'As must I,' she agreed wearily.
We stood a moment longer in the dimness, and I fought a sudden impulse to put my arm around her shoulders and tell her it would be all right, that we would find her husband and king. Briefly, she seemed that tall slender girl who had come from the Mountains to be Verity's bride. But now she was the Queen of the Six Duchies, and I had seen her strength. Surely she needed no comfort from one such as I.
We cut more slices of meat from the freezing boar and then rejoined our companions in the tent. Nighteyes was sleeping contentedly. The Fool had Starling's harp clutched between his knees and was using a skinning knife as a makeshift drawknife to gentle some of the frame's lines. Starling sat beside him, watching and trying not to look anxious. Kettle had taken off a little pouch she wore about her neck and opened it, and was sorting out a handful of polished stone. As Kettricken and I built up the small fire in the brazier and prepared to cook the meat, Kettle insisted on explaining the rules of a game to me. Or attempting to. She finally gave up, exclaiming, 'You'll understand it when you've lost a few times.'
I lost more than a few times. She kept me at it for long hours after we had eaten. The Fool continued to shave wood from Starling's harp, with many pauses to put a fresh edge on the knife. Kettricken was silent, almost moody, until the Fool noticed her melancholy mood and began to tell tales of Buckkeep life before she had come there. I listened with one ear, and even I was drawn back to those days when the Red-Ships were no more than a tale and my life had been almost secure if not happy. Somehow the talk rounded into the various minstrels that had played at Buckkeep, both famous and lesser, and Starling plied the Fool with questions about them.
I soon found myself caught up in the play of the stones. It was strangely soothing: the stones themselves were red, black, and white, smoothly polished and pleasant to hold. The game involved each player randomly drawing stones from the pouch and then placing them on the intersections of lines on a patterned cloth. It was a game at once simple and complex. Each time I won a game, Kettle immediately introduced me to more complicated strategies. It engrossed me and freed my mind from memories or ponderings. When finally all the others were already drowsing in their sleeping skins, she set up a game on the board and bade me study it.
'It can be won decisively in one move of a black stone,' she told me. 'But the solution is not easy to see.'
I stared at the game layout and shook my head. 'How long did it take you to learn to play?'
She smiled to herself. 'As a child, I was a fast learner. But I will admit you are faster.'
'I thought this game came from some far land.'
'No, it is an old Buck game.'
'I've never seen it played before.'
'It was not uncommon when I was a girl, but it was not taught to everyone. But that is of no matter now. Study the layout of the pieces. In the morning, tell me the solution.'
She left the pieces set up on the cloth by the brazier. Chade's long training of my memory served me well. When I lay down, I visualized the board and gave myself one black stone with which to win. There were quite a variety of possible moves, as a black stone could also claim the place of a red stone and force it to another intersection, and a red stone had similar powers over a white. I closed my eyes, but held on to the game, playing the stone in various ways until I finally fell asleep. Either I dreamed of the game, or of nothing at all. It kept the Skill dreams safely at bay, but when I awoke in the morning, I still had no solution to the puzzle she had set me.
I was the first one awake. I crawled out of the tent and returned with a pot packed full of new wet snow to melt for morning tea. It was substantially warmer outside than it had been in days. It cheered me, even as it made me wonder if spring was already a reality in the lowlands. Before my mind could start wandering, I returned to puzzling about the game. Nighteyes came to rest his head on my shoulder where I sat.
I'm tired of dreaming of rocks. Lift up your eyes and see the whole thing, little brother. It is a hunting pack, not isolated hunters. See. That one. Put the black there, and do not use the red to displace a white, but set it there to close the trap. That is all.
I was still wondering at the marvelous simplicity of Nighteyes' solution when Kettle awoke. With a grin she asked me if I had solved it yet. In answer, I took a black stone from the pouch and made the moves the wolf had suggested. Kettle's face went slack with astonishment. Then she looked up at me in awe. 'No one has ever figured it out that rapidly,' she told me.
