did not come off, but I learned a great deal about the life cycle of a horsetail fern. I gave it up. I decided I could take my entire skin off and still not feel free of what had happened. I waded out of the stream, dashing the water off myself as I went. My clothing was dry enough to put back on. I sat down on the bank to put my boots on. I nearly thought of Molly and Burrich but I quickly pushed the image away. Instead I wondered how soon Regal's soldiers would arrive and if Verity would have his dragon finished before then. Perhaps it was even now finished. I should want to see it.
I wanted more to be alone.
I lay back on the grass and looked up into the blue sky overhead. I tried to feel something. Dread, excitement, anger. Hate. Love. Instead I felt only confused. And tired. Weary of flesh and spirit. I closed my eyes against the brightness of the sky..
The harp notes walked alongside the sounds of the stream flowing. They blended with it, then danced apart. I opened my eyes to it and squinted at Starling. She sat on the stream bank beside me and played. Her hair was down, drying in ripples down her back in the sun. She had a stem of green grass in her mouth and her bare feet nestled against the soft grass. She met my eyes but said nothing. I watched her hands play on the strings. Her left hand worked harder, compensating for the stiffness in the last two fingers. I should have felt something about that. I didn't know what.
'What good are feelings?' I didn't know I had the question until I spoke it aloud.
Her fingers poised over the strings. She furrowed her brow at me. 'I don't think there's an answer to that question.'
'I'm not finding answers to much of anything lately. Why aren't you back in the quarry, watching them complete the dragon? Surely that is the stuff for a song to spring from.'
'Because I am here with you,' she said simply. Then she grinned. 'And because everyone else seems busy. Kettle sleeps. Kettricken and Verity … she was combing his hair when I left. I do not think I had seen King Verity smile before. When he does. he looks a great deal like you, about the eyes. Anyway. I do not think they will miss me.'
'And the Fool?'
She shook her head. 'He chips at the stone around Girl-on-a-Dragon. I know he should not, but I do not think he can stop. Nor do I know any way to force him.'
'I don't think he can help her. But I don't think he can resist trying. For all his quick tongue, he has a soft nature.'
'I know that. Now. In some ways I've come to know him very well. In others, he will always be unknowable to me.'
I nodded silently to that. The silence lasted a time. Then, subtly, it became a different kind of silence. 'Actually,' Starling said uncomfortably, 'the Fool suggested I should find you.'
I groaned. I wondered just how much he had told her.
'I'm sorry to hear about Molly …' she began.
'But not surprised,' I filled in for her. I lifted my arm and put it across my eyes to block the sunlight.
'No.' She spoke quietly. 'Not surprised.' She cast about for something to say. 'At least you know she is safe and cared for,' she offered.
I knew that. It shamed me that I could find so little comfort in it. Putting it into the dragon had helped in the same way that cutting off an infected limb helped. Being rid of it was not the same as being healed of it. The empty place inside me itched. Perhaps I wanted to hurt. I watched her from the shade of my arm.
'Fitz,' she said quietly. 'I asked you once, for yourself. In gentleness and friendship. To chase a memory away,' She looked away from me, at the sunlight glinting on the stream. 'Now I offer that,' she said humbly.
'But I don't love you,' I said honestly. And instantly knew that it was the worst thing I could have said just then.
Starling sighed and set her harp aside. 'I know that. You know that. But it was not a thing that had to be said just now.'
'And I know that. Now. It is just that I don't want any lies, spoken or unspoken …'
She leaned over me and stopped my mouth with hers. After a time she lifted her face a little. 'I am a minstrel. I know more about lying than you will ever discover. And minstrels know that sometimes lies are what a man needs most. In order to make a new truth of them.'
'Starling,' I began.
'You know you will just say the wrong thing,' she told me. 'So why don't you be quiet for a time? Don't make this complicated. Stop thinking, just for a while.'
Actually, it was quite a while.
When I awoke, she still lay warm against my side. Nighteyes stood over us, looking down at me, panting with the heat of the day. When I opened my eyes, he folded his ears back and gave his tail a slow wag. A drop of warm saliva fell on my arm.
'Go away.'
The others are calling you. And looking for you. He cocked his head at me and offered, I could show Kettricken where to find you.
I sat up and squashed three mosquitoes on my chest. They left bloody smears. I reached for my shirt. Is something wrong?
No. They are ready to wake the dragon. Verity wishes to tell you goodbye.
I shook Starling gently. 'Wake up. Or you will miss Verity waking the dragon.'
She stirred lazily. 'For that, I shall get up. I can think of nothing else that would stir me. Besides, it may be my last chance at a song. Fate has ruled that I always be elsewhere whenever you do something interesting.'
I had to smile at that. 'So. You will make no songs about Chivalry's Bastard after all?' I teased her.
'One, perhaps. A love song.' She gave me a last secret smile. 'That part, at least, was interesting.'
I stood up and drew her to her feet. I kissed her. Nighteyes whined his impatience, and she turned quickly in my arms. Nighteyes stretched and bowed low to her. When she turned back to me, her eyes were wide.
'I warned you,' I told her.
She only laughed and stooped to gather up our clothes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE. Verity's Dragon
SIX DUCHIES TROOPS poured into Blue Lake and took ship for the farther side and the Mountain Kingdom on the very days that the Red-Ships were beating their way up the Vin River to Tradeford. Tradeford had never been a fortified city. Although word of the ships' coming preceded them by fast messenger, the news was greeted with general disdain. What menace were twelve ships of barbarians to such a great city as Tradeford? The City Guard was alerted, and some of the dockside merchants took steps to remove their goods from warehouses close to the water, but the general attitude was that if they did manage to get as far up the river as Tradeford, archers would easily pick off the Raiders before they could do any real damage. The general consensus was that the ships must be bringing some offer of treaty to the King of the Six Duchies. There was much discussion as to how much of the Coastal Duchies they would ask ceded to them, and the possible value of reopening trade with the OutIslands themselves, not to mention restoring the trade flow down the Buck River.
This is but one more example of the errors that can be made when one thinks one knows what the enemy desires, and acts upon it. The folk of Tradeford ascribed to the Red-Ships the same desire for prosperity and plenty that they themselves felt. To base their estimation of the Red-Ships on that motive was a grievous mistake.
I don't think Kettricken had accepted the idea that Verity must die for the dragon to quicken until the actual moment he kissed her goodbye. He kissed her so carefully, his hands and arms held wide of her, his head cocked so that no silver smear would touch her face. For all that, it was a tender kiss, a hungry and lingering one. A moment longer she clung to him. Then he said something softly to her. She immediately put her hands to her lower belly. 'How can you be so sure?' she asked him, even as the tears began to course down her cheeks.
'I know,' he said firmly. 'And so my first task must be to return you to Jhaampe. You must be kept safe this time.'
'My place is in Buckkeep Castle,' she protested.
