awake from dreams.

Most often I sat on the floor of our cabin and he claimed a lower bunk and stared sightlessly up as he spoke. Rain spattered on the small windows of the cabin. A single candle he could not see gave me a dim light appropriate to his dark tales. He was the Fool in those sessions, in a loose blouse with a spill of lace down his chest and plain black leggings, Amber’s gown a wilted flower on the cabin’s floor. His posture and garments were similar to when we had been youngsters, knees drawn up to his chin, one bared hand and one gloved hand clasped around his knees. His unseeing eyes stared at a distant time.

‘I studied hard to please her. She gave me dreams to read and listened to my earnest interpretation. I was sitting before her fire when I first read of the Unexpected Son in an old and crumbling scroll. It spoke to me as no other had. I literally began to tremble. My voice shook as I told her of a childhood dream. My dream and the old one fitted together like interlaced fingers. I spoke true to her, saying I’d be sorry to leave her but I was the White Prophet for this time. I knew that I needed to be out in the world, preparing for the changes I must make. A fool I was indeed, fearing I would hurt her by leaving.’

The Fool made a small sound. ‘She listened to me. Then she shook her head sadly and gently said, “You are mistaken. The White Prophet for this time has already manifested. We have trained her, and soon she will begin her tasks. Beloved, every young White wishes to be the White Prophet. Every student at Clerres has made that claim. Do not be sad. There are other tasks for you, to do humbly and well to aid the true White Prophet.”

‘I could not believe what I was hearing. My ears rang and my vision swam to hear her deny me. But she was so wise and kind and old, I knew she must be right. I tried to accept that I was wrong, but my dreams would not let me. From the time she denied me, my dreams came on like a storm, two and three a night. I knew as I wrote them down that she would be displeased, but I could not hold them back. She took each one and showed me how it did not apply to me, but to another.’

He shook his head slowly. ‘Fitz, I cannot explain my distress. It was … like looking through badly-made glass. Eating rotten meat. There was a foulness to her words that made me feel physically ill. They rang wrong in my ears. But she was my mentor. She treated me so lovingly. How could she not be right?’

He asked that question so earnestly. His hands, gloved and bared, kneaded each other. He looked away from me, as if I could read anything in his shuttered eyes. ‘One day, she took me up the steps to the top tower room. Fitz, it was huge, bigger than the Queen’s Garden at Buckkeep Castle. And it was littered with treasures. Amazing things, objects that were lovely beyond imagining scattered like discarded toys. There was a staff that gleamed with light all along its length, and a marvellous throne made from tiny interlocking flowers of jade. Some, I know now, were of Elderling make. Wind chimes that sang, a statue of a pot with a plant that grew from it, flowered, faded back into the soil and then grew again. I gazed in wonder, but she told me crisply that they came from a faraway beach where such treasures washed up, and that the stewards of that place had bargained with her that all the sea gave them would be hers if she granted them a boon.

‘I wanted to know more of that story, but she took my hand and drew me to the window and bade me look down. I saw a young woman below in a walled garden full of flowers and vines and fruit trees. She was White as I was White. I had met others at Clerres who were almost as colourless as I was. Almost. They had all been born there, and they all seemed to be related, sister to brother, cousin and uncle. But none of them were White as I was White. Not until I saw her.

‘Another woman was there, with red hair and a great sword. She was teaching the pale woman how to wield it as a serving maid watched and cried encouragement. The White woman danced with that sword, and her hair floated as she moved so beautifully. Then Capra said, “There she is. The true White Prophet. Her training is almost complete. You have seen her. Let us have no more of foolishness.”’ He shuddered. ‘That was the first time I saw the Pale Woman.’ He fell silent.

‘You have told me enough for tonight.’

