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I turned away from him, holding his horse’s reins and Thick’s. “That wasn’t the mistake,” I said without looking back. “I meant your trying to think. But do not call me by that name again. Not here. We are not ready for it to be common knowledge that Badgerlock and FitzChivalry are one and the same.”

Per made a small choking sound. I did not look at him. “Bring those horses, Perseverance. You’ll have time to explain yourself to me while you settle them.”

The Rousters had gone into what I still thought of as the “new” stables, the ones built since the Red-Ship Wars. I did not want to see them just now. I wanted to be calm when I dealt with them, not merely appear calm. Per followed and I led him and the horses behind the new stables to Burrich’s stables, where I had grown up. They were not used as much as they once had been, but I was pleased to see they were kept clean and that there were empty stalls ready for the horses we brought. The stable boys were in awe of me and scampered so swiftly to the needs of the beasts that Per found very little to do. The other stable boys seemed to recognize him as one of their own, and perhaps thought the bruises on his face were my doing, for they were very deferential to me.

“Isn’t this Lord Derrick’s roan?” one of them dared to ask of me.

“Not anymore,” I told him, and was taken aback by the warm confirmation I received from the mare. My rider.

“She likes you,” Per told me from the next stall. He was brushing Priss. He’d let one of the other boys take Speckle but Priss he was doing himself.

I didn’t ask him how he knew. “What are you doing here?”

“She’s muddy, sir. We were crossing an iced-over stream and she broke through and got her legs muddy. So I’m grooming her.”

Technically, a truthful answer. This boy. I admired him grudgingly. “Perseverance. Why did you come to Buckkeep?”

He straightened to look over the stall wall at me. If he was not genuinely surprised at my question, he was very good at dissembling. “Sir, I am sworn to you. Where else should I be? I knew you would want your horse, and I did not trust those … guardsmen to bring her. And I knew that you would need Priss. When we go after those bastards and take Bee back, she will want to ride her own horse home. Your pardon, sir. Lady Bee, I meant to say. Lady Bee.” He caught his lower lip between his teeth and bit down on it hard.

I had intended to rebuke him and send him home. But when a youngster speaks as a man it’s not right to reply to him as a child. A stable girl had just arrived with a bucket of water. I turned to her. “Your name?”

“Patience, sir.”

That jolted me for an instant. “Well, Patience, when Per is finished, would you show him where to get some hot food and where the steams are. Find him a bed in the …”

“I’d rather stay near the horses, sir. If no one minds.”

I understood that, too. “Help him find some bedding, then. You can sleep in one of the empty stalls, if that’s what you wish.”

“Thank you, sir. It is.”

“Should I make him a poultice for that cheek? I know one that can draw the swelling down by morning.” Patience looked very pleased to be put in charge of Perseverance.

“Do you? Well, then, you should do that also, and I’ll be pleased to see how well it works by the morning.” I started to leave and then remembered the pride of a boy. I turned back. “Perseverance. You are to stay well away from any of the Rousters. Am I understood?”

He looked down. “Sir,” he acknowledged me unhappily.

“They will be dealt with. But not by you.”

“They’re a bad lot,” Patience said quietly.

“Stay clear,” I warned them both, and left the stables.

Chapter Twenty-One
Vindeliar

...

So let us speak of forgetfulness. We all recall episodes of forgetfulness. We have missed a meeting with a friend, burned the bread, or set down an object and forgotten where we put it. That is the forgetting we are aware of.

There is another kind, one we seldom think about. Until I mention the phase of the moon, chances are that it is not in your thoughts. It is pushed aside by the food you are eating, or the path you are walking upon. Your mind is not fixed upon the moon, and so for that moment you have forgotten it. Or, perhaps it is better to say, you are not remembering that bit of information at this time.

If I enter the room as you are fastening your shoe, I can say, “There will be a lovely moon tonight,” and then you will call it to mind. But before I call it forth for you, you have forgotten the moon.

One can swiftly understand that for most moments of our lives, we have forgotten almost all of the world around us, except for what currently claims our interest.

