Fool's Quest (25 page)

So I learned that Revel had spent the last moments of his life trying to save the Withywoods children. Truly, I'd never given the man the credit he deserved. And as the tale wound on, I heard of my Bee hiding the children where she had believed they would be safe, only to be deprived of that safety herself. Perseverance told me of the slaughter he'd seen in the stables, slain men sprawled with their throats cut as they did their daily chores, his own father and grandfather among them, and of stepping over bodies to saddle Priss, and the wild ride he and Bee had made in the hope of getting help.

His detailed account of the attack ended with the arrow. He had come to consciousness only in time to see them leaving with Bee. He had returned to the manor, to the stables still on fire and the folk he had known all his life denying that he had ever existed. I stopped him there. He had begun to shake as he spoke of it. “That's enough. Let it go for now, Perseverance. I know the truth of your words. Now, I want you to think, but not speak, of the people you saw. Think about each one of them, and when you are ready tell me about them, one at a time.” This, I had been taught by Chade, was the best way to gain information from one who had not been trained to report as I had. A question such as
Was he tall?
or
Was he bearded?
could carry the untrained mind to imagining something that had not been there.

He was silent as I bandaged his shoulder. It was infected, but no worse than such wounds always were. When I had finished, I helped him with his shirt and then brought him food and another jot of brandy. “Drink that first. Down in a gulp. Then you can eat while you talk to me.”

He took the brandy down, gasped and choked even more than he had on the first two, and quickly took a piece of bread to clear the taste from his mouth. I waited. He was as close to drunk as I wanted him, his thoughts wide and unguarded. And he told me what I would expect a stable boy to notice. White horses, with peculiar flat saddles, and big horses suited for men who might wear chain mail. Saddles on the big horses that sounded almost Chalcedean in design.

They spoke a foreign tongue. I asked no question, but he told me of a man on a horse who shouted, “Krintzen, krintzen!” over and over.

Kar inte jhen.
Chalcedean for “sit down.”

Chalcedeans in Buck. A raiding force? One that had crossed Shoaks Duchy and Farrow to raid an isolated manor in Buck? Why? To steal my daughter? It made no sense. Not until he told me that a pleasant-faced woman was with them, seeking a pale boy or young man. Then I knew what they had come seeking. The Unexpected Son, the child whom the Fool's messenger had urged me to find and protect. I still had no idea who or where that lad might be, but the puzzle began to make sense. Hostages to exchange. Who better to take than the daughter of the house and a noble lady?

When he spoke of how markedly pale some of the younger invaders were, the ones who wielded no weapons but aided those who did, when he spoke of their light hair and pale eyes and their pale garments, my blood ran cold. Were these the messenger's pursuers? Of course they were. She had said she was being hunted. The Fool's wild warnings were suddenly solid and real. These pale folk must be Servants from Clerres. As the Fool had warned me, the Servants had been tracking the messenger. And following him as well? Would they want to recover the Fool as well as find this Unexpected Son? Did they think I had found and concealed him at Withywoods and so sought him there? But what were they doing with Chalcedeans? Were they mercenaries in their hire? How had they come so far and deep into Buck Duchy without being reported to anyone? There was a regular patrol that rode the king's highways, mostly to discourage highwaymen, but also to take reports of unusual events. A troop of horse of that size, ridden by obvious foreigners, would certainly have been reported to them. If people remembered seeing them.

“That's all I remember, sir.” The boy looked drained. And suddenly appeared as tired as I felt. I doubted that he had been sleeping well.

I sorted the information I had and tried to find sense in it. They would have taken Bee and Shun as hostages. They would want the Unexpected Son in trade for them. I did not have him, but I did have the Fool. Could I use him as bait to lure them in? Did he have the strength to agree to such a gambit?

And then my logic fell into discordant pieces. If Bee was a hostage, their power was in dangling her before me, not vanishing without a trace and clouding the memories of those they left behind. Unless they had a stronghold close by, a secure place from which to negotiate. What would I do in their place? Take the hostages to the Chalcedean border or the seacoast? Negotiate from there, demand that we bring the Unexpected Son there? Perhaps. “Eat some food. I'll be back in a moment.” I turned and pointed a finger at Lant. “Stay there. I want to talk to you.”

