Fool's Quest - Страница 54

Lant met his father’s eyes. “I’d like to stay and hear what he has to say.”

“I know you would. But your being in the room would color the boy’s tale. As soon as I’ve finished speaking to him, Fitz and Thick and I will be sitting down with you to see if we can clear the cobwebs from your mind. Oh, and I’ve one more errand for you. Lad”—and here he turned back to my stable boy—“tell me what sort of tracks we should be looking for.”

His eyes flickered to me again. I nodded. “They rode horses, sir. Big ones, to carry heavy loads, the soldiers did, the ones who spoke a foreign tongue. Big hooves, shod well. And there were smaller mounts, white horses, very graceful but sturdy, too. The white horses that pulled the sleighs were taller than the ones the pale folk were riding. Matched pairs. The soldier troops led first, and then the sleighs went, with the riders on white horses following, and then only four soldiers at the very end. But it was snowing that night and the wind was blowing. Almost before they were out of sight, the snow was filling in their tracks and the wind was blowing it smooth.”

“Did you follow them? Did you see which direction they took?”

He shook his head and looked down. “I’m sorry, sir. I was bleeding still, and dizzy. And very cold. I went back to the manor house to try to get help. But no one recognized me. I knew Revel was dead, and my dad and granddad. I went to find my ma.” He cleared his throat. “She didn’t know me. She told me to go back up to the manor house and get help there. Finally, when they opened the door, I lied. I said I had a message for Scribe FitzVigilant. So they let me in and took me to him, but he was as bad off as I was. Bulen cleaned up my shoulder and let me sleep by the fire. I tried to talk to them, to get them to go after Bee. But they said they didn’t know her, and that I was a crazy beggar boy. The next morning, when I could walk a bit, I saw her horse had come back, so I took Priss and tried to go after her. But they called me a horse thief! If Bulen hadn’t told them I was crazy, I don’t know what would have happened to me!”

Chade’s voice was calming. “You’ve had a hard time of it, I can tell. I know you told Fitz that you saw Bee in the sleigh. We know they took her. But what of Lady Shun? Did you see aught of her that day?”

“When they were leaving? No, sir. I saw Bee because she looked right at me. I think she saw me looking at her. But she didn’t give me away …” A moment later, he continued, “There were other people in the sleigh. A pale man was driving it, and a round-faced woman was sitting in the back holding Bee on her lap like she was a baby. And there was a man, I think, but with a boy’s face …” His words ran down. Both Chade and I were silent, waiting. Expressions slowly moved across his face. We waited.

“They were all dressed in pale colors. Even Bee was wrapped in something white. But I saw the edge of something. Something red. Like the dress the lady was wearing earlier.”

Chade dragged in a ragged breath, a sound of dread, or hope. “You saw her earlier?” he pressed the boy.

He gave a single nod. “Bee and I were hiding behind the hedge. The raiders had herded all our folk out of the manor and into the courtyard in front of the house. Bee hid the children in the wall, but when she went to follow them after we hid the tracks, they’d shut the door. So she went with me. And we hid behind the hedge and went to see what was happening. The soldiers were shouting at everyone, telling them to sit down, even though they were in house-clothes and the wind was blowing and the snow was falling on them. When we saw them like that, I thought Scribe Lant was dead. He was facedown in the snow, and it was red all around him. And Lady Shun was there with the others, in a torn red dress, with two of the housemaids. Caution and Scurry.”

I saw those words hit Chade. A torn dress. Deny what it might mean but the knowledge would still burrow into him like a worm. Her dress torn, and then she was carted away like plunder. At the very least, there had been violence. Rape was likely. Damage done. He swallowed audibly. “Are you certain?”

Perseverance paused before he answered. “I saw something red on the sleigh. That’s all I can be certain about.”

Thick entered without knocking, with FitzVigilant behind him. “I don’t like this place,” he announced to us. “They all sing the same song, No, no, no, don’t think about it, don’t think about it.”

“Who does?” I asked him, startled.

He stared at me as if I were the half-wit. “Everyone!” He flung his arms wide. Then he looked around the room and pointed at Perseverance. “Everyone except him. He makes no song. Chade says, Don’t make your music loud. Keep your music inside a box. But they are not keeping their song in a box and it makes me sad.”

