Abruptly I was with Verity. He was somewhere cold and windy and dark. I tried to see more of what was around us, but he blocked my eyes. So effortlessly he had brought me here against my will, so effortlessly he closed off my vision. The strength of Skill on him was frightening. Yet I could sense he was tired, weary almost to death despite this vast power. The Skill was like a strong stallion and Verity was the fraying rope that tethers it. It pulled at him every minute and every minute he resisted it.
We are coming to you, I told him needlessly.
I know. Hurry. And do this no more, think of them no more, and give no thought at all to the names of those who would do us harm. Every whisper here is a shout. They have powers you do not imagine, in strengths you cannot defy. Where you go, your enemies may follow. So leave no trail.
But where are you? I demanded as he thrust me away from him.
Find me! he commanded me, and slammed me back into my own body and life.
I sat up in my blankets, convulsively gasping for air. It reminded me of wrestling and being slammed down on the flat of my back. For a moment I made tiny sounds as I sought to fill my lungs. Finally I drew a full breath. I looked about me in the darkness. Outside the tent, the windstorm howled. The brazier was a small red glow in the center that illuminated little more than Kettle’s huddled form sleeping close to it.
“Are you all right?” the Fool asked me quietly.
“No,” I said softly. I lay back down beside him. I was suddenly too tired to think, too tired to say another word. The sweat on my body chilled and I began to shiver. The Fool surprised me by putting an arm around me. I moved closer to him gratefully, sharing warmth. The sympathy of my wolf wrapped me. I waited for the Fool to say something comforting. He was too wise to try. I fell asleep longing for words that did not exist.
25
Strategy
“Fitz? Are you awake?” The Fool was bending over me, his face very close to mine. He seemed anxious.
“I think so.” I shut my eyes. Images and thoughts flickered through my mind. I could not decide which of them were mine. I tried to remember if it was important to know that.
“Fitz!” This was Kettricken, shaking me.
“Make him sit up,” Starling suggested. Kettricken promptly gripped me by my shirtfront and hauled me into a sitting position. The sudden change dizzied me. I could not understand why they wanted me to be awake in the middle of the night. I said so.
“It’s midday,” Kettricken said tersely. “The storm hasn’t let up since last night.” She peered at me closely. “Are you hungry? Would you like a cup of tea?”
While I was trying to decide, I forgot what she had asked me. There were so many people talking softly, I could not sort my thoughts from theirs. “I beg your pardon,” I told the woman politely. “What did you ask me?”
“Fitz!” the pale man hissed in exasperation. He reached behind me and dragged a pack over to him. “He has elfbark in here, for tea. Chade left it with him. It should bring him back to himself.”
“He doesn’t need that,” an old woman said sharply. She crawled closer to me, reached up, and gripped my ear. She pinched it tightly.
“Ouch! Kettle!” I rebuked her, and tried to pull away. She kept her painful hold. “Wake up!” she told me sternly. “Right now!”
“I’m awake!” I promised her, and after a scowl at me, she let go of my ear. While I looked about me in some confusion, she muttered angrily, “We’re too close to that damnable road.”
“It’s still stormy outside?” I asked bewilderedly.
“You’ve only been told that six times,” Starling retorted, but I could hear the worry that underlay her words.
“I had . . . nightmares last night. I didn’t sleep well.” I looked around at the circle of folk clustered around the small brazier. Someone had braved the wind for a fresh supply of wood. A kettle hung on a tripod over the brazier, heaped full of melting snow. “Where’s Nighteyes?” I asked as soon as I missed him.
“Hunting,” Kettricken said and, With very little luck, came the echo from the hillside above us. I could feel the wind past his eyes. He had folded his ears back from it. Nothing is moving in this storm. I don’t know why I bother.
Come back and stay warm, I suggested. At that moment, Kettle leaned over and pinched my arm savagely. I jerked back from it with a cry.
“Pay attention to us!” she snapped at me.
“What are we doing?” I demanded as I sat rubbing my arm. No one’s behavior made any sense to me today.
“Waiting for the storm to pass,” Starling told me. She leaned closer to me, peering into my face. “Fitz, what is the matter with you? I feel as if you’re not really here.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I feel caught in a dream. And if I don’t concentrate on staying awake, I start to fall right back to sleep.”
“Then concentrate,” Kettle advised me roughly. I could not understand why she seemed so angry with me.
“Maybe he should just sleep,” the Fool suggested. “He seems tired, and from all the leaping and yelping he did in his sleep last night, his dreams were scarcely restful.”
“So he will get more rest staying awake now than from going back to dreams like that,” Kettle insisted mercilessly. She poked me suddenly in the ribs. “Talk to us, Fitz.”
“About what?” I hedged.
Kettricken moved quickly to the attack. “Did you dream of Verity last night?” she demanded. “Is Skilling last night what has left you so dazed today?”
I sighed. One does not answer a direct question from one’s queen with a lie. “Yes,” I told her, but as her eyes lit I had to add, “But it was a dream that will bring you small comfort. He is alive, in a cold; windy place. He would let me see no more than that, and when I asked where he was, he simply told me to find him.”
“Why would he behave so?” Kettricken asked. The hurt on her face was as if Verity himself had shoved her away.
“He warned me severely against all Skilling. I had been . . . watching Molly and Burrich.” It was so hard to admit this, for I wanted to speak nothing of what I had seen there. “Verity came and took me away from there, and warned me that our enemies might find them through me and hurt them. I believe that is why he concealed his surroundings from me. Because he feared that if I knew them, somehow Regal or his coterie might come to know them.”