He didn't say a word.

As I walked down the corridor to the chamber that had been Bee's nursery, the enormity of the disaster suddenly swept through me. I staggered to one side and caught myself on the wall. I stood for a moment, my vision black at the edges. Then with a surge I slashed at my weakness, damning it for daring to overcome me just when I most needed to be calm and rational. Emotion must be contained until I had all the information I needed with which to plan a course of action. Now was not the time to hate myself or give in to useless wishes for what I should have, might have, could have done. There was only the now, and I must be keen and remorseless if I was to find and follow their trail. I entered the nursery. Here, at least, no one had bothered to toss furniture and search for plunder. Perhaps no one had hidden here, perhaps the room had been missed. Why couldn't Bee have hidden here and been safe? Useless question.

I found cushions and a blanket and went back to my study. I threw them down on the hearth, refusing to feel anything about Molly's pretty things so roughly used. I pointed at them. “Perseverance. After you've eaten, rest there. Try to sleep. If you recall anything more, no matter how trivial it might seem, I want to hear it.”

“Sir,” he said. He put his attention back on the food, hunching over it like a half-starved hound. He'd probably been unable to eat much the last few days. Now he would eat and then he'd be able to sleep. I looked at him for a moment. Fatherless, unknown to his mother, and I was the only one in his world who remembered his name. Mine now, sworn to me. First vassal for the bastard prince. So fitting, somehow.

I seized my chair, dragged it across the room, and sat down facing Lant. I'd moved so close that he had to sit up straight to avoid his sprawled legs tangling with mine as I sat down. “It's your turn. Tell me everything you remember from the time I cut the dog's throat.”

He stared at me and then licked his lips. “We had gone to town. And a man was cruel to his dog, so you knocked him down and gave the dog a quick death.”

“Why had we gone to town, Lant?”

I watched his face, saw his mind skip and jump, finding what he was allowed to recall. “To get some more tablets for my students.”

I nodded. “Then we went to the inn to eat. And both Riddle and I left in a hurry. Why?”

He swallowed. “You didn't say.”

I nodded again. I moved toward him, not with my body, but first with my Wit, sensing him as another living creature, and then with my Skill. I did not know if I could push into his mind, but I suspected someone had. I recalled a brief conversation I'd had with Chade. He'd asked me if I thought the Skill could be used to make a man forget something. I'd told him I didn't want to consider ever using the magic that way. Both times I'd seen it done had been disastrous for me. When my father, Chivalry, had made the Skillmaster Galen forget how much he hated him, the man had turned his hatred for my father onto his son. The irony was that Galen had used the magic in a similar way on me. He'd invaded my mind and left me “misted,” as Verity had put it. Galen had used his Skill to convince me that I had little talent for the magic. Even after my king had done his best to clear the clouds from my mind, I'd never had full confidence in my abilities again. I'd always wondered if that forced forgetting had been what made my Skill-magic so erratic.

I didn't want to invade the man's mind. But my repeated questioning of Dixon had not given me any information and had pushed him into a seizure. I couldn't risk that with Lant. From what Perseverance had told me, Lant had taken that stab wound when he'd been held captive with the others in the carriageway. Did that mean he'd tried to fight them? Perhaps that was where I should begin.

“Let me see your injury,” I requested.

He startled and leaned back from me. “The healer has treated it. It's healing as well as could be expected.”

“And what did he say it looked like?”

“It's a puncture. From a tine.”

“Or a blade. He said it looked like a sword-thrust, didn't he?”

His eyes went very wide. He began to shake his head, a small denial at first and then a more frantic one.

“Sir? Prince FitzChivalry Farseer?”

I turned my attention from him to the man who stood in the doorway, startled at how he had named me. He was young, scarcely past his teens, and dressed in the livery of a royal messenger. His nose and the tops of his cheeks were bright red with cold, and he looked exhausted. “Sildwell,” I greeted him.

He looked mildly surprised that I knew his name. “Yes. They told me to come back here and talk to you.”

I heaved a sigh. “Come in, get warm by the fire, and please start this conversation as if you have at least a little training as a messenger.”

