they could be rafted down to Turlake, and thence down the Buckriver to Buckkeep. They arrived by midwinter and were all Rurisk had said they would be. The first completed warship was named after him. I think he would have understood that, but not quite approved of it.
King Shrewd's plan had succeeded. It had been many years since Buckkeep had had a queen of any kind, and Kettricken's arrival stirred interest in court life. The tragic death of her brother on her wedding eve, and the brave way she had continued despite it captured the imagination of the people. Her unmistakable admiration for her new husband made Verity a romantic hero even to his own folk. They were a striking couple, with her youth and pale beauty setting off Verity's quiet strength. Shrewd displayed them at balls that attracted every minor noble from every Duchy, and Kettricken spoke with intense eloquence of the need for all to band together to defeat the Red- Ship Raiders. So Shrewd raised his monies, and even in the storms of winter, the fortification of the Six Duchies began. More towers were constructed, and folk volunteered to man them. Shipwrights vied for the honor of working on the warships, and Buckkeep Town was swollen with volunteers to man the ships. For a brief time that winter, folk believed in the legends they created, and it seemed the Red-Ships could be defeated by sheer will alone. I mistrusted that mood, but watched as Shrewd promoted it, and wondered how he would sustain it when the realities of the Forgings began again.
Of one other I must speak, one dragged into that conflict and intrigue only by his loyalty to me. To the end of my days, I will bear the scars he gave me. His worn teeth sank deeply into my hand several times before he managed to drag me from that pool. How he did it, I will never know. But his head still rested on my chest when they found us; his mortal bonds to this world had broken. Nosy was dead. I believe he gave his life freely, recalling that we had been good to one another when we were puppies. Men cannot grieve as dogs do. But we grieve for many years.
EPILOGUE
“YOU ARE WEARIED,' my boy says. He is standing at my elbow and I do not know how long he has been there. He reaches forward slowly, to lift the pen from my lax grip. Wearily I regard the faltering trail of ink it has tracked down my page. I have seen that shape before, I think, but it was not ink then. A trickle of drying blood on the deck of a Red-Ship, and mine the hand that spilled it? Or was it a tendril of smoke rising black against a blue sky as I rode too late to warn a village of a Red-Ship raid? Or poison swirling and unfurling yellowly in a simple glass of water, poison I had handed someone, smiling all the while? The artless curl of a strand of woman's hair left upon my pillow? Or the trail a man's heels left in the sand as we dragged the bodies from the smoldering tower at Sealbay? The track of a tear down a mother's cheek as she clutched her Forged infant to her despite his angry cries? Like Red-Ships, the memories come without warning, without mercy. 'You should rest,' the boy says again, and I realize I am sitting, staring at a line of ink on a page. It makes no sense. Here is another sheet spoiled, another effort to set aside.
'Put them away,' I tell him, and do not object as he gathers all the sheets and stacks them haphazardly together. Herbary and history, maps and musings, all a hodgepodge in his hands as they are in my mind. I can no longer recall what it was I set out to do. The pain is back, and it would be so easy to quiet it. But that way lies madness, as has been proven so many times before me. So instead I send the boy to find two leaves of carryme, and ginger root and peppermint to make a tea for me. I wonder if one day I will ask him to fetch three leaves of that Chyurdan herb.
Somewhere, a friend says softly, 'No.'
