Fool's Quest - Страница 41

“But,” Kettricken said, and then fell unhappily silent.

“Let people make up their own explanations.” Riddle chuckled. “I imagine many will claim to have known all along, and they will be the ones least likely to ask questions.”

I shot him a gaze of pure admiration. I looked to Chade to see him share that approval, but the old man looked distracted and displeased.

“It will all be sorted out,” Dutiful said comfortingly, “but it will take time. And simply because Fitz can now move openly within Buckkeep Castle does not mean that he will joyfully give up his quiet life and private ways.” Regretfully, he added, “Or that all will be glad to see the Witted Bastard return to Buckkeep and polite society.”

Chade abruptly interrupted. “Nettle, I must ask you to apply your Skill for me. It’s Sildwell. I sent him with messages and gifts to Withywoods. He was to Skill to me when he arrived safely. All this evening, I’ve felt him pecking at my thoughts like a woodpecker on a tree, but his Skill ebbs and flows as if blown by the wind.”

“Sildwell? The apprentice who left the Silver Coterie?” She looked startled, and my heart sank a bit. What had Chade been up to?

“Yes. As he seemed unable to get along with his fellows in the coterie and you gave him leave to depart, I thought to train him as a messenger, one that could occasionally employ his Skill-talents as well. He’s a tough young man and an excellent horseman.”

“His Skill was erratic,” Nettle observed somewhat acerbically. “And his manners appalling.”

“Practice may improve both of those things,” Chade replied. “In any case, I sent him off to Withywoods with messages and small gifts for FitzVigilant and Bee and so on. And he seems to be trying to tell me he has reached Withywoods but he cannot find Bee. And FitzVigilant has been injured. Or burned. I cannot make out what he is trying to convey to me. If you would reach to him?”

“He can’t find Bee?” I interrupted.

Nettle shook her head at me, her mouth pinched with disapproval. “Take no alarm. Sildwell is disorganized and ill mannered. And possibly drunk. There were a number of reasons I chose to discontinue his Skill-training. Let’s not panic.”

I took a breath. Chade was scowling. He’d been caught going behind Nettle’s back to co-opt a former apprentice as his personal Skilled messenger. I wondered if he’d intended more than that. I noticed he’d mentioned Lant but said nothing of Shun. Was she a bigger secret than I’d realized?

Nettle took a seat on the divan. “Let’s resolve this swiftly and put everyone’s mind at ease. Dutiful, will you join us? Fitz?”

Although a joining of Skill-strength did not require physical proximity, each of us moved to sit beside her. Chade came to stand behind her. As I took my place and opened my Skill to theirs, it felt rather like wading into a river. No. Being a stream merging with a river. Together, we rushed out toward the messenger.

I knew nothing of Sildwell, so I let the others guide us. We reached, I felt the connection, and then it failed and faded. I had never felt such a thing in the Skill. I tried not to let my puzzlement be a distraction. Nettle gathered us as if she were plaiting a rope and again she reached.

Skillmistress! Sildwell seemed as startled as he was relieved. I cannot … And he was gone, like a voice swept away by wind or the glimpse of someone in a heavy snowfall. Fog … stable fire … no one knows of … strange folk.

Fire in my stables? Fear leapt in me and I shoved it down relentlessly. I glanced at Chade. His eyes were wide with fear. I reached behind Nettle, took his hand, and squeezed it. Small and tight, I sent a thought to him. Don’t distract the others. First we discover the truth. I felt his assent but his fear did not abate. I tried to wall in mine. Nettle was taking control of Sildwell. I felt her reach and try to shape him into himself.

Apprentice Sildwell. Gather yourself. Focus. Choose one thought to convey. Be calm. Form the thought in your mind. Hold it. Polish it. Now. Slowly. Extend the thought to me.

So calm and structured. As she instructed Sildwell, I felt Nettle reinforce his awareness of himself as a solid and separate entity from the Skill-current that we all navigated. She abruptly spoke aloud to me. “Da. Calm yourself. I need your strength right now. Lord Chade. Now is not the time for this panic.” Then I felt her dismiss us and put her focus back on the youngster. I tried to help her as she attempted to wrap him in confidence. And, Now, she invited him.

There is no Lady Bee here. Some folk died in a fire. They all are strange. Then, as if something else flowed and washed against us, his thoughts were swept away. All was fog, as if we were on a gray sea in a gray fog in a constant wash of gray rain. Frightening … That thought broke through stronger than the others, and then there was nothing. No sense of anyone, anywhere in the Skill-current.

