Fool's Quest - Страница 78

I felt sick with disappointment, but the orderly part of my mind tidied my facts into a neatly dovetailed stack. “Sealed to the Skill. Which was why she alone was still capable of fighting the Servants when everyone else was as passive as cattle awaiting slaughter.”

He bowed his head in a slow nod.

“Can’t you reach out and unseal her? Skill the keyword to her and open her mind?”

“I’ve tried. I can’t.”

“Why not?” Panic, anger at a lost opportunity. My voice cracked on the words.

“My Skill is not strong enough, perhaps.”

“Let me help you then. Or Thick. I’ll wager Thick could batter down any wall.”

He shot a look at me. “Battering. Not the best word to tempt me to try the experiment. But I suppose we shall when Thick gets here. Yet I doubt it will work. I think she has put up her own walls and that they may be stout ones.”

“Did you teach her to do that?

“I didn’t have to. She’s like you. Some things she does by instinct. Do you not recall what Verity said of you? That he could often reach you easily, but the moment you went into any sort of a battle-frenzy, you were lost to him.”

That had been true and was apparently still true. “But she’s not in a battle. They were taken days ago …”

“She’s a lovely young woman in the hands of Chalcedean brutes.” His voice grew thick. “I’m a coward, Fitz. I refuse to imagine what her life has been since she was taken. She may very well be in an embattled state of mind at every moment of every day.”

Don’t think about it, I warned myself. The dread was as engulfing as the fog had been at Withywoods. I scrabbled back and away from barbed speculation as to how our daughters might be treated. But they treated Bee as a prize. Surely that will protect her! Such a grimy comfort to offer myself, that my little girl might be safe from all that threatened Chade’s daughter. Burning sickness rose in the back of my throat.

Chade’s voice was low. “Stop feeling and think. Think and plan.” He lifted a hand, grimacing at the pain of the motion, and rubbed his forehead. “Shine was able to resist the magic because she was sealed from the Skill. That may be an armor to use when we go against them.”

“But she was not the only one who resisted. Revel fought back. And Lant.”

Chade’s voice was deep. “Until they didn’t. Recall what Lant said. That he was trying to hold the door and then suddenly the invaders were laughing at him and walking past him. However they netted that magic over Withywoods, it was not in place when they first began their attack. Why? Did they need to be closer to their victims for it to work? That Shine, sealed against all Skill-influence, was the sole person capable of continuing resistance hints to me that if they are not using the Skill itself, their magic is closely related to it.” He paused and pointed a bony finger at me. “So. This tells us what, Fitz?”

I felt as if I were his student again. I tried to find the path his thoughts had already traveled. “Perhaps their Skill-users are not as strong—”

He was already wagging the finger at me. “No. The door-breakers and swordsmen came first. If they had multiple Skill-users, surely they would be the front ranks. Nullifying resistance is better than breaking doors and killing, especially if they were actually looking for this Unexpected Son. Why take a chance that your mercenaries will slaughter the very boy you are seeking? But none of that is what matters here. Think.”

I thought, and then shook my head at him.

He gave a small sigh. “Similar tools often have similar weaknesses. How did we defeat their magic at Withywoods?”

“Elfbark tea. But I cannot see how we can deploy that resistance against them when we do not even know where they are.”

“Right now we do not know where they are. So, despite our desire to dash up and down every highway between here and Chalced with drawn swords, we muster our weapons and ready them as best we can.”

“We prepare packets of elfbark tea?” I tried not to sound sarcastic. Was his mind wandering?

“Yes,” he said sharply, as if he had heard my thought. “Among other supplies. My explosive powders are much improved since the last time you experienced them. When Lady Rosemary returns from … her errand, I will have her package some of them for us. I would do it myself, if this wound were not troubling me so.” He touched it again, lightly with his fingertips, wincing.

I did not ask his permission for I was certain I would not get it. I leaned forward and set the back of my hand to his brow. “Fever,” I confirmed. “You should be resting, not plotting with me. Shall I fetch a healer?”

He had been sitting up. Now I understood that it was because he could not lean back due to the pain. He gritted his teeth in a smile. “A prince does not run and fetch the healer. You ring the bell and send a servant. But here we are not princes or lords, but assassins. And fathers. We do not rest while beasts hold our daughters captive. So help me lean back. And bring no healers here, but go and find for me the remedies you think best. They will want me to sleep, when I well know that the fires of a fever can make my thoughts burn brighter.”

