had determined she would seek for him on her own, and to that end she had mustered supplies and animals. In the Six Duchies, a queen would have had the royal treasury to draw on, as well the enforced largesse of her nobles. Such was not the case in the Mountain Kingdom. Here, while King Eyod remained alive, she was no more than a younger relative of the Sacrifice. While it was expected that she would succeed him someday, it gave her no right to command the wealth of her people. In truth, even were she Sacrifice, she would have not had access to riches and resources. The Sacrifice and his immediate family lived simply within their beautiful dwelling. All of Jhaampe, the palace, the gardens, the fountains, all belonged to the folk of the Mountain Kingdom. The Sacrifice did not want for anything, but neither did he possess excess.
So Kettricken turned not to royal coffers and nobles eager to curry favor, but to old friends and cousins for what she needed. She had approached her father, but he had told her, firmly but sadly, that finding the King of the Six Duchies was her concern, not that of the Mountain Kingdom. Much as he grieved with his daughter over the disappearance of the man she loved, he could not divert supplies from defending the Mountain Kingdom from Regal of the Six Duchies. Such was the bond between them that she could accept his refusal with understanding. It shamed me to think of the rightful Queen of the Six Duchies turning to the charity of her relatives and friends. But only when I was not nursing my resentment toward her.
She had designed the expedition to her convenience, not mine. I approved of little of it. In the few days before we departed, she deigned to consult me on some aspects of it, but my opinions were overridden as often as they were listened to. We spoke to one another civilly, without the warmth of either anger or friendship. There were many areas where we disagreed, and when we did, she did as she judged wisest. Unspoken but implied was that my judgment in the past had been faulty and shortsighted.
I wanted no beasts of burden that might starve and freeze. Block as I might, the Wit left me vulnerable to their pain. Kettricken, however, had procured half a dozen creatures that she claimed did not mind snow and cold, and browsed rather than grazed. They were jeppas, creatures native to some of the remoter parts of the Mountain Kingdom. They reminded me of long necked goats with paws instead of hooves. I had small faith that they would be able to carry enough to make them worth the nuisance of dealing with them. Kettricken told me calmly that I would soon get used to them.
It all depends on how they taste, Nighteyes suggested philosophically. I was prone to agree with him.
Her choice of companions for the expedition irked me even more. I saw no sense to her risking herself, but on that point I knew better than to argue. I resented Starling's going, once I discovered what she had bargained to be allowed to go. Her reason was still to find a song that would make her reputation. She had bought her place in our group by her unspoken trade that only if she were allowed to go would she make written record that Molly's child was mine also. She knew I felt she had betrayed me, and wisely avoided my company after that. With us would go three cousins of Kettricken's, all big, stoutly muscled folk well practiced in traveling through the Mountains. It would not be a large party. Kettricken assured me that if six were not enough to find Verity, then six hundred would not suffice. I agreed with her that it was easier to supply a smaller party; and that often they traveled faster than large groups.
Chade was not to be of our party. He was going back to Buckkeep, to bear the tidings to Patience that Kettricken would seek out Verity, and to plant the seeds of rumor that there was, indeed, an heir to the Six Duchies throne. He would also be seeing Burrich and Molly and the child. He had offered to let Molly and Patience and Burrich know that I was still alive. The offer had come awkwardly, for he knew full well that I hated the part he had played in claiming my daughter for the throne. But I swallowed my anger and spoke to him politely and was rewarded with his solemn promise that he would say nothing of me to any of them. At the time it seemed like the wisest course. I felt that only I could filly explain to Molly why I had acted as I had. And she had already mourned me as dead once. If I did not survive this quest, she would not grieve any more than she had.
