‘Can you explain?’ he asked softly, and I realized how little he knew. It was all the more amazing that he so unquestioningly acted on my requests.
I drew a breath. ‘He’s using the Skill and the Wit. And he hasn’t been trained in either, so he’s vulnerable, very vulnerable. He’s too young to understand just how much at risk he is. Right now, his consciousness rides with the cat. For all intents, he is the cat.’
‘But he will awaken and come back to his body?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I hope so. Fool, there is more. There is someone else joined to the cat. I, that is, we, Nighteyes and I, suspect that she is the cat’s former owner.’
‘Former? I thought Witted ones bonded to their animals for life?’
‘They do. She would be dead now. But her consciousness is within the cat, using the cat.’
‘But I thought the Prince …’
‘Yes. The Prince is there, too. I do not think he realizes that this woman he loves does not exist as a woman any more. I know he has no concept of how much power she has over him. And over the cat.’
‘What can we do?’
The throbbing in my head was making me sick to my stomach. I spoke more harshly than I intended. ‘Forcibly separate the boy from the cat. Kill the cat, and hope the boy doesn’t die.’
‘Oh, Fitz!’ He was appalled.
I didn’t have time to care.
‘Saddle just two of the horses, Malta and Myblack. I’ll put the boy in front of me. And then we have to ride.’
I did nothing while the Fool prepared the horses. I didn’t pack up anything, for I didn’t intend to take anything with us. Instead I just sat still and tried to persuade my head to ease. It was made the more difficult in that I was still Skill-twined with the boy. I felt more his absence than his presence. I sensed that there was pressure upon him, but it was a Wit pushing. I could not decide if she reached, trying to know more of me, or if she reached trying to possess the boy’s body. I did not wish to respond to it; they already knew enough of me from that earlier brushing touch. So I sat, head in hands, and looked at Kettricken’s son. As Verity had taught me so long ago, I carefully set my Skill-walls. This time, I set them to include the boy at my feet. I did not consider what I was trying to hold out. Instead, I focused on keeping open the space that was his mind, reserving it for him to return to.
‘Ready,’ the Fool said quietly, and I stood up again. I mounted Myblack, who was amazingly steady under me as the Fool hoisted the boy up into my arms. As always, the strength of the slender man surprised me. I arranged the Prince before me so that I had one arm to hold on to him, and one hand for the reins. It would have to do. In an instant, the Fool was mounted on Malta beside me. ‘Which way?’ he asked.
Nighteyes? I kept the questing as small and secret as I could. They might sense our Wit, but I doubted they could use that to follow us.
My brother. His reply was as discreet. I nudged Myblack and we moved off. I could not have told anyone where Nighteyes was, but I knew that I moved towards him. The Prince was a swaying weight in my arms. It was already uncomfortable. Giving in to my frustration with my pain and his dead weight, I gave him a rough shake. He made a faint sound of protest, but it might have been just air moving out of his lungs. For a time we travelled through forest, ducking swoops of branches and pressing through tangles of underbrush. The Prince’s horse, stripped of harness, followed us. We did not go swiftly. The footing was treacherous for the weary horses and the trees dense. I followed the wolf’s elusive presence down into a ravine. The horses clattered along through a rushing stream over slippery wet rocks. The ravine became a vale, then spread wide and we rode under moonlight through a meadow. Startled deer bounded away from us. Into the forest again, our hooves thudded on deep layers of packed ancient leaves. Then we came to a steep place I did not recognize, but when we completed our scrabbling mount of that hill, the night spilled us out onto the road. The wolf’s route had cut the rough country and put us back on the same road we had travelled that morning. I pulled in Myblack and let her breathe. Ahead of us, on the next rise, the stingy light of the quarter moon showed me the silhouette of a wolf waiting for us to appear. As soon as he saw us, he turned, and trotted down the next hill and out of sight. All is clear. Come swiftly.
‘Now we ride,’ I warned the Fool in a low voice. I leaned forwards, spoke a word to Myblack as my knees urged her on. When she was sluggish to respond, I suggested with my predator’s Wit, Pursuit is just behind us. They come swiftly.
Her ears flicked back once. I think she was a bit sceptical, but she gathered herself. As Malta threatened to pass us, I felt her powerful muscles bunch and then she stretched under me and we galloped. Encumbered by our double weight and weary from her day’s work, she ran heavily. Malta gamely kept the pace, her presence pushing Myblack on. The Prince’s horse was left behind. The wolf ran before us, and I fastened my eyes to him as to my final hope. It seemed he had somehow discarded his years; he ran like a yearling, bounding ahead of us.
To our left, the horizon appeared as dawn began its timid creep towards day. I welcomed the light that made our footing surer even as I cursed how it would reveal us to our enemies. We pressed on, varying our pace as the morning grew stronger, trying to ration our mounts’ endurance. The last two days had been hard on both horses. To run them to dropping would not help our situation.
‘When will it be safe to stop?’ the Fool asked me during a period when we had slowed to let the horses breathe.
‘When we reach Buckkeep Castle. Perhaps.’ I did not add that the Prince would not be safe until I had turned back and killed the cat. We had only his body in our keeping. The Piebalds still had his soul.
At midmorning, we passed the tree where their archer had ambushed us. It made me realize how much I was trusting to the wolf to choose our path. He had decided this way was safe and I was following him unquestioningly.
Are we not pack? Of course you must follow your leader. The tease in his thought could not quite mask his weariness.
We were all tired; men, wolf and horses. A sustained trot was the best I could wring from Myblack now. Dutiful was a lolling weight in my arms as we jolted along. The pain in my back and shoulders from supporting his weight vied with the dull throbbing in my head. The Fool still sat his horse well but made no attempt at conversation of any kind. He had offered once to take the Prince on Malta with him, but I had declined. It was not that I thought that he or his horse lacked the strength. I could not define exactly why I felt I must keep possession of Dutiful’s body. I worried that he had been so long insensible. Somewhere, I knew his mind worked, that he saw with the cat’s eyes, felt with the cat’s body. Sooner or later, they would realize –
The Prince stirred in my arms. I kept silent. It took him some little while to come back to himself. As he regained his senses, he twitched unpleasantly in my arms, reminding me of my own seizures. Then he sat up with a sudden hoarse gasp of breath. Breath after breath he took, as he turned his head wildly from side to side, trying to make sense of his situation. I heard him swallow. In a dry and cracked voice he asked, ‘Where are we?’
Useless to lie. Above us on the hill, Laurel’s mysterious standing stones cast their shadows. He would surely recognize them. I didn’t bother to answer him at all. Lord Golden rode closer to us.
‘My prince, are you well? You have been long unconscious.’
‘I
