'There are several paths marked that go off into the Rain Wilds. If that is what all this green represents. None seem to have anything marked at the end. How would we know which one?' I objected.
'Perhaps they all go to the Elderlings,' Kettricken ventured. 'Why should they reside in but one place?'
'No!' Verity straightened up. 'Two at least have something marked at the end. Or had something. The damned ink has faded. But there was something there. I intend to find out what.'
Even Kettricken looked astonished at the enthusiasm in his voice. I was shocked. I had expected him to heather out politely, not to endorse her plan wholeheartedly.
He rose suddenly, paced a quick turn around the room. The Skill energy radiated off him like heat from a hearth. 'The full storms of winter are upon the coast now. Or will be, any day now. If I leave quickly, in the next few days, I can be to the Mountain Kingdom while the passes can still be used. I can force my way through to… whatever is there. And return by spring. Perhaps with the help we need.'
I was speechless. Kettricken made it worse.
'My lord, I had not intended that you should go. You should remain here. I must go. I know the Mountains; I was born to their ways. You might not survive there. In this, I should be Sacrifice.'
It was a relief to see Verity as dumbfounded as I was. Perhaps, having heard it from her lips, he would now realize how impossible it was. He shook his head slowly. He took both her hands in his and looked solemnly at her. 'My queen-in-waiting.' He sighed. 'I must do this. I. In so many other ways I have failed the Six Duchies. And you. When first you came here to be queen, I had no patience with your talk of Sacrifice. I thought it a girl's idealistic notion. But it is not. We do not speak it here, but it is what is felt. It is what I learned from my parents. To put the Six Duchies always ahead of myself. I have tried to do that. But now I see that always I have sent others in my place. I sat and Skilled, it is true, and you have an inkling what it has cost me. But it has been sailors and soldiers who I have sent out to put down their lives for the Six Duchies. My own nephew, even, doing the crude and bloody work for me. And despite those I have sent to be sacrificed, our coast is still not safe. Now it comes to this last chance, to this hard thing. Shall I send my queen to do it for me?'
'Perhaps…' Kettricken's voice had gone husky with uncertainty. She looked down at the fire as she suggested, 'Perhaps we might go together?'
Verity considered. He actually earnestly considered it, and I saw Kettricken realize he had taken her request seriously. She began to smile, but it faded as he slowly shook his head. 'I dare not,' he said quietly. 'Someone must remain here. Someone I trust. King Shrewd is… my father is not well. I fear for him. For his health. With myself away, and my father ill, there must be someone to stand in my stead.'
She looked aside. 'I would rather go with you,' she said fiercely.
I averted my eyes as he reached and took her chin in his fingers and lifted her face so he might see her eyes. 'I know,' he said evenly. 'That is the sacrifice I must ask you to make. To stay here, when you would rather go. To be alone, yet again. For the sake of the Six Duchies.'
Something went out of her. Her shoulders sagged as she bowed her head to his will. As Verity gathered her to him I rose silently. I took Rosemary with me and we left them alone.
I was in my room, poring belatedly over the scrolls and tablets there, when the page came to my door that afternoon. 'You are summoned to the King's chambers, in the hour after dinner,' was the only message he gave me. Dismay rolled over me. It had been two weeks since my last visit to his chamber. I did not wish to confront the King again. If he were summoning me to say that he expected me to begin courting Celerity, I did not know what I would do or say. I feared I would lose control of myself. Resolutely I unrolled one of the Elderling scrolls and tried to study it. It was hopeless. I saw only Molly.
In the brief nights we had shared since our day on the beach, Molly had refused to discuss Celerity with me any further. In some ways it was a relief. But she had also stopped teasing me about all she would demand from me when I was truly her husband and all the future children we would have. She had quietly given up hope that we would ever be wed. If I stopped to think of it, it grieved me to the edge of madness. She did not rebuke me with it, as she knew it was not of my choosing. She did not even ask what was to become of us. Like Nighteyes, she seemed to live only in the present now. Each night of closeness we shared, she accepted as a thing complete, and did not question if there would be another. What I sensed from her was not despair, but containment: a fierce resolve that we would not lose what we had now to what we could not have tomorrow. I did not deserve the devotion of such a faithful heart.
When I dozed beside her in her bed, safe and warm amid the perfume of her body and her herbs, it was her strength that protected us. She did not Skill, she had no Wit. Her magic was a stronger kind, and she worked it by her will alone. When she closed and bolted her door behind me late at night, she created within her chamber a world and a time that belonged to us. If she had blindly placed her life and happiness in my hands, it would have been intolerable. But this was even worse. She believed there would eventually be a terrible price to pay for her devotion to me. Still she refused to forsake me. And I was not man enough to turn away from her and bid her seek a happier life. In my most lonely hours, when I rode the trails around Buckkeep with my saddlebags full of poisoned bread, I knew myself for a coward, and worse than a thief. I had once told Verity I could not draw off another man's strength to feed my own, that I would not. Yet every day, that was what I did to Molly. The Elderling scroll fell from my lax fingers. My room was suddenly suffocating. I pushed aside the tablets and scrolls.
I had been attempting to study. In the hour before dinner, I sought out Patience's chamber.
It had been some time since I had last called upon her. But her sitting chamber never seemed to change, save in the uppermost layer of litter that reflected her current passion. This day was no exception. Fall gathered herbs, bundled for drying, were suspended everywhere, filling the room with their scents. I felt I was strolling through an inverted meadow as I ducked to avoid the dangling foliage.
'You've hung these a bit low,' I complained as Patience entered.
'No. You've managed to grow a bit too tall. Stand up straight and let me look at you now.'
I obeyed, even though it left me with a bundle of catmint resting on my head.
'Well. At least rowing about killing people all summer has left you in good health. Much better than the sickly boy who came home to me last winter. I told you those tonics would work. As long as you've gotten that tall, you may as well help me hang up these lot.'
Without more ado, I was put to work stringing lines from sconces to bedposts to anything else that a string could be tied to, and then to fastening bundles of herbs to them. She had me treed, up on a chair and tying bundles of balsam, when she demanded, 'Why do you no longer whine to me about how much you miss Molly?'
'Would it do me any good?' I asked her quietly after a moment. I did my best to sound resigned.
'No.' She paused a moment as if thinking. She handed me yet another bouquet of leaves. 'Those,' she informed me as I fastened them up, 'are stipple-leaf. Very bitter. Some say they will prevent a woman conceiving. They don't. At least, not dependably. But if a woman eats them for too long, she can become ill from them.' She paused as if considering. 'Perhaps, if a woman is sick, she does not conceive as easily. But I would not recommend them to anyone, least of all anyone I cared about.'
I found my tongue, sought a casual air. 'Why do you dry them, then?'
'An infusion of them, gargled, will help a sore throat. So Molly Chandler told me, when I found her gathering them in the women's garden.'
'I see.' I fastened the leaves to the line, dangling them like a body from a noose. Even their odor was bitter. Had I wondered, earlier, how Verity could be so unaware of what was right before him? Why had I never thought of this? How must it be for her, to dread what a rightfully married woman would long for? What Patience had longed for in vain?
'…seaweed, FitzChivalry?'
I started. 'Beg pardon?'
'I said, when you have an afternoon free, would you gather seaweed for me? The black, crinkly sort? It has the most flavor this time of year.'
'I will try,' I replied absently. For how many years would Molly have to worry? How much bitterness must she swallow?
'What are you looking at?' Patience demanded.
'Nothing. Why?'
'Because I've asked you twice to get down so we can move the chair. We've all these other packets to hang, you know.'
