‘That was as bad as the boat,’ he said accusingly.
‘But much shorter,’ I told him. ‘Much shorter a time.’
Despite my reassurances, it was some while before we recovered and got to our feet. It was a goodly hike from the Witness Stones to the gates of Buckkeep Castle, and Thick was puffing and complaining long before we got there. The frozen Elderling city and the trip through the pillars seemed to have disoriented him and wearied him. I felt cruel as I hurried him along, tempting him with promises of wonderful food, cold ale and a warm soft bed. The rising sun lent light to us to avoid most tumbles. Before he had gone far, I was carrying Thick’s pack and then his cloak and hat. He would have shed more clothing if I had let him. By the time we reached the gates, we were sweating in our winter clothes on a fair morning.
I think the guards recognized Thick before they did me. I was unshaven and unkempt. I told them we’d been sent home early on a filthy Outislander coastal trader, and that it had been a miserable trip and we were glad to be home. Thick was only too glad to enlarge on my poor opinion of boats. The guards at the gates were full of questions, but I told them that we’d been sent home some time ago and that it had taken us far too long to get here, and that I’d been ordered to report to the Queen before I shared any gossip. They let us through.
It was mostly serving folk and guards up and about at that hour. I got Thick no further than the kitchens. The men in the guardroom had learned to tolerate the Prince’s pet. They would jest with him, roughly, and listen to his tales and measure them by their own. Any brag he made of dragons or magic pillars or Black Men would be taken with a large grain of salt there. I knew I had to leave him and it was perhaps the safest place in the keep for him. Besides, I suspected that his mouth would be too full for much talk. I left him there with a hot meal and the admonition that as soon as he was finished eating, he should either go to bed in his room or seek out Sada, bathe, and let her know, emphatically, that no one on our voyage had died of seasickness.
I took a roll of fresh bread with me and devoured it on my way to the barracks. The warm summer air seemed laden with scent after my long weeks in the cold. Our guards’ section of the long, low barrack house was dusty and deserted. I rid myself of my heavy woollen clothes. I longed to stop to wash and shave, but instead simply pulled on a fresh guard’s uniform. I longed even more to fall face down on my bed there but knew that I needed to see the Queen as soon as possible. I knew, too, that she would not be expecting me yet.
I found my way to the hall that led to the larders and storage rooms for the kitchen. When no one else was in sight I entered the storage room that had the cupboard with the false back in it. It was also where the hams and smoked sausages were stored, and I helped myself to a sausage before I closed the false door behind me and began my weary ascent of the dark stairs. I went by touch, feeling my way, for the steps were pitch black. I had finished my sausage by the time I reached the entry to Chade’s tower room. I opened the door and stepped in.
Darkness and a musty smell greeted me. I encountered the worktable with my hip, cursed the bruise and then groped my way to the hearth. I found the tinderbox on the end of the mantel. When I finally had a tiny flame going in the neglected hearth, I quickly lit the half-burnt candles from the mantel candelabrum to give me some light. I fed up the fire, more for light than warmth. The room was dismal, dusty and dank after weeks with no fire in the hearth. The flames would freshen the air.
I was aware of Gilly an instant before he burst into the room from one of his own hiding places, full of enthusiasm at the thought that the sausage-bringers had finally returned. When he discovered that I had only the smell and a lick or two of grease on my fingers, he gave me a nip of rebuke and tried to climb up my leg.
‘Not now, friend. I’ll bring you treats later. First, I must see the Queen.’ I hastily smoothed my hair back into a short warrior’s tail. I wished there was time to do better, but I knew Kettricken would tolerate my unkempt appearance more than she would my dawdling to change it. I entered the secret corridors and made my way to the door that gave onto the Queen’s privy room and thence to her private sitting room. I paused to listen carefully at the door before I opened it, not wishing to walk in on her if she had any company. I nearly fell when Kettricken jerked the door open.
‘I heard your footstep. I’ve been waiting for you, oh, it seems like the entire day. I am so glad you are home, Fitz. So glad to see someone to whom I may speak freely.’
Kettricken was not the calm and rational queen I knew. She looked haggard and anxious. The usually serene room was almost disorderly. The wicks of the white candles that burned on her low table needed trimming, and a forgotten wine-glass, still a quarter full, idled on the table. There was a pot of tea on the table and cups for us, with a crumble of tea herbs spilled beside it. Two scrolls relating to the Out Islands and their customs were on the corner of the table.
Later, I would discover that it was not just the sporadic and cryptic reports that Chade and Dutiful had sent her through Nettle that had frayed her, but a civil uprising between Old Blood and Piebalds that had erupted in the Six Duchies in our absence. For the last three weeks, she had dealt with murders and retaliations followed by more slaughter. Although there had been no killings reported in the last six days, she still dreaded a knock at her chamber door and a messenger’s baton presented to her. It was ironic that she had forced a measure of tolerance for the Witted on her nobles, only to have the Witted turn on one another.
But that was not discussed that morning. She begged a full report of me, so that she might have a better foundation for the decisions Dutiful and Chade were demanding from her. I obediently began it, only to have her interrupt with questions of how my first encounter with the Hetgurd related to what was happening now, and whether I thought Elliania’s people would resent our taking of her to be our queen and whether Elliania herself came willingly to Dutiful’s side.
After the fifth such interruption, she caught herself. ‘I am sorry.’ She had seated herself on a low bench beside the table. I could see her frustration that I had not been a witness to the party’s return to Aslevjal and Elliania’s mothershouse. I could not give her my view of the Outislander reactions to the dragon, for I had not seen them.