I held my breath. Here it came. The Wit.
'Speak it out, Burrich. I thought I had made it clear that the `my princing' was to be suspended here. What worries you?'
Burrich stood up straight, and met the King-in-Waiting's eyes. 'Is this… fitting? Bastard or no, he is Chivalry's son. What I saw up there, today…' Once started, the words spilled out of Burrich. He was fighting to keep anger from his voice. 'You sent him… He went into a slaughterhouse situation, alone. Most any other boy of his age would be dead now. I… try not to pry into what is not my area. I know there are many ways to serve my king, and that some are not as pretty as others. But up in the Mountains… and then what I saw today. Could not you find someone besides your brother's child for this?'
I glanced back to Verity. For the first time in my life I saw full anger on his face. Not expressed in a sneer or a frown, but simply as two hot sparks deep in his dark eyes. The line of his lips was flat. But he spoke evenly. 'Look again, Burrich. That's no child sitting there. And think again. I did not send him alone. I went with him, into a situation that we expected to be a stalk and a hunt, not a direct confrontation. It didn't turn out that way. But he survived it. As he has survived similar things before. And likely will again.' Verity stood suddenly. The whole air of the room was abruptly charged to my senses, boiling with emotion. Even Burrich seemed to feel it, for he gave me a glance, then forced himself to stand still, like a soldier at attention while Verity stalked about the room.
'No. This isn't what I would choose for him. This isn't what I would choose for myself. Would that he had been born in better times! Would that he had been born in a marriage bed, and my brother still upon the throne! But I was not given that situation, nor was he. Nor you! And so he serves, as I do. Damn me, but Kettricken has had it right all along. The King is the sacrifice of the people. And so is his nephew. That was carnage up there today. I know of what you speak; I saw Blade go aside to puke after he saw that body, I saw him walk well clear of Fitz. I know not how the boy… this man survived it. By doing whatever he had to, I suppose. So what can I do, man? What can I do? I need him. I need him for this ugly, secret battling, for he is the only one equipped and trained to do it. Just as my father sets me in that tower, and bids me burn my mind out with sneaking, filthy killing. Whatever Fitz must do, whatever skills he must call upon—'
(My heart stood still, my breath was ice in my lungs.)
'— then let him use. Because that is what we are about now. Survival. Because—'
'They are my people.' I did not realize I had spoken until they both swung to stare at me. Sudden silence in the room. I took a breath. 'A long time ago an old man told me that I would someday understand something. He said that the Six Duchies people were my people, that it was in my blood to care about them, to feel their hurts as my own.' I blinked my eyes, to clear Chade and that day at Forge from my vision. 'He was right,' I managed to say after a moment. 'They killed my child today, Burrich. And my smith, and two other men. Not the Forged ones. The Red-Ship Raiders. And I must have their blood in return, I must drive them from my coast. It is as simple now as eating or breathing. It is a thing I must do.'
Their eyes met over my head. 'Blood will tell,' Verity observed quietly. But there was a fierceness in his voice, and a pride that stilled the daylong trembling of my body. A deep calm rose in me. I had done the right thing today. I suddenly knew it as a physical fact. Ugly, demeaning work, but it was mine, and I had done it well. For my people. I turned to Burrich, and he was looking at me with that considering gaze usually reserved for when the runt of a litter showed unusual promise.
'I'll teach him,' he promised Verity. 'What few tricks I know with an ax. And a few other things. Shall we begin tomorrow, before first light?'
'Fine,' Verity agreed before I could object. 'Now let us eat.'
I was suddenly famished. I rose to go to the table, but Burrich was suddenly beside me. 'Wash your face and hands, Fitz,' he reminded me gently.
