‘He said, “Truly, lady, I do not know. But my queen’s will is that her son shall not bed with you until you have stood before her and her nobles in her house, and proclaimed that you are satisfied he is worthy of you.”’
‘And did she accept that?’
‘Not graciously.’ The Prince was obviously flattered by his bride-to-be’s eagerness. ‘But Chade has extracted a promise from me that I will act with restraint. Not that Elliania has made that easy for me. Ah, well. So I sail on the Bear ship and she on the Boar. Chade will be on the Boar, and we think Thick, for the Outislanders have made much of him and his Eda’s Hands. So. Which one for you? Come on the Bear. You can be with Burrich and Swift and me.’
‘Neither ship will I board. But I’m glad to hear you’ll be on the Bear ship with Swift. This is a hard time for him. He may bear it better among friends.’
‘What do you mean, neither?’
Time to announce it. ‘I’m staying here, Dutiful. I need to go back and try to find the Fool’s body.’
He blinked, considering it, and then, in an act of understanding that warmed me, simply accepted that I had to do it. ‘I’ll stay with you, of course. And you’ll need some men, if you’re hoping to tunnel down through the dragon pit.’
It touched me, that he did not argue the necessity of it, and that he offered to delay his own triumph. ‘No. You go on. You’ve a Narcheska to claim and an alliance to create. I’ll need no one, for I’m hoping to go back in where Riddle and the others came out.’
‘That’s a fool’s errand, Fitz. You’ll never find it again. I listened to Riddle’s answers as closely as you did.’
I smiled at his choice of words. ‘Oh, I think I will. I can be tenacious about things like this. All I ask is that you leave me what food you can spare and any extra warm clothing you have. It may take me some time to accomplish this.’
He looked uncertain at those words. ‘Lord FitzChivalry, forgive me for saying this, but this may be a rash risk of yourself, for no gain. Lord Golden is beyond feeling anything. There is little chance you will find a way back in, let alone find his body. I do not think I am wise to allow this.’
I ignored his final statement. ‘And that is another thing. You will be going back to enough chaos. You scarcely need Lord FitzChivalry’s resurrection in the midst of it. I suggest that you meet quietly with your Wit-coterie and still all their tongues about me. I’ve already spoken to Longwick. I don’t think I need worry about Riddle. Everyone else is dead.’
‘But … the Outislanders know who you are. They’ve heard you called by that name.’
‘And it has no significance for them. They won’t recall my true name any more than I can recall Bear’s or Eagle’s. I’ll simply be the crazy one who stayed on the island.’
He threw his hands wide in a gesture of despair. ‘And we are still back to you remaining on this island. For how long? Until you starve? Until you find that your quest is as futile as mine was?’
I pondered it briefly. ‘Give me a fortnight,’ I said. ‘A fortnight from now, arrange for a boat to come back here for me. If I haven’t succeeded in a fortnight, I’ll give it up and come home.’
‘I don’t like this,’ he grumbled. I thought he would argue further, but then he countered with, ‘A fortnight. And I won’t wait to hear from you, so do not Skill to me to beg for more time. In a fortnight, there will come a boat to this beach to take you off. And regardless of your success or failure, you will meet it and board it. Now, we have to hurry, before they’ve finished loading everything.’
But in the end, that was an idle fear. The crews were actually unloading things from the ships to make more room for the extra passengers. Chade grumbled and swore at my stubbornness, but in the end, he had to give way to me, mostly because I would not change my mind and everyone else was in a great rush to leave on the change of the tide.
It was still surpassing strange to stand on the shore and watch the ships borne away on the tide’s change. Heaped behind me on the beach was a miscellaneous dump of equipment. I had far too many tents and sleds for one man to use, and an adequate if very uninteresting supply of food. In the time between the ships vanishing and the fall of night, I picked through what they had left me, loading what I thought I’d actually use into my own battered old pack. I put in extra clothing, as much food as I thought I would need, and my feathers from the Others’ beach. Longwick had left me a very serviceable sword; I think it had been Churry’s. I had Longwick’s own belt-knife. The Fool’s tent and bedding I kept, setting it up for my night’s shelter, and his cooking supplies, as much because they were his as because they were the lightest to pack. Chade, I found to my amusement, had left me a small keg of his blasting powder. As if I’d risk tinkering with that again! My hearing was still not what it should have been. Yet, in the end, I did put a pot of it into my pack.
I built up a good fire for myself that night. Driftwood was not plentiful on the beach, but there was only one of me to warm, so I indulged myself. I had expected to find the peace that isolation usually brought to me. Even when my spirits were darkest, solitude and the natural world had always comforted me. But tonight, I did not feel that. The restless humming of the submerged stone dragon was like a simmering reminder of the Pale Woman’s evil. I wished there were a way to still it, to cleanse the evil carving back to honest stone again. I made up a generous pot of hot porridge for myself and recklessly sweetened it with some barley sugar that Dutiful had left for me.
I had just taken my first mouthful when I heard footsteps behind me. I choked and sprang to my feet, drawing my sword. Thick stepped into the circle of my firelight, grinning sheepishly. ‘I’m hungry.’
I swayed with the shock of it. ‘You can’t be here. You’re supposed to be on the ship, going back to Zylig.’
‘No. No boats for me. Can I have some dinner?’
‘How did you stay behind? Does Chade know? Does the Prince? Thick, this is impossible! I have things to do, important things to do. I can’t look after you right now.’
‘They don’t know yet. And I’ll look after myself!’ he huffed. I’d hurt his feelings. As if to prove he could, he went to the heap of abandoned cargo and rummaged until he came up with a bowl. I sat, staring at the flames, feeling completely defeated by fate. He came back into my firelight and sat down on a stone across from me. As he dished up more than half the porridge for himself, he added, ‘It was easy to stay. I just went with Chade, with Chade at Prince, and with Prince, with Prince at Chade. They believed me and got on the boats.’
‘And no one else noticed you were missing?’ I asked sceptically.