He shook his head, his mouth pursed tight shut. He lifted his hands and rubbed his face hard, and for a moment the faded scars stood out against his skin. ‘So I didn’t speak of my destiny again,’ he said harshly. ‘I wrote down my dreams but I no longer tried to interpret them. She took them from me and set them aside. Unread, I believed.’ He shook his head. ‘I have no idea how much knowledge I handed over to her. By day, I studied and I tried to be content. I had a lovely life, Fitz. All that I could ask for. Good food, attentive servants, music and amusements in the evening. I was useful, I thought, for Capra put me to sorting old scrolls. It was a clerk’s work but I was good at it.’ He kneaded his scarred hands together. ‘In the way of my kind, I was still a child. I wanted to please. I missed being loved. So I tried.

‘But of course, I failed. In my clerk’s work, I encountered writings about the Unexpected Son. I had a dream, of a jester singing a silly song about “fat suffices”. He sang it to a wolf cub, Fitz. The cub had sprouting antlers.’ He gave a muffled laugh, but the hair stood up on my arms. Had he truly seen me in a dream, so many years before we had even met? But it had not been me. It had only been a puzzle, to which I was, perhaps, the answer.

‘Oh, I do not like this tale I vomit out to you. I wish I had not begun telling it. So many things we have never spoken about. So many things that shame me less if I am the only one who knows them. But I will finish.’ He looked toward me, his sightless eyes swimming with tears. I slid across the floor and took his gloved hand in mine. His smile was a wavering thing. ‘I could not forever deny what I was. My anger and resentment grew. I wrote my dreams down, and I began to reference other dreams, some ancient, some recent. I built a fortress of evidence that Capra could not deny. I did not insist I was the White Prophet, but I began to ask her questions, and they were not innocent ones.’ He smiled slightly. ‘I know you could never guess it, Fitz, but I can be stubborn. I was determined to force her to admit who and what I was.’

Again, he paused. I did not speak. This was like digging splinters out of an infected wound. He pulled his hand from mine and wrapped his arms around himself as if freezing.

‘I’d never been so much as slapped by my parents, Fitz. Not that I was a tractable and easy child. No. I am sure I was not. Yet they had corrected me patiently and I had come to expect that from adults. Never had they denied me information as to why a thing was so. Always they had listened to me, and when I taught them something new, they were always so proud of me! I thought I was so clever to ask Capra questions about my dreams and other dreams I had read. My questions would lead her to the inevitable answer that I was indeed, the White Prophet.

‘And so I began. A few questions on one day, a few more the next. But the day I asked Capra six questions in a row, all leading up to what she must admit about me, she held up her hand and said, “Not another question! I will tell you what your life is to be.” Not even thinking, being young as one is only once, I said, “But why?” And that was it. Without a word, she rose and pulled a bell-pull. A servant came, and she sent him for someone else, a name I did not know then. Kestor. A very large and muscular man. And he came and held me down with a foot on the back of my neck and let his leather strap fall wherever it would on my body. I screamed and begged but neither of them spoke a word. As abruptly as it began, my punishment was over. She dismissed Kestor, seated herself at her table and poured some tea. When I could, I crawled from her room. I remember my long trip down the stone stairs of her tower. The lash had fallen on the big muscles behind my knees, and curled around one of my ankles. The tip of it had etched into my belly more than once. It was agony to try to stand. I edged down on my hands and knees, trying not to pull on the welts, crept to my cottage and stayed there for two days. No one came. No one asked after me, or brought me water or food. I waited, thinking someone would come. No.’ He shook his head, old bafflement on his face. ‘Capra never summoned me again. She never spoke directly to me again.’ He sighed out a small breath.

In the silence that followed, I asked, ‘What were you expected to learn from that?’