My gaze met Chade’s. We shared the same suspicion. “Let me listen for a moment,” I said to Thick.

“For a moment?” Thick exclaimed, outraged. “You listened and listened. When I got here, you were listening to it so much you couldn’t hear me and I couldn’t feel you. And you are doing it again, right now.”

I touched my fingers to my lips. He scowled at me, but was still. I listened, not with my ears but with my Skill. I heard Thick’s music, the constant Skill-sending that was so much a part of him that I now blocked it without even thinking about it. I closed my eyes and sank deeper into the Skill-current. And there I found it, the roaring whisper of a hundred minds reminding each other not to think about it, not to remember who had died, not to remember the screams or the flames or the blood on the snow. I pressed on the whispers and behind them I could glimpse what they hid from themselves. I retreated. I opened my eyes and found Chade watching me.

“He’s correct,” Chade confirmed quietly.

I nodded.

The Skill is popularly believed to be the magic of the royal Farseer line. And perhaps it is true that in our bloodlines it runs stronger and more potent. But when a summoning goes out that will reach only those who already possess the Skill to a useful degree, it is answered as often by a shoemaker or a fisherman as it is by a duke’s son. I had long suspected that all people possessed at least a rudimentary level of this magic. Molly was unSkilled, yet how often had I seen her rise and go to Bee’s crib moments before the child woke. The man who “had a bad feeling” at the moment that his soldier son was wounded or the woman who opened the door before her suitor could knock all seemed to be utilizing the Skill, even if they were unaware of it. Now the unspoken agreement that no one would remember the terrible events that had happened at Withywoods hummed like a hive of angry bees once I let myself be aware of it. All the folk of Withywoods, shepherds, arbor- and orchard-folk and house-servants, breathed the same forgetfulness. The fury simmered with their ardent desire that no one come to Withywoods, that no one wake them to what had befallen them. It flooded me with their lost hopes and dreams.

“They have to be made to remember,” Chade said softly. “It is our only hope for recovering our daughters.”

“They don’t want to,” I protested.

“Yah,” Thick agreed morosely. “Someone told them not to, and then made it seem like a good idea. They don’t want to remember. They all keep telling each other, Don’t remember, don’t remember.”

Once aware of it, I could not clear it from my senses. It was a ringing in my ears.

“How do we stop it? If we stop it, will they remember? If they remember, can they live with it?”

“I’m living with it,” Perseverance said softly. “I’m living with it alone.” He crossed his arms on his chest. “My ma is strong. I’m her third son and the only one that lived. She wouldn’t want to have turned me away from her door. She wouldn’t want to forget my da and my granddad.” Hope and tears stood in his eyes.

What would deaden the Skill and still that forgetful song for them? I knew. I knew from years of indulging in the herb. “I have elfbark. Or had it. With some other herbs in my private study. I doubt it was taken.”

“What are you doing with elfbark?” Chade was aghast.

I stared at him. “Me? What are you doing with elfbark? And not just Six Duchies elfbark, but that Outislander strain they used on me on Aslevjal? Delvenbark. I saw it on your shelf.”

He stared at me. “Tools of the trade,” he said quietly. “Elliania’s father obtained it for me. Some things I have and hope never to use.”

“Exactly.” I turned back to Perseverance. “Find Bulen. Tell him to go to your mother’s cottage and ask her to come here to the house. To this study. I’ll fetch the herb. After Bulen is on his way, go to the kitchen and tell them I need a teapot, cups, and a kettle of boiling water.”

“Sir,” he said. He halted by the door and turned back to me. “Sir, it won’t hurt her, will it?”

“Elfbark is an herb that has been used for a long time. In Chalced they feed it to their slaves. It gives them a jolt of strength and endurance, but with it comes a bleak spirit. The Chalcedeans claim they can get more work out of their slaves and few have the will to attempt to escape or rise against their masters. It can deaden a severe headache. And Lord Chade and I together discovered that it can dampen a person’s ability to use the Skill. The variety from the Out Islands can completely close a person’s mind to Skill-communication. I do not have that kind. But it may be that what I have will be strong enough to free your mother from the Skill-suggestion that she forget about you and your father. I cannot promise you, but it may.”