‘Sir!’ I was as affronted as I could manage for the terror I felt. Something groped at me angrily. I felt as if swiping claws passed through me. Some instinct warned me to leave my Skill-walls as they stood, that any effort to reinforce them now would only display me to her. For it was unmistakably a ‘she’ that sought to seize me. I took a breath. I was a servant, I reminded myself. Yet any servant of Buckkeep would have taken righteous offence at such words from a foreigner. I stood a bit straighter. ‘Our queen keeps a good cellar, sir, as all in the Six Duchies know. Perhaps it has been too good a cellar for your sensibilities. It is known to happen to foreigners here. Perhaps you should retire to your chamber for a time.’
‘You have to help us. You have to make them help us.’ He did not seem to hear my words. Desperation tinged his own. ‘She is stricken to the heart over this. Day after day, she strives to feed them but there is only one of her. She cannot feed so many, and they cannot hunt for themselves. She herself grows thin and weary with the task. She despairs that they will ever grow to proper size and strength. Do not doom her to being the last of her kind. If these Six Duchies dragons of yours are any kind of true dragons, then they will come to her aid. In any case, the least you can do is persuade your queen that she must ally with us. Help us put an end to the Chalcedean threat. Tintaglia is true to her word; she keeps their ships out of the Rain Wild River, but she can do no more than that. She dares not range further to protect us, for then the young dragons would die. Please, sir! If you have a heart in you, speak to your queen. Do not let dragons pass away from this world because men could not stop their bitter squabbling long enough to aid them.’
He stepped forward and tried to catch at my hand. I hastily retreated from him. ‘Sir, I fear you have taken too much to drink. You have mistaken me for someone of influence. I am not. I am but a servant here in Buckkeep Castle. And now I must be about my master’s errands for me. Good evening, sir. Good evening.’
And as he stared after me, I backed hastily from the room, bobbing and bowing as if my head were on a string. Once I was in the hall, I turned and strode hastily away. I know he came to the doorway and looked after me, for I felt his blue gaze on my back. I was glad to turn the corner to the kitchen wing, and gladder still to put a door between him and me.
Outside it was snowing, huge white flakes wafting down with the nightfall. I left the keep, barely nodding to the guards on duty at the gate, and began the long walk down to town. I had no set destination in mind, only a desire to be away from the castle. I hiked down through the gathering darkness and thickening snowfall. I had too much to think about: Elliania’s tattoos and what they meant, the Fool and Jek and what she believed of me because of something he had said, dragons and boys with scales and what Chade and Kettricken would say to the Bingtowners and to the Outislanders. Yet the closer I came to town, the more Hap pushed into my mind. I was failing the boy I considered my son. No matter how serious the events up at Buckkeep Castle were, I couldn’t let them displace him. I tried to think how I could turn him around, make him return to his apprenticeship with a willing heart and eager hands, make him set aside Svanja until he could make an honest offer for her hand, make him take up residence with his master … make him live a tidy life, abiding by all the rules that could keep him safe but never ensure him success or happiness.
I thrust that last traitor thought aside. It angered me and I turned the anger on my boy. I should do as Jinna had suggested. I should take a firm line with him, punish him for disobeying my wishes for him. Take away both money and security until he agreed to do as I wished. Turn him out of Jinna’s and tell him he must live with his master or fend for himself. Force him to toe the line. I scowled to myself. Oh, yes, that would have worked so well on me at that age. Yet something must be done. Somehow, I had to make him see sense.
My thoughts were interrupted by the hoofbeats of a horse on the road behind me. Instantly, Laurel’s warning leapt foremost in my mind. I moved to one side as the horse and rider came abreast of me and set my hand lightly to my knife. I expected them to pass me without comment. It wasn’t until the horse was reined in that I recognized Starling in the saddle. For a moment, she just looked down on me. Then she smiled. ‘Get up behind me, Fitz. I’ll give you a ride down to Buckkeep Town.’
The heart will flee anywhere when it is seeking comfort. I knew that and kept a rein on mine. ‘Thank you, but no. This road can be treacherous in the dark. You’d be risking your horse.’
‘Then I’ll lead him and walk beside you. It has been so long since we talked, and I could use a friendly ear tonight.’
‘I think I would prefer to be alone tonight, Starling.’
She was silent for a moment. The horse jigged restlessly and she pulled him in too tightly. When she spoke, she did not hide her irritation. ‘Tonight? Why do you say tonight when you mean, “I’d always prefer to be alone rather than with you”? Why do you make excuses? Why don’t you just say that you haven’t forgiven me, that you’ll never forgive me?’
It was true. I hadn’t. But that would have been a stupid thing to tell her. ‘Can’t we just let it go? It doesn’t matter any more,’ I said, and that was true as well.
She snorted. ‘Ah. I see. It doesn’t matter. I don’t matter. I make one mistake, I fail to tell you one thing that doesn’t really concern you at all, and you decide you can not only never forgive me, but that you will never speak to me again?’ Her fury was building in an astounding way. I stood looking up at her as she ranted. The failing light touched her face indistinctly. She looked older and wearier than I had ever seen her. And angrier. I stood stunned in the flow of her wrath. ‘And why is that, I ask myself? Why does “Tom Badgerlock” dispose of me so easily? Because perhaps I never mattered at all to you, save for one thing. One convenient little thing that I brought right to your door for you, one thing that I thought we shared in friendship and fondness and yes, even love. But you decided you don’t want that from me any more, so you throw all of me aside. You make that the whole of what we shared, and discard me with it. And why? I confess, I’ve given much more thought to it than I should. And I think I’ve found the answer. Is it because you’ve found another place to quench your lusts? Has your new master taught you his Jamaillian ways? Or was I wrong, all those years ago? Perhaps the Fool was truly a man, and you’ve simply gone back to what you preferred all along.’ She jerked her horse’s head again. ‘You disgust me, Fitz, and you shame the Farseer name. I’m glad you’ve given it up. Now that I know what you are, I wish I had never bedded with you. Whose face did you see, all those times when you closed your eyes?’
‘Molly’s, you stupid bitch. Always Molly’s.’ It was not true. I had not played that cheat on her or myself. But it was the most hurtful reply I could think of to insult her. She did not, perhaps, deserve it. And it shamed me that I would use Molly’s name that way. But my festering anger had finally found a target this evening.
She took several deep breaths, as if I had doused her with cold water. Then she laughed shrilly. ‘And no doubt you mouth her name into your pillow as your Lord Golden mounts you. Oh, yes, that I can imagine well. You’re pathetic, Fitz. Pathetic.’
She gave me no chance to strike back, but spurred her horse cruelly and galloped off into the snowy night. For a savage instant, I hoped the beast would stumble and that she would break her neck.
Then, just when I needed that fury most, it deserted me. I was left feeling sick and sad and sorry, alone on the night road. Why had the Fool done this to me? Why? I resumed my trudge down the road.
Yet I did not go to the Stuck Pig. I knew I wouldn’t find Hap or Svanja there. Instead I went to the Dog and Whistle, an ancient tavern I had once frequented with Molly. I sat in the corner and watched patrons come and go and drank two tankards of ale. It was good ale, far better than I’d been able to afford when Molly and I last sat here. I drank and I remembered her. She, at least, had loved me true. Yet comfort in those memories