His tears scattered as he shook his head. ‘I never knew. No one ever spoke of what she had done to me. When two days had passed I limped to the healer’s room and waited for the full day. Others came and went but he never summoned me. No one, not even the other students, asked what had happened to me. It was as if it had never occurred in their world, only mine. Eventually, I began to limp to my lessons and to meals. But my instructors had a new disdain for me, rebuked me for my missed lessons and punished me by withholding food. I was made to sit at a table and work on lessons while the others ate. It was on one of those days that I saw the Pale Woman again. She walked through the hall where we gathered for meals. All the other students looked at her with admiring eyes. She was garbed all in green and brown, like a hunter, and her white hair was braided back with golden thread. So beautiful. Her servant followed her. I think … looking back, I think her servant was Dwalia, the one who took Bee. One of the people who prepared our food hurried out and gave a hamper to Dwalia. Then the Pale Woman walked out of the hall, with her servant carrying the basket. As she passed me, she halted. She smiled at me, Fitz. Smiled as if we were friends. Then she said, “I am. And you are not.” Then she walked on. And everyone laughed. The twist to my mind and thoughts were worse than the welts all over my body.’

He needed his silence for a time and I let him keep it. ‘So clever they are,’ he said at last. ‘The pain they gave my body was only a gateway to what they could do to my mind. Capra must die, Fitz. The Four must die to end the corruption of the Whites.’

I felt ill. ‘Her servant was Dwalia? The same Dwalia that stole Bee?’

‘So I think. I could be wrong.’

A question I didn’t want to ask, an unwise question, found its way to my voice. ‘But after all that … all that, and all else you have told me … you went back with Prilkop?’

He laughed bitterly. ‘Fitz, I was not myself. You had brought me back from the dead. Prilkop was strong and calm. He was so certain that he could restore Clerres to its proper service. He came from a time when the word of a White Prophet was a command to the Servants. He was so certain of what we should do. And I had no idea what to do with this unexpected life.’

‘I recall a similar time in my life. Burrich made all our decisions.’

‘Then you understand. I couldn’t think about anything. I just followed what he said we were going to do.’ He clenched his teeth and then said, ‘And now I go back for a third time. And more than anything, I fear that I will fall into their power again.’ He took a sudden gulping breath. But even so, he could not seem to catch his breath. He began gasping like a spent runner. He could barely get his words out. ‘Nothing could be worse than that. Nothing.’ Hugging himself, he rocked back and forth on the bunk. ‘But … I … must … go back … I must …’ He snapped his head back and forth wildly. ‘Need to see!’ he cried out suddenly. ‘Fitz! Where are you!’ His gasping was ever faster. ‘Can’t … feel. My hands!’

I knelt beside the bed and put an arm around him. He yelped and struggled wildly, striking out at me

‘It’s me, you’re safe. You’re here. Breathe, Fool. Breathe.’ I refused to let go. I was not rough but I held him firmly. ‘Breathe.’

‘I … can’t!’

‘Breathe. Or you’ll faint. But you can do that. I’m here. You are safe.’

Suddenly he went limp and stopped fighting me and, very gradually, his breathing slowed. When he pushed me away, I let him. He folded himself tight and hugged his knees. When he finally spoke, he was ashamed. ‘I never wanted you to know how much I feared to do this. Fitz, I’m a coward. I’d rather die than let them take me.’

‘You don’t have to go back. I can do this.’

‘I do have to go back!’ He was instantly furious with me. ‘I must!’

I spoke quietly. ‘Then you will.’ With great reluctance, I added, ‘I could give you something to carry with you. A quick end if you thought you would … prefer that.’

His gaze wandered over my face as if he could see me. He said quietly, ‘You’d do it, but you’d not approve. Nor have such a resource for yourself.’

I nodded then spoke. ‘That’s true.’

‘Why?’

‘Something I overheard a long time ago. It didn’t make sense when I was younger, but the older I get, the wiser it seems. Prince Regal was speaking to Verity.’

‘And you put weight on something Regal said? Regal wanted you dead. From the moment he knew of your existence, he wanted you dead.’

‘True. But he was quoting what King Shrewd said to him, probably the king’s response when Regal suggested that killing me was the easiest solution. My grandfather told him, “Never do a thing until you’ve considered what you can’t do once you’ve done it.”’

