`Green of manhood,' something, ah …'
The Fool caught my eye, glanced meaningfully down at himself. 'Green manhood? I really should have showed her,' he said quietly. And despite everything, despite even the glowering of my queen, I burst out laughing.
'Oh, stop it,' Kettle rebuked us, with such discouragement in her voice that I was instantly sober. 'It is neither the time for songs nor knavery. Are you both too foolish to see the danger you are in? The danger you put all of us in with your vulnerability?' I watched her as she reluctantly took my elfbark out of her pack again and put her kettle back to boil. 'It is the only thing I can think of to do,' she apologized to Kettricken.
'What is that?' she asked.
'To drug the Fool at least with elfbark. It will deafen him to them, and hide his thoughts from them.'
'Elfbark doesn't work like that!' I objected indignantly.
'Doesn't it?' Kettle turned on me fiercely. 'Then why was it used traditionally for years for just that purpose? Given to a royal bastard young enough, it could destroy any potential for Skill use. Often enough was that done.'
I shook my head defiantly. 'I've used it for years, to restore my strength after Skilling. So has Verity. And it has never …'
'Sweet Eda's mercy!' Kettle exclaimed. 'Tell me you are lying, please!'
'Why should I lie about this? Elfbark revives a man's strength, though it may bring on melancholy spirits following use. Often I would carry elfbark tea up to Verity in his Skill-tower, to sustain him.' My telling faltered. The dismay on Kettle's face was too sincere. 'What?' I asked softly.
'Elfbark is well known among Skilled ones as a thing to avoid,' she said quietly. I heard every word, for no one in the tent even seemed to be breathing. 'It deadens a man to Skill, so that he can neither use the Skill himself, nor may others reach through its fog to Skill to him. It is said to stunt or destroy Skill talent in the young, and to impede its development in older Skill users.' She looked at me with pity in her eyes. 'You must have been strongly talented, once, to retain even a semblance of Skilling.'
'It cannot be …' I said faintly.
'Think,' she bade me. 'Did ever you feel your Skillstrength wax strong after using it?'
'What of my lord Verity?' Kettricken suddenly demanded.
Kettle shrugged reluctantly. She turned to me. 'When did he start using it?'
It was hard for me to focus my mind on her words. So many things were suddenly in a different light. Elfbark had always cleared my head of the pounding that heavy Skilling brought on. But I had never tried to Skill immediately after I had used elfbark. Verity had, I knew that. But how successfully, I did not know. My erratic talent for Skilling… could that have been my elfbark use? Like a lightning bolt was the immense knowledge that Chade had made a mistake in giving it to Verity and me. Chade had made a mistake. It had never occurred to me, somehow, that Chade could be wrong or mistaken. Chade was my master, Chade read and studied and knew all the old lore. But he had never been taught to Skill. A bastard like myself, he had never been taught to Skill.
'FitzChivalry!' Kettricken's command jerked me back to myself.
'Uh, so far as I know, Verity began to use it in the early years of the war. When he was the only Skill user to stand between us and the Red-Ships. I believe he had never used the Skill so intensely as then, nor been as exhausted by it. So Chade began to give him elfbark. To keep up his strength.'
Kettle blinked a few times. 'Unused, the Skill does not develop,' she said, almost to herself. 'Used, it grows, and begins to assert itself, and one learns, almost instinctively, the many uses to which it may be put.' I found myself nodding faintly to her soft, words. Her old eyes came up suddenly to meet mine. She spoke without reservation. 'You are most likely stunted, both of you. By the elfbark. Verity, as a man grown, may have recovered. He may have seen his Skill grow in the time he has spent away from the herb. As you seem to have. Certainly he seems to have mastered the road alone.' She sighed. 'But I suspect those others have not used it, and their talents and usage of Skill had grown and outstripped what yours is. So now you have a choice, FitzChivalry, and only you can make it. The Fool has nothing to lose by using the drug. He cannot Skill, and by using it, he may keep the coterie from finding him again. But you … I can give you this, and it will deaden you to the Skill. It will be harder for them to reach you, and much harder for you to reach out. You might be safer that way. But you will be once more thwarting your talent. Enough elfbark may kill it off completely. And only you can choose.'
