‘Stop this,’ Web said quietly as the old assassin fixed Swift with his stern stare.
‘It is nothing to do with you,’ Chade said quietly, and for the first time, I saw Web’s anger. It came as a physical bunching of his muscles and a swelling of his chest. He contained himself, but I saw how difficult it was for him. So did my prince.
‘Stop this,’ Dutiful echoed Web’s words, but he gave them the inflection of royal command. ‘Swift, be calm. I do not doubt your loyalty to me. I will not test it this way, setting one of my men to decide between what his heart says is right and what he has vowed to do. I do not judge that I can honourably lay that burden upon him. Nor is my own will certain in this.’ He swung his gaze suddenly to the Narcheska. She did not meet his gaze but gazed out over the snowy plain below us. He surprised me by going to her and standing before her. Peottre took a step as if to intervene, but Dutiful did not offer to touch her. Instead, he said quietly, ‘Will you look at me, please?’
She turned her head and lifted her chin to meet his eyes. Her face was still, save for one brief flash of defiance in her eyes. For a moment, Dutiful said nothing, as if hoping she would speak to him. All was silent save for the shushing of the wind as it stirred the old ice crystals on the glacier’s face and the crunching of snow underfoot as the men-at-arms shifted their weight in readiness. Even Thick’s humming had ceased. I spared him a glance. He looked perplexed, as if he were trying to recall something. When the Narcheska held her silence, Dutiful sighed.
‘You know more of this dragon than you have ever revealed to me. And I have never mistaken this task you have given me for a maiden’s challenge to her suitor. There is no woman’s whim in what you ask me to do, is there? Will not you tell me the greater import of this task you have laid upon me, so that I may judge what best to do?’
I thought he had won her, until he added that last phrase. I could almost feel her distress that he might flinch from doing what he had said he would. I saw her retreat from the honesty that had tempted her into a pique worthy of any court-bred young noblewoman. ‘Is it thus that you fulfil your pledges, Prince? You said you would do this thing. If it daunts you now, speak it so plainly, so all may know the moment at which your courage slipped.’
She did not have her heart in the challenge. I saw that and so did Dutiful. I think it hurt him all the more that she flogged his pride with such a merciless dare and it did not even come from her heart. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. ‘I keep my word. No. That is not the exact truth of it. I have given my word to you, and you choose to keep it. You could give it back to me and release me from this task. But you do not. So, by the honours of both my mother’s and my father’s houses, I will do what I have sworn to do.’
Web spoke. ‘This is not a stag you hunt for meat, my prince. It is not even a wolf that you slay to protect your flocks. This is a creature, as intelligent as yourself if the legends be true, that has given you no provocation to kill it. You must know –’ And then Web halted his words. Even as provoked as he was, he would not betray his prince’s secret Wit. ‘You must know what I shall now tell you. He lives, this Icefyre. How he does, I do not know, nor can I say how robust the spark that lingers in him. He flickers in and out of my awareness like a flame dying on a final coal. It may be that we have come all this way and arrived only in time to witness his passing from the world. There would be no dishonour in that. And I have travelled far enough at your side that I think it is not in you to slay any creature that lies defenceless at your feet. Perhaps you shall prove me wrong. I hope not. But,’ and here he turned to his Witted companions. ‘If we do not fulfil our prince’s request to help him locate the dragon, if we do not unearth Icefyre from this ice that grips him, I believe he will die just as surely as if our prince took his head. The rest of you may do as you will in this. But I shall not hesitate to use what magic Eda has blessed me with to discover the dragon’s prison and free him from it.’ He lowered his voice. ‘It would, of course, be much easier if you all helped me.’
During all of this, the Hetgurd contingent had held themselves apart. I stole a glance at them, and was only mildly surprised to see the Fool standing, not with them, but beside them, as if to show plainly where his loyalties lay. The Owl, their bard, had that listening look so familiar to me from my days with Starling. Every word uttered here would be fixed in his memory, to be later set in the swinging, lurching rhymes of the Outislander bard’s tongue. Speculation and dread played over the faces of the others. Then Bear, their leader, thudded a fist on his chest to draw everyone’s attention to him.
‘Do not forget us, nor forget why we are here. If it is as your wizards say, if the dragon lives but only feebly and you unearth him, we will witness that. And if this Six Duchies farmer-prince kills our dragon when he is in sickness and unwarlike, then all the wrath of every clan will fall, not just on Narwhal and Boar clans for condoning such a cowardly act, but upon the Six Duchies. If the young prince does this to make an alliance and stave off further war with the God’s Runes folk, then he must be sure that he does it in the manner agreed upon. He was to meet our dragon in fair combat, not ignobly take his head as he lies ailing. There is no honour in taking a battle-token from a warrior who is already dying and not by your own hand.’
The Fool stood silent through the Bear’s declaration, and yet something in his stance made it seem the man was his spokesman. He did not have his arms crossed on his chest, nor did he scowl forbiddingly. Instead he looked deeply at Dutiful, the White Prophet pondering the man who might be his antagonist in his quest to set the world on a better path. The look sent a chill up my back.
As if aware of my gaze on him, he suddenly turned his eyes to mine. The question in them was plain. What would I do, how did I choose? I looked away from him. I could not choose, not yet. When I saw the dragon, I thought to myself, then I would know. And a cowardly part of myself muttered, ‘If he dies before we chip him out of the ice, then all is solved, and I need never stand in opposition to Chade or the Fool.’ It was no comfort that I suspected they were both aware of that secret hope.
Peottre spoke in reply to the Bear. He said, in the weary way of a man who explains something for the hundredth time to a stubborn child, ‘The Narwhal Mothershouse accepts all consequences of this act to our own. Be it so, if the dragon rises against us and curses our descendants. If our kin and fellows turn against us, be it so. We accept we have brought it upon ourselves.’