A slow, fond smile claimed his face. ‘Ah. That does sound like something my king would have said.’ His smile widened, and I sensed a secret he would not share.

‘Killing myself would put an end to all other possibilities. And more than once in my life, when I thought death was my only escape, or that it was inevitable and I should surrender to it, I’ve been proven wrong. And each time, despite whatever fire I had to pass through, I found good in my life afterwards.’

‘Even now? With Molly and Bee dead?’

It felt disloyal but I said it. ‘Even now. Even when I feel like most of me is dead, life breaks through sometimes. Food tastes good. Or something Per says makes me laugh. A hot cup of tea when I’m cold and wet. I’ve thought of ending my life, Fool. I admit it. But always, no matter the damage to it, the body tries to go on. And if it manages to, then the mind follows it. Eventually, no matter how I try to deny it, there are bits of my life that are still sweet. A conversation with an old friend. Things I am still glad to have.’

He groped for me with his gloved hand and I offered mine. He shifted his grip to a warrior’s clasp, wrist to wrist. I returned the pressure. ‘It’s true for me as well. And you are right. I would never have thought to admit it, even to myself.’ He released my wrist and leaned back, then added, ‘But still, I would take your escape, if you will prepare it for me. Because if they do manage to take me, then I cannot …’ His voice had begun to shake.

‘I can prepare something for you. Something you could carry tucked in the cuff of your shirt.’

‘That would be good. Thank you.’

Of such cheerful discourse were my evenings made.

I had not realized that we were on a tributary until we left it and joined the furious rush of the Rain Wild River. The turbulent waters that carried us now were grey with acid and silt. We no longer drew water from the river but relied only on our casks. Bellin warned Perseverance that if he fell overboard ‘all we might pull back would be your bones!’ It did not dampen his enthusiasm at all. He scampered about the deck despite the rain and wind, and the crew tolerated him with good humour. Spark had less endurance for the foul weather, but she and Lant would sometimes stand on top of the deckhouse, sheltering under a square of tarpaulin and watch the passing view as the current swept us along.

I wondered what fascinated them, for the scenery had become unvarying. Trees. More trees, some of a size I had never imagined, with trunks as big around as towers. Trees made of a hundred spindly trunks, trees that leaned and dropped extra trunks down from the branches into the river’s marshy edge. Trees with vines climbing up them, trees with curtains of vines dangling down. I had never seen forest so thick and impenetrable, or foliage that could survive such wet conditions. The far shore of the river retreated to a foggy distance. We heard more birds during the day, and once saw a shrieking troop of monkeys, very strange to me.

It was all so different to the familiar landscapes of Buck. Even as it fascinated me and I longed to explore it, my deeper longing was for home. My thoughts went often to my Nettle, gravid with her first child. I’d abandoned her when she was still growing within Molly, to obey the urgent summons of my king. And now I left her to bear my first grandchild alone, at the behest of the Fool. How did Chade fare? Had he succumbed to age and a wandering mind? There were times when taking vengeance for the dead seemed too high a price for abandoning the living.

I kept such musings to myself. My fears of Skilling lingered. The press of it I had felt in Kelsingra had diminished, but the living ship beneath my feet was a constant hum of sentience against my walls. Soon, I promised myself. Even a brief Skill-contact could convey so much more than the tiny lettering on a messenger bird’s scroll. Soon.

Once when we were moored for the night, Skelly rose from the table, retrieved a bow and quiver from the crew quarters and then stepped soundlessly onto the deck. No one moved until we heard her shout. ‘I got a river pig! Fresh pork!’ There was a scramble to the deck, and the messy exuberant work of retrieving the dead animal. We butchered him on the narrow mud beach.

