‘Take my dog out for me, even if it is only for rab­bits. I hate to leave him in my rooms each day, but his poor dumb plead­ing was a dis­trac­tion from what I must do.’

  I nod­ded, sur­prised at what I felt em­an­at­ing from him. A shadow of the same pain I had felt at be­ing sep­ar­ated from my own dogs.

  ‘Ver­ity.’

  He turned at Shrewd’s call.

  ‘Al­most I for­got to tell you why I had called you here. It is, of course, the moun­tain prin­cess. Ketkin, I think her name was …’

  ‘Kettricken. I at least re­mem­ber that much. A skinny little child, the last time I saw her. So, she is the one you have se­lec­ted?’

  ‘Yes. For all the reas­ons we have already dis­cussed. And a day has been set. Ten days be­fore Har­vestday. You will have to leave here dur­ing the first part of Reaptime in or­der to reach there in time. There will be a ce­re­mony there, be­fore her own people, bind­ing the two of you and seal­ing all the agree­ments and a formal wed­ding later, when you ar­rive back here with her. Regal sends word that you must …’

  Ver­ity had hal­ted, and his face darkened with frus­tra­tion. ‘I can­not. You know I can­not. If I leave off my work here while it is still Reaptime, there will be noth­ing to bring a bride back to. Al­ways, the Outis­landers have been greed­i­est and most reck­less in the fi­nal month be­fore the winter storms drive them back to their own wretched shore. Do you think it will be any dif­fer­ent this year? Like as not I would bring Kettricken back here to find them feast­ing in our own Buck­keep, with your head on a pike to greet me!’

  King Shrewd looked angered, but kept his tem­per as he asked, ‘Do you really think they could press us that greatly if you left off your ef­forts for twenty days or so?’

  ‘I know it,’ Ver­ity said wear­ily. ‘I know it as surely as I know that I should be at my post right now, not ar­guing here with you. Father, tell them it must be put off. I’ll go for her as soon as we’ve a good coat of snow on the ground, and a blessed gale lash­ing all ships into their ports.’

  ‘It can­not be,’ Shrewd said re­gret­fully. ‘They have be­liefs of their own, up in the moun­tains. A wed­ding made in winter yields a bar­ren har­vest. You must take her in the au­tumn when the lands are yield­ing, or in late spring, when they till their little moun­tain fields.’

  ‘I can­not. By the time spring comes to their moun­tains, it is fair weather here, with Raid­ers on our doorsills. Surely they must un­der­stand that!’ Ver­ity moved his head about, like a rest­less horse on a short lead. He did not want to be here. Dis­taste­ful as he found his Skill work, it called to him. He wanted to go to it, wanted it in a way that had noth­ing to do with pro­tect­ing his king­dom. I wondered if Shrewd knew that. I wondered if Ver­ity did.

  ‘To un­der­stand some­thing is one thing,’ the King ex­pounded. ‘To in­sist they flaunt their tra­di­tions is an­other. Ver­ity, this must be done, done now.’ Shrewd rubbed his head as if it pained him. ‘We need this join­ing. We need her sol­diers, we need her mar­riage gifts, we need her father at our back. It can­not wait. Could not you per­haps go in a closed lit­ter, un­hampered by man­aging a horse, and con­tinue your Skill work as you travel? It might even do you good, to get out and about a bit, to have a little fresh air and …’

  ‘NO!’ Ver­ity bel­lowed the word, and Shrewd turned where he stood, al­most as if he were at bay against the win­dowsill. Ver­ity ad­vanced to the table, and poun­ded upon it, show­ing a tem­per I had never sus­pec­ted in him. ‘No and no and no! I can­not do the work I must do to keep the Raid­ers from our coast while be­ing rocked and jol­ted in a horse lit­ter. And no, I will not go to this bride you have chosen for me, to this wo­man I scarce re­call, in a lit­ter like an in­valid or a witling. I will not have her see me so, nor would I have my men snig­ger­ing be­hind me, say­ing, “oh, this is what brave Ver­ity has come to, rid­ing like a palsied old man, pandered off to some wo­man as if he were an Outis­lander whore”. Where are your wits that you can think such stu­pid plans? You’ve been among the moun­tain folk, you know their ways. Think you a wo­man of theirs would ac­cept a man who came to her in such a sickly way? Even their roy­als ex­pose a child if it is born less than whole. You’d spoil your own plan, and leave the Six Duch­ies to the Raid­ers while you did it.’