'I had help,' I admitted sheepishly. 'It's the wolf's game, not mine.'
Kettle's eyes grew round. 'You are jesting with an old woman,' she rebuked me carefully.
'No. I am not,' I told her, as I seemed to have hurt her feelings. 'I thought about it for most of the night. I believe I even dreamed about game strategies. But when I woke, it was Nighteyes who had the solution.'
She was silent for a time. 'I had thought that Nighteyes was … a clever pet. One who could hear your commands even if you did not speak them aloud. But now you say he can comprehend a game. Will you tell me he understands the words I speak?'
Across the tent, Starling was propped up on one elbow, listening to the conversation. I tried to think of a way to dissemble, then rejected it fiercely. I squared my shoulders as if I were reporting to Verity himself and spoke clearly. 'We are Wit-bound. What I hear and understand, he comprehends as I do. What interests him, he learns. I do not say he could read a scroll, or remember a song. But if a thing intrigues him, he thinks on it, in his own way. As a wolf, usually, but sometimes almost as anyone might …'
I struggled to try and put in words something I myself did not understand perfectly. 'He saw the game as a pack of wolves driving game. Not as black and red and white markers. And he saw where he would go, were he hunting with that pack, to make their kill more likely. I suppose that sometimes I see things as he sees them … as a wolf. It is not wrong, I believe. Only a different way of perceiving the world.'
There was still a trace of superstitious fear in Kettle's eyes as she glanced from me to the sleeping wolf. Nighteyes chose that moment to let his tail rise and fall in a sleepy wag to indicate he was fully cognizant that we spoke of him. Kettle gave a shiver. 'What you do with him … is it like Skilling from human to human, only to a wolf?'
I started to shake my head, but then had to shrug. 'The Wit begins more as a sharing of feelings. Especially when I was a child. Following smells, chasing a chicken because it would run, enjoying food together. But when you have been together as long as Nighteyes and I have, it starts to be something else. It goes beyond feelings, and it's never really words. I am more aware of the animal that my mind lives inside. He is more aware of …'
Thinking. Of what comes before and after choosing to do an action. One becomes aware that one is always making choices, and considers what the best ones are.
Exactly. I repeated his words aloud for Kettle. By now Nighteyes was sitting up. He made an elaborate show of stretching and then sat looking at her, his head cocked to one side.
'I see,' she said faintly. 'I see.' Then she got up and left the tent.
Starling sat up and stretched. 'It gives one an entirely different outlook on scratching his ears,' she observed. The Fool answered her with a snort of laughter, sat up in his bedding, and immediately reached to scratch Nighteyes behind the ears. The wolf fell over on him in appreciation. I growled at both of them and went back to making tea.
We were not as swift to be packed and on our way. A thick layer of damp snow overlay everything, making breaking camp that much more difficult. We cut up what was left of the boar and took it with us. The jeppas were rounded up; despite the storm, they had not wandered far. The secret seemed to be in the bag of sweetened grain that Kettricken kept to lure the leader. When we were loaded and finally ready to leave, Kettle announced that I must not be allowed to walk on the road, and that someone must always be with me. I bristled a bit at that, but they ignored me. The Fool volunteered quickly to be my first partner. Starling gave him an odd smile and a shake of her head over that. I accepted their ridicule by sulking manfully. They ignored that, too.
In a short time the women and the jeppas were moving easily up the road, while the Fool and I scrabbled alongside on the berm that marked the edge of it. Kettle turned to shake her walking stick. 'Get him farther away than that!' she scolded the Fool. 'Get to where you can just see us to follow us. Go on, now. Go on.'
So we obediently edged back into the woods. As soon as we were out of sight of the others, the Fool turned to me and excitedly demanded, 'Who is Kettle?'
'You know as much as I do,' I pointed out shortly. And added a question of my own, 'What is between you and Starling now?'
He lifted his eyebrows at me and winked slyly.
'I doubt that very much,' I retorted.