“I will. But then you will tell me Shine’s keyword and together we will try to reach her.” On that I was determined. This was a secret he could not be allowed to keep.

He folded his lips. I stood firm. It was only when he nodded that I set my arm around his shoulders and supported him as he lay back on the bed. Even so he gasped and set his hand to his wound. “Oh, the blood flows again,” he complained. Then he was quiet, his lips puffing in and out as he breathed against the pain.

“I think a healer should look at you. Poisons I know, and the sort of medicines that have kept me alive when no one else was near to help me. But I am no healer.”

I saw him almost give way. Then he bartered, “Bring me something for the pain. Then we will try to reach Shine. And after that, you may summon a healer.”

“Agreed!” I said, and hastened out the door before he could tie any strings to our bargain.

Back to my room I went, locking the door behind me and opening the secret stair. A tap, tap, tap startled me. I pushed back the curtain to find the crow clinging to the stone sill of my window. The moment I opened it, she was in. She hopped to the floor of my room, looked around, then spread her wings and flew up the stairs. Up I went, two steps at a time.

There a curious sight met my eyes. The Fool was at table with a young girl of about fourteen. Her hair was gathered back and pinned neatly under a ruffled cap. Humble as it was, it still boasted three buttons. Her neat servant’s tunic of Buckkeep blue covered her modest bust. She was watching intently as the Fool moved a small, sharp knife against a piece of wood.

“… more difficult without my sight, but it was always my fingers that read the wood for me when I was carving. I’m afraid that I’d grown more dependent on my fingertips than I realized. I can still feel the wood, but it’s not the same as when …”

“Who are you, and who let you into this chamber?” I demanded. I moved immediately to put myself between the Fool and the girl. She looked up at me with a woebegone expression. Then Ash spoke from her lips.

“I’ve been careless. Lord Chade will not be pleased with me.”

“What is it? What has alarmed you so?” The Fool was breathless with anxiety, his golden eyes wide. The carving tool in his hand he now gripped as a weapon.

“It’s nothing. Just more of Chade’s mummery! I’ve walked in on Ash dressed as a serving girl. I didn’t recognize him at first, and it gave me a turn. It’s all right, Fool. You are safe.”

“What?” he asked in a flustered voice, and then managed a nervous laugh. “Oh. If that’s all, then …” But when he set the tool to the wood, his hand trembled. Wordlessly, he set it down. Then, swift as a snake striking, his hand shot across the table to grip Ash’s arm. The boy cried out but the Fool held fast as he seized his other wrist as well. “Why would you disguise yourself so? Who pays you?” Then, as his hand traveled farther down the boy’s arm to his wrist and then hand, he sat back suddenly in his chair. He did not release Ash’s arm but said in a shaking voice, “Not Ash in a serving girl’s dress, but a serving girl who has masqueraded as Chade’s young apprentice. What goes on here, Fitz? How could we have been so stupid as to have trusted so quickly!”

“Your trust was not misplaced, sir. Possibly I would have shared my secret sooner if Lord Chade had not forbidden it.” In a lower voice she added, “You are hurting me. Please loosen your grip.”

The flesh of the girl’s forearm stood up in white ridges between the Fool’s fingers. I spoke. “Fool. I have her. You can let her go.”

He did, but reluctantly, a slow opening of his hands. He sat back on his chair. His golden eyes whirled and gleamed angrily in the low light. “And what have I done to deserve this deception from Lord Chade?”

She looked at me as she spoke, rubbing her arm. Her cheeks were very pink and now that the Fool had announced her as a girl, I wondered how I could have seen her as anything else, even in her lad’s guise. When she spoke, her voice was a notch higher. “Sirs, I beg you. There was no wish to deceive you, but only to remain as you had first seen me. As the boy, Ash. So I was when Lord Chade first met me, though he saw through my guise in less than an evening. He said it was in my throat and in the fineness of my hands. He has given me much scrubbing of floors to roughen them, which helps, but he says the bones give me away. Is that how you knew, Lord Golden? By the bones of my hands?”