We feasted that evening. The crew built a fire, threw on green branches, and toasted strips of pig in the flames and smoke. The fresh meat put the crew in a merry mood, and Perseverance was pleased to be teased as one of their own. After we had eaten the cookfire became a bonfire that drove back the darkness and the biting night insects. Lant went for firewood and returned with an armful of an early-blooming vine with fragrant flowers. Spark filled Amber’s hands with some and then crowned herself with a garland. Hennesey began a bawdy song and the crew joined in. I smiled and tried to pretend I was neither an assassin nor a father mourning the loss of his child. But to join their simple, rowdy pleasure seemed a betrayal of Bee and how her little life had ended.

When Amber said she was wearied, I assured Spark that she should stay with Lant and Per and enjoy the evening. I guided Amber as we moved over the mucky shoreline to a rough rope ladder tossed over Tarman’s side. It was a struggle for her to climb the sagging rungs in the long skirts she wore.

‘Would not it all be easier if you dropped the pretence of Amber?’

She gained the deck and tousled her skirts back to order. ‘And which pretence would I then assume?’ she asked me.

As always, such words gave me a twinge of pain. Was the Fool indeed only another pretence, an imaginary companion invented for me? As if he had heard my thoughts, he said, ‘You know more of me than anyone, Fitz. I’ve given you as much of my true self as I dare.’

‘Come,’ I said and took his arm for balance while we both shed our muddy footwear. Captain Leftrin was rightfully fussy about keeping the deck clean. I shook the mud from our shoes over the side and carried them as I guided him back to the cabin. From the shore came a sudden whoop of laughter. A whirl of sparks rose into the night as someone threw a heavy piece of wood onto the bonfire.

‘It is good for them to have some enjoyment.’

‘It is,’ I replied. Childhood had been stolen from both Spark and Perseverance. Even Lant could use a window of merriness in his permanent wall of melancholy.

I went to the galley to kindle a little lantern. When I returned to the cabin, the Fool was already out of Amber’s fussy dress and into his simpler garb. He had wiped the paint that composed her face onto a cloth and turned to me with his old Fool’s smile. But in the light of my small lantern, the tracks of his torment still showed on his face and hands as silver threads against his light skin. His fingernails had regrown thick and stubby. My efforts at healing and the dragon’s blood he had taken had aided his body’s recovery more than I had dared hope, but he would never be who he had been.

But that was true of all of us.

‘What are you sighing about?’

‘I’m thinking of how this has changed all our lives. I was … I was on the way to being a good father, Fool. I think.’ Yes, burning bodies of murdered messengers at night. Excellent experience for a growing child.

‘Yes. Well.’ He sat down on the lower bunk. The upper bunk was neatly spread up. The other two bunks seemed to be serving as storage for the excessive wardrobe that he and Sparks had dragged with them. He sighed and then admitted, ‘I had more dreams.’

‘Oh?’

‘Significant dreams. Dreams that demand to be told aloud or written down.’

I waited. ‘And?’

‘It is hard to describe the pressure one feels to share significant dreams.’

I tried to be perceptive. ‘Do you want to tell them to me? Perhaps Leftrin or Alise would have pen and ink and paper. I could write them down for you.’

‘No!’ He covered his mouth for a moment, as if the explosive denial had revealed something. ‘I told them to Spark. She was here when I awoke in a terrible state, and I told her.’

‘About the Destroyer.’

He was silent for a moment. Then, ‘Yes, about the Destroyer.’

‘You feel guilty about that?’

He nodded. ‘It’s a terrible burden to put on one so young. She already does so much for me.’

‘Fool, I don’t think you need be concerned. She knows that I am the Destroyer. That we are on our way to bring down all Clerres. Your dream just repeats what we all know.’

He wiped the palms of his hands down his thighs and then clasped them together. ‘What we all know,’ he repeated dully. ‘Yes.’ Abruptly he added, ‘Goodnight, Fitz. I think I need to sleep.’

‘Goodnight then. I hope your dreams are peaceful.’

‘I hope I don’t dream at all,’ he replied.

It felt strange to rise and leave him there, taking the lantern with me. Leaving the Fool in the dark. As he was always in darkness now.