'Because you're a bigger fool than he is. And I am the biggest of all, to have left you alone and trusted you to act with sense. What did he do?' Kettle was still puffing from her hurry.
'He touched the girl on the dragon. With the Skill on his finger.'
I glanced up at the statue as I spoke. To my horror, there was a bright silver fingerprint on the girl's upper arm, outlined in scarlet against her bronze-toned flesh. Kettle followed my gaze and I heard her gasp. She spun on me and lifted her gnarled hand as if to strike me. Then she clenched her hand into a contorted fist that trembled and forced it down by her side. 'Is it not enough that she is trapped there in misery forever, alone and cut off from all she once loved? You two must come to give her pain on top of all that! How could you be so vicious?'
'We meant no harm. We did not know …'
'Ignorance is always the excuse used by the cruelly curious!' Kettle snarled.
My own temper suddenly rose to match hers. 'Don't rebuke me with my ignorance, woman, when all you have done is refuse to lift it for me. You hint and warn and give us ominous words, but you refuse to speak anything that might help us. And when we make mistakes, you rail at us, saying we should have known better. How? How can we know better when the one who does refuses to share her knowledge with us?'
In my arms, the Fool stirred faintly. The wolf had been prowling about my feet. Now he came back with a whine to sniff at the Fool's dangling hand.
Careful! Don't let his fingers touch you!
What bit him?
l don't know. 'I don't know anything,' I said aloud, bitterly. 'I'm blundering in the dark, hurting everyone I care about in the process.'
'I dare not interfere,' Kettle shouted at me. 'What if some word of mine set you on the wrong course? What of all the prophecies then? You must find your own way, Catalyst.'
The Fool opened his eyes to look at me blankly. Then he closed them again and leaned his head on my shoulder. He was starting to get heavy and I needed to find out what was wrong with him. I shrugged him up more firmly in my arms. I saw Starling coming up behind Kettle, her arms laden with wet laundry. I turned and walked away from them both. As I headed back to camp with the Fool, I said over my shoulder, 'Maybe that is why you are here. Maybe you were called here, with a part to play. Maybe it is lifting our ignorance so we can fulfill this bedamned prophecy of yours. And maybe keeping your silence is how you will thwart it. But,' and I halted to fling the words savagely over my shoulder, 'I think you keep silent for reasons of your own. Because you are ashamed!'
I turned away from the stricken look on her face. I covered my shame to have spoken to her so with my anger. It gave me new strength of purpose. I was suddenly determined that I was going to start making everyone behave as they should. It was the sort of childish resolution that often got me into trouble, but once my heart had seized hold of it, my anger gripped it tight.
I carried the Fool into the big tent and laid him out on his bedding. I took a ragged sleeve off what remained of a shirt, damped it in cool water, and applied it firmly to the back of his head. When the bleeding slowed, I checked it. It was not a large cut, but it was on top of a respectable lump. I still felt that was not why he had fainted. 'Fool?' I said to him quietly, then more insistently, 'Fool?' I patted his face with water. He came awake with a simple opening of his eyes. 'Fool?'
'I'll be all right, Fitz,' he said wanly. 'You were right. I should not have touched her. But I did. And I shall never be able to forget it.'
'What happened?' I demanded.
He shook his head. 'I can't talk about it just yet,' he said quietly.
I shot to my feet, head slapping against the tent roof and nearly bringing the whole structure down around me. 'No one in this whole company can talk about anything!' I declared furiously. 'Except me. And I intend to talk about everything.'
I left the Fool leaning up on one elbow and staring after me. I don't know if his expression was amused or aghast. I didn't care. I strode from the tent, scrabbled up the pile of tailings to the pedestal where Verity carved his dragon. The steady scrape, scrape, scrape of his sword point against the stone was like a rasp against my soul. Kettricken sat by him, hollow-eyed and silent. Neither paid me the slightest bit of attention.
I halted a moment and got my breathing under control. I swept my hair back from my face and tied my warrior's tail afresh, brushed off my leggings and tugged the stained remnants of my shirt straight. I took three steps forward. My formal bow included Kettricken.
'My lord, King Verity. My lady, Queen Kettricken. I have come to conclude my reporting to the King. If you would allow it.'
I had honestly expected both of them to ignore me. But King Verity's sword scraped twice more then ceased. He looked at me over his shoulder. 'Continue, FitzChivalry. I shall not cease my work, but I shall listen.'
There was grave courtesy in his voice. It heartened me. Kettricken suddenly sat up straighter. She brushed the straggling hair back from her eyes, then nodded her permission at me. I drew a deep breath and began, reporting as I had been taught, everything that I had seen or done since my visit to the ruined city. Sometime during, that long telling, the scraping of the sword slowed, then ceased. Verity moved ponderously to take a seat beside Kettricken. Almost he started to take her hand in his, then stopped himself and folded his own hands before him. But Kettricken saw that small gesture, and moved a trifle closer to him. They sat side by side, my threadbare monarchs, throned on cold rock, a stone dragon at their backs, and listened to me.
By one and by two, the others came to join us. First the wolf, then the Fool and Starling, and finally old Kettle ranged themselves in a half circle behind me. When my throat began to grow dry and my voice to rasp, Kettricken lifted a hand and sent Starling for water. She returned with tea and meat for all of us. I took but a mouthful of the tea and went on while they picnicked around me.
I held to my resolution and spoke plainly of all, even that which shamed me. I did not leave out my fears nor foolishness. I told him how I had killed Regal's guard without warning, even giving him the name of the man I had recognized. Nor did I skirt about my Wit experiences as I once would have. I spoke as bluntly as if it were only Verity and me, telling him of my fears for Molly and my child, including my fear that if Regal did not find and kill them, Chade would take the child for the throne. As I spoke, I reached for Verity in every way I could, not just my voice, but Wit and Skill, I tried to touch him and reawaken him to who he was. I know he felt that reaching, but try as I might, I could stir no response from him.
I finished by recounting what the Fool and I had done with the girl on a dragon. I watched Verity's face for any change of expression, but there was none I could see. When I had told him all, I stood silent before him, hoping he would question me. The old Verity would have taken me over my whole tale again, asking questions about every event, asking what I had thought, or suspected, of anything I had observed. But this gray-headed old man only nodded several times. He made as if to rise.
'My king!' I begged him desperately.
'What is it, boy?'
'Have you nothing to ask me, nothing to tell me?'
He looked at me, but I was not sure he was really seeing me. He cleared his throat. 'I killed Carrod with the Skill. That is true. I have not felt the others since then, but I do not believe they are dead, but only that I have lost the Skill to sense them. You must be careful.'
I gaped at him. 'And that is all? I must be careful?' His words had chilled me to the bone.
'No. There is worse.' He glanced at the Fool. 'I fear that when you speak to the Fool, he listens with Regal's ears. I fear it was Regal who came to you that day, speaking with the Fool's tongue, to ask you where Molly was.'
My mouth went dry. I turned to look at the Fool. He looked stricken. 'I do not recall … I never said …' He took a halfbreath, then suddenly toppled to one side in a faint.
Kettle scrabbled over to him. 'He breathes,' she told us.
Verity nodded. 'I suspect they have abandoned him then. Perhaps. Do not trust that is true.' His eyes came back to me. I was trying to remain standing. I had felt it as they fled the Fool. Felt it like a silk thread abruptly parting. They had not had a strong hold on him, but it had been enough. Enough to make me reveal all they needed to kill my wife and child. Enough to ransack his dreams each night since then, stealing whatever was of use to them.
I went to the Fool. I took his un-Skilled hand and reached for him. Slowly his eyes opened and he sat up. For
