crews before they could touch our shores, and confound them. He made the sea and the weather our ally against them, confusing navigators to send the enemy ships onto rocks, or persuading captains to a false confidence that bid them steer straight into storms.
‘I am sure that you have heard of Skillmaster Galen. He was supposed to create and train a Skill-coterie, a unified group of Skill-users who would provide their strength and talent to aid King-in-Waiting Verity against the Red Ships. Well, he did create a coterie, but they were false, their loyalty bound to Regal, Verity’s ambitious younger brother. Instead of aiding your father’s efforts, they hindered him. They delayed messages, or failed to deliver them at all. They made your father look incompetent. For the sake of breaking the loyalty of his dukes to him, they delivered our people into the hands of the raiders, to be killed or Forged.’
The Prince’s eyes were locked onto my face. I could not meet his earnest gaze. I stared past him, out of the tall windows and over the grey and billowing sea. Then I steeled myself and trod the precipice path between deadly truth and cowardly falsehood. ‘I was one of Galen’s students. Because of my illegitimate birth, he despised me. I learned what I could from him, but he was a cruel and unjust master to me, driving me away from the knowledge he did not wish to share with me. Under his brutal tutelage, I learned the basics of Skilling, but no more than that. I could not predictably master my talent, and so I failed. He sent me away with the other students who did not meet his standards.
‘I continued to work as a servant here in the keep. When your father laboured most heavily here, he had his meals brought up to him. That was my task. And it was here that we discovered, most providentially, that even though I could not Skill on my own, he could draw Skill-strength from me. And later, in the brief times he was able to give me, he taught me what he could of Skilling.’
I turned to face Dutiful and waited. His dark eyes probed mine. ‘When he left on his quest, did you go with him?’
I shook my head and answered truthfully. ‘No. I was young and he forbade it.’
‘And you didn’t try to follow him later?’ He was incredulous, his imagination fired with what he was sure he would himself have done in my place.
It was hard to say the next words. ‘No one knew where he had gone, or by what paths.’ I held my breath, hoping that would still his questions. I didn’t want to lie to him.
He turned away from me and looked out over the sea. He was disappointed in me. ‘I wonder how different things might have been if you had gone with him.’
I had often told myself that if I had, Queen Kettricken would never have survived Regal’s reign at Buckkeep. But I said, ‘I’ve often pondered that question myself, my prince. But there is no knowing what might have happened. I might have helped him, but looking back on those days, I think it just as likely I would have been a hindrance to him. I was very young, quick-tempered and impetuous.’ I took a breath and steered the conversation as I wished it to go. ‘I tell you these things to be sure you understand well that I am no Skillmaster. I have not studied all those scrolls … I have read only a few of them. So. In a sense we are both students here. I will do my best to educate myself from the scrolls, even as I teach you the basics of what I know. It is a hazardous path that we will tread together. Do you understand this?’
‘I understand. And of the Wit?’
I had not wanted to discuss that today. ‘Well. I came to my Wit-magic much as you did yours, stumbling into it by chance when I bonded with a puppy. I was a man grown before I met anyone who tried to put my random knowledge of my magic into a coherent framework. Again, time was my enemy. I learned much from him, but not all there was to know … far short of that, to be truthful. So, again, I will teach you what I know. But you will be learning from a flawed instructor.’
‘Your confidence is so inspiring,’ Dutiful muttered darkly. Then, a moment later, he laughed. ‘A fine pair we shall make, stumbling along together. Where do we begin?’
‘I am afraid that we shall have to begin by first moving backwards. You must be untaught some of what you have learned by yourself. Are you aware that when you attempt to Skill, you are mingling the Wit with that magic?’
He stared at me blankly.
After a moment of discouragement, I said briskly, ‘Well. Our first step will be to untangle your magics from one another.’ As if I knew how. I was not even certain that my own magics operated independently of one another. I shoved the thought aside. ‘I’d like to proceed with teaching you the basics of Skilling. We’ll set aside the Wit for now, to avoid confusion.’
‘Have you ever known any others like us?’
He had lost me again. ‘Like us in what way?’
‘With both the Wit and the Skill.’
I took a deep breath and let it out. Truth or lie. Truth. ‘I think I once met one, but I did not recognize him as such at the time. I don’t think he even knew what he was doing. At the time, I thought he was just very strong in the Wit. Since then, I’ve sometimes wondered at how well he seemed to know what passed between my wolf and me. I suspect that he had both magics, but thought them the same thing, and thus used them together.’
‘Who was he?’
I should never have begun to answer his questions. ‘I told you, it was a long time ago. He was a man who tried to help me learn the Wit. Now. Let’s focus on why we are here today.’
‘Civil.’
‘What?’ The lad’s mind hopped like a flea. He’d have to learn focus.
‘Civil has been well instructed in the Wit, since he was a small child. Perhaps he would be willing to teach me. As he already knows I am witted, it is not spreading my secret about. And …’
I think the look on my face made him falter into silence. I waited until I trusted myself to speak. Then, I pretended to be a wiser man than I was. I tried to listen before I spoke to him. ‘Tell me about Civil,’ I suggested. Then, because I could not quite control my tongue, I added, ‘Tell me why you think it is safe to trust him.’
I liked that he did not answer immediately. His brow furrowed, and then he spoke as if he were recounting events from a lifetime ago. ‘I first met Civil when he presented me with my cat. As you know, she was a gift from the Bresingas. I think Lady Bresinga had come to Buckkeep Castle before, but I don’t recall ever seeing Civil. There was something about the way he gave me the cat … I think it was that he obviously cared for her welfare; he did not present her to me as if she were a thing, but as if she were a friend. Perhaps that is because he is Witted, also. He told me that he would teach me how to hunt with her, and the very next morning, we went out together. We went alone, Tom, so there would be no distractions for her. And he truly taught me how to hunt with her, paying more attention to that than to the fact that he had time alone with Prince Dutiful.’ Dutiful halted and a slight flush rose on his face.
‘That may sound conceited to you, but it is a thing I must always deal with. I accept an invitation to something that sounds interesting, only to find that the person who invited me is more fixed on gaining my attention than on sharing something with me. Lady Wess invited me to a puppet show performed by masters of the art from Tilth. Then she sat beside me and chattered at me about a land dispute with her neighbour all the way through the play.
‘Civil was not like that. He taught me how to hunt with a cat. Don’t you think that if he had intended ill to me, he could have done it then? Hunting accidents are not that rare.
