down the shady road.
'Well, get along, both of you!' Kettle snapped at the Fool and me. She shook her walking stick and I almost suspected she wished she could prod us along like errant sheep. But the Fool and I both fell obediently into line behind the jeppas, leaving Starling and Kettle to follow us.
That night the Fool and I left the tent's shelter and went with Nighteyes. Both Kettle and Kettricken had been dubious as to the wisdom of this, but I had assured them I would act with all caution. The Fool had promised not to let me out of his sight. Kettle rolled her eyes at this, but said nothing. Plainly we were both still suspected of being idiots, but they let us leave anyway. Starling was sulkily silent, but as we had not had words, I assumed her pique had some other source. As we left the fireside, Kettricken said quietly, 'Watch over them, wolf,' and Nighteyes replied with a wave of his tail.
Nighteyes led us swiftly away from the grassy road and up into the wooded hills. The road had been leading us steadily downward into more sheltered country. The woods that we moved through were open groves of oaks with wide meadows between. I saw sign of wild boars but was relieved when we did not encounter any. Instead, the wolf ran down and killed two rabbits that he graciously allowed me to carry for him. As we were returning to the camp by a roundabout path we came on a stream. The water was icy and sweet and cress grew thick along one bank. The Fool and I tickled for fish until our hands and arms were numb with the cold water. As I hauled out a final fish, its lashing tail splashed the enthusiastic wolf. He leaped back from it then snapped at me in rebuke. The Fool playfully scooped up another handful and flung it at him. Nighteyes leaped, jaws wide to meet it. Moments later, all three of us were involved in a water battle, but I was the only one who landed bodily in the stream when the wolf sprang on me. Both Fool and wolf were laughing heartily as I staggered out, soaked and chilled. I found myself laughing also. I could not recall the last time I had simply laughed aloud about so simple a thing. We returned to camp late, but with fresh meat, fish, and watercress to share.
There was a small, welcoming fire burning outside the tent. Kettle and Starling had already made porridge for our meal, but Kettle volunteered to cook again for the sake of the fresh food. While she was preparing it, Starling stared at me until I demanded, 'What?'
'How did you all get so wet?' she asked.
'Oh. By the stream where we got the fish. Nighteyes pushed me in.' I gave him a passing nudge with my knee as I headed toward the tent. He made a mock snap at my leg.
'And the Fool fell in as well?'
'We were throwing water at one another,' I admitted wryly. I grinned at her, but she did not smile. Instead she gave a small snort as if disdainful. I shrugged and went into the tent. Kettricken glanced up at me from her map, but said nothing. I rucked through my pack and found clothes that were dry if not clean. Her back was turned so I changed hastily. We had grown accustomed to granting one another the privacy of ignoring such things.
'FitzChivalry,' she said suddenly in a voice that commanded my attention.
I dragged my shirt down over my head and buttoned it. 'Yes, my queen?' I came to kneel beside her, thinking she wanted to consult on the map. Instead, she set it aside and turned to me. Her blue eyes met mine squarely.
'We are a small company, all dependent on one another,' she abruptly told me. 'Any kind of strife within our group serves the purpose of our enemy.'
I waited, but she said no more. 'I do not understand why you tell me this,' I said humbly at last.
She sighed and shook her head. 'I feared as much. And perhaps I do more harm than good to speak of it at all. Starling is tormented by your attentions to the Fool.'
I was speechless. Kettricken speared me with a blue glance, then looked aside from me again. 'She believes the Fool is a woman and that you kept a tryst with her tonight. It chagrins her that you disdain her so completely.'
I found my tongue. 'My lady queen, I do not disdain Mistress Starling.' My outrage had rendered me formal. 'In truth, she is the one who has avoided my company and put a distance between us since finding that I am Witted and sustain a bond with the wolf. Respecting her wishes, I have not pressed my friendship upon her. As to what she says of the Fool, surely you must find it as ludicrous as I do.'
