“Shall I leave you two alone to discuss this?” Chade rose a shade too hastily.
“Oh, no. As you know nothing of Nettle and her dragon, I’m sure this will be as enlightening to you as it is to me.”
Chade sank slowly back into his chair, his retreat severed by the Prince’s sarcasm. I knew abruptly that the old man was not going to help me at all. That, if anything, Chade relished my being cornered this way.
“Who is Nettle?” Dutiful’s question was blunt.
So was my answer. “My daughter. Though she does not know it.”
He leaned back in his chair as if I’d doused him with cold water. There was a long moment of silence. Chade, damn him, lifted his hand to cover his mouth, but not before I’d seen his smile. I shot him a look of pure fury. He dropped his hand and grinned openly.
“I see,” Dutiful said after a time. Then, as if it were the most important conclusion he could reach, “I have a cousin. A girl cousin! How old is she? How is it that I’ve never met her? Or have I? When was she last at court? Who is her lady mother?”
I could not find my tongue, but I hated Chade speaking for me. “She has never been to court, my prince. Her mother is a candlemaker. Her father… the man she thinks is her father is Burrich, formerly the Stablemaster at Buckkeep Castle. She is sixteen now, I believe.” He halted there, as if to give the Prince time to puzzle it out. “Swift’s father? Then… is Swift your son? You spoke of having a foster son, but—”
“Swift is Burrich’s son. And Nettle’s half-brother.” I took a long breath, and heard myself ask, “Have you any brandy? Wine isn’t enough for this tale.”
“I can see that.” He stood up and fetched it for me, more nephew than prince in that moment, and ready to be enraptured by ancient family history. It was hard for me to tell that old tale, and somehow Chade nodding sympathetically made it worse. When the convoluted connections were finally all traced for him, Dutiful sat shaking his head.
“What a mare’s nest you made of it, FitzChivalry. With this piece in place, the tale my mother told me of your life makes much more sense. And how you must hate Molly and Burrich, that they could both set you aside and faithlessly forget you and find comfort in one another.”
It shocked me that he could speak of it that way. “No,” I said firmly. “That isn’t how it was. They believed me dead. There was nothing faithless about them going on living. And, if she had to give herself to someone, then… then I am glad that she chose a man worthy of her. And that he finally found a bit of happiness for himself. And that together they protected my child.” It was getting harder to speak as my throat tightened. I loosened it with a slug of brandy, and then wheezed in a breath.
“He was the better man for her,” I managed to add. I had told myself that so often, through the years. “I wonder if she would have thought so,” the Prince mused, and then, at the look on my face, added hastily, “I beg your pardon. It’s not my place to wonder such things. But… but I am still shocked that my mother allowed this. Often she has spoken with me, forcefully, about how much rests on me as the sole heir to the throne.”
“She gave way to Fitz’s feelings in that. Against my counsel,” Chade explained. I could hear the satisfaction he took in finally vindicating himself.
“I see. Well, actually, I don’t see, but for now the question is, how have you been teaching her to Skill? Did you live near her before or…?”
“I haven’t been teaching her. What she knows of it, she has mastered on her own.”
“But I was told that was horribly dangerous!” Dutiful’s shock seemed to deepen. “How could you allow her to be risked this way, knowing all she means to the Farseer throne?” That question was for me, and then he accusingly demanded of Chade, “Did you prevent her coming to court? Was this your doing, some silly effort at protecting the Farseer name?”
“Not at all, my prince,” he denied smoothly. He turned his calm gaze on me and told Dutiful, “Many times, I have asked Fitz to allow Nettle to be brought to Buckkeep, so that she could both learn her own importance to the Farseer line and be instructed in the Skill. But, again, this was an area in which FitzChivalry’s feelings had their way. Against the counsel of both the Queen and myself.”
The Prince took several deep breaths. Then, “This is unbelievable,” he said quietly. “And intolerable. It will be remedied. I’ll do it myself.”
“Do what?” I demanded.
“Tell that girl who she is! And have her brought to court and treated as befits her birth. See her educated in all things, including the Skill. My cousin is being raised as a country girl, dipping candles and feeding chickens! What if the Farseer throne required her? I still cannot grasp that my mother allowed this!” Is there anything more chilling than looking at a righteous fifteen-year-old and realizing he has the power to unravel your entire life? I felt queasy with vulnerability. “You have no idea what that would do to my life,” I pleaded quietly.
“No. I don’t,” he admitted easily, but with growing outrage. “And neither do you. You go around making these monumental decisions about what other people should know or not know about their own lives. But you don’t really have any more idea how it will turn out than I do! You just do what you think is safest and then crawl around hoping no one will find out and blame you later if things go wrong!” He was building up to a frenzy, and I suddenly suspected that this was not entirely about Nettle. “What are you so angry about?” I asked bluntly. “This is nothing to do with you.”
“Nothing to do with me? Nothing to do with me?” He stood up, nearly knocking his chair over. “How can Nettle be nothing to do with me? Do not we share a grandfather? Is not she a Farseer born, and possessed of the Skill Magic? Do you know—” He choked for a moment, and then visibly composed himself. In a softer voice he asked, “Have you