  ‘Then per­haps …’

  ‘Then per­haps there is a Red Ship right now, not so far that they can­not see Egg Is­land, and already the cap­tain of it is dis­count­ing the dream of ill omen he had last night, and the nav­ig­ator is cor­rect­ing his course, won­der­ing how he could have so mis­taken the land­marks of our coast­line. Already all the work I did last night while you slept and Regal danced and drank with his courtiers is com­ing un­done, while we stand here and yat­ter at one an­other. Father, ar­range it. Ar­range it any way you wish and can, so long as it does not in­volve me do­ing any­thing save the Skill while fair weather plagues our coast.’ Ver­ity had been mov­ing as he spoke, and the slam­ming of the King’s cham­ber door al­most drowned out his fi­nal words.

  Shrewd stood and stared at the door for some mo­ments. Then he passed his hand across his eyes, rub­bing them, but for wear­i­ness or tears or just a bit of dust, I could not tell. He looked about the room, frown­ing when his eyes en­countered me, as if I were a thing puzz­lingly out of place. Then, as if re­call­ing why I were there, he ob­served dryly, ‘Well, that went well, didn’t it? Still, and all, a way must be found. And when Ver­ity rides to claim his bride, you will go with him.’

  ‘If you wish, my king,’ I said quietly.

  ‘I do.’ He cleared his throat, then turned to look out of his win­dow again. ‘The prin­cess has a single sib­ling, an older brother. He is not a healthy man. Oh, he was well and strong once, but on the Ice Fields he took an ar­row through his chest. Passed clean through him, so Regal was told. And the wounds on his chest and back healed. But dur­ing the win­ters, he coughs blood, and in sum­mer he can­not sit a horse nor drill his men for more than half the morn­ing. Know­ing the moun­tain folk, it is full sur­pris­ing that he is their King-in-Wait­ing still. Usu­ally they do not tol­er­ate weak­lings.’

  I thought quietly for a mo­ment. ‘Among the moun­tain people the cus­tom is the same as ours. Male or fe­male, the off­spring in­herit by the or­der of their birth.’

  ‘Yes. That is so,’ Shrewd said quietly, and I knew that already he was think­ing that seven duch­ies might be stronger than six. This was why I had been summoned to break­fast.

  ‘And Prin­cess Kettricken’s father?’ I asked. ‘How is his health?’

  ‘As hale and hearty as one could wish, for a man of his years. I am sure he will reign long and well for at least an­other dec­ade, keep­ing his king­dom whole and safe for his heir.’

  ‘Prob­ably by then, our troubles with the Red Ships will long be over. Ver­ity will be free to turn his mind to other things.’

  ‘Prob­ably,’ King Shrewd agreed quietly. His eyes fi­nally met mine. ‘When Ver­ity goes to claim his bride, you will go with him. You un­der­stand what your du­ties will be? I trust to your dis­cre­tion.’

  I in­clined my head to him. ‘As you wish, my king.’

  NINE­TEEN

  Jour­ney

  To speak of the Moun­tain King­dom as a king­dom is to start out with a ba­sic mis­un­der­stand­ing of the area and the folk who people it. It is equally in­ac­cur­ate to refer to the re­gion as Chy­urda, al­though the Chy­urda do make up the dom­in­ant folk there. Rather than one stretch of united coun­tryside, the Moun­tain King­dom con­sists of vari­ous ham­lets cling­ing to the moun­tain­sides, of small vales of ar­able land, of trad­ing ham­lets sprung up along the rough roads that lead to the passes, and clans of no­madic her­ders and hunters who range the in­hos­pit­able coun­tryside in between. Such a di­verse people are un­likely to unite, for their in­terests are of­ten in con­flict. Strangely, though, the only force more power­ful than each group’s in­de­pend­ence and in­su­lar ways is the loy­alty they bear to the ‘King’ of the moun­tain folk.

  Tra­di­tions tell us that this line was be­gun by a prophet-judge, a wo­man who was not only wise, but also a philo­sopher who foun­ded a the­ory of rul­ing the key­stone of which is that the leader is the ul­ti­mate ser­vant of the people, and must be totally self­less in that re­gard. There was no def­in­ite time when the judge be­came the king; rather it was a gradual trans­ition, as word of the fair­ness and wis­dom of the holy one at Jhaampe spread. As more and more folk sought coun­sel there, will­ing to be bound by the de­cision of the judge, it was only nat­ural that the laws of that set­tle­ment came to be re­spec­ted through­out the moun­tains, and that more and more folk ad­op­ted Jhaampe laws as their own. And so judges be­came kings, but, amaz­ingly, re­tained their self-im­posed de­cree of ser­vitude and self-sac­ri­fice for their people. The Jhaampe tra­di­tion is rife with tales of kings and queens who sac­ri­ficed them­selves for their folk, in every con­ceiv­able way, from fend­ing wild an­im­als off shep­herd chil­dren to of­fer­ing them­selves as host­ages in times of feud.

