‘My king, the woman I speak of is presently a lady’s maid, but in her own right she is not a servant. She is …’
‘Be silent.’
It could not have been sharper if he had struck me. I was still.
Shrewd looked me up and down carefully. When he spoke, it was with the force of all his majesty. I thought I felt even the pressure of the Skill in his voice. ‘Be entirely certain of what I say to you, FitzChivalry. Brawndy is my friend, as well as my Duke. Neither he, nor his daughter, shall be offended or slighted by you. At this time, you shall court no one. No one. I suggest you consider well all you are offered when Brawndy considers you favourably as a match for Celerity. He makes no matter of your birth. Few others would do so. Celerity will have land and a title of her own. As will you, from me, if you have the wisdom to bide your time and do well by the lady. You will come to find that it is the wise choice. I will tell you when you may begin courting her.’
I summoned the last of my courage. ‘My king, please, I …’
‘Enough, Chivalry! You have heard my word on this subject. There is no more to say!’
A short time later, he dismissed me, and I went shaking from his rooms. I do not know if fury or heartbreak were the force behind my trembling. I thought again of how he had called me by my father’s name. Perhaps, I told myself spitefully, it was because in his heart he knew I would do as my father had done. I would wed for love. Even, I thought savagely, if I had to wait until King Shrewd was in his grave, for Verity to keep his word to me. I went back to my rooms. To have wept would have been a relief. I could not even find tears. Instead I lay on my bed and stared at the hangings. I could not imagine telling Molly what had just transpired between my king and me. Telling myself that not to speak was also a deception, I resolved to find a way to tell her. But not right away. A time would come, I promised myself, a time when I could explain and she would understand. I would wait for it. Until then, I would not think about it. Nor, I resolved coldly, would I go to my king unless I were summoned.
As spring drew closer, Verity arranged his ships and men as carefully as tokens on a gameboard. The watchtowers on the coast were always manned, and their signal fires kept ever ready for a torch. Such signal fires were for the purpose of alerting local citzenry that Red Ships had been sighted. He took the remaining members of the Skill coterie Galen had fashioned, and distributed them in the towers and on the ships. Serene, my nemesis and heart of Galen’s coterie, remained at Buckkeep. Privately I wondered why Verity used her there, as a centre for the coterie, rather than having each member Skill individually to him. With Galen’s death, and August’s forced retirement from the coterie, Serene had taken on Galen’s post, and seemed to consider herself the Skillmaster. In some ways, she almost became him. It was not just that she stalked Buckkeep in austere silence and wore always a disapproving frown. She seemed to have acquired his testiness and foul humour as well. The serving-folk now spoke of her with the same dread and distaste they had once reserved for Galen. I understood she had taken over Galen’s personal quarters as well. I avoided her assiduously on the days I was at home. I would have been more relieved if Verity had placed her elsewhere. But it was not up to me to question my King-in-Waiting’s decisions.
Justin, a tall, gangly young man with two years on me, was assigned as coterie member to the Rurisk. He had despised me since we had studied the Skill together, and I had failed so spectacularly at it. He snubbed me at every opportunity. I bit my tongue and did my best not to encounter him. The close quarters of the ship made that difficult. It was not a comfortable situation.
After great debate, with himself and me, Verity placed Carrod aboard the Constance, Burl at the Neatbay tower, and sent Will far north, to the Red Tower up in Bearns that commanded such a wide view of the sea as well as the surrounding countryside. Once he had arranged their tokens on his maps, it made a reality of the pathetic thinness of our defences. ‘It reminds me of the old folk tale, of the beggar who had but a hat to cover his nakedness,’ I told Verity. He smiled without humour.
‘Would that I could move my ships as swiftly as he did his hat,’ he wished grimly.
Two of the ships Verity set to duty as roving patrol vessels. Two he kept in reserve, one docked at Buckkeep, and that was the Rurisk, while the Stag anchored in South Cove. It was a pitifully small fleet to protect the Six Duchies’ straggling coastline. A second set of ships was being constructed, but it was not expected they would be finished soon. The best of the seasoned wood had been used in the first four vessels, and his shipwrights cautioned him he would be wiser to wait than to attempt to use green wood. It chafed him, but he listened to them.
Early spring saw us practising drills. The coterie members, Verity privately told me, functioned almost as well as carrier pigeons at relaying simple messages. His situation with me was a more frustrating one. For his own reasons, he had chosen not to disclose to anyone his training of me in the Skill. I believe he was enjoying the advantages of being able to go with me and observe and listen undetected to the everyday life of Buckkeep Town. I understood that the Rurisk’s master had been given word that I was to be heeded if I requested a sudden change in course or announced that we were required at a certain location immediately. I fear he saw this mostly as Verity’s indulgence of his bastard nephew, but in this he followed his orders.
Then, one early spring morning, we reported to our ship for yet another practice. We functioned well as a crew now in manoeuvring our ship. This exercise was to have us rendezvous with the Constance at an undisclosed location. It was a Skill exercise that so far we had not succeeded at. We were resigned to a frustrating day, save for Justin, who was stonily intent on succeeding. Arms crossed on his chest, dressed all in dark blue (I believe he thought the blue robe made him appear more Skilled) he stood on the dock and stared out into the thick fog that blanketed the ocean. I was forced to pass him as I put a keg of water aboard.
‘To you, Bastard, it’s an opaque blanket. But to me, all is as clear as a mirror.’
‘How unfortunate for you,’ I said kindly, ignoring his use of the word bastard. I had all but forgotten how much sting could be put into a word. ‘I’d rather see the fog than your face of a morning.’ Petty, but satisfying. I had the additional satisfaction of watching his robe bind about his legs as he boarded. I was sensibly dressed, in snug leggings, an undershirt of soft cotton, and a leather jerkin over that. I had considered some sort of mail, but Burrich had shook his head over it. ‘Better to die cleanly from a weapon’s wound than to fall overboard and drown,’ he’d advised me.
Verity had quirked a smile at that. ‘Let’s not burden him with too much overconfidence,’ he suggested wryly, and even Burrich had smiled. After a moment.
So I had abandoned any thought of mail or armour. At any rate, today would be a rowing day, and what I wore was comfortable for that. No shoulder seams to strain against, no sleeves to catch on my forearms. I was inordinately proud of the chest and shoulders I was developing. Even Molly had expressed an astonished approval. I settled into my seat, and rolled my shoulders, smiling as I thought of her. I’d had far too little time with her lately. Well, only time would cure that. Summer brought the Raiders. As the long fair days came on, I’d have even less time with her. Autumn could not come too soon for me.
We settled in, a full complement of rowers and warriors. At some moment, as ropes were cast off and the steersman took his post and the oars began their steady beat, we became one animal. It was a phenomenon I had noted before. Perhaps I was more sensitized to it, nerves abraded clean by my Skill-sharing with Verity. Perhaps it was that all the men and women on board shared a single purpose, and that for most of them it was vengeance. Whatever it was, it lent a unity to us that I had never sensed before in a group of folk. Perhaps, I thought, this was a shadow of what it was to belong to a coterie. I felt a pang of regret, of opportunities lost.
You are my coterie. Verity, like a whisper behind me. And somewhere, from the distant hills,