The scented water in Verity's basin was dark with the smith's blood when I was through.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN. Winterfest
WINTERFEST IS AS much a celebration of the darkest part of the year as a festival of the returning light. For the first three days of Winterfest, we pay homage to the darkness. The tales told and puppet shows presented are those that tell of resting times and happy endings. The foods are salt fish and smoked flesh, harvested roots and fruit from last summer. Then, on the midday of the festival, there is a hunt. New blood is shed to celebrate the breaking point of the year, and new meat is brought fresh to the table, to be eaten with grain harvested from the year before. The next three days are days that look toward the coming summer. The looms are threaded with gayer thread, and the weavers take over an end of the Great Hall to vie among themselves for the brightest patterns and lightest weave. The tales told are ones that tell of beginnings of things, and of how things came to be.
I tried to see the King that afternoon. Despite all that had transpired, I had not forgotten my promise to myself. Wallace turned me away, saying that King Shrewd felt poorly and was seeing no one. I longed to hammer on the door and shout for the Fool to make Wallace admit me. But I did not. I was not so sure of the Fool's friendship as I had once been. We'd had no contact since that last mocking song of his. Thinking of him put me in mind of his words, and when I went back to my room, I once more rooted through Verity's manuscripts.
Reading made me sleepy. Even the diluted valerian had been a strong dose. Lethargy took over my limbs. I pushed the scrolls aside, no wiser than when I had begun. I pondered other avenues. Perhaps a public trumpeting at Winterfest that those trained in the Skill, no matter how old or how weak, were being sought? Would that make targets of any who responded? I thought again of the obvious candidates. Those who had trained alongside me. None of them had any fondness for me, but that did not mean they were not still faithful to Verity. Tainted perhaps by Galen's attitudes, but could not that be cured? I ruled August out immediately. His final experience of the Skill at Jhaampe had burned his abilities out of him. He had retired quietly to some town on the Vin River, old before his time, it was said. But there had been others. Eight of us had survived the training. Seven of us had come back from the testing. I had failed it, August had been burned clean of it. That left five.
Not much of a coterie. I wondered if they all hated me as much as Serene did. She blamed me for Galen's death and made no secret of it to me. Were the others as knowledgeable as to what had happened? I tried to recall them all. Justin. Very taken with himself and too proud of his Skilling. Carrod. He had once been a sleepy, likable boy. The few times I had seen him since he had become a coterie member, his eyes had seemed almost empty. As if nothing was left of who he had been. Burl had let his physical strength run to fat once he could Skill instead of carpenter for a living. Will had always been unremarkable. Skilling had not improved him. Still, they were all proven to have Skill ability. Could not Verity retrain them? Perhaps. But when? When did he have time for such an undertaking?
Someone comes.
I came awake. I was sprawled facedown on my bed, scrolls tumbled around me. I hadn't meant to sleep, and seldom slept so deeply. Had Nighteyes not been using my own senses to watch over me, I would have been taken completely unaware. I watched the door of my room ease open. The fire had burned low and there was little other light in the room. I had not latched the door; I had not expected to sleep. I lay very quiet, wondering who came so softly, hoping to take me unawares. Or was it someone hoping to find my room empty, someone after the scrolls perhaps? I eased my hand to my belt knife, gathered my muscles for a spring. A figure came slipping around the door, pushed it quietly shut. I eased the knife out of its sheath.
It's your female. Somewhere, Nighteyes yawned and stretched. His tail gave a lazy wag. I found myself taking a deep breath through my nose. Molly, I confirmed to myself with satisfaction as I took in her sweet scent, and then felt an amazing physical quickening. I lay still, eyes closed, and let her come to the bed. I heard her softly chiding exclamation, and then the rustling as she gathered up the scattered scrolls and set them safely atop the table. Hesitantly, she touched my cheek. 'Newboy?'
I could not resist the temptation to feign sleep. She sat beside me and the bed gave sweetly with her warm weight. She leaned over me, and as I lay perfectly motionless she set her soft mouth atop mine. I reached out and drew her to me, marveling. Yesterday, I had been a man seldom touched: the clap of a friend on my shoulder, or
