At first folk took pride in what they would do. Those who lived on the sea cliffs began to keep volunteer watch. Runners and messenger birds and signal fires were kept in place. Some villages sent sheep and supplies to Sheepmire, to be given to those who needed help most. But as the long weeks passed and there was no sign that any of the returned hostages had recovered their sensibilities, those hopes and devotions began to seem pathetic rather than noble. Those who had most supported these efforts now declared that, were they taken hostage, they would choose to be hacked to pieces and thrown into the sea rather than returned to cause their families such hardship and heartbreak.
Worst, I think, was that in such a time the throne itself had no firm idea of what to do. Had a royal edict been issued, to say either that folk must or must not pay the demanded tribute for hostages, it would have gone better. No matter which, some folk would have disagreed. But at least the King would have taken a stand, and people would have had some sense that this threat was being faced. Instead, the increased patrols and watches only made it seem that Buckkeep itself was in terror of this new threat, but had no strategy for facing it. In the absence of royal edict, the coastal villages took things into their own hands. The councils met, to decide what they would do if Forged. And some decided one way, and some the other.
'But in every case,' Chade told me wearily, 'it matters not what they decide; it weakens their loyalty to the kingdom. Whether they pay the tribute or not, the Raiders may laugh over their blood ale at us. For in deciding, our villagers are saying in their minds, not 'if we are Forged' but 'when we are Forged.' And thus they have already been raped in spirit, if not in flesh. They look at their kin, mother at child, man at parents, and already they have given them up to death or Forging. And the kingdom fails, for as each town must decide alone, so it is separated from the whole. We will shatter into a thousand little townships, each worrying only about what it will do for itself if it is raided. If Shrewd and Verity do not act quickly, the kingdom will become a thing that exists only in name, and in the minds of its former rulers.'
'But what can they do?' I demanded. 'No matter what edict is passed, it will be wrong.' I picked up the tongs and pushed the crucible I was tending a bit deeper into the flames.
'Sometimes,' grumbled Chade, 'it is better to be defiantly wrong than silent. Look, boy, if you, a mere lad, can realize that either decision is wrong, so can all folk. But at least such an edict would give us a common response. It would not be as if each village were left to lick its own wounds. And in addition to such an edict, Shrewd and Verity should take other actions.' He leaned closer to peer at the bubbling liquid. 'More heat,' he suggested.
I picked up a small bellows, plied it carefully. 'Such as?'
'Organize raids on the Outislanders in return. Provide vessels and supplies to any willing to undertake such a raid. Forbid that herds and flocks be grazed so temptingly on the coast pastures. Supply more arms to the villages if we cannot give each one men to protect it. By Eda's plow, give them pellets of carris seed and nightshade to carry in pouches about their wrists so that if they are captured in a raid, they can take their own lives instead of being hostages. Anything, boy. Anything the King did at this point would be better than this damn indecisiveness.'
I sat staring at Chade. I had never heard him speak so forcefully, nor had I ever known him to criticize Shrewd so openly. It shocked me. I held my breath, hoping he'd say more but almost fearful of what I might hear. He seemed unaware of my stare. 'Poke that a bit deeper. But be careful. If it explodes, King Shrewd may have himself two pocked men instead of one.' He glanced at me. 'Yes, that's how I was marked. But it might have well and truly been a pox, for how Shrewd hears me lately. 'Ill omens and warnings and cautions fill you,' he said to me. 'But I think you want the boy trained in the Skill simply because you were not. It's a bad ambition, Chade. Put it from you. There speaks the Queen's ghost with the King's tongue.'
Chade's bitterness filled me with stillness.
'Chivalry. That's who we need now,' he went on after a moment. 'Shrewd holds back, and Verity is a good soldier, but he listens to his father too much. Verity was raised to be second, not first. He does not take the initiative. We need Chivalry. He'd go into those towns, talk to the folk who have lost loved ones to Forging. Damn, he'd even talk to the Forged ones themselves ....'