  Tales have been told that make the moun­tain folk out to be harsh, al­most sav­age. In truth, the land they dwell in is un­com­prom­ising, and their laws mir­ror this con­di­tion. It is true that badly-formed in­fants are ex­posed, or, more com­monly, drowned or drugged to death. The eld­erly of­ten choose Se­ques­ter­ing, a self-im­posed ex­ile in a fam­ily but where cold and star­va­tion end all in­firm­it­ies. A man who breaks his word may have his tongue notched as well as hav­ing to sur­render double the value of his ori­ginal bar­gain. Such cus­toms may seem quaintly bar­baric to those in the more settled of the Six Duch­ies, but they are pe­cu­li­arly suited to the world of the Moun­tain King­dom.

  In the end, Ver­ity had his way. There was no sweet­ness in the tri­umph for him, I am sure, for his own stub­born in­sist­ence was backed by a sud­den in­crease in the fre­quency of the raids. In the space of a month, two vil­lages were burned and had a total of thirty-two in­hab­it­ants taken for For­ging. Nine­teen of them ap­par­ently car­ried the now pop­u­lar poison vi­als, and chose to com­mit sui­cide. A third town, a more pop­u­lous one, was suc­cess­fully de­fen­ded, not by the royal troops, but by a mer­cen­ary mi­li­tia the towns­folk had or­gan­ized and hired them­selves. Many of the fight­ers, iron­ic­ally, were im­mig­rant Outis­landers, us­ing one of the few skills they had. And the mut­ter­ings against the King’s ap­par­ent in­activ­ity in­creased.

  It did little good to try to ex­plain to them about Ver­ity and the co­terie’s work. What the people needed and wanted were war­ships of their own, de­fend­ing the coast­line. But ships take time to build, and the con­ver­ted mer­chant ships that were already in the wa­ter were tubby, wal­low­ing things com­pared to the sleek Red Ships that har­assed us. Prom­ises of war­ships by spring were small com­fort to farm­ers and her­ders try­ing to pro­tect this year’s crops and flocks. And the land-locked duch­ies were be­com­ing more and more vo­ci­fer­ous about pay­ing heav­ier taxes to build war­ships to pro­tect a coast­line they didn’t share. For their part, the lead­ers of the Coastal Duch­ies sar­castic­ally wondered how well the in­land folk would do without their sea­ports and trad­ing ves­sels to out­let their goods. Dur­ing at least one High Coun­cil meet­ing, there was a noisy al­ter­ca­tion in which Duke Ram of Tilth sug­ges­ted that it would be little loss to cede the Near Is­lands and Fur Point to the Red Ships if that would slacken their raid­ing, and Duke Brawndy of Bearns re­tali­ated by threat­en­ing to stop all trade traffic along the Bear River and see if Tilth found that as small a loss. King Shrewd man­aged to bring the coun­cil to ad­journ­ment be­fore they came to blows, but not be­fore the Far­row Duke had made it clear that he sided with Tilth. The lines of di­vi­sion were be­ing made more sharp with each passing month and each al­lot­ment of taxes. Clearly some­thing was needed to re­build the king­dom’s unity, and Shrewd was con­vinced it was a royal mar­riage.

  So Regal danced his dip­lo­matic steps, and it was ar­ranged that the Prin­cess Kettricken would make her pledges to Regal in his brother’s stead, with all of her own folk to wit­ness, and Ver­ity’s word would be given by his brother. With a second ce­re­mony to fol­low, of course, at Buck­keep, with suit­able rep­res­ent­at­ives from Kettricken’s folk to wit­ness it. And for the nonce, Regal re­mained in the Moun­tain King­dom’s cap­ital at Jhaampe. His pres­ence there cre­ated a reg­u­lar flow of emis­sar­ies, gifts and sup­plies between Buck­keep and Jhaampe. Sel­dom did a week pass without a caval­cade either leav­ing or ar­riv­ing. It kept Buck­keep in a con­stant stir.

  It seemed to me an awk­ward and un­gainly way to as­semble a mar­riage. Each would be wed al­most a month be­fore glimpsing the other. But the polit­ical ex­pedi­ents were more im­port­ant than the feel­ings of the prin­cipals, and the sep­ar­ate cel­eb­ra­tions were planned.

  I had long since re­covered from Ver­ity tap­ping my strength. It was tak­ing me longer to grasp com­pletely what Ga­len’s mist­ing of my mind had done to me. I be­lieve I would have con­fron­ted him, des­pite Ver­ity’s coun­sel, ex­cept that he had left Buck­keep, in com­pany of a caval­cade bound for Jhaampe, to ride with them as far as Far­row, where he had re­l­at­ives he wished to visit. By the time he re­turned, I my­self would be on my way to Jhaampe, so Ga­len re­mained out of my reach.

