I looked up at him from the floor. There was a pillow under my head, and the blanket I had brought up earlier had been tossed over me. Verity stood, leaning out of the window. He was shaking with effort, and the Skill he exerted was like battering waves I could almost feel. ‘Onto the rocks,’ he said with deep satisfaction, and whirled from the window. He grinned at me, an old, fierce grin that faded slowly as he looked down on me.
‘Like a calf to the slaughter,’ he said ruefully. ‘I should have known that you didn’t know what you were talking about.’
‘What happened to me?’ I managed to ask. My teeth chattered against each other, and my whole body shook as with a chill. I felt I would rattle my bones out of their joints.
‘You offered me your strength. I took it.’ He poured a cup of the tea, then knelt to hold it to my mouth. ‘Go slowly. I was in a hurry. Did I say earlier that Chivalry was a bull with his Skill? What must I say about myself then?’
He had his old bluff heartiness and good nature back. This was a Verity I had not seen for months. I managed a mouthful of the tea, and felt the elfbark sting my mouth and throat. My shivering eased. Verity took a casual gulp from the mug.
‘In the old days,’ he said conversationally, ‘a king would draw on his coterie. Half a dozen men or more, and all in tune with one another, able to pool strength and offer it as needed. That was their true purpose. To provide strength to their king, or to their own key man. I don’t think Galen quite grasps that. His coterie is a thing he has fashioned. They are like horses and bullocks and donkeys, all harnessed together. Not a true coterie at all. They lack the singleness of mind.’
‘You drew strength from me?’
‘Yes. Believe me, boy, I would not have, except that I had a sudden need, and I thought you knew what you offered. You yourself named yourself as a King’s man, the old term. And as close as we are in blood, I knew I could tap you.’ He set the mug down on the tray with a thump. Disgust deepened his voice. ‘Shrewd. He sets things in motion, wheels turning, pendulums swaying. It is no accident that you are the one to bring me my meals, boy. He was making you available to me.’ He took a swift turn about the room, then stopped, standing over me. ‘It will not happen again.’
‘It was not so bad,’ I said faintly.
‘No? Why don’t you try to stand then? Or even sit up? You’re just one boy, alone, not a coterie. Had I not realized your ignorance and drawn back, I could have killed you. Your heart and breath would just have stopped. I’ll not drain you like this, not for anyone. Here.’ He stopped and without effort lifted me and placed me in his chair. ‘Sit here a bit. And eat. I don’t need it now. And when you are better, go to Shrewd for me. Say that I say you are a distraction. I wish a kitchen-boy to bring my meals, from now on.’
‘Verity,’ I began.
‘No,’ he corrected me. ‘Say “my prince”. For in this, I am your prince, and I will not be questioned on it. Now eat.’
I bowed my head, miserable, but I did eat, and the elfbark in the tea worked to revive me faster than I had expected. Soon I could stand, to stack the dishes on the tray, and then to carry them to the door. I felt defeated. I lifted the latch.
‘FitzChivalry Farseer.’
I halted, frozen by the words. I turned slowly.
‘It’s your name, boy. I wrote it myself, in the military log, on the day you were brought to me. Another thing I had thought you knew. Stop thinking of yourself as the bastard, FitzChivalry Farseer. And be sure that you see Shrewd today.’
‘Goodbye,’ I said quietly, but he was already staring out of the window again.
And so high summer found us all. Chade at his tablets, Verity at his window, Regal courting a princess for his brother, and I, quietly killing for my king. The Inland and Coastal Dukes took sides at the council tables, hissing and spitting at one another like cats over fish. And over it all was Shrewd, keeping each piece of web as taut as any spider, and alert to the least thrumming of a line. The Red Ships struck at us, like ratfish on beef bait, tearing away bits of our folk and Forging them. And the Forged folk became a torment to the land, beggars or predators or a burden to their families. Folk feared to fish, to trade, or to farm the rivermouth plains by the sea. And yet the taxes had to be raised to feed the soldiers and the watchers who seemed unable to defend the land despite their growing numbers. Shrewd had grudgingly released me from my service to Verity. My king had not called for me in over a month when one morning I was abruptly summoned to breakfast.
‘It’s a poor time to wed,’ Verity objected. ‘I have no time for it. Let us be but promised for a year or so. Surely that will be enough for you.’
I looked at the sallow, fleshless man who shared the King’s breakfast table and wondered if this were the bluff, hearty prince from my childhood. He had worsened so much in just a month. He toyed with a bit of bread, set it down again. The outdoors had gone from his cheeks and eyes; his hair was dull, his musculature slack. The whites of his eyes were yellowed. Burrich would have wormed him if he’d been a hound.
Unasked, I said, ‘I hunted with Leon two days ago. He took a rabbit for me.’
Verity turned to me, a ghost of his old smile playing on his face. ‘You took my wolfhound for rabbits?’
‘He enjoyed it. He misses you, though. He brought me the rabbit, and I praised him but it didn’t seem to satisfy him.’ I couldn’t tell him how the hound had looked at me, not for you as plain in his eyes as in his bearing.
Verity picked up his glass. His hand quivered ever so slightly. ‘I am glad he gets out with you, boy. It’s better than …’
‘The wedding,’ Shrewd cut in, ‘will hearten the people. I am getting old, Verity, and the times are troubled. The people see no end to their troubles, and I do not dare promise them solutions we do not have. The Outislanders are right, Verity. We are not the warriors who once settled here. We have become a settled people – a settled people who can be threatened in ways that nomads and rovers have no care for. And we can be destroyed in those same ways. When settled people look for security, they look for continuity.’
Here I looked up sharply. Those were Chade’s words, I’d bet my blood on it. Did that mean that this wedding was something Chade was helping to engineer? My interest became keener, and I wondered again why I had been summoned to this breakfast.
‘It’s a matter of reassuring our folk, Verity. You have not Regal’s charm, nor the bearing that let Chivalry convince anyone that he could take care of any matter. This is not to slight you; you have as much talent for the Skill as I have ever seen in our line, and in many eras your soldierly skills in tactics would have been more important than Chivalry’s diplomacy.’
This sounded suspiciously like a rehearsed speech to me. I watched Shrewd pause. He put cheese and preserves on some bread and bit into it thoughtfully. Verity sat silent, watching his father. He seemed both attentive and bemused, like a man trying desperately to stay awake and be alert when all he can think of is putting his head down and closing his eyes. My brief experiences of the Skill and the split concentration it demanded to resist its enticements while bending it to one’s will made me marvel at Verity’s ability to wield it every day.
Shrewd glanced from Verity to me and back to his son’s face. ‘Putting it simply, you need to marry. More, you need to beget a child. It would put heart into the people. They would say, “well, it cannot be as bad as all that, if our prince does not fear to marry and have a child. Surely he would not be doing that if the whole kingdom were on the verge of crumbling.”’
‘But you and I would still know better, wouldn’t we, Father?’ There was a hint of rust in Verity’s voice, and a bitterness I had never heard there before.
‘Verity,’ Shrewd began, but his son cut in.
‘My king,’ he said