‘Time. Time is the only thing we have, when all is said and done, and yet we never have enough of it. You can be calm about it; you’ve had as much of magic as you’ve ever wanted, and more, all your life. While I’ve had to claw and scratch for a tiny shred of it at the end of my days. Where is the justice of fate, when a half-wit has in abundance and values not at all that which I so desperately lack?’ He turned on me. ‘Why did you always have so much Skill, bursts of it, and never wanted with your whole heart to master it as I have longed to do all my life?’
He was starting to frighten me. ‘Chade. I think this place preys on our minds, finding both our fears and our despairs. Set your walls against it, and trust only your logic.’
‘Humph. I have never been prey to my emotions. But this time would be better spent in rest than in talk, by either of us. Care for Thick as best you can. I’ll watch over the Prince. He, too, seems prey to a darker mood than is usual for him.’ He rubbed his gloved hands together. ‘I’m old, Fitz. Old. And tired. And cold. I shall be glad when all of this is over and we are safely on our way home again.’
‘And I,’ I agreed heartily. ‘But I had another bit of news I wished to share with you. Odd, isn’t it? Once I thought Skilling was private and secretive. Yet, still I must seek you out to whisper to you. I don’t think Thick is ready for me to ask this favour of him. He still resents and blames me. It might come better from you or the Prince.’
‘What?’ Chade demanded impatiently. He shifted restlessly and I knew the cold was biting his skinny old bones.
‘Nettle has gone to Buckkeep Castle. I think our bird must have reached the Queen and she sent someone to Burrich. She’s gone to the castle for safety’s sake. And she knows that the threat to her is connected to our quest for the dragon’s head.’ I could not quite bring myself to tell Chade that she now knew I was her father. I wanted to be clear on just how much Burrich had told her before that secret ceased being a secret.
Chade grasped the implications immediately. ‘And Thick speaks to Nettle in his dreams. We can communicate with Buckkeep and the Queen.’
‘Almost. I think we need to approach it cautiously. Thick is still not pleased with me, and might make mischief if he knew it would upset me. And Nettle is angry with me, also. I cannot reach her directly, and I don’t know how much heed she would give to messages from me that went through Thick.’
He gave a disgruntled noise. ‘Too late you fall in with my plans for her. Fitz, I do not relish rebuking you. But if you had allowed us to bring Nettle in as soon as we knew her potential, she would never have been in danger. Nor would quarrels between you and her have crippled us in this way. Either the Prince or I could reach her instead of you, if she had been properly prepared to use her magic. We could have had communication with Buckkeep Castle all this time.’
It was childish of me. I pointed it out anyway. ‘You would probably have brought her here with us, for the sake of mustering strength for the Prince.’
He sighed, as if confronting a stubborn pupil who refused to concede a point. Which he was, I suppose. ‘As you will have it, Fitz. But, I beg you, do not charge into this development like a bull harried by bees. Let her settle at Buckkeep for a few days, while the Prince and I consult on how much she should know of who she is and how best to approach her through Thick. It may require some preparation of Thick as well.’
Relief flowed through me. I had feared that Chade would be the one to charge in like a bull. ‘I will do as you say. Go slowly.’
‘There’s a good lad,’ Chade replied absently. I knew that his thoughts had already wandered afar to how these new playing pieces could be deployed on the game board.
And so we parted for the night.
FIFTEEN
Civil
Hoquin was the White Prophet and Wild-eye his Catalyst in the years that Sardus Chif held power in the Edge Lands. Famine had ruled there even longer than Sardus Chif, and some said it was a punishment on the land because Sardus Prex, mother of Sardus Chif, had burned every sacred grove in wild mourning and fury at the Leaf God when her consort, Slevm, died of pox. Since then, the rains had all but ceased, and that was because there were no sacred leaves for the rains to wash. For the rains only fall for holy duty, not to slake the thirst of men or their children.
Hoquin believed that his call as White Prophet was to restore the fertility of the Edge Lands, and he believed that to do this, water must come. So he made his Catalyst to study water and how it might be brought to the Edge Lands, from deep wells or dug canals or prayers and offerings for rainfall. Often he asked her what she would change to bring water to her people’s lands, but never did she have an answer to please him.
Wild-eye had no care for water. She had been born in the dry years and lived in the dry years and knew only the dry years and their ways. What she cared for were thippi-fruits, the little soft-fleshed many-seeded pomes that grow low to the earth in the shelter of the claw brambles in the ravines of the foothills. When she was supposed to be at her chores, she would slip away up to the foothills and go to the bramble thickets, returning with her skirts and hair thick with claw seed and her mouth purple from thippi-fruit. This angered Hoquin the White, and often he beat her for her inattention to her duties.
Then, around their cottage, where had been only dusty earth, the claw brambles began to grow. Their tangling thorns sheltered the soil from the sun and beneath them came in the thippi-fruit vines. In the season when the thippi-fruit died back, greygrass grew, and rabbits came to live beneath the brambles and eat the greygrass. Then Wild-eye caught and cooked the rabbits for the White Prophet.
Scribe Cateren, of the White Prophet Hoquin
Despite Chade’s suggestion, I did not go immediately to my blankets. I returned to the fire, where Thick sat staring at the remaining embers and shivering as the cold of the glacier crept up into him. I rousted him from there and saw him off to bed in the tent we would share with Riddle and Hest. The tight quarters were welcome for the body warmth that would be shared. He settled in, gave a huge sigh that ended in a coughing fit, then sighed again and dropped into sleep. I wondered if he would be conversing with Nettle tonight. Perhaps in the morning I’d have the courage to ask him. For now, I’d be content knowing she was safe at Buckkeep.
I left the tent and went out under the stars. The fires had died out almost completely. Longwick would keep a few coals going in a firepot but we didn’t have enough fuel to keep them burning constantly. There was a dim light from Dutiful’s tent; probably a small lantern still burned in there. The Fool’s tent was likewise illuminated, glowing like a jewel in the night. I walked quietly over the snow to it.