‘Perhaps. But I don’t think so. As I told Dutiful, we must assume the worst, and there draw our lines of defence. And our best defence may be to free the dragon that you have wakened.’ He knit his brows, pondering it, but then seemed to find his piles of powder more interesting. ‘We will think more on it when Icefyre is freed.’
I feared that Tintaglia’s command had sunk deep into his mind. I wanted to believe Chade was thinking clearly, but I was not confident of it.
Longwick came first with the kettles, and then Dutiful with the containers of varying sizes. As soon as he had what he wanted, Chade sent them back to the excavation site, with orders to be sure the six holes he had ordered dug alongside the dragon were progressing. I wondered if he merely intended to keep the Prince busy. Chade seemed very picky to me as he sorted through the containers, first selecting the vessels to hold the powder, making sure of the tightness of the stoppers or lids, and then matching them to their fire pots. I offered to help him but he refused. ‘Eventually, I will devise the perfect container for my powder. It must be one that will yield to fire, but not too swiftly, for whoever sets fire to it must have time to move away. It should be tight enough to keep out moisture, if the powder is to be safely stored in it. And it must be one that can be filled cleanly, with no residual powder clinging to the outside. Eventually, I will fashion a better way to ignite it …’
He was now completely focused on what he was doing, a master still puzzling out his new invention, unwilling to trust it to his journeyman’s hands. I withdrew from him a small way, sitting on Dutiful’s pallet next to a silent Burrich. He seemed deep in his own thoughts. I still felt a terrible sense of urgency, a desire for it all to be over. I could not decide if Tintaglia had imprinted me with a command, or if it was my agony over the Fool. I could not keep my thoughts from turning to him. I tried not to wonder what he might be enduring, or if he was past enduring anything. The dragon’s touch seemed to have restored my Skill, yet when I groped for my silk-thin Skill-bond with the Fool, I could not feel him. It frightened me. ‘I’m doing what you wanted me to do,’ I promised the Fool quietly. ‘I’ll try to get the dragon free.’
Chade, absorbed in his sorting and loading of the powder vessels, did not appear to hear me, but Burrich did. Perhaps it is as they say, and his fading sight had sharpened his other senses. He set his hand to my shoulder. Perhaps if Web had never spoken of it, I would never have noticed it. But he was right. I felt Burrich’s calm flow into me. It was not his thoughts that reached me, but a sense of connection with his being. It did not match the strength of a Wit-bond between man and animal, and yet it was there. He spoke quietly. ‘You’ve been doing that for a long time, boy. Doing what others wanted you to do. Taking on tasks no one else wanted.’ It was a statement, not a judgment.
‘So did you.’
He was quiet a moment. Then, ‘Yes. That’s true. Like a dog that needs a master, I believe someone once told me.’
The cutting words I had once flung at him now brought bitter smiles to both of us. ‘Perhaps that has been true for me as well,’ I admitted.
We both sat still and silent for a time, finding a moment of respite in the eye of the storm all around us. Outside, I could hear the muffled noises of the working men. Their voices came distantly through the cold. I heard the dull ring of metal tools against ice, and the deeper thuds of chunks of ice flung into the wooden bottomed sleds. Closer to hand, Chade muttered to himself and scraped his powder into precise loads. I felt for the dragon, and he was there, but my Wit-sense of him was dimmed as if he conserved his strength and now would do no more for himself than remain alive and await rescue. Burrich’s hand was still on my shoulder. I suddenly suspected that, just as I did, he quested out toward the dragon.
‘What will you do about Swift?’ I asked Burrich, before I was even aware I was going to speak.
Burrich spoke almost casually. ‘I’ll take my son home. Try to raise him to be an upright man.’
‘You mean, not to use his Wit.’
Burrich made a noise that might have been an assent or a request to drop the topic. I couldn’t.
‘Burrich, all those years in the stables, all your gift for healing and calming and training animals. Was that the Wit? Did you have a bond with Vixen?’
He took his time answering me. Then, he gave me a question instead. ‘What you are really asking me is, did I do one thing and demand another of you?’
‘Yes.’
He sighed. ‘Fitz. I’ve been a drunk. It was nothing I ever wished to see you or my sons become. I’ve given in to other appetites, knowing well that no good could come of it. I am a man, and human. But that doesn’t mean that I would condone or encourage those things in my boys. Would you? Kettricken told me that you had a foster son. I was glad to hear that you had not been entirely alone. But did raising him not teach you something about yourself? That the faults you find abhorrent in yourself are even more horrifying when you see your son manifest them?’
He had summed it up too neatly. But I still took him round to the jump again, asking him, ‘Did you use the Wit when you were Stablemaster?’
He took a breath and said shortly, ‘I chose not to.’ I thought that was all he would say, but a short time later, he cleared his throat and said, ‘But it is as Nighteyes said long ago. I could choose not to reply, but I could not choose to be deaf to them. I know what the hounds called me. I’ve even heard it from your own lips. Heart of the Pack. I knew what they called me and I was aware of their … regard for me. I could not conceal from them that I was aware of them, when they cried back to me of the joy of the hunt as they gave tongue to the chase. I shared that joy, and they knew it.
‘Long ago, you told me you did not choose Nighteyes. That he chose you and bonded to you and gave you little choice in the matter. So it was with Vixen and me. She was a sickly pup, the runt of an otherwise hearty litter. But she had … something about her. Tenacity. And a mind to find a way around every obstacle. It was not to her mother that she whimpered when her brothers pushed her aside from the nipple, but to me. What was I to do? Pretend I could not hear her plea for a fair share, for a chance at life? So, I saw that she had a chance at the milk. But by the time she was large enough to fend for herself, she had attached herself to me. And in time, I admit, I came to rely on her.’
On some level, I had known it. I don’t know why I wanted him to admit it. ‘Then you did forbid me what you yourself did.’
‘I suppose I did.’
‘Have you any idea how unhappy you made me?’