yes, there it is, it was foretold how it would come to be. No one truly understands a prophecy until it comes true. It's rather like a horseshoe. The smithy shows you a bit of iron stock and you say, it will never fit. But after it's been through the fire and hammered and filed, there it is, fitting perfectly to your horse's hoof as it would never fit any other.'
'It sounds as if you are saying prophets shape their prophecies to be true after the fact.'
He cocked his head. 'And a good prophet, like a good smith, shows you that it fits perfectly.' He took the empty glass from my hand. 'You should be sleeping, you know. Tomorrow the healer is going to draw the arrowhead out. You will need your strength.'
I nodded, and suddenly found my eyes were heavy
Chade gripped my wrists and pulled down firmly. My chest and cheek pressed against the hard wooden bench. The Fool straddled my legs and pinned my hips down with his leaning weight. Even Kettle had her hands on my bare shoulders, pressing me down on the unyielding bench. I felt like a hog trussed for slaughter. Starling stood by with lint bandaging and a basin of hot water. As Chade drew my hands down tight, I felt as if my whole body might split open at the rotten wound in my back. The healer squatted beside me. I caught a glimpse of the pincers she held. Black iron. Probably borrowed from the blacksmith's shed.
'Ready?' she asked.
'No,' I grunted. They ignored me. It wasn't me she was talking to. All morning she had worked on me as if I were a broken toy, prodding and pressing the foul fluids of infection from my back while I squirmed and muttered curses. All had ignored my imprecations, save the Fool, who had offered improvements on them. He was very much himself again. He had persuaded Nighteyes to go outside. I could sense the wolf prowling about the door. I had tried to convey to him what was to be done. I'd pulled enough quills from him in our time together that he had some idea of necessary pain. He still shared my dread.
'Go ahead,' Chade told the healer. His head was close to mine, his beard scratching my shaven cheek. 'Steady my boy,' he breathed into my ear. The cold jaws of the pincers pressed against my inflamed flesh.
'Don't pant. Hold still,' the healer told me severely. I tried. It felt as if she were plunging them into my back seeking for a grip. After an eternity of probing, the healer said, 'Hold him.' I felt the jaws of the pincers clench. She pulled, ripping my spine up and out of my body.
Or so it felt. I recall that first grating of metal head against bone, and all my resolutions not to scream were forgotten. I roared out my pain and my consciousness together. I tumbled again into that vague place that neither sleep nor wakefulness could reach. My feverish days had made it entirely too familiar to me.
Skill river. I was in it and it was in me. Only a step away, it had always been only a step away. Surcease from pain and loneliness. Swift and sweet. I was tattering away in it, coming undone like a piece of knitting comes unraveled when the right thread is tugged. All my pain was coming undone as well. No. Verity forbade it firmly. Back you go, Fitz. As if he shooed a small child away from the fire. I went.
Like a diver surfacing, I came back to the hard bench and voices over me. The light seemed dim. Someone exclaimed about blood and called for a cloth full of snow. I felt it pressed to my back while a sopping red rag was tossed to the Fool's rug. The stain spread out on the wool and I flowed with it. I was floating and the room was full of black specks. The healer was busy by the fire. She drew another smith's tool from the flames. It glowed and she turned to look at me. 'Wait!' I cried in horror and half reared up off the bench, only to have Chade catch me by the shoulders.
'It has to be done,' he told me harshly and held me in a grip of iron as the healer came near. At first I felt only pressure as she held a hot brand to my back. I smelled the burning of my own flesh and thought I did not care, until a spasm of pain jerked me more sharply than a hangman's noose. The black rose up to drag me down. 'Hung over water and burned!' I cried out in despair. A wolf whined.
Rising. Coming up, nearer and nearer the light. The dive had been deep, the waters warm and full of dreams. I tasted the edge of consciousness, took a breath of wakefulness.
Chade: “… but surely you could have told me, at least, that he was alive and had come to you. Eda and El in a knot, Fool, how often have I trusted you with my closest counsels?'