'Do you think it would do any good?' I asked softly. I scarcely dared to move. I sensed that Chade was talking more to himself than to me.
'It wouldn't solve it, no. But our folk would have a sense of their ruler's involvement. Sometimes that's all it takes, boy. But all Verity does is march his toy soldiers about and weigh strategies. And Shrewd watches it happen, and thinks not of his people, but only of how to assure that Regal can be kept safe and yet readied in power should Verity manage to get himself killed.'
'Regal?' I blurted in amazement. Regal, with his pretty clothes and cockerel posturings? Always he was at Shrewd's heels, but never had I thought of him as a real prince. To hear his name come up in such a discussion jolted me.
'He has become his father's favorite,' Chade growled. 'Shrewd has done nothing but spoil him since the Queen died. He tries to buy the boy's heart with gifts, now that his mother is no longer around to claim his allegiance. And Regal takes full advantage. He speaks only what the old man loves to hear. And Shrewd gives him too much rein. He lets him wander about, squandering coin on useless visits to Farrow and Tilth, where his mother's people fill Regal full of ideas of his self-importance. The boy should be kept at home and made to give some account for how he spends his time. And the King's money. What he spends gallivanting about would have outfitted a warship.' And then, suddenly annoyed: 'That's too hot! You'll lose it, fish it out quickly.'
But his words came too late, for the crucible cracked with a noise like breaking ice and its contents filled Chade's tower room with an acrid smoke that brought all lessons and talk to an end for that night.
I was not soon summoned again. My other lessons went on, but I missed Chade as the weeks passed and he did not call for me. I knew he was not displeased with me, but only preoccupied. When, idle one day, I pushed my awareness toward him, I felt only secrecy and discordance. And a wallop to the back of my head when Burrich caught me at it.
'Stop it,' he hissed, and ignored my studied look of shocked innocence. He glanced about the stall I was mucking out as if he expected to find a dog or cat lurking.
'There's nothing here!' he exclaimed.
'Just manure and straw,' I agreed, rubbing the back of my head.
'Then what were you doing?'
'Daydreaming,' I muttered. 'That was all.'
'You can't fool me, Fitz,' he growled. 'And I won't have it. Not in my stables. You won't pervert my beasts that way. Or degrade Chivalry's blood. Mind what I've told you.
I clenched my jaws and lowered my eyes and kept on working. After a time I heard him sigh and move away. I went on raking, inwardly seething and resolving never to let Burrich come up on me unawares again.
The rest of that summer was such a whirlpool of events that I find it hard to recall their progression. Overnight, the very feeling of the air seemed to change. When I went into town, all of the talk was of fortifications and readiness. Only two more towns were Forged that summer, but it seemed a hundred, for the stories of it were repeated and enlarged from lip to lip.
'Until it seems as if that is all folk talk about anymore,' Molly complained to me.
We were walking on Long Beach, in the light of the summer evening sun. The wind off the water was a welcome bit of cool after a muggy day. Burrich had been called away to Springmouth to see if he could figure out why all the cattle there were developing huge hide sores. It meant no morning lessons for me, but many, many more chores with the horses and hounds in his absence, especially as Cob had gone to Turlake with Regal, to manage his horses and hounds for a summer hunt.
But the opposite weight of the balance was that my evenings were less supervised, and I had more time to visit town.
My evening walks with Molly were almost a routine now. Her father's health was failing and he scarcely needed to drink to fall into an early and deep sleep each night. Molly would pack a bit of cheese and sausage for us, or a small loaf and some smoked fish, and we would take a basket and a bottle of cheap wine and walk out down the beach to the breakwater rocks. There we would sit on the rocks as they gave up the last heat of the day, and Molly would tell me about her day's work and the day's gossip and I would listen. Sometimes our elbows bumped as we walked.
'Sara, the butcher's daughter, told me that she positively yearns for winter to come. The winds and ice will