The talent of the part-Whites is most often to be able to glimpse the future in dreams. There are a rare few who can find a future that is but a breath away, a future in which a chosen person will not be remembering that which we wish to hide from him. Those rare few can persuade this person to remain in that non-remembering state. And thus one with that rare talent can render an event or person almost invisible, almost forgotten. We have records of part-Whites who could do this and hold it for a single person. We have records of some few who could cause up to six persons to continue forgetting something. But in the young student Vindeliar, I believe we have found a truly extraordinary talent. Even at seven years old, he can master the minds of twelve of my students and cause them to forget hunger. And so I ask that he be given over to me, to train specifically in that capacity.

I was better. Everyone told me so, even Shun. I was not sure they were right, but it was too much trouble to argue with them. My skin had finished peeling and I no longer had a fever. I did not tremble and I could walk without staggering. But it was harder to listen to people, especially if more than one person was talking at once.

The traveling had become harder. And there was more tension between Dwalia and Ellik. We had to cross a river and they wasted most of an evening arguing about where. It was the first time I’d seen conflict between them. They had a map, and they stood not at our fire nor at the Chalcedeans’ but between the two and pointed and argued. There was a ferry at one village. Dwalia argued it would be too hard for Vindeliar. “Not only must he keep anyone else waiting to cross from recalling us, he must fog the ferrymen. Not once, but three times before we have all the sleighs and horses across.”

There was a bridge that Dwalia favored, but to reach it we would have to travel through a large town. “It is the perfect place for an ambush,” Ellik objected. “And if he cannot fog the ferry workers, how can he fog a city?”

“We travel in the dead of night. Swiftly through the city, across the bridge, and then swiftly away from the trading town on the other side.”

I leaned against Shun. Her whole body was tense, she was so focused on eavesdropping. I was tired of them talking and longed for quiet. Quiet and real food. The hunting had been bad and all we had had for two days was porridge and the brown soup. The sleighs were loaded, the horses harnessed. The Chalcedeans were mounted and waited in formation. The luriks stood by their mounts. All were waiting for Ellik and Dwalia to find an agreement. The bridge tonight or the ferry tomorrow? I didn’t care. “How did they get to this side of the river in the first place?” I asked Shun quietly.

“Shut up,” she said in such a snip of voice that only I heard it. That had made me struggle to be alert and hear more.

Dwalia was speaking. I could tell she was nervous. Her hands were fists, clasped to her bosom. “The ferry is too close to Buckkeep. We need to cross soon and then be away. Once we are across the river, we can go through the hills …”

“The hills again. Unless you are willing to travel on the roads, the sleighs will bog down in the unpacked snow,” Ellik spat. “Abandon the sleighs. They have only slowed us down since you stole them.”

“We no longer have the cart. We’d have to abandon the tents.”

“Then leave them.” Ellik shrugged. “We will travel more swiftly without them. Your female insistence on these comforts is what slows us down.”

“Don’t look at them,” Shun hissed by my ear. I’d been staring. They did not usually quarrel for long. Usually Vindeliar came, and smiled and bobbed, and then we did as Dwalia wished. I slitted my eyes and pretended to be dozing. I could see Dwalia’s frustration. She glanced over at us and Shun leaned forward and poked at the dying fire.

Then Vindeliar came wandering over. He was smiling as he always was. He paused by our fire and looked around, puzzled. “Why aren’t you on the sleigh? Shouldn’t we leave soon?” The night was darkening around us. Usually by that time we were well away from the day’s campsite.

Dwalia lifted her voice to respond to him. “Yes. We should be leaving very soon. Be patient, Vindeliar. Come wait with me while Ellik decides what we must do.”

Then, for the first time, I watched and saw clearly what Vindeliar did. He smiled and almost wriggled like a chubby little boy as he sidled up to Dwalia. He looked at Ellik, tilting his head. The man scowled at him. Dwalia spoke softly. “So, as the duke has said, he considers the ferry crossing too dangerous for us. It is much too close to Buckkeep. But if we make haste, he says we could reach the bridge tonight. And perhaps cross and even be in the foothills before the sun is very high. And thence to Salter’s Deep and the ship.”

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