The Outislander nobles came next, riding borrowed horses, and looking singularly uncomfortable on them. I saw an assortment of Six Duchies nobles riding welcome among them. I recognized them more by their badges than by their faces. The Duke of Tilth was younger by far than I had expected him to be. There were two young women wearing Bearns insignia, and though I recognized the stamp of their bloodlines in their faces, I had never seen them before. And still the folk, both grand and martial, paraded past and I stood in the rain and watched them go by.
Then came the litter of Prince Dutiful’s betrothed. It floated like a tethered cloud, immense and white, borne on the shoulders of the King’s Best. The young noblemen who walked beside it bearing torches were wet and spattered with mud to the knee. The flowers and garlands that draped it looked battered by the wind and rain of the storm. It would have seemed a ominous omen, this storm-tossed litter, but for the girl inside it. The curtains of the litter were not drawn against the wind’s rough kiss, but thrown wide. The three Six Duchies ladies within looked drenched and much aware of how the rain dripped from their coiffed hair and soaked their dresses. But in their midst sat a little girl revelling in the storm. Her inky black hair was long and unbound. The rain had sleeked it to her head tight as a seal’s fur, and her eyes, too, reminded me of a seal’s, immense and dark and liquid. She stared at me as they passed me, her teeth white in an excited smile. She was, as the Prince had said, a child of eleven. She was a sturdy little thing, wide-cheeked and square-shouldered and obviously determined not to miss a moment of her journey to the castle on the hill. Perhaps to honour her intended, she was dressed in Buck blue with an odd blue ornament in her hair, but her high-collared overblouse was of fine white leather embroidered in gold with leaping narwhals. I stared back at her, thinking I had seen her before, or met someone of her house, but before I could snag the memory, the litter was borne past me and on up the hill. And still I must wait, as the rain spattered down around me, for behind her came more ranks of her own men, and ours, to honour her.
When finally all the nobility and their guards had passed, I nudged Myblack onto the well-churned road. We joined a stream of merchants and tradefolk heading up to the keep. Some bore their wares on their shoulders, wax-coated wheels of cheese or kegs of fine liquor, and some brought theirs in carts. I became a part of the flow and entered the main gate of Buckkeep with them, unremarked.
There were stable boys to take the horses, struggling hard to keep up with the flow of animals. I gave them the Prince’s dun but I told them I wanted to care for Myblack myself, and they were glad of it. It was, perhaps, a foolish chance to take. I suppose I could have encountered Hands and he might have somehow recognized me. But in the bustle of all the strangers and extra animals to stable, I did not think it likely. The stable boys directed me to take Myblack to the ‘old stable’ for that was the one allotted to servants’ mounts now. I found it was the stable of my childhood where Burrich had reigned and I had once been his right hand. The old familiar tasks of putting the horses to rights before I left her in her stall brought an odd measure of peace to my heart. The smell of animals and hay, the muted light of the spaced lanterns, and the sounds of beasts settling for the night all soothed me. I was cold and wet and tired, but here in the Buckkeep stables, I was as close to home as I had been in a long time. All had changed in the world, but here in the stables, all was very much the same.
As I trudged across the busy yard and went in at the servants’ door, the thought followed me. All had changed yet was much the same in Buckkeep. There was still the heat and clatter and chatter from the kitchens as I passed. The flagged entry to the guardroom was still muddy, and it still smelled of wet wool and spilled ale and steaming meat as I walked past the door. From the Great Hall spilled the sounds of music and laughter and eating and talk. Ladies swished past me, their maids scowling at me as if I might dare to drip on their mistresses. Outside the entrance to the Great Hall, two young lordlings were chivvying a third about a girl that he dared not speak to. The sleeves of one boy’s shirt were trimmed with black-tipped ermine’s tails, and another wore a collar so filigreed with silver rings that he scarce could turn his head. I recalled how Mistress Hasty had once tormented me with fashionable clothing, and could only pity them. The homespun on my back was coarse, but at least I could move freely in it.
Once, I would have been expected to make an appearance at such an occasion, even if I were no more than a bastard. When Verity and Kettricken had sat at the high table, I had sometimes been seated almost near them. I had dined on elaborately-cooked delicacies, made conversation with noble ladies, and listened to the Six Duchies’ finest musicians in my time as FitzChivalry Farseer. But tonight I was Tom Badgerlock, and I would have been the greatest fool in the world to regret that I walked unknown amongst such gaiety.
Swept up in remembering, almost I climbed the stair that would have led to my old chamber but I caught myself in time, and made my way up to Lord Golden’s rooms instead. I tapped and then entered. He was not there, but there were all the indications he had been. He had obviously bathed and donned fresh attire, and his hurry was evident. A box of jewellery was still out on the table, plundered of something and the rest left scattered across the polished wood. Four shirts had been tried on, then flung across the bed. Several pairs of disdained shoes cluttered the floor. I sighed, and put the room to rights, wedging two shirts back into his wardrobe, packing two others into a chest and shutting the door upon the clothing and heaped shoes. I fed the hearth fire, put fresh candles in the holders against his late return, and swept up the hearth. Then I glanced about. The pleasant room seemed suddenly terribly empty. I took a deep breath and yet again explored the space in my mind where the wolf was not. Some day, I told myself, it would feel natural for that place to be empty. But just now, I did not want to be alone with myself.
I took up a candle and went into my own dark chamber. All was exactly as I had left it. I shut the door firmly behind me, worked the catch, and began the weary climb up the narrow stairs to Chade’s tower.