behind Verity, and began to brush his hair back. He hastily snatched his hands around in front of him. Some of the gray in his hair had been rock dust, but not all. His warrior's queue was now gray with black streaks in it and coarse as a horse's tail. I struggled to smooth it back. As I tied the thong I asked him, 'What does it feel like?'
'These?' he asked, holding up his hands and waggling the fingers. 'Oh. Like Skill. Only more so, and on my hands and arms.'
I saw he thought he had answered my question. 'Why did you do it?' I asked.
'Well, to work the stone, you know. When this power is on my hands, the stone must obey the Skill. Extraordinary stone. Like the Witness Stones in Buck, did you know that? Only they are not nearly as pure as what is here. Of course, hands are poor tools for working stone. But once you have cut away all the excess, down to where the dragon waits, then he can be awakened with your touch. I draw my hands over the stone, and I recall to it the dragon. And all that is not dragon shivers away in shards and chips. Very slowly, of course. It took a whole day just to reveal his eyes.'
'I see,' I murmured, at a loss. I did not know whether he was mad or if I believed him.
He stood up as far as he could in the low tent. 'Is Kettricken angry with me?' he asked abruptly.
'My lord king, it is not for me to say …'
'Verity,' he interrupted wearily. 'Call me Verity, and for Eda's sake, answer the question, Fitz.'
He sounded so like his old self I wanted to embrace him. Instead, I said, 'I do not know if she is angry. She is definitely hurt. She came a long and weary way to find you, bearing terrible news. And you did not seem to care.'
'I care, when I think of it,' he said gravely. 'When I think of it, I grieve. But there are so many things I must think of, and I cannot think of them all at once. I knew when the child died, Fitz. How could I not know? He, too, and all I felt, I have put into the dragon.'
He walked slowly away from me, and I followed him out of the tent. Outside, he stood up straight, but did not lose the stoop in his shoulders. Verity was an old man now, far older than Chade somehow. I did not understand that, but I knew it was true. Kettricken glanced up at his approach. She looked back into the fire, and then, almost unwillingly she stood, stepping clear of the sleeping wolf. Kettle and Starling were binding the Fool's fingers in strips of cloth. Verity went straight to Kettricken and stood beside her. 'My queen,' he said gravely. 'If I could, I would embrace you. But you have seen that my touch …' He gestured at the Fool and let his words trail away.
I had seen the look on her face when she had told Verity about the stillbirth. I expected her to turn aside from him, to hurt him as he had hurt her. But Kettricken's heart was larger than that. 'Oh, my husband,' she said, and her voice broke on the words. He held his silvered arms wide, and she came to him, taking him in her embrace. He bowed his gray head over the rough gold of her hair, but could not allow his hand to touch her. He turned his silvered cheek away from her. His voice was husky and broken as he asked her, 'Did you give him a name? Our son?'
'I named him according to the customs of your land.' She took a breath. The word was so soft I scarce heard it. 'Sacrifice,' she breathed. She clung to him tightly and I saw his thin shoulders convulse in a sob.
'Fitz!' Kettle hissed at me sharply. I turned to find her scowling at me. 'Leave them alone,' she whispered. 'Make yourself useful. Get a plate for the Fool.'
I had been staring at them. I turned away, shamed to have been gawking, but glad to see them embrace, even in sorrow. I did as Kettle had ordered, getting food for myself at the same time. I took the plate to the Fool. He sat cradling his injured hand in his lap.
He looked up as I sat beside him. 'It doesn't rub off on anything else,' he complained. 'Why did it cling to my fingers?'
'I don't know.'
'Because you're alive,' Kettle said succinctly. She sat down across from us as if we needed supervising.
'Verity told me he can shape rock with his fingers because of the Skill on them,' I told her.
'Is your tongue hinged in the middle so that it flaps at both ends? You talk too much!' Kettle rebuked me.
'Perhaps I would not talk too much if you spoke a bit more,' I replied. 'Rock is not alive.'