'Almost as often as you have not,' the Fool replied tartly. 'Fitz asked me to keep his presence here a secret. And it was, until that minstrel interfered. What would it have hurt if he had been left alone to rest completely before that arrow came out? You've listened to his ravings. Do they sound to you like a man at peace with himself?'
Chade sighed. 'Still. You could have told me. You know what it would have meant to me, to know he was alive.'
'You know what it would have meant to me, to know there was a Farseer heir,' the Fool retorted.
'I told you as soon as I told the Queen!'
'Yes, but how long had you known she existed? Since you sent Burrich to keep watch over Molly? You knew Molly carried his child when last you came to visit, yet you said nothing.'
Chade took a sharp breath, then cautioned. 'Those are names I'd as soon you did not speak, not even here. Not even to the Queen have I given those names. You must understand, Fool. The more folk who know, the greater the risk to the child. I'd never have revealed her existence, save that the Queen's child died and we believed Verity dead.'
'Save your hope of keeping secrets. A minstrel knows Molly's name; minstrels keep no secrets.' His dislike of Starling glittered in his voice. In a colder tone, he added, 'So what did you really plan to do, Chade? Pass off Fitz's daughter as Verity's? Steal her from Molly and give her to the Queen, to raise as her own?' The Fool's voice had gone deadly soft.
'I … the times are hard and the need so great … but … not steal her, no. Burrich would understand, and I think he could make the girl understand. Besides. What can she offer the child? A penniless candlemaker, bereft of her trade … how can she care for her? The child deserves better. As does the mother, truly, and I would do my best to see she was provided for, also. But the baby cannot be left with her. Think, Fool. Once others knew the babe was of Farseer lineage she could only be safe on the throne, or in line for it. The woman listens to Burrich. He could make her see that.'
'I'm not so sure you could make Burrich see that. He gave one child up to royal duty. He may not feel it's a wise choice a second time.'
'Sometimes all the choices are poor ones, Fool, and still a man must choose.'
I think I made some small sound, for they both came to me quickly. 'Boy?' Chade demanded anxiously. 'Boy, are you awake?'
I decided I was. I opened one eye a crack. Night. Light from the hearth and a few candles. Chade and the Fool and a bottle of brandy. And me. My back felt no better. My fever felt no less. Before I could even try to ask, the Fool held a cup to my lips. Damnable willowbark tea. I was so thirsty, I drank it all. The next cup he offered was meat broth, wonderfully salty. 'I'm so thirsty,' I managed to say when I'd finished it. My mouth felt sticky with thirst, thick with it.
'You've lost a lot of blood,' Chade explained needlessly.
'Do you want more broth?' the Fool asked.
I managed the tiniest nod. The Fool took the cup and went to the hearth. Chade leaned close and whispered, strangely urgent, 'Fitz. Tell me one thing. Do you hate me, boy?'
For a moment, I didn't know. But the thought of hating Chade meant too great a loss to me. Too few folk in the world cared for me. I could not hate even one of them. I shook my head a tiny bit. 'But,' I said slowly, carefully forming the thick words, 'don't take my child.'
'Do not fear,' he told me gently. His old hand smoothed my hair back from my face. 'If Verity's alive, there will be no need of it. For the time being, she is safest where she is. And if King Verity returns and assumes his throne, he and Kettricken will get children of their own.'
'Promise?' I begged.
He met my eyes. The Fool brought the broth to me, and Chade stepped aside to make room for him. This cup was warmer. It was like life itself flowing back into me. When it was gone, I could speak more strongly. 'Chade,' I said. He had walked over to the hearth and was staring into it. He turned back to me when I spoke.
'You did not promise, 'I reminded him.
'No,' he agreed gravely. 'I did not promise. Times are too uncertain for that promise.'
For a long time I just looked at him. After a time, he gave his head a tiny shake and looked aside. He could not
