Perhaps the most positive outgrowth of it was that Chade agreed that in spring he would arrange a Calling after the old tradition, and that from among those who came, we would select Skill-candidates who would be trained according to the careful procedures outlined in the scrolls.
Despite my duties, winter dragged for me. The day after the wedding, Molly and five of her sons had departed Buckkeep. She did not bid me farewell in any way. I bled inside for three days and then, lacking all other advisors in matter of the heart, took my sorry account of my foolishness to Patience and Lacey. They listened carefully, praised my courage and honesty, condemned my stupidity, and then revealed that Molly had already told them the whole story. After chiding me for rushing in just as they had warned me not to do, Patience announced that I had best return to Tradeford with her for the winter, to keep myself busy and to give Molly some time. I narrowly begged my way out of that. Yet bidding them farewell was difficult for me, and I promised I would come to visit before the year was out.
‘If we’re still alive,’ Patience conceded cheerfully. They promised to send me a monthly missive along with the report of the holdings that they sent to the Queen, and I promised to do likewise. I watched them set forth, mounted on horses amidst the guard the Queen had insisted on sending with them, for despite their years they both disdained the comforts of a litter. I stood in the road, staring after them until a curve in the road took them out of sight.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Ever After
Let the Calling be announced well in advance, for people deserve a warning before the Skill-magic touches them for the first time. A Calling issued with no warning can induce great fear, for some who hold the potential for Skill will not know what it is, and fear that madness or worse has come upon them. So let riders be sent out well ahead of time. But do not tell when the exact day of the Calling will go forth. In the past, much time has been wasted trying to wake the Skill in some who came to Buckkeep, claiming to have heard the Call, when in fact all they wished to do was escape a life as farmers or bakers or rivermen.
Let the strongest Coterie in the keep issue the call, making it as far reaching as possible. A Calling should be held no more often than every fifteen years.
Treeknee’s On the Calling of Candidates
I tried. But I could not help myself.
One month after Patience had departed, I gave in to an impulse. I sent a large pot of preserved wintergreen berries to Molly. I approached Riddle to act as my messenger. He seemed surprised that I even asked if he were busy, commenting that he had been told several weeks ago to consider himself at my disposal. Chade had undertaken a number of small changes on my behalf since I’d begun to take a more active role in Farseer matters. The pretence that I was an ordinary member of the Prince’s Guard was fading, replaced with the unseen acceptance that I served the royal family in more confidential ways. Nominally, I was still Tom Badgerlock but I seldom wore the livery of a guard any more, and the fox pin rode always on my breast.
Riddle seemed bemused by the errand I gave him but carried the gift and delivered it nonetheless.
‘What did she say?’ I asked him anxiously when he returned.
He looked at me blankly. ‘She said nothing to me. I gave it to the lad who came to the door. But I told him it was for his mum. Isn’t that what you wanted me to do?’
I hesitated, and then said, ‘Yes. That was exactly right. Yes.’
The next month, I sent a missive saying that I thought Nettle was doing very well with her studies and becoming more comfortable at court. I told the family that Web had sent a bird to inform us that he and Swift would likely winter with the Duke and Duchess of Bearns. Web seemed well pleased with the boy, and I thought Molly would wish to know they were well and doing fine. My letter spoke only of her children. Along with the missive, I sent two jumping jacks and a carved bear and a sack of horehound candies.
Riddle’s report from that delivery was slightly more encouraging. ‘One of the little fellows said horehound was good, but not as good as peppermint.’
The next month, a sack of horehound and a sack of peppermint candies, as well as nuts and raisins accompanied my letter about Nettle. That won me a brief reply from Molly, written on the bottom of my own letter, saying she welcomed news of Nettle but would I kindly stop attempting to make the boys sick with sweets.
My next month’s letter duly reported on Nettle and gave news of Swift, who had taken the blotch-fever along with all the other youngsters at Ripplekeep in Bearns, but had recovered well and seemed none the worse for it. The Duchess herself had taken an interest in the lad and was teaching him much about hawks. Personally, I wondered how much, but left that speculation out of my letter. Instead of sweets, I sent two pouches of baked clay marbles, an exceptionally nice hoofpick in a leather sheath and two wooden practice-swords.
Riddle was amused to report that Hearth had clouted Just with one of swords before he had even got off his horse, and refused to trade with Nimble for the bag of marbles that had been intended for him. I took it as a good sign that Riddle knew the boys by name now, and that they had all come out of the house to greet him.
The note from Molly was less heartening. Just had suffered a considerable lump to the back of his head, for which she blamed me. The boys had also been disappointed at the lack of sweets with the letter, for which she also blamed me. The letters were welcome but I should stop disrupting her family with inappropriate gifts. There was also a note from Chivalry, stiffly thanking me for the hoofpick. He asked if I knew of a source of saff oil, for one of the mares had a stubborn infection in one hoof and he thought he recalled his father using saff oil.
I did not wait a month. I found saff oil immediately, and sent it back to Chivalry, with instructions to wash out all her hooves with vinegar, move her into a different stall and then apply saff oil to all four hooves, inside and out. I further suggested that he put a good bed of hearth ash down in her old stall and leave it there for three days before sweeping it out and then mopping the stall with vinegar and letting it dry well before stabling any other horses in it. And with the saff oil and letter to Chivalry, I defiantly sent barley-sugar sticks, with the request that he ration them out so that no one suffered from bellyaches.
He returned a note, thanking me for the oil and saying he had forgotten about the vinegar portion of the remedy. He asked if I knew the correct proportions for a certain liniment that Burrich used to make, for his attempt at it had come out too runny. And he assured me that the barley sugar would only be distributed as it was earned. Molly sent a note, but it was clearly marked To Nettle.