Chade came to bid me farewell the night he left for Buck. At first we both tried to pretend that all was well between us. We talked of small things that had once mattered to both of us. I felt genuine loss when he told me of Slink's death. I tried to talk him into taking Ruddy and Sooty with him, to return them to Burrich's care. Ruddy needed a firmer hand than he was getting, and the stallion could be far more than transportation to Burrich. His stud service could be sold or traded, and Sooty's foal represented more wealth to come. But Chade shook his head and said he must travel swiftly and attract no attention. One man with three horses was a target for bandits if nothing else. I had seen the vicious little gelding Chade had for a mount. Bad-tempered as he was, he was tough and agile and, Chade assured me, very swift in a chase over bad terrain. He grinned as he said it, and I knew that that particular ability of the horse had been well tested. The Fool was right, I thought then bitterly. War and intrigue did agree with him. I looked at him, in his tall boots and swirling cloak, at the rampant buck he wore so openly on his brow above his green eyes, and tried to equate him with the gentle-handed old man who had schooled me in how to kill people. His years were there still, but he carried them differently. Privately I wondered what drugs he used to prolong his energy.
Yet as different as he was, he was still Chade. I wanted to reach out to him and know that there was still a bond of some kind between us, but I could not. I could not understand myself. How could his opinion still matter so much to me, when I knew he was willing to take my child and my happiness for the sake of the Farseer throne? I felt it as a weakness in myself that I could not find the strength of will to hate him. I reached for that hatred, and came up with only a boyish sulkiness that kept me from clasping his hand at his departure or wishing him well. He ignored my surliness, which made me feel even more childish.
After he was gone, the Fool gave me the leather saddlebag he had left for me. Inside was a very serviceable sheath knife, a small pouch of coins, and a selection of poisons and healing herbs, including a generous supply of elfbark. Wrapped and carefully labeled that it should be used only with the greatest caution and in greatest need was a small paper of carris seed. In a battered leather sheath was a plain but serviceable shortsword. I felt a sudden anger at him that I could not explain. 'It is so typical of him,' I exclaimed, and dumped the bag out on the table for the Foot to witness. 'Poison and knives. That is what he thinks of me. This is still how he sees me. Death is all he can imagine for me.'
'I doubt he expected you to use them on yourself,' the Fool observed mildly. He pushed the knife away from the marionette he was stringing. 'Perhaps he thought you might use them to protect yourself.'
'Don't you understand?' I demanded of him. 'These are gifts for the boy Chade taught to be an assassin. He can't see that isn't who I am any longer. He can't forgive me for wanting a life of my own.'
'Any more than you can forgive him for no longer being your benevolent and indulgent tutor,' the Fool observed dryly. He was knotting the strings from the control paddles to the marionette's limbs. 'It's a bit of a threat, isn't it, to see him stride about like a warrior, putting himself joyfully in danger for something he believes in, flirting with women, and generally acting as if he'd claimed a life of his own for himself?'
It was like a dash of cold water in the face. Almost, I had to admit my jealousy that Chade had boldly seized what still eluded me. 'That isn't it at all!' I snarled at the Fool.
The marionette he was working on wagged a rebuking finger at me while the Fool smirked at me over his head. It had an uncanny resemblance to Ratsy. 'What I see,' he observed to no one in particular, 'is that it is not Verity's buck head he wears on his brow. No, the sigil he chose is more like one, oh, let me see, one that Prince Verity chose for his bastard nephew. Do not you see a resemblance?'
I was silent for a time. Then, 'What of it?' I asked grudgingly.
The Fool swung his marionette to the floor, where the bony creature shrugged eerily. 'Neither King Shrewd's death nor Verity's supposed death flushed that weasel out of hiding. Only when he believed you murdered did anger flare up in him hot enough for him to fling aside all hiding and pretense and declare he would yet see a true Farseer on the throne.' The marionette wagged a finger at me.
'Are you trying to, say he does this for me, for my sake? When the last thing I would wish is to see the throne claim my child?'
The marionette crossed its arms and wagged its head thoughtfully. 'It seems to me that Chade has always done what he thought was best for you. Whether you agreed or not. Perhaps he extends that to your daughter. She would be, after all, his grandniece, and the last living remnant of his bloodline. Excluding Regal and yourself, of course.' The marionette danced a few steps. 'How else would you expect a man that old to provide for a child so young? He does not expect to live forever. Perhaps he thought she would be safer astride a throne than ridden over by another who wished to claim it.'
I turned away from the Fool and made some pretense of gathering clothing to wash. It would take me a long time to think through what he had said.
