that their threats were in earnest? Who or what could they destroy in order to demonstrate their power?
Simple answer. Tom Badgerlock. I was but a playing piece on the board as far as they were concerned, a minor servant, but an unpleasant fellow who had already upset their plans and maimed one of their leaders. They’d showed themselves to me last night, confident that I would pass the ‘message’ to those actually in power in Buckkeep. And then, to prove to the Farseers that they were vulnerable, the Piebalds would pull me down as hounds pull down a stag. I would be the object lesson to Kettricken and Dutiful.
I lowered my face into my hands. My best course of action was to flee. Yet having returned to Buckkeep, even so briefly, I hated to leave again. This cold castle of stone had been my home once, and despite the illegitimacy of my birth, the Farseers were my family.
A whisper of sound caught my ear. I sat up straight, and then realized that it was a young girl’s voice, penetrating the thick stone wall to reach me in my hidden spy-place. With a weary curiosity, I leaned forward to the peephole and peered through it. A bedchamber, lavishly furnished, greeted my gaze. A dark-haired girl stood with her back to me. Next to the hearth, a grizzled old warrior lounged in a chair. Some of the scarring on his face was deliberate – fine lacerations rubbed with ash, considered decorative by the Outislanders – but some of it was the track of an earnest blade. Grey streaked his hair and peppered his short beard. He was cleaning and cutting his nails with his belt knife while the girl practised a dance step before him.
‘—And two to the side, one back, and turn,’ she chanted breathlessly as her small feet followed her own instructions. As she spun lightly about in a whirl of embroidered skirts, I glimpsed her face for an instant. It was the Narcheska Elliania, Dutiful’s intended. No doubt she was practising for their first dance together tonight.
‘And again, two steps to the side, and two steps back and—’
‘One step back, Elli,’ the man corrected her. ‘And then the turn. Try it again.’
She halted where she stood and said something quickly in her own language.
‘Elliania, practise the farmers’ tongue. It goes with their dance,’ he replied implacably.
‘I don’t care to,’ the girl announced petulantly. ‘Their flat language is as insipid as this dance.’ She dropped her hold on her skirts, clasped her elbows and folded her arms on her chest. ‘It’s stupid. All this stepping and twirling. It’s like pigeons bobbing their heads up and down and pecking each other before they mate.’
‘Yes. It is,’ he agreed affably. ‘And for exactly the same reason. Now do it. And do it perfectly. If you can remember the steps of a sword exercise, you can master this. Or would you have these haughty farmers think that the God Runes have sent them a clumsy little boat-slave to wed their pretty prince?’
She showed her very white teeth to him in a grimace. Then she snatched up her skirts, held them scandalously high to reveal that she was barefoot and barelegged, and went through the steps in a frenzy. ‘Two-steps-to-the-side-and-one-step-back-and-spin-and-two-steps-to-the-side-and-one-step-back-and-spin-and-two-steps-to-the-side—’ Her furious chant changed the graceful dance to a frantic cavorting. The man grinned at her prancing, but did not intervene. The God Runes, I thought to myself, and unearthed the familiar ring of the words. It was what the Outislanders called the scattered isles that made up their domain. And the single Outislander chart that I had ever seen did impart a runic rendering to each of the small pieces of land that broke their icy waters.
‘Enough!’ the warrior snorted suddenly.
The girl’s face was flushed with her efforts, her breath coming swift. But she did not stop until the man came suddenly to his feet and caught her up in an embrace. ‘Enough, Elliania. Enough. You have shown me that you can do it, and do it perfectly. Let it go for now. But tonight you must be all grace and beauty and charm. Show yourself as the little spitfire that you are, and your pretty prince may decide to take a tamer bride. And you wouldn’t want that.’ He set her down on her feet and resumed his chair.
‘Yes, I would.’ Her response was instantaneous.
His reply was more measured. ‘No. You wouldn’t. Unless you’d like my belt across your backside as well?’
‘No.’ Her reply was so stiff that I immediately perceived his threat was not an idle one.
‘No.’ He made the word an agreement. ‘And I would not relish doing it. But you are my sister’s daughter, and I will not see the line of our mothers disgraced. Would you?’
‘I don’t want to disgrace my mothers’ line.’ The child held herself warrior-straight as she declared this. But then her shoulders began to shake as she went on, ‘But I don’t want to marry that prince. His mother looks like a snow harpy. He’ll make me fat with babies, and they’ll all be pale and cold as ice wraiths. Please, Peottre, take me home. I don’t want to have to live in this great cold cave. I don’t want that boy to do the thing to me that makes babies. I just want our mothers’ low house, and to ride my pony out in the wind. And I want my own boat to scull across Sendalfjord, and my own skates of gear to set for fish. And when I am grown, my own bench in the mothers’ house, and a man who knows that it is right to dwell in the house of his wife’s mothers. All I want is what any other girl my age wants. That prince will tear me away from my mothers’ line as a branch is torn from a vine, and I will grow brittle and dry here until I snap into tiny pieces!’
‘Elliania, Elliania, dear heart, don’t!’ The man came to his feet with the fluid grace of a warrior, yet his body was stocky and thick, a typical Outislander. He caught the child up and she buried her face in his shoulder. Sobs shook her, and tears stood in the warrior’s eyes as he held her. ‘Hush, now. Hush. If we are clever, if you are strong and swift and dance like the swallows above the water, it will never come to that. Never. Tonight is but a betrothal, little shining one, not a wedding. Do you think Peottre would abandon you here? Foolish little fish! No one is going to make a baby with you tonight, or any other night, not for years yet! And even then, it will happen only if you want it to. That I promise you. Do you think I would shame our mothers’ line by letting it be otherwise? This is but a dance we do. Nevertheless, we must tread it perfectly.’ He set her back on her little bare feet. He tilted her chin up so she must look at him, and wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of one scarred hand. ‘There, now. There. Smile for me. And remember. The first dance you must give to the pretty prince. But the second one is for Peottre. So, show me now how we will dance together, this silly farmers’ prancing.’
He began a tuneless humming that set a beat, and she gave her small hands into his. Together they stepped out a measure, she moving like thistledown and he like a swordsman. I watched them dance, the girl’s eyes focused up at the man’s, and the man staring off over her head into a distance only he could see.
A knock at the door halted their dance. ‘Enter,’ Peottre called, and a serving woman came in with a dress draped over her arm. Abruptly, Peottre and Elliania stepped apart and became still. They could not have been more wary if a serpent had slithered into the room. Yet the woman was garbed as an Outislander, one of their own.
Her manner was odd. She made no curtsey. She held the dress up for their inspection, giving it a shake to loosen the folds of the fabric. ‘The Narcheska will wear this tonight.’
Peottre ran his eyes over it. I had never seen anything like it. It was a woman’s dress, cut for a child. The fabric was a pale blue, swooping low at the neckline. A gush of lace on the front along with some clever gathers drew up the fabric. It would help the Narcheska pretend a bosom she did not yet possess. Elliania
