“You both were watching?” I asked quietly. For an instant, I was touched. They both cared that much for my child.
“She is my heir, too,” Verity pointed out relentlessly. “Do you think I could stand by and do nothing if they had injured her?” He shook his head at me. “Stay away from them, Fitz. For all our sakes. Do you understand?”
I nodded my head. His words could not distress me. I had already decided I would choose not to know where Molly and Burrich took Nettle. But not because she was Verity’s heir. Kettle and Verity stood and left the tent. I flung myself back into my blankets. The Fool, who had been propped on one elbow, lay down also. “I will tell you tomorrow,” I told him. He nodded mutely, his eyes huge in his pale face. Then he lay back down. I think he went to sleep. I stared up into darkness. Nighteyes came to lie beside me.
He would protect your cub as his own, he pointed out quietly. That is pack.
He meant the words for comfort. I did not need them. Instead I reached to rest a hand on his ruff. Did you see how she stood and faced them down? I demanded with pride.
A most excellent bitch, Nighteyes agreed.
I felt I had not slept at all when Starling woke the Fool and I for our watch. I came out of the tent stretching and yawning, and suspecting that keeping watch was not really a necessity. But the last shard of night was pleasantly mild, and Starling had left meat broth simmering at the fire’s edge. I was halfway through a mug when the Fool finally followed me out.
“Starling showed me her harp last night,” I said by way of greeting.
He smirked with satisfaction. “A crude bit of work. Ah, this was but one of his early efforts, they shall say of it someday,” he added with strained modesty.
“Kettle said you have no caution.”
“No, I have not, Fitz. What do we do here?”
“Me? What I’m told. When my watch is over, I’m off to the hills, to gather broom twigs. So that I can sweep the rock chips out of Verity’s way.”
“Ah. Now there’s lofty work for a Catalyst. And what shall a prophet do, do you suppose?”
“You might prophesy when that dragon will be finished. I fear we shall think of nothing else until it is done.”
The Fool was shaking his head minutely.
“What?” I demanded.
“I do not feel we were called here to make brooms and harps. This feels like a lull to me, my friend. The lull before the storm.”
“Now, there’s a cheery thought,” I told him glumly. But privately I wondered if he might not be right.
“Are you going to tell me what went on last night?”
When my account was finished, the Fool sat grinning. “A resourceful lass, that one,” he observed proudly. Then he cocked his head at me. “Think you the baby will be Witted? Or be able to Skill?”
I had never stopped to consider it. “I hope not,” I said immediately. And then wondered at my own words.
Dawn had scarcely broken before both Verity and Kettle arose. They each drank a mug of broth standing, and carried off dried meat as they headed back up to the dragon. Kettricken had also come out of Verity’s tent. Her eyes were hollow and defeat was in the set of her mouth. She had but half a mug of broth before setting it aside. She went back into the tent and returned with a blanket fashioned into a carry-sack.
“Firewood,” she replied flatly to my raised eyebrow.
“Then Nighteyes and I may as well go with you. I need to gather broom twigs and a stick. And he needs to do something besides sleep and grow fat.”
And you fear to go off in the woods without me.
If sows like that abound in these woods, you are absolutely correct.
Perhaps Kettricken would bring her bow?
But even as I turned to make the suggestion, she was ducking back into the tent to fetch it. “In case we meet another pig,” she told me as she came out.
But it was an uneventful expedition. Outside the quarry, the countryside was hilly and pleasant. We stopped at the stream to drink and wash. I saw the flash of a tiny fingerling in the water, and the wolf immediately wanted to fish. I told him I would after I had finished gathering my broom. So he came at my heels, but reluctantly. I gathered my broom twigs and found a long straight branch for a handle. Then we filled Kettricken’s carry-sack with wood, which I insisted on bearing so her hands could be free for her bow. On the way back to camp, we stopped at the stream. I looked for a place where plants overhung the bank, and it did not take us long to find one. We then spent far longer than I had intended in tickling for fish. Kettricken had never seen it done before, but after some impatience, she caught the trick of it. They were a kind of trout I had not seen before, tinged with pink along their bellies. We caught ten and I cleaned them there, with Nighteyes snapping up the entrails as quickly as I gutted them. Kettricken threaded them onto a willow stick, and we returned to camp.
I had not realized how much the quiet interlude had soothed my spirits until we came in sight of the black pillar guarding the mouth of the quarry. It seemed more ominous than ever, like some dark scolding finger lifted to warn me that, indeed, this might be the lull but the storm was coming. I gave a small shudder as I passed it. My Skill-sensitivity seemed to be growing again. The pillar radiated controlled power luringly. Almost against my will, I stopped to study the characters incised on it.
“Fitz? Are you coming?” Kettricken called back to me, and only then did I realize how long I had been gawking. I hastened to catch up with them, and rejoined them just as they were passing the girl on a dragon.
I had deliberately avoided that spot since the Fool had touched her. Now I glanced up guiltily to where the silver fingerprint still shone against her flawless skin. “Who were you, and why did you make such a sad carving?” I asked her. But her stone eyes only looked at me pleadingly above her tear-specked cheeks.
“Maybe she could not finish her dragon,” Kettricken speculated. “See how its hind feet and tail are still trapped in the stone? Maybe that’s why it’s so sad.”
“She must have carved it sad to begin with, don’t you see? Whether or not she finished it, the upper portion would be the same.”
Kettricken looked at me in amusement. “You still don’t believe that Verity’s dragon will fly when it is finished? I do. Of course, I have very little else to believe in anymore. Very little.”
I had been going to tell her I thought it a minstrel’s tale for a child, but her final words shut my mouth.
Back at the dragon, I bound my broom together and went at my sweeping with a vengeance. The sun was high in a bright blue sky with a light and pleasant breeze. It was altogether a lovely day and for a time I forgot all else in my simple chore. Kettricken unloaded her firewood and soon left to get more. Nighteyes followed at her heels, and I noticed with approval that Starling and the Fool hastened after her with carry-sacks of their own. With the rock chips and dust cleared away from the dragon, I could see more of the progress Verity and Kettle had made. The black stone of the dragon’s back was so shiny it almost reflected the blue of the sky. I observed as much to Verity, not really expecting an answer. His mind and heart were focused entirely on the dragon. On all other topics his mind seemed vague and wandering, but when he spoke to me of his dragon and the fashioning of it he was very much King Verity.
A few moments later, he rocked back on his heels from his crouch beside the dragon’s foot. He stood and ran a silver hand tentatively over the dragon’s back. I caught my breath, for in the wake of his hand there was suddenly color. A rich turquoise, with every scale edged in silver, followed the sweep of Verity’s finger. The hue shimmered there for an instant, then faded. Verity made a small sound of satisfaction. “When the dragon is full, the color will stay,” he told me. Without thinking, I reached a hand toward the dragon, but Verity abruptly shouldered me aside. “Don’t touch him,” he warned me, almost jealously. He must have seen the shock on my face, for he looked rueful. “It’s not safe for you to touch him anymore, Fitz. He is too . . .” His voice trailed off, and his eyes went afar in search of a word. Then he apparently forgot all about me, for he crouched back to his work on the creature’s foot.