‘I will have to look back in my journals,’ Chade confessed. He gave me a dark look. ‘You can’t expect an old man to have a young man’s memory. I do the best I can, Fitz.’ His reproachful look spoke volumes. If I had returned to Buckkeep, resumed my tasks at his side, I would know these vital answers. The thought brought a new question to my mind.
‘Where is your new apprentice in all this?’
He met my gaze speculatively. After a moment he said, ‘Not ready for tasks such as these.’
I met his gaze squarely. ‘Is he, perhaps, recovering from, well, from a lightning strike from a clear sky? One that exploded an unused storage shed?’
He blinked, but kept control of his face. Even his voice remained steady as he ignored my thrust. ‘No, FitzChivalry, this task belongs to you. Only you have the unique abilities needed.’
‘What, exactly, do you want of me?’ The question was as good as surrender. I had already hastened to his side at his call. He knew I was still his. So did I.
‘Find the Prince. Return him to us, discreetly, and Eda save us, unharmed. And do it while my excuses for his absence are still believable. Get him home safely to us before the Outislander delegation arrives to formalize the betrothal to their princess.’
‘How soon is that?’
He shrugged helplessly. ‘It depends on the winds and the waves and the strength of their oarsmen. They have already departed the Out Islands. We had a bird to tell us so. The formality is scheduled for the new moon. If they arrive before that and the Prince is not here, I could, perhaps fabricate something about his meditating alone before such a serious event in his life. But it would be a thin fa?ade, one that would crumble if he did not appear for the ceremony.’
I reckoned it quickly in my head. ‘That’s more than a fortnight away. Plenty of time for a recalcitrant boy to change his mind and run home again.’
Chade looked at me sombrely. ‘Yet if the Prince has been taken, and we do not yet know by whom or why, let alone how we will recover him, then sixteen days seems but a pittance of time.’
I put my head in my hands for a moment. When I looked up, my old mentor was still regarding me hopefully. Trusting me to see a solution that eluded him. I wanted to flee; I wanted never to have known any of this. I took a steadying breath. Then I ordered his mind as he had once disciplined mine. ‘I need information,’ I announced. ‘Don’t assume I know anything about the situation, because it is likely I don’t. I need to know, first of all, who gave him the cat. And how does that person feel about the Wit, and the Prince’s betrothal? Expand the circle from there. Who rivals the gift-giver, who allies with him? Who at court most strongly persecutes those with the Wit, who most directly opposes the Prince’s betrothal, who supports it? Which nobles have most recently been accused of having the Wit in their families? Who could have helped Dutiful run, if run he did? If he was taken, who had the opportunity? Who knew his midnight habits?’ Each question I formulated seemed to beget another, yet in the face of that volley, Chade seemed to grow steadier. These were questions he could answer, and his ability to answer them strengthened his belief that together we might prevail. I paused for breath.
‘And I still need to report to you the events of those days. However, you seem to be forgetting that the Skill might save us hours of talk. Let me show you the scrolls, and see if they make more sense to you than they do to me.’
I looked around me, but he shook his head. ‘I do not bring the Prince here. This part of the castle remains a secret from him. I keep the Skill-scrolls in Verity’s old tower, and it is there that the boy has his lessons. I keep the tower room well secured, and a trusted guard is always before the door.’
‘Then how am I to have access to them?’
He cocked his head at me. ‘There is a way to them, from here to Verity’s tower. It’s a winding and narrow way, with many steps, but you’re a young man. You can manage them. Finish eating. Then I will show you the way.’
TWELVE
Charms
Kettricken of the Mountains was wed to King-in-Waiting Verity of the Six Duchies before she had reached her twentieth year. Their marriage was a political expedient, part of a larger negotiation to cement an alliance of trade and protection between the Six Duchies and the Mountain Kingdom. The death of her elder brother on the eve of her wedding bestowed an unexpected benefit to the Six Duchies: any heir she now bore would inherit the Mountain crown as well as that of the Six Duchies.
Her transition from Mountain princess to Six Duchies Queen was not an easy one, yet she faced it with the acceptance of duty that is the stamp of the Mountain rulers. She came to Buckkeep alone, without so much as a lady’s maid to sustain her. She brought to Buckkeep her personal standards that required her to be ever ready to sacrifice herself in any way that her new station might demand of her. For in the Mountains, that is the accepted role of the ruler: that the King is Sacrifice for his people.
Bedel’s Mountain Queen
Night was ebbing towards morning before I made my way down the hidden stairs to seek my own bed. My head was stuffed full of facts, few of which seemed useful to my puzzle. I’d go to sleep, I decided. Somehow, when I awoke, my mind would have sorted it all out.
I reached the panel that would lead back into my bedchamber and paused. Chade had already taught me all his cautions for using these passages. Breath pent, I peered through the tiny slit in the stone. It afforded me a very narrow view of the room. I could see a candle guttering on a small table set in the centre of the room. That was all. I listened, but heard nothing. Silently I eased a lever that set unseen counter-weights into motion. The door swung open and I slipped back into my room. A nudge from me sent the door back into place. I stared at the wall. The portal was as invisible as ever.
Lord Golden had thoughtfully provided a couple of scratchy wool blankets for the narrow cot in the stuffy little room. Tired as I was, it still looked remarkably uninviting. I could, I reminded myself, return to the tower room and sleep in Chade’s magnificent bed. He no longer used it. But that prospect was uninviting in a different way. Recently used or not, that bed was Chade’s bed. The tower room, the maps and the scroll racks, the arcane laboratory and the two hearths: all of that was Chade’s, and I had no desire to make it mine by using it. This was better. The hard bed and the stuffy room were comforting reminders that my stay here was to be very brief. After a single evening of secrets and machinations, I was already weary of Buckkeep politics.