And as we once did, we hunt together.
If Prilkop had warned Capra of danger, she had not heeded him. Perhaps he had judged me too feeble to pursue my prey immediately. Perhaps he had thought her well-guarded. It was easy to find her. I ghosted through Clerres until I found a large stone building where the debris had been cleared from the street and a new roof begun. She had a few guards, but I did not have to kill any of them. The guarded doors and windows faced the street front, but I went to the back of the building. Silently, my silver hand slowly eased away old stone and mortar. I made my own entrance.
Somehow, they had found a fine bed for her. The tall wooden bedposts upheld lacy curtains. I woke her before I killed her. My grip silenced her and I whispered to her startled eyes, ‘For my Beloved and for my Bee, you die.’ It was my only indulgence. With silvered hands I strangled her. My Wit told me of her panic and pain and terror. But I killed her as if she were a rabbit. I did not delay her death, but I did look into her eyes until she was no longer behind them. I hearkened back to Chade’s earliest training. I went in, I killed, and I departed. And I took her half-eaten chicken with me.
It was delicious.
As the sun rose, I was moving parallel to the road that led away from Clerres.
FORTY-ONE
* * *
Vivacia’s Voyage
I mourn the good paper and lovely leather covers of the books my father gave to me. They are gone, sent to the bottom with all the goods and possessions of those who captained and crewed Paragon. I do not miss the writing on those pages. The journal was written by a child whom I barely recall. The dreams she wrote are irrelevant, markers on paths that no longer exist. The few that yet may be will come to pass with or without ink on a page.
New dreams now come to me, and Beloved urges me to write them down. I do not like to call him Beloved. And when I called him Fool once he flinched and the captain of this ship looked at me as if I were rude. Before others, I call him Teacher. He does not seem to mind. I will not name him Amber.
I no longer have a book, but Beloved has given me sheets of paper and a simple pen and black ink. I think he has begged these things from Captain Wintrow.
This is my first dream to record. An old tree blossoms and bears a single beautiful fruit. It falls to the ground and rolls away. It cracks open and a woman wearing a silver crown steps out of it.
I am sad that I must draw this only in black on white paper.
He has told me that he will read the dreams I write. That he must so that he can guide me. I write here what I have already told him, that he may read it again. I will not let my dreams be used to shape the world. And regardless of what he promised my father, I find it intrusive and rude that he reads my words here.
Bee Farseer’s journal
We put Clerres behind us, and I was not sorry to do so. The only tear I felt was that my father was left behind, dead and unburned, in such a horrid place.
The ship spoke in my mind the instant I set foot on the deck. Who are you? And why do you ring so strangely on my senses?
I walled my mind as well as I could, but that only spiced her interest in me. She pushed at me, and it was like being prodded in the chest with a forefinger. I don’t know why you sense me. I am Bee Farseer. I was a prisoner of the Servants in Clerres. I only want to go home.
A very strange thing happened then: I felt the ship wall me out. But it was more relief than insult.
We were a rag-tag group that boarded Vivacia. The adults had already spoken to one another while I slept. It little mattered what they had agreed upon. I was like the nut carried in the stream. I was swept along by my fate.
On board the ship, hammocks were hung for us, but there were no walls to divide us from the regular crew. I did not care. The moment my hammock was hung, I clambered into it and fell asleep. I awakened shortly after to incredulous shouts from the deck. I forced myself to roll until I fell out of the hammock. I hurried from the crew’s quarters up onto the deck, fearing the ship was being attacked.
The tide had carried some of the wreckage from old Paragon out to sea. And clinging to it was a survivor. Spark’s hopes were dashed when they hauled aboard a dazed and sunburned woman. This was Boy-O’s mother and Brashen’s wife, and she was somehow related to Captain Wintrow. The liveship thrummed with joy, the timbers vibrating. I stayed to see her brought aboard and given water, and then returned to my hammock. I cried—not with joy but jealousy—and slept again.
On this ship, Beloved became a person named Amber. I had no idea why he had so many names, or why he was now a woman. Everyone else seemed to accept it. I thought of how my father had been Tom Badgerlock as well as FitzChivalry Farseer, and perhaps I was the same. Bee Badgerlock, Bee Farseer. The Destroyer.
Bee the orphan.
Two days into our voyage, I woke to Per standing beside my hammock looking at me. ‘Is there danger?’ I asked, sitting up, and he caught me before I pitched to the deck again. It was not just the hammock. The ship was rolling.
‘No, but you have been sleeping a lot. You should get up and eat some food and move about.’
When he mentioned food, my body asserted that it was hungry, and very thirsty. He led me through the jungle of hammocks to a long table with benches alongside it. There were a few people sitting at it, finishing food. And a plate with a bowl covering it. ‘To keep it warm,’ Per told me.
It was a thick stew that smelled strange, yet was also good. Cinnamon and a creamy but sour smell. Onions and potato pieces. The meat was mutton, Per claimed, but it was not tough and stringy. Per pushed a large bowl of boiled brown seeds toward me. ‘It’s rice. They tell me it grows in a swamp and they harvest it in boats. Try it with the stew. It’s good.’
I ate until my belly felt tight and Per had scraped the bottom of the big black kettle clean. ‘Want to come out on the deck now?’ he invited, but I shook my head.
‘I want to sleep,’ I told him.
He frowned at that, but walked back to the hammock with me and helped me into it. ‘Are you sick, to sleep this much?’ he asked me.
I shook my head. ‘It’s easier than being awake,’ I told him, and closed my eyes.
I awoke again but didn’t open my eyes to hear them whispering about me. ‘But she sleeps so much. It’s all she does!’ Per, worried.
‘Let her sleep. It means she feels safe. She’s getting the rest she didn’t get the whole time they had her. And sorting things out. When I came back … when Fitz took me back to Buckkeep Castle, for many days after I spent most of my time in sleep. It’s the great healer.’