She gave me a look as if she thought I had asked it of her. “I fear to touch it also,” she said at last, and we both turned away from it.
Evening crept across the mountains as we went up the road, and night came swift on her heels. I followed Kettle and the wolf across the landslide in near darkness. Neither of them seemed afraid, and I was suddenly too weary to care if I survived the trek. “Don’t let your mind wander,” Kettle chided me as we finally came down off the tumble of stone and onto the road again. She took my arm and gripped it tightly. We walked for a time in almost blackness, simply following the straight flat road before us as it cut across the face of the mountain. The wolf went ahead of us, coming back frequently to check on us. Camp’s not much farther, he encouraged me after one such trip.
“How long have you been doing this?” Kettle asked me after a time.
I didn’t pretend to misunderstand the question. “Since I was about twelve,” I told her.
“How many men have you killed?”
It was not the cold question it sounded. I answered her seriously. “I don’t know. My . . . teacher advised me against keeping a count. He said it wasn’t a good idea.” Those weren’t his exact words. I remembered them well. “How many doesn’t matter after one,” Chade had said. “We know what we are. Quantity makes you neither better nor worse.”
I pondered now what he had meant by that as Kettle said to the dark, “I killed once before.”
I made no reply. I’d let her tell me about it if she wished, but I really didn’t want to know.
Her arm in mine began to tremble slightly. “I killed her, in a temper. I didn’t think I could, she had always been stronger. But I lived and she died. So they burned me out, and turned me out. Sent me into exile forever.” Her hand found mine and gripped it tightly. We kept on walking. Ahead of us, I spied a tiny glow. It was most likely the brazier burning inside the tent.
“It was so unthinkable, to do what I had done,” Kettle said wearily. “It had never happened before. Oh, between coteries, certainly, once in a great while, for rivalry for the King’s favor. But I Skill-dueled a member of my own coterie, and killed her. And that was unforgivable.”
29
The Rooster Crown
There is a game played among the Mountain folk. It is a complex game to learn, and a difficult one to master. It features a combination of cards and rune chips. There are seventeen cards, usually about the size of a man’s hand and made from any light-colored wood. Each of these cards features an emblem from Mountain lore, such as the Old Weaver-Man or She Who Tracks. The renderings of these highly stylized images are usually done in paint over a burnt outline. The thirty-one rune chips are made from a gray stone peculiar to the Mountains, and are incised with glyphs for Stone, Water, Pasture, and the like. The cards and stones are dealt out to the players, usually three, until no more remain. Both cards and runes have traditional weights that are varied when they are played in combination. It is reputed to be a very old game.
We walked the rest of the way to the tent in silence. What she had told me was so immense I could not think of anything to say. It would have been stupid to voice the hundreds of questions that sprang up in me. She had the answers, and she would choose when to give them to me. I knew that now. Nighteyes came back to me silently and swiftly. He slunk close to my heels.
She killed within her pack?
So it seems.
It happens. It is not good, but it happens. Tell her that. Not just now.
No one said much as we came into the tent. No one wanted to ask. So I quietly said, “We killed the guards and drove off the horses and threw their supplies off the cliff.”
Starling only stared at us, without comprehension. Her eyes were wide and dark, birdlike. Kettricken poured mugs of tea for us and quietly added the stores of food we had brought to our own dwindling supplies. “The Fool is a bit better,” she offered by way of conversation.
I looked at him sleeping in his blankets and doubted it. His eyes had a sunken look. Sweat had plastered his fine hair to his skull and his restless sleep had stood it up in tufts. But when I set my hand to his face, it was almost cool to the touch. I snugged the blanket closer around him. “Did he eat anything?” I asked Kettricken.
“He drank some soup. I think he’ll be all right, Fitz. He was sick once before, for a day or so in Blue Lake. It was the same, fever and weakness. He said then that it might not be a sickness, but only a change his kind go through.”
“He said somewhat the same to me yesterday,” I agreed. She put a bowl of warm soup in my hands. For an instant it smelled good. Then it smelled like the remains of the soup the panicked guards had spilled on the snowy road. I clenched my jaws.
“Did you see the coterie members at all?” Kettricken asked me.
I shook my head, then forced myself to speak. “No. But there was a big horse there, and the clothing in his bags would have fit Burl. In another there were blue garments such as Carrod favors. And austere things for Will.”
I said their names awkwardly, in a way fearing to name them, lest I summon them. In another way, I was naming those I had killed. Skilled or not, the Mountains would make an end of them. Yet I took no pride in what I had done, nor would I completely believe it until I saw their bones. All I knew for now was that it was not likely they would attack me this night. For an instant I imagined them returning to the pillar, expecting to find food and fire and shelter awaiting them. They would find cold and dark. They would not see the blood on the snow.
I realized the soup was getting cold. I forced myself to eat it, mouthfuls that I simply swallowed, not wishing to taste. Tallow had played the pennywhistle. I had a sudden memory of him sitting on the back steps outside the scullery, playing for a couple of kitchen maids. I shut my eyes, wishing vainly that I could recall something evil about him. I suspected his only crime had been serving the wrong master.
“Fitz.” Kettle instantly poked me.
“I wasn’t wandering,” I complained.
“You would have, soon. Fear has been your ally this day. It has kept you focused. But you must sleep sometime tonight, and when you do, you must have your mind well warded. When they get back to the pillar, they will recognize your handiwork and come hunting you. Do you not think so?”
I knew it was so, but it was still unsettling to hear it spoken aloud. I wished Kettricken and Starling were not listening and watching us.
“So. We shall have a bit of our game again, shall we?” Kettle cajoled.
We played four chance games. I won twice. Then she set up a game with almost entirely white pieces, and gave me one black stone with which to win. I tried to focus my mind on the game, knowing it had worked before, but I was simply too tired. I found myself thinking that it had been over a year since I had left Buckkeep as a corpse. Over a year since I had slept in a real bed I called my own. Over a year since meals had been reliable. Over a year since I had held Molly in my arms, over a year since she had bid me leave her alone forever.
“Fitz. Don’t.”
I lifted my eyes from the game cloth to find Kettle watching me closely.
“You can’t indulge that. You have to be strong.”
“I am too tired to be strong.”
“Your enemies were careless today. They did not expect you to discover them. They won’t be careless again.”
“I hope they’ll be dead,” I said with a cheer I did not feel.
“Not that easily,” Kettle replied, unknowing of how her words chilled me. “You said it was warmer down in the city. Once they see they’ve no supplies, they’ll go back to the city. They have water there, and I’m sure they took at least some supplies for the day. I don’t think we can disregard them yet— Do you?”