'Should I?' Kettricken asked me softly. 'All I can truthfully say I know of it is that he is not a man like other men.'
'I cannot disagree with that,' I said quietly. 'He is unique among all the people I have ever known.'
'Cannot you show some kindness to her, FitzChivalry?' Kettricken burst out suddenly. 'I do not ask that you court her, only that you do not let her be rent with jealousy.'
I folded my lips, forced my feelings to find courteous answer. 'My queen, I will offer her, as I ever have, my friendship. She has given me small sign of late of even wanting that, let alone more. But as to that topic, I do not disdain her nor any other woman. My heart is given already. It is no more right to say that I disdain Starling than it is to say that you disdain me because your heart is filled with my Lord Verity.'
Kettricken shot me an oddly startled look. For a moment she seemed flustered. Then she looked down at the map she still gripped. 'It is as I feared. I have only made it worse by speaking to you. I am so tired, Fitz. Despair drags at my heart always. To have Starling moody is like sand against raw flesh to me. I but sought to put things right between you. I beg your pardon if I have intruded. But you are a comely youth still, and it will not be the last time you have such cares.'
'Comely?' I laughed aloud, both incredulous and bitter. 'With this scarred face and battered body? It haunts my nightmares that when next Molly sees me, she shall turn aside from me in horror. Comely.' I turned aside from her, my throat suddenly too tight to speak. It was not that I mourned my appearance so much as I dreaded that Molly must look someday on my scars.
'Fitz,' Kettricken said quietly. Her voice was suddenly that of a friend, not the Queen. 'I speak to you as a woman, to tell you that although you bear scars, you are far from the grotesque you seem to believe yourself. You are, still, a comely youth, in ways that have nothing to do with your face. And were my heart not full with my Lord Verity, I would not disdain you.' She reached out a hand and ran cool fingers down the old split down my cheek, as if her touch could erase it. My heart turned over in me, an echo of Verity's embedded passion for her amplified by my gratitude that she would say such a thing to me.
'You well deserve my lord's love,' I told her artlessly from a full heart.
'Oh, do not look at me with his eyes,' she said dolefully. She rose suddenly, clasping the map to her breast like a shield, and left the tent.
CHAPTER THIRTY. Stone Garden
DIMITY KEEP, a very small holding on the coast of Buck, fell shortly before Regal crowned himself King of the Six Duchies. A great many villages were destroyed in that dread time, and there has never been a true count made of all the lives that were lost. Small keeps like Dimity were frequent targets for the Red-Ships. Their strategy was to attack simple villages and the smaller holdings to weaken the overall defense line. Lord Bronze, to whom the Keep of Dimity was entrusted, was an old man, but nonetheless he led his men in defending his small castle: Unfortunately, heavy taxation for general coastline protection had drained his resources for some time, and Dimity Keep's defenses were in poor repair. Lord Bronze was among the first to fall. The Red-Ships took the keep almost easily, and reduced it with fire and sword to the rubble-strewn mound that it is today.
Unlike the Skill road, the road we traveled the next day had experienced the full ravages of time. Doubtless once a wide thoroughfare, it had been narrowed by the encroachments of the forest to little more than a track. While to me it seemed almost carefree to march down a road that did not at every moment threaten to steal my mind from me, the others muttered about the hummocks, upthrust roots, fallen branches, and other obstacles we scrambled through all day. I kept my thoughts to myself and enjoyed the thick moss that overlaid the once-cobbled surface, the branchy shade of the bud-leafed trees that overarched the road, and the occasional patter of fleeing animals in the underbrush.
Nighteyes was in his element, racing ahead and then galloping back to us, to trot purposefully along beside Kettricken for a time. Then he would go ranging off again. At one time he came dashing back to the Fool and me, tongue lolling, to announce that tonight we would hunt wild pig, for their sign was plentiful. I relayed this to the Fool.
'I did not lose any wild pigs. Therefore, I shall not hunt for any,' he replied loftily. I rather agreed with his