Chade’s grip on my hand had tightened. In that physical touch, our rising fears became one thing. I could hear his shuddering breath.

Later. Rest now. Nettle arrowed the thought at Sildwell with a fierce strength, but it was an arrow sent toward a target that no one could see.

We were abruptly seated on a divan in the comfortable chamber in Buckkeep. I shot to my feet. “I’m going now.”

“Yes,” Chade confirmed. He gripped the back of the divan with both hands.

“What was that?” Dutiful demanded of all of us. I scarcely heard him. Dread was rising in me like cold water in a flood. Something was terribly wrong at Withywoods. A fire in the stables? Lant injured? Bee was there, as good as alone if Lant was injured. So far away from me. “I’m leaving,” I repeated. My voice had no strength. Chade nodded and reached for me.

“Perhaps a dragon,” Nettle said softly. “We know that the stone dragons often distorted memory and perception when they over flew a battle.”

“The confoundment,” Elliania confirmed. “Many of our warriors spoke of it. The battle would be lost and over, and few had more than fragmentary memories of what had happened.”

“And the living dragon Tintaglia was able to bend our thoughts and change our Skilling,” Nettle recalled slowly. “Dragons have visited Bearns. It may be that one had descended on Withywoods. We should wake Thick and see if he can reach through the fog and get some sense out of Sildwell.”

Chade gripped my arm, leaned heavily on me for a moment. “To my room. I have everything you need there.” He suddenly pulled himself up straight. “There is no time to lose.”

As we moved toward the door, his strength seemed to come back to him. “Da?” Nettle asked in consternation.

“I must go to Withywoods tonight, via the stones. Riddle, arrange a horse for me, please.”

“Don’t you think that—”

I didn’t want to waste words or time. I spoke over my shoulder. “No Lady Bee? A fire? Regardless of his Skill-ability, all is not well there. I should never have left her there alone.” I reached the door, Chade beside me.

“FitzVigilant is with her,” Nettle reminded me. “He’s young but he has a good heart, Fitz. He would not let harm come to her. I think something or someone has befuddled Sildwell. His talent was always uneven.” She tried to speak calmly but her voice was a notch too high.

“He said Lant was injured. Or burned? If he’s injured he can’t protect anyone. I’m going now. By the pillars.” The unease was building to a panic in my chest. I tried to push it down. Be calm. No wild imaginings. Just get there and find out what was real. But the messenger’s words stabbed me with a thousand fears. A fire. Bee missing. Had the fire spread to the manor? Had she hidden in the walls and died there, unseen? I dragged in a deep breath and tried to sound reasonable. And calm. “Once I am there, I will let you know what has happened.”

Nettle opened her mouth to object but Riddle spoke quickly. “Fitz is right. Let him go. Fitz, do you want me with you?”

I did. He had Skill-strength to lend and was good with a sword, and I had no idea what I was going into. But I would not again leave a daughter unguarded. “No. But thank you, my friend. Guard what we love here and my mind will be easier for that.”

I had one glimpse of Nettle’s grateful face and then the door closed behind us.

“Let’s get you on your way,” Chade insisted. From somewhere he had summoned the strength of a much younger man. He hastened down the corridor and up the grand stairs. He took them two at a time and I kept pace with him.

“Chade?” I began and “Not yet,” he replied breathlessly. His stride lengthened. He ran and I followed. He slammed into his room, startling his valet and a servant stoking the hearth fire. He dismissed them both abruptly, and they went with much bowing to me, a performance that made me uncomfortable until Chade shut the door on them. Once we were alone, he threw open his wardrobe. “Your feet are smaller than mine. Can you manage in my boots?”

“I imagine so,” I said, and he pulled out a heavy pair of riding boots. A thick cloak and a woolen shirt followed, billowing as he threw them toward me.

“Change while I talk,” he instructed me, and his voice was fraught with emotion. I was already dragging on the boots.

“I had bits of Skilling from Sildwell before I asked Nettle to help me. All of it was disturbing. He could find no sign of Lady Bee or Lady Shun. ‘They are unknown here,’ he said at one point. Or seemed to say, through a fog and a roaring. He described a ‘great fire’ and I think he told me that your folk there seemed unconcerned by it. You experienced what it was like, trying to receive his thoughts.”