I think Laurel assumed Lord Golden was already asleep. She lowered her voice. ‘It will take some hard riding, as well as a measure of luck. They ride assuredly, knowing where they are bound, while we must go carefully lest we lose them.’ Laurel cocked her head and studied me across the small fire. ‘How did you know when to leave the road to find their trail?’
I took a breath and chose a lie at random. ‘Luck,’ I replied quietly. ‘I had a feeling they would be going in this direction, and when I struck their trail, we followed it.’
‘And your dog had the same feeling, which is why he had gone ahead of you?’
I just looked at her. The words rose to my tongue without my volition. ‘Maybe I’m Witted.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she replied sarcastically. ‘And that is why the Queen trusts you to go after her son. Because you are one of those she most fears. You are not Witted, Tom Badgerlock. I’ve known Witted folk before; I’ve endured their disdain and snubs for folks who do not share their magic. Where I grew up, there were plenty of them, and in that place and time, they did little to conceal it. You are no more Witted than I am, though you are one of the best trackers I’ve ever ridden with.’
I did not thank her for the compliment. ‘Tell me about the Witted folk you grew up with,’ I suggested. I smoothed a wrinkle out of my blanket and lay back on top of it. I closed my eyes almost all the way, as if I were only mildly interested in her words. The moon, a paring less than full, looked down at us through the trees. At the edge of the fire’s light, Nighteyes was diligently licking himself. Laurel fussed for a moment with her own blanket, tossing small stones out from under it. Then she smoothed it to the earth and lay back on it. She was silent for a moment or two and I did not think she was going to answer me.
Then, ‘Oh, they were not so bad. Not like the tales folk tell. They did not turn into bears or deer or seals at the light of the full moon, nor did they eat raw meat and steal children. Still, they were bad enough.’
‘How?’
‘Oh,’ she hesitated. ‘It just was not fair,’ she said at last, with a sigh. ‘Imagine never being sure that you were alone, for some little bird or lurking fox might carry the eyes and ears of your neighbour. They took full advantage of their Wit, for their animal partners forever told them where the hunting was best or the berries first ripened.’
‘Were they that open that they were Witted? Never have I heard of such a village.’
‘It was not that they were open about what they were, so much as that I was excluded for what I was not. Children are not subtle.’
The bitterness of her words shocked me. I recalled, abruptly, how the rest of Galen’s coterie had treated me with disdain when I could not seem to master the Skill. I tried to imagine growing up amidst such snubbing. Then a thought intruded. ‘I thought your father was Huntsman for Lord Sitswell. Did not you grow up on his estate, then?’ I wanted to know where this place was, where Witted ones were so common their children had come to expect it of their playmates.
‘Oh. Well, but that came later, you see.’
I was not sure if she lied then, or if she had lied earlier, only that the untruth hung almost palpably between us. It made an uncomfortable silence. My mind darted amongst the possibilities. That she was Witted, that she was an unWitted child in a family with Witted siblings or parents, that she had made the whole tale up, that all of Lord Sitswell’s manor was riddled with Witted servants. Perhaps Lord Sitswell himself was of the Old Blood. Such speculation was not entirely useless. It prepared the mind to sort whatever other information she might toss my way into the appropriate possibilities. I harkened back to an earlier conversation we had had, and found a chance remark that put a chill down my back. She had said she would know these hills well, having spent time not far from Galeton, amongst her mother’s folk. Chade, too, had mentioned something of that. I tried to find a way to renew the conversation.
‘So. You sound as if you do not share the currently fashionable hatred of the Witted. That perhaps you do not wish to see them all burned and cut up.’
‘It’s a filthy habit,’ she said, and the way she said it made me feel as if fire and blade were too small a cure for it. ‘I think that parents who teach their children to indulge it should be whipped. Those that choose to practise it should not marry nor have children. They already have a beast to share their homes and lives. Why should they cheat a woman or a man by taking a spouse? Those who are Witted should have to choose, early in their lives, which they will bind to, an animal or another human. That’s all.’
Her voice had risen on the vehemence of her reply. At her last words, it dropped away, as if she suddenly recalled that Lord Golden was sleeping. ‘Good night, Tom Badgerlock,’ she added belatedly. She tried to soften her tone, perhaps, but it still plainly told me that our talk was over. As if to emphasize it, she rolled on her blanket to put her back to me.
Nighteyes rose with a groan and came stiffly to me. He lay down beside me with a sigh. I let my hand come to rest on his ruff. Our shared thoughts flowed as secretly as our blood.
She knows.
Then you think she is Witted? I asked him.
I think she knows that you are Witted, and I don’t think she likes it much.
For a time, I lay silently mulling that. But she fed you.
Oh, well, I think she likes me. It’s you she’s not sure about. Go to sleep.
Are you going to reach after them tonight?
I didn’t want to. If I succeeded, it would give me a terrible headache. The mere thought of the pain made me nauseous. Yet if I could touch the Prince, I might gain information that could help us catch up sooner. I should try.
I felt his resignation. Go ahead, then. I’ll be right here.
Nighteyes. When I Skill and afterwards … do you share the pain?
Not exactly. Though it is hard for me to remain apart from it, I can. It just feels cowardly when I do.
It’s not cowardly at all. What is the point of both of us suffering?