  Again, I had too much time on my hands. I still ten­ded Leon, but he did not take more than an hour or two of my time each day. I had been able to dis­cover noth­ing more about the at­tack on Burrich, nor did Burrich show any signs of re­lent­ing on my os­tra­cism. I had made one jaunt into Buck­keep Town, but when I chanced to wander by the chand­lery, it was shuttered and si­lent. My in­quir­ies at the shop next door brought me the in­form­a­tion that the chand­lery had been closed for ten days or more, and that un­less I wished to buy some leather har­ness, I could go else­where and stop both­er­ing him. I thought of the young man I had last seen with Molly, and bit­terly wished them no good of each other.

  For no other reason than that I was lonely, I de­cided to seek out the Fool. Never be­fore had I tried to ini­ti­ate a meet­ing with him. He proved more elu­sive than I had ever ima­gined.

  After a few hours of ran­domly wan­der­ing the keep, hop­ing to en­counter him, I made brave enough to go to his cham­ber. I had known for years where it was, but had never gone there be­fore, and not simply be­cause it was in an out of the way part of the keep. The Fool did not in­vite in­tim­acy, ex­cept of the kind he chose to of­fer, and only when he chose to of­fer it. His cham­bers were a tower-top room. Fed­wren had told me that it had once been a map room, and had offered an un­ob­struc­ted view of the land sur­round­ing Buck­keep, but later ad­di­tions to Buck­keep had blocked the views, and higher towers sup­planted it. It had out­lived its use­ful­ness for any­thing, save cham­bers for a Fool.

  I climbed to it, that one day to­ward the be­gin­ning of har­vest-time. It was already a hot and sticky day. The tower was a closed one, save for ar­row slits that did little more than il­lu­min­ate the dust motes my feet set to dan­cing in the still air. At first the dark­ness of the tower had seemed cooler than the stuffy day out­side, but as I climbed, it seemed to get hot­ter and more close, so that by the time I reached the last land­ing, I felt as if there were no air left to breathe at all. I lif­ted a weary fist and poun­ded on the stout door. ‘It’s me, Fitz!’ I called, but the still, hot air muffled my voice like a wet blanket smoth­er­ing a flame.

  Shall I use that as an ex­cuse? Shall I say I thought per­haps he could not hear me, and so I went in to see if he was there? Or shall I say that I was so hot and thirsty that I entered to see if his cham­bers offered any hint of air or wa­ter? Why doesn’t mat­ter, I sup­pose. I put my hand to the door-latch, and it lif­ted and I went in­side.

  ‘Fool?’ I called, but I could feel he wasn’t there. Not as I usu­ally felt folk’s pres­ence or ab­sence, but by the still­ness that met me. Yet I stood in the door and gawked at a soul laid bare.

  Here was light, and flowers, and col­ours in pro­fu­sion. There was a loom in the corner, and bas­kets of fine, thin thread in bright, bright hues. The woven cov­er­let on the bed, and the drap­ings on the open win­dows were un­like any­thing I had ever seen, woven in geo­met­ric pat­terns that some­how sug­ges­ted fields of flowers be­neath a blue sky. A wide pot­tery bowl held float­ing flowers and a slim sil­ver fin­ger­ling swam about the stems and above the bright pebbles that floored it. I tried to ima­gine the pale cyn­ical Fool in the midst of all this col­our and art. I took a step fur­ther into the room, and saw some­thing that moved my heart aside in my chest.

  A baby. That was what I took it for at first, and without think­ing, I took the next two steps and knelt be­side the bas­ket that cradled it. But it was not a liv­ing child, but a doll, craf­ted with such in­cred­ible art that al­most I ex­pec­ted to see the small chest move with breath. I reached a hand to the pale, del­ic­ate face, but dared not touch it. The curve of the brow, the closed eye­lids, the faint rose that suf­fused the tiny cheeks, even the small hand that res­ted on top of the cov­er­lets were more per­fect than I sup­posed a made thing could be. Of what del­ic­ate clay it had been craf­ted, I could not guess, nor what hand had inked the tiny eye­lashes that curled on the in­fant’s cheek. The tiny cov­er­let was em­broidered all over with pan­sies, and the pil­low was of satin. I don’t know how long I knelt there, as si­lent as if it were truly a sleep­ing babe. But even­tu­ally I rose, and backed out of the Fool’s room, and then drew the door si­lently closed be­hind me. I went slowly down the myriad steps, torn between dread that I might en­counter the Fool com­ing up, and burdened with the know­ledge that I had dis­covered one den­izen of the keep who was at least as alone as I was.

 

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