“I know that. Now. In some ways I’ve come to know him very well. In others, he will always be unknowable to me.”
I nodded silently to that. The silence lasted a time. Then, subtly, it became a different kind of silence. “Actually,” Starling said uncomfortably, “the Fool suggested I should find you.”
I groaned. I wondered just how much he had told her.
“I’m sorry to hear about Molly . . .” she began.
“But not surprised,” I filled in for her. I lifted my arm and put it across my eyes to block the sunlight.
“No.” She spoke quietly. “Not surprised.” She cast about for something to say. “At least you know she is safe and cared for,” she offered.
I knew that. It shamed me that I could find so little comfort in it. Putting it into the dragon had helped in the same way that cutting off an infected limb helped. Being rid of it was not the same as being healed of it. The empty place inside me itched. Perhaps I wanted to hurt. I watched her from the shade of my arm.
“Fitz,” she said quietly. “I asked you once, for yourself. In gentleness and friendship. To chase a memory away,” She looked away from me, at the sunlight glinting on the stream. “Now I offer that,” she said humbly.
“But I don’t love you,” I said honestly. And instantly knew that it was the worst thing I could have said just then.
Starling sighed and set her harp aside. “I know that. You know that. But it was not a thing that had to be said just now.”
“And I know that. Now. It is just that I don’t want any lies, spoken or unspoken . . .”
She leaned over me and stopped my mouth with hers. After a time she lifted her face a little. “I am a minstrel. I know more about lying than you will ever discover. And minstrels know that sometimes lies are what a man needs most. In order to make a new truth of them.”
“Starling,” I began.
“You know you will just say the wrong thing,” she told me. “So why don’t you be quiet for a time? Don’t make this complicated. Stop thinking, just for a while.”
Actually, it was quite a while.
When I awoke, she still lay warm against my side. Nighteyes stood over us, looking down at me, panting with the heat of the day. When I opened my eyes, he folded his ears back and gave his tail a slow wag. A drop of warm saliva fell on my arm.
“Go away.”
The others are calling you. And looking for you. He cocked his head at me and offered, I could show Kettricken where to find you.
I sat up and squashed three mosquitoes on my chest. They left bloody smears. I reached for my shirt. Is something wrong?
No. They are ready to wake the dragon. Verity wishes to tell you goodbye.
I shook Starling gently. “Wake up. Or you will miss Verity waking the dragon.”
She stirred lazily. “For that, I shall get up. I can think of nothing else that would stir me. Besides, it may be my last chance at a song. Fate has ruled that I always be elsewhere whenever you do something interesting.”
I had to smile at that. “So. You will make no songs about Chivalry’s Bastard after all?” I teased her.
“One, perhaps. A love song.” She gave me a last secret smile. “That part, at least, was interesting.”
I stood up and drew her to her feet. I kissed her. Nighteyes whined his impatience, and she turned quickly in my arms. Nighteyes stretched and bowed low to her. When she turned back to me, her eyes were wide.
“I warned you,” I told her.
She only laughed and stooped to gather up our clothes.
39
Verity’s Dragon
Six Duchies troops poured into Blue Lake and took ship for the farther side and the Mountain Kingdom on the very days that the Red-Ships were beating their way up the Vin River to Tradeford. Tradeford had never been a fortified city. Although word of the ships’ coming preceded them by fast messenger, the news was greeted with general disdain. What menace were twelve ships of barbarians to such a great city as Tradeford? The City Guard was alerted, and some of the dockside merchants took steps to remove their goods from warehouses close to the water, but the general attitude was that if they did manage to get as far up the river as Tradeford, archers would easily pick off the Raiders before they could do any real damage. The general consensus was that the ships must be bringing some offer of treaty to the King of the Six Duchies. There was much discussion as to how much of the Coastal Duchies they would ask ceded to them, and the possible value of reopening trade with the Outislands themselves, not to mention restoring the trade flow down the Buck River.
This is but one more example of the errors that can be made when one thinks one knows what the enemy desires, and acts upon it. The folk of Tradeford ascribed to the Red-Ships the same desire for prosperity and plenty that they themselves felt. To base their estimation of the Red-Ships on that motive was a grievous mistake.
I don’t think Kettricken had accepted the idea that Verity must die for the dragon to quicken until the actual moment he kissed her goodbye. He kissed her so carefully, his hands and arms held wide of her, his head cocked so that no silver smear would touch her face. For all that, it was a tender kiss, a hungry and lingering one. A moment longer she clung to him. Then he said something softly to her. She immediately put her hands to her lower belly. “How can you be so sure?” she asked him, even as the tears began to course down her cheeks.
“I know,” he said firmly. “And so my first task must be to return you to Jhaampe. You must be kept safe this time.”
“My place is in Buckkeep Castle,” she protested.
I had thought he would argue. But, “You are right. It is. And thither I shall bear you. Farewell, my love.”
Kettricken did not reply. She stood watching him walk away from her, an intense look of incomprehension on her face.
For all the days we had spent striving for this very thing, at the end it seemed rushed and untidy. Kettle paced stiffly by the dragon. She had bid us all farewell with a distracted air. Now she hovered beside the dragon, breathing as if she had just run a race. At every moment, she was touching the dragon, a fingertip caress, a dragging hand. Color rippled in the wake of her touch and lingered, fading slowly.
Verity took more care with his goodbyes. To Starling, he admonished, “Care for my lady. Sing your songs well and true, and let no man ever doubt the child she carries is mine. With that truth I charge you, minstrel.”
“I shall do my best, my king,” Starling replied gravely. She went to stand beside Kettricken. She was to accompany the queen on the dragon’s broad back. She kept wiping her damp palms down the front of her tunic and checking to make sure the pack that carried her harp was secure to her back. She gave me a nervous smile. Neither of us needed more farewell than that.
There had been some furor about my decision to stay. “Regal’s troops draw nearer with every passing moment,” Verity reminded me yet again.
“Then you should hurry, so I will not be in this quarry when they arrive,” I reminded him.
He frowned at that. “If I see any of Regal’s troops upon the road, I shall see they do not get this far,” he offered me.
“Take no risks with my queen,” I reminded him.
Nighteyes was my excuse to stay. He had no wish to ride upon a dragon. I would not leave him. I am sure Verity knew the real reasons. I did not think I should return to Buck. I had already made Starling promise me that there would be no mention of me in song. It had not been an easy promise to wring from a minstrel. But I had insisted. I never wanted either Burrich or Molly to know that I yet lived. “In this, dear friend, you have been Sacrifice,” Kettricken had told me quietly. She could offer me no greater compliment. I knew no word of me would ever pass her lips.