Thick,’ he said calmingly. ‘Come now, man. There’s no need for this. No need at all.’
I had known that the Wit could be used to repel someone. Who has not leapt back from the clashing teeth of a dog or narrowly avoided the swipe of a cat’s claws? It is not just the threat that forces one to give ground, but the force of the creature’s anger that pushes its challenger back. I think that for a Witted one, to learn to repel is as instinctive as knowing how to flee danger. I had never stopped to think that there might be another complementary force, one that calmed and beckoned.
I did not have a word for what Web exuded toward Thick. I was not his target, yet I was still peripherally aware of it. It settled my hackles and calmed my thundering heart. Almost without my volition, my shoulders lowered and my jaw unclenched. I saw a wondering look come over Thick’s face. His mouth sagged open and his tongue that was never completely inside it, protruded even more as his little eyes drooped almost closed. Web spoke softly. ‘Easy, my friend. Relax. Come now, come with me.’
There is a look a kitten gets when its mother lifts it by the nape of its neck. That look was on Thick’s face as Web’s big hand settled on his arm. ‘Don’t look,’ Web suggested to him. ‘Eyes on me, now,’ and Thick obeyed him, looking up at Web’s face as the Witmaster led him aboard the ship as easily as a lad leads a bull by the ring in its nose. I was left trembling, the sweat drying down my spine. The blood rushed to my face at the taunting of the men that accompanied my boarding of the ship. Most of them spoke Six Duchies in a rudimentary way. That they used it now was deliberate, to be sure I understood their scorn. I could not pretend to ignore them, for I could not control the blood which reddened my face with shame. I had no place I could vent my anger as I stalked after Web. I heard the planks taken up behind me as soon as I was on board. I didn’t look back, but trailed after Web and Thick toward a tent-like structure on the deck of the ship.
The accommodations were far cruder than those on the Maiden’s Chance had been. On the foredeck, there was a permanent cabin with wooden walls, such as I was accustomed to seeing on a ship. I was to learn it was divided into two chambers. The larger of these had been given over to the Prince and Chade, and the Wit-coterie crowded into the smaller one. This temporary cabin on the aft deck was for the guardsmen. The walls were made of heavy leather stretched on poles with the entire structure lashed down to pegs set in the deck. These shelters were a concession to our Six Duchies sensibilities; the Outislanders themselves preferred an open deck as best for hauling freight or fighting. A look at the faces of my fellow guardsmen persuaded me of how little welcome Thick would be amongst them. After my shameful performance on the dock, I was little higher in their regard. Web was trying to get Thick to sit down on one of the sea chests that had been brought from the Maiden’s Chance.
‘No,’ I told him quietly. ‘The Prince prefers that Thick be housed close at hand to him. We should take him to the other cabin.’
‘It’s even more crowded than this one,’ Web explained, but I only shook my head.
‘The other cabin,’ I insisted, and he relented. Thick went with him, still with that glazed look of trust on his face. I followed, feeling as exhausted as if I’d spent a morning in sword training. It was only later that I realized that it was Web’s own pallet he settled Thick onto. Civil sat in the corner on a smaller pallet, his snarling cat on his lap. The minstrel Cockle was disconsolately inspecting three broken strings on a small harp. Swift was looking everywhere but at me. I could feel his dismay that this half-man had been brought right into his living space. The silence in the tiny room was thicker than butter.
Once Thick had settled on the pallet, Web smoothed a calloused hand over his sweaty brow. Thick stared up at us in puzzlement for a moment and then closed his eyes, weary as a child. His breathing was hoarse as sleep claimed him. After the buffeting he’d dealt me, I longed to join him there, but Web was taking my arm.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘We have to talk, you and I.’
I would have resisted him if I could, but when he set his hand on my shoulder, my defiance melted. I let him steer me out onto the deck. I heard the jesting shouts of the sailors when I reappeared, but Web chose to ignore them as he steered me to a rail. ‘Here,’ he said, and from his hip took a leather flask and unstoppered it. The scent of brandy reached me. ‘A bit of this down you, and then take some deep breaths. You look like a man who has bled half to death.’
I did not think I needed the brandy until I took some and felt its heat run through me.
Fitz?
The Prince’s worried query reached me as a whisper. I realized abruptly how tightly I was still holding my walls. Gingerly I eased them down, and then reached back to Dutiful. I’m fine. Web has Thick settled now.
‘That’s right. I do. But you scarcely need to tell me that.’
Give me a moment, my prince, to gather myself. I had not even realized that I had spoken aloud the thought I’d previously Skilled to Dutiful. ‘I know. I’m a bit rattled, I suppose.’
‘Yes, you are. What I don’t understand is why. But I have my suspicions. The simple man is very important to the Prince, isn’t he? And it has something to do with how he could stop a warrior in his prime from forcing him to do a thing he didn’t wish to do. What made you flinch before his touch? When I touched him, nothing happened to me.’
I handed him back his flask. ‘Not my secret,’ I said bluntly.
‘I see.’ He took a mouthful of his brandy. He looked aloft pensively. Risk did a lazy loop around our ship, waiting for us. Canvas blossomed suddenly on the mast. A moment later, it bellied in the wind and I felt our ship dip and then gather speed. ‘Short journey, they tell me. Three days, four at most. If we’d taken the Maiden’s Chance, she would have had to sail around the whole cluster of islands, and then we would have had to put her at harbour on one of the other islands and still take another shallow draught vessel to reach Wuislington.’
I nodded sagely to that, not knowing if it was true or not. Perhaps his bird had told him. More likely, it was sailor gossip, gained by his own ready ears.
As if it were a logical continuation, he asked, ‘If I were to guess this secret, would you tell me I’d got it right?’
I gave a short sigh. Only now that the struggle was over did I realize how weary I was. And how strong Thick had been when driven by his fear and anger to apply all his strength to me. I hoped he had not burned reserves he could not afford. His sickness had already drained much of his vigour. He had thought himself in a life-or-death struggle with me; of that I had no doubt. Concern for him suddenly filled me.
‘Tom?’ Web pressed me, and with a start I recalled his question.
‘It’s not my secret,’ I repeated doggedly. Hopelessness was welling up in me like blood from a puncture wound. I recognized it as Thick’s. That didn’t help. I’d have to quell it somehow, before it could affect the rest of the people on the ship.
Can you handle him for us?
The assent I sent to the Prince was an acknowledgement of his request rather than a confirmation that I could accomplish it.
Web was offering me his flask again. I took it, swigged from it, and then said, ‘I have to go back to Thick. It’s not good for him to be left alone.’
‘I think I see that,’ he agreed as he took the flask back from me. ‘I wish I was sure if you were protector or gaoler to him. Well, Tom Badgerlock, when you judge
