the only thing more intolerable than the demands were the Forgings that followed each refusal by the King.
Common folk were abandoning the seaport and waterfront towns. One could not blame them, but it left our coastline even more vulnerable. More soldiers were hired, and more, and so the levies were raised to pay them, and folk grumbled under the burden of the taxes and their fear of the Red-Ship Raiders. Even stranger were the Outislanders who came to our shore in their family ships, their raiding vessels left behind, to beg asylum of our people, and to tell wild tales of chaos and tyranny in the Out Islands, where the Red-Ships now ruled completely. They were a mixed blessing, perhaps. They were cheaply hired as soldiers, though few really trusted them. But at least their tales of the Out Islands under Red-Ship domination were harrowing enough to keep anyone from thinking of giving in to the Raiders' demands.
About a month after my return, Chade opened his door to me. I was sullen over his neglect of me and went more slowly up his stairs than ever I had before. But when I got there, he looked up from crushing seeds with a pestle with a face full of weariness. 'I am glad to see you,' he said, with nothing of gladness in his voice.
'That's why you were so swift to welcome me back,' I observed sourly.
He stopped his grinding. 'I'm sorry. I thought perhaps you would need a time alone, to recover yourself.' He looked back to his seeds. 'It has not been an easy winter and spring for me, either. Shall we try to put the time behind us, and go on?'
It was a gentle, reasonable suggestion. I knew it was wise.
'Have I any choice?' I asked sarcastically.
Chade finished grinding his seed. He scraped it into a finely woven sieve and put it over a cup to drip. 'No,' he said at last, as if he had considered it well. 'No, you don't, and neither do I. In many things, we have no choice.' He looked at me, his eyes running up and down me, and then poked at his seed again. 'You,' he said, 'will stop drinking anything but water or tea for the rest of the summer. Your sweat stinks of wine. And for one so young, your muscles are lax. A winter of Galen's meditations has done your body no good at all. See that you exercise it. Take it upon yourself, as of today, to climb to Verity's tower four times a day. You will take him food, and the teas I will show you how to prepare. You will never show him a sullen face, but will always be cheerful and friendly. Perhaps a while of waiting on Verity will convince you that I have had reasons for my attention not being centered on you. That is what you will do each day you are at Buckkeep. There will be some days when you will be fulfilling other assignments for me.
It had not taken many words from Chade to awaken shame in myself. My perception of my life crashed from high tragedy to juvenile self-pity in a matter of moments. 'I have been idle,' I admitted.
'You have been stupid,' Chade agreed. 'You had a month in which to take charge of your own life. You behaved like ... a spoiled brat. I have no wonder that Burrich is disgusted with you.'
I had long ago stopped being surprised at what Chade knew. But this time I was sure he did not know the real reason, and I had no desire to share it with him.
'Have you discovered yet who tried to kill him?'
'I haven't ... tried, really.'
Now Chade looked disgusted, and then puzzled. 'Boy, you are not yourself at all. Six months ago you would have torn the stables apart to know such a secret. Six months ago, given a month's holiday, you would have filled each day. What troubles you?'
I looked down, feeling the truth of his words. I wanted to tell him everything that had befallen me; I wanted not to say a word of it to anyone. 'I'll tell you all I do know of the attack on Burrich.' And I did.
'And the one who saw all this,' he asked when I had finished. 'Did he know the man who attacked Burrich?'
'He didn't get a good look at him,' I hedged. Useless to tell Chade that I knew exactly how he smelled, but had only a vague visual image.
Chade was quiet for a moment. 'Well, as much as you can, keep an ear to the earth. I should like to know who has grown so brave as to kill the King's stablemaster in his own stable.'
'Then you do not think it was just some personal quarrel of Burrich's?' I asked carefully.
'Perhaps it was. But we will not jump to conclusions. To me, it has the feel of a gambit. Someone is building to something, but has missed their first block. To our advantage, I hope.'
'Can you tell me why you think so?'
'I could, but I will not. I want to leave your mind free to find its own assumptions, independent of mine. Now come. I will show you the teas.'
I was more than a bit hurt that he asked me nothing about my time with Galen or my test. He seemed to accept my failure as a thing expected. But as he showed me the ingredients he had chosen for Verity's teas, I was horrified by the strength of the stimulants he was using.
I had seen little of my Verity, though Regal had been only too much in evidence. He had spent the last month coming and going. He was always just returning, or just leaving, and each cavalcade seemed richer and more ornate than the one before. It seemed to me he was using the excuse of his brother's courting to feather himself more brightly than any peacock. Common opinion was that he must go so, to impress those he negotiated with. For myself, I saw it as a waste of coin that could have gone to defenses. When Regal was gone, I felt relief, for his antagonism toward me had taken a recent bound, and he had found sundry small ways to express it.
The brief times when I had seen Verity or the King, they had both looked harassed and worn. But Verity especially had seemed almost stunned. Impassive and distracted, he had noticed me only once, and then smiled wearily and said I had grown. That had been the extent of our conversation. But I had noticed that he ate like an invalid, without appetite, eschewing meat and bread as if they were too great of an effort to chew and swallow and instead subsisting on porridges and soups.
'He is using the Skill too much. That much Shrewd has told me. But why it should drain him so, why it should burn the very flesh from his bones, he cannot explain to me. So I give him tonics and elixirs, and try to get him to rest. But he cannot. He dares not, he says. He tells me that only all his efforts are sufficient to delude the Red-Ship navigators, to send their ships onto the rocks, to discourage their captains. And so he rises from bed, and goes to his chair by a window, and there he sits, all the day.'
'And Galen's coterie? Are they of no use to him?' I asked the question almost jealously, almost hoping to hear they were of no consequence.
Chade sighed. 'I think he uses them as I would use carrier pigeons. He has sent them out to the towers, and he uses them to convey warnings to his soldiers, and to receive from them sightings of ships. But the task of defending the coast he trusts to no one else. Others, he tells me, would be too inexperienced; they might betray themselves to those they Skilled. I do not understand. But I know he cannot continue much longer. I pray for the end of summer, for winter storms to blow the Red-Ships home. Would there was someone to spell him at this work. I fear it will consume him.'
I took that as a rebuke for my failure and subsided into a sulky silence. I drifted around his chambers, finding them both familiar and strange after my months of absence. The apparatus for his herbal work was, as always, cluttered about. Slink was very much in evidence, with his smelly bits of bones in corners. As always, there was an assortment of tablets and scrolls by various chairs. This crop seemed to deal mostly with Elderlings. I wandered about, intrigued by the colored illustrations. One tablet, older and more elaborate than the rest, depicted an Elderling as a sort of gilded bird with a manlike head crowned with quillish hair. I began to piece out the words. It was in Piche, an ancient native tongue of Chalced, the southernmost Duchy. Many of the painted symbols had faded or flaked away from the old wood, and I had never been fluent in Piche. Chade came to stand at my elbow.
'You know,' he said gently, 'it was not easy for me, but I kept my word. Galen demanded complete control of his students. He expressly stipulated that no one might contact you or interfere in any way with your discipline and instruction. And, as I told you, in the Queen's Garden, I am blind and without influence.'
'I knew that,' I muttered.
'Yet I did not disagree with Burrich's actions. Only my word to my king kept me from contacting you.' He paused cautiously. 'It has been a difficult time, I know. I wish I could have helped you. And you should not feel too badly that you ...'
'Failed.' I filled in the word while he searched for a gentler one. I sighed, and suddenly admitted my pain. 'Let's leave it, Chade. I can't change it.'
'I know.' Then, even more carefully: 'But perhaps we can use what you learned of the Skill. If you can help