She looked at me. 'You know that, do you? Well, what is the point of my talking when you already know everything?' She attacked her food as if it had done her a personal wrong.
Starling joined us. She sat down beside me, her plate on her knees and said, 'I don't understand about the silvery stuff on his hands. What is it?'
The Fool snickered into his plate like a naughty child when Kettle glared at her. But I was getting tired of Kettle's evasions. 'What does it feel like?' I asked the Fool.
He glanced down at his bandaged fingers. 'Not pain. Very sensitive. I can feel the weave of the threads in the bandages.' His eyes started to get distant: He smiled. 'I can see the man who wove it, and I know the woman who spun it. The sheep on the hillside, rain falling on their thick wool, and the grass they ate … wool is from grass, Fitz. A shirt woven from grass. No, there is more. The soil, black and rich and …'
'Stop it!' Kettle said harshly. And she turned to me angrily. 'And you stop asking him, Fitz. Unless you want him to follow it too far and be lost forever.' She gave the Fool a sharp poke. 'Eat your food.'
'How is it you know so much about the Skill?' Starling suddenly asked her.
'Not you, too!' Kettle angrily declared: 'Is there nothing private anymore?'
'Among us? Not much,' the Fool replied, but he was not looking at her. He was watching Kettricken, her face still puffy from weeping, as she dished up food for herself and Verity. Her worn and stained clothing, her rough hair and chapped hands and the simple, homely task she performed for her husband should have made her seem like any woman. But I looked at her and saw perhaps the strongest queen that Buckkeep had ever known.
I watched Verity wince slightly as he took from her hand the simple wooden dish and spoon. He shut his eyes a moment, struggling against the pull of the implement's history. He composed his face and took a mouthful of food. Even across camp from him, I felt the sudden awakening of plain hunger. It was not just hot food he had been long without, it was solid sustenance of any kind. He took a shuddering breath and began to eat like a starved wolf.
Kettle was watching him. A look of pity crossed her face. 'No. Very little privacy left for any of us,' she said sadly.
'The sooner we get him back to Jhaampe, the sooner he can get better,' Starling said soothingly. 'Should we start tomorrow, do you think? Or give him a few days of food and rest to rebuild his strength?'
'We shall not be taking him back to Jhaampe,' Kettle said, an undercurrent of sadness in her voice. 'He has begun a dragon. He cannot leave it.' She looked around at us levelly. 'The only thing we can do for him now is stay here and help him finish it.'
'With Red-Ships torching the entire coastline of the Six Duchies and Farrow attacking the Mountains, we should stay here and help the King carve a dragon?' Starling was incredulous.
'Yes. If we want to save the Six Duchies and the Mountains, that is exactly what we should do. Now, you will excuse me. I think I shall put on more meat to cook. Our king looks as if he could use it.'
I set my empty plate aside. 'We should probably cook it all. In this weather, meat will sour fast,' I unwisely said.
I spent the next hour butchering the pig into portions that could dry cook over the fire all night. Nighteyes awoke and helped dispose of scraps until his belly was distended. Kettricken and Verity sat talking quietly. I tried not to watch them, but even so, I was aware that his gaze frequently strayed from her to the dais where his dragon crouched over us. The low rumble of his voice was hesitant, and often died away altogether until prompted by another question from Kettricken.
The Fool was amusing himself by touching things with his Skillfingers: a bowl, a knife, the cloth of his shirt. He met Kettle's scowls with a benign smile. 'I'm being careful,' he told her once.
'You have no idea of how to be careful,' she complained. 'You won't know you've lost your way until you're gone.' She got up from our butchery with a grunt and insisted on rebandaging his fingers. After that, she and Starling left together to get more firewood. The wolf got up with a groan and followed them.
Kettricken helped Verity into the tent. After a moment she reappeared to go into the main tent. She emerged carrying her bedding. She caught my quick glance and abashed me by meeting my eyes squarely. 'I have taken your long mittens from your pack, Fitz,' she told me calmly. Then she joined Verity in the smaller tent. The Fool
