“Or the father of a stolen and murdered child.”
So he described me, and for a moment my pain and my fury were one emotion. I did not speak but I felt that thin shiver of awareness between us. And he replied to that.
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
Later that day I tapped at Chade’s door, and when no one answered, I slipped inside. He was dozing in a cushioned chair before the fire with his stocking feet up on a stool. I stepped to the door of his bedchamber, expecting to find some attendant there, Shine or Steady or a Skill-apprentice.
“We’re alone. For once.”
I startled at his words and turned to look at him. He had not opened his eyes. “Chade?”
“Fitz.”
“You sound much better than the last time I saw you. Almost like your old self.”
He drew a deeper breath and opened his eyes. Awake, he looked more aged than he had asleep. “I am not better. I cannot Skill. Nothing in my body feels right anymore. My joints ache and my stomach seems angry no matter what I eat.” He stared at his feet, propped up in front of the fire. “It’s all catching up with me, my boy. All the years.”
I do not know what made me do it. I went to his chair and sat on the floor beside it, as if I were eleven again and he my master. He set his bony hand on my head and ruffled my hair. “Oh, my boy. My Fitz. There you are. Now. When are you leaving?”
He knew. And for that moment, he was Chade as he had been always to me, knowing everything. It was a relief to speak to someone who understood me from the bones out. “As soon as I can. I’ve waited for weather, I’ve gathered my information and regained my Skill. I’ve tightened my muscles and renewed some skill with a blade. So much time I had to waste.”
“Sharpening your knife is never a waste of time. You’ve finally learned that. Not an apprentice any longer, nor even a journeyman. This makes you a master.”
“Thank you,” I said quietly and was surprised at the heart I took from his words. “I’ll have to go part of the way by the pillars, and from there I’ll have to travel overland, and then take a ship. It will be a very long journey.”
He nodded. His hand still rested on my head. “My son wants to go with you,” he said quietly.
“Lant?”
“Yes. He has spoken of it to me often, when he thought he was talking to my empty shell. He wants to go. And I want him to as well. Take him with you. Let him prove himself to himself and bring him back to me a man.”
“Chade, I can’t. He’s not …”
“He’s not like us. He lacks our capacity for hate. Or vengeance. He was appalled at what befell his so-called stepmother, but it had to be done. I know that, but he can’t see it. He would have gone to her and promised that he would make no claim on Vigilant’s estates. He believed he could calm her.” Chade shook his head. “He doesn’t recognize evil, even when it’s delivered a rib-cracking beating to him. He’s a good man, Fitz. Probably better than either of us. But he doesn’t feel as if he’s a man. Take him with you.”
“I don’t understand why he’d want to go.”
Chade gave a huff of laughter. “You are as close as he has to an elder brother. And who was my boy before he was? The tales I told of that nameless boy fired him with rivalry and with a desire to be like him. And be liked by him. In his early training, I made you the rival for my regard that he could never best. The one he determined he would equal. He longed to step up, to be in our company. Then he met you, and he failed. And failed again, and again. Fitz. I cannot give him what he seeks. I know you mean to go alone. That would be a mistake. Trust me in this, and take Lant. Until he wins your regard, he has none for himself. So take him. Let my son prove himself a man to you and to himself. Let both of you set aside all rivalry and jealousy.”
Jealousy? I felt no jealousy of that pup! But it was easier not to dispute that with Chade. I did not want to take Lant and I knew I could not take him, but I didn’t say no to Chade. For this moment, he was my old mentor as he had always been. I wanted no quarrel with him, not when I feared it might be my last conversation with him. I shifted our focus. “Have you been feigning illness all this time?”
“No. Only sometimes. It suits me to seem weak. Fitz, I don’t trust Rosemary. She has convinced Dutiful that he does not need assassins such as you and me. She’s been letting all my nets unravel. All my informants have gone unpaid, and unable to report to me. Everything I built, all those years. It’s falling apart.”
“Chade, I still have to go. I cannot stay here and take up your webs.”
“Heh!” He laughed and I looked up to see him smiling fondly at me. “As if you could. As if anyone could. No, Fitz. I’m failing and I know it. And no one will come after me. The time for such as me is past. No, I do not ask that you stay and take up my work. Go and do what you must.”