“It's the fog,” he said. He walked to the fire and stood beside Perseverance. “It makes it hard to care. All I want to do is sleep and not think about anything.” I became aware the boy had curled up and was deeply asleep on the floor. The messenger looked down at him, glanced at the glowering FitzVigilant, and then stood straighter. Reaching into the satchel at his side, he took out the baton that proclaimed him a true messenger. He held it as he spoke. “Sir, I bring you tidings from Lord Chade of Buckkeep Castle. I was to deliver these tidings and gifts to Lady Bee, Lady Shun, and Scribe FitzVigilant of Withywoods. But on arriving here, I was told that two of those recipients were unknown here. I endeavored to Skill this information to Lord Chade to request his further instructions. Although I am not highly Skilled, I have never encountered difficulties with the simple relaying of information. This time, however, I was not able to make myself understood. I next undertook to send a messenger bird. I asked for one to be brought to me and was told the manor had no such birds. I knew that was untrue. I found all the birds dead on the floor of the pigeon-house. Throttled, their necks broken. No one had even cleared the bodies away. When I endeavored to bring this to the attention of the steward, he said that the manor had no pigeon-house. He said this as he stood looking at it with me.

“I believe you were with the others when Lady Nettle attempted to Skill to me. You already know how little success we had. After a long and frustrating day of disbelief and lies, I decided to go down to Withy and have a glass of ale. My insistence that I had a message for two nonexistent ladies had not made me the most welcome fellow here. But as I rode, the fog and heaviness that seemed to fill the air began to dissipate. By the time I reached Withy, I was able to communicate clearly with Lord Chade and the King's Own Coterie. They directed me to return here as swiftly as possible and say that Thick and Lord Chade hope to arrive here by morning. He directed me to arrange to have mounts waiting for them at the Judgment Stone on Gallows Hill as soon as there is daylight. So I did.” He looked uneasy for a moment. “I feared no one here would obey me, so I hired horses in Withy, to be taken to Gallows Hill in the morning. I said you would pay very well.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Will Lady Nettle not accompany Lord Chade and Thick?”

He raised his brows. “Sir, I was told she is with child. Hence she cannot use the pillars.”

“And why not?”

“It was in a recent translation that Lord Chade brought to our attention. Perhaps you have not heard of it. A pregnant Skill-user who moves through the stones often emerges, er, unpregnant.”

“She miscarries her child?”

“No, sir. It's darker than that. Her pregnancy vanishes. There are two accounts of it happening. And a third account of a fine mare that was led through a Skill-portal to be serviced by a stallion. Close to her time to bear, she was taken home again, but emerged from the Skill-pillar empty-wombed.”

Cold rose in me. I had never heard of such a thing. It came to me again that we knew nothing of how the portals worked. An unborn child vanished. To where? How? It didn't matter in some ways. Gone was gone. I spoke faintly. “Thank Eda Chade found that scroll!”

“Yes, sir. So Lady Nettle will stay behind. Lord Chade and Thick will come here to experience this fog I've described. And perhaps to see if Thick can prevail against it.”

I tried not to feel hope. I dreaded seeing Chade and telling him that I had no idea what had become of Shun. Time to dig a bit more. I rang for a servant and waited. When some small time had passed, I stepped out into the hall and shouted for Bulen. As I reentered the room, FitzVigilant asked, “Are you finished with me? Can I go back to my bed now? I am not well, as you can see.”

I tried to speak kindly. “I can see that, Lant. And I see something that you cannot. Your mind has been hazed. Things have happened here in the last few days that you can no longer recall. You know what the Skill-magic is; you've heard of it. Someone has used the Skill or something very like it to confuse you. You walk past carpet stained with blood and doors that have been battered open, and you see nothing odd. Servants have been slaughtered and you do not miss them. Two of our household are missing. Lady Bee, my young daughter, has been taken, and Lady Shun has vanished. I don't know if she was killed and her body burned in the stable fire, or if she is also kidnapped.” My voice had begun to shake. I paused and took several long breaths. “Tonight I will try to find out if anyone in our household recalls any detail of that night. For that sleeping lad is truly a stable boy born and bred here, the third generation of his family to serve mine. And he spoke the truth, a truth you cannot remember.”