I looked down at my hands. Then I looked up at the Fool. Once more, our eyes met. Hesitantly, I groped toward him with my Skill. I felt nothing. Perhaps it was only my own erratic talent cheating me again. But it seemed likely to me that Kettle had been right; the elfbark the Fool had just drunk had deadened him to me.
As Kettle spoke, she had been taking the kettle from the fire. The Fool held his cup out to her wordlessly. She gave him a pinch more of the bitter bark and filled it again with water. Then she looked at me, quietly waiting. I looked at the faces watching me, but found no help there. I picked up a mug from the stacked crockery. I saw Kettle's old face darken and her lips tightened, but she said nothing to me. She simply reached into the pouch of elfbark, working her fingers to get to the bottom where the bark had crushed itself into powder. I looked into the empty mug, waiting. I glanced back up at Kettle. 'You said the Skillblast might have destroyed them?'
Kettle shook her head slowly. 'It is not a thing to count on.'
There was nothing I could count on. Nothing that was certain.
Then I set the mug down and crawled over to my blankets. I was suddenly tremendously weary. And frightened. I knew Will was out there somewhere, seeking me. I could hide myself in elfbark, but it might not be enough to stave him off. It might only weaken my already stunted defenses against him. Abruptly I knew I would sleep not at all that night. 'I'll take the watch,' I offered and stood again.
'He should not stand alone,' Kettle said grumpily.
'His wolf watches with him,' Kettricken told her confidently. 'He can aid Fitz against this false coterie as no one else can.'
I wondered how she knew that, but dared not ask her. Instead I took up my cloak and went to stand outside by the dwindling fire, watching and waiting like a condemned man.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO. Capelin Beach
THE WIT is held in much disdain. In many areas it is regarded as a perversion, with tales told of Witted ones coupling with beasts to gain this magic, or offering blood sacrifice of human children to gain the gift of the tongues of beasts and birds. Some tale-tellers speak of bargains struck with ancient demons of the earth. In truth, I believe the Wit is as natural a magic as a man can claim. It is the Wit that lets a flock of birds in flight suddenly wheel as one, or a school of fingerlings hold place together in a swiftly flowing stream. It is also the Wit that sends a mother to her child's bedside just as the babe is awakening. I believe it is at the heart of all wordless communication, and that all humans possess some small aptitude for it, recognized or not.
The next day we once more reached the Skill road. As we trailed past the forbidding pillar of stone, I felt myself drawn to it. 'Verity may be but one stride away for me,' I said quietly.
Kettle snorted. 'Or your death. Have you taken complete leave of your senses? Do you think any one Skill user could stand against a trained coterie?'
'Verity did,' I replied, thinking of Tradeford and how he had saved me. The rest of that morning, she walked with a thoughtful look on her face.
I did not endeavor to get her to speak, for I carried a burden of my own. I felt within me a nagging sense of loss. It was almost the irritating sensation of knowing one had forgotten something, but was unable to recall what. I had left something behind. Or I had forgotten to do something important, something I had been intending to do. By late afternoon, with a sinking feeling, I grasped what was missing.
Verity.
When he had been with me, I had seldom been sure of his presence. Like a hidden seed waiting to unfurl was how I had thought of him. The many times I had sought him within myself and failed to find him suddenly meant nothing. This was not a doubt or a wondering. This was a growing certainty. Verity had been with me for over a year. And now he was gone.
Did it mean he was dead? I could not be certain. That immense wave of Skill I had felt could have been him. Or something else, something that had forced him to withdraw into himself. That was probably all it was. It was a miracle that his Skill touch upon me had lasted as long as it had. Several times I started to speak of it to Kettle or
