you wish us ill? Do you hate my father?’ Then, with even more dread she asked, ‘Is my brother in your power somehow?’
‘Please don’t fear me. You have no reason to fear me,’ I said hastily, and then wondered if it was true. ‘Swift is safe, and I promise I will do all in my power to bring him home to you as soon as I can.’ I paused, wondering what I could safely tell her. She was no fool, this daughter of mine. Too many hints and she’d unravel the whole mystery. Like as not, then I’d lose her forever. ‘I knew your father, a long time ago. We were close. But I made decisions that went against his rules, and so we parted. For a long time, he has believed I was dead. With your words, he knows I am not. And because I never came back to him, he now believes he did me a great wrong. He didn’t. But if you know your father at all, you will know that it is what he believes in that regard that will drive him.’
‘You knew my father a long time ago? Did you know my mother then, too?’
‘I knew him long before you were born.’ Not quite a lie, but a deception nonetheless. I let her mislead herself.
‘And so my words meant nothing to my mother,’ Nettle softly concluded after a moment.
‘Yes,’ I confirmed. Then, gingerly I asked, ‘Is she all right?’
‘Of course not!’ I felt her impatience with my stupidity. ‘She stood outside the house and shouted after him when he left, and then ranted to all of us that she never should have married such a stiff-necked man. A dozen times she asked me what I said, and a dozen times I told her of my “dream”. I came so close to telling her all I knew of you. But that would not have helped, would it? For she never knew you.’
For one chill instant, I saw it through Nettle’s eyes. Molly stood in the road. In her struggle to restrain Burrich, her hair had come loose. It curled as it ever had, brushing against her shoulders as she shook her fist after him. Her youngest son, little more than six, clutched at her skirts, sobbing in terror at this wild spectacle of his father abandoning his mother. The sun was setting, tingeing the landscape with blood. ‘You blind old fool!’ Molly shrieked after her husband, and the flung words rattled against me like stones. ‘You’ll be lost or robbed! You’ll never come home to us!’ But the fading clatter of galloping hooves was her only reply.
Then Nettle turned away from the scalding memory of it, and I found we were no longer on the hill with the melted tower. Instead, we were in a loft. My wolf ears on top of my head nearly brushed the low rafters. She was sitting up in her bed, her knees clutched to her chest. Beyond the curtain that screened us from the rest of the attic, I could hear her brothers breathing. One shifted in his sleep and cried out restlessly. No one dreamed peacefully in this house tonight.
I desperately wanted to beg her to say no word of me to Molly. I dared not, for then she would be certain that I lied. I wondered how strongly she already suspected a link between her mother and myself. I did not answer her directly. ‘I don’t think your father will be gone long. When he returns home, will you tell me, to put my mind at rest?’
‘If he comes home,’ she said in a low voice, and I suddenly knew that Molly had voiced aloud the family’s very real fears. Now Nettle spoke reluctantly, as if speaking the truth made it more real. ‘He has already been robbed and beaten once when he was travelling alone seeking for Swift. He has never admitted it to us, but we all know that is what befell him. Nevertheless, he has once more set out alone.’
‘That’s Burrich,’ I said. I dared not voice aloud what I hoped in my heart: that he had ridden a horse that he knew well. Although he would never use his Wit to speak to his mount, that did not prevent the animals he worked with from communicating with him.
‘That’s my father,’ she agreed, both with pride and sorrow. And then the walls of the room began to run like inked letters when tears fall on them. She was the last sight to fade from my dream. When I came to myself, I was staring up at a darkened corner of the Prince’s cabin, seeing nothing.
In the tedious days and nights that followed, Thick’s condition changed little, for better or worse. He would rally for a day and a night, and then slip back into fever and coughing. His real illness had chased away his fear of seasickness, but there was no comfort for me in that. More than once, I sought Nettle’s aid in banishing Thick’s fever-dreams before they could unsettle the crew. Sailors are a superstitious lot. Under Thick’s influence, they shared a nightmare, and when they compared their night’s recollections, decided it was a warning from the gods. It only happened once, but was nearly enough to set off a mutiny.
I worked more closely and more often on Skill-dreams with Nettle than I desired. She did not speak of Burrich and I did not ask, though I know we both counted the days that he had been gone. I knew that if she had had tidings of him, she would share them. His absence in her life left a place for me. Unwillingly, I felt our bond grow stronger, until I carried a constant awareness of her with me at all times. She taught me, without realizing, how to slip behind Thick’s dreams and manipulate them, gently guiding them into consoling images. I could not do it as well as she did. Mine was more a suggestion to him, while she simply set the dream right.
Twice I felt Chade observing us. It grated on me, but there was nothing I could do about it since to acknowledge him would have made Nettle aware of him as well. Yet, in ignoring him, I profited as well, for he grew bolder, I saw my old mentor grow stronger in the Skill. Did he not realize it, or did he conceal it from me? I wondered, but did not betray that wondering to him.
I have never found sea travel enthralling. One watery seascape is much like any other. After a few days, the Prince’s cabin seemed almost as cramped, confining and stuffy as the hold my fellow guardsmen shared. The monotonous food, the endless rocking and my anxiety for Thick hollowed me. Our diminished coterie made little progress in our Skill-lessons.
Swift continued to come to me daily. He read aloud, earning knowledge of the Out Islands and refreshing mine as he did so. At the end of each session, I would question him to be sure the knowledge was settling into his mind and not simply passing through his eyes and out of his mouth. He had a good head for holding information, and asked a few questions of his own. Swift was seldom gracious but he was obedient to his teacher, and for now that was all I asked.
Thick seemed to find Swift’s presence soothing, for he would relax, and some of the lines would smooth from his brow as he listened. He spoke little and breathed hoarsely and would sometimes go off into coughing fits. The process of coaxing spoonfuls of broth into him exhausted both of us. The rounded paunch he had recently gained dwindled, and dark hollows showed under his small eyes. He was as sick a creature as I’ve ever seen, and his acceptance of his misery was heart wrenching. In his own mind, he was dying, and not even in his dreams could I completely vanquish that notion.
Nor could Dutiful aid me in that. The Prince did his best, and he was truly fond of Thick. But Dutiful was fifteen, and a boy in many ways still. Moreover, he was a boy being courted by his nobles, who daily devised distractions that would put him in their company. Freed of Kettricken’s austere traditions, they plied him with entertainment and flattery. Smaller boats shuttled between the ships of our betrothal fleet, not only bringing nobles to visit Dutiful but often carrying Chade and him off to the other vessels for wine and poetry and song. Such trips were meant to divert his attention from the ennui of the uneventful voyage and they succeeded only too well, but it behoved Dutiful to distribute his favours and attentions amongst his nobles. The success of his reign would be built upon the alliances he forged now. He could scarcely have refused to go. Yet all the same, it bothered me to see how easily his attention could be drawn away from his ill servant.
Web was my sole comfort. He came every day, offering quietly to keep watch by Thick while I took some time for myself. I could not completely relax my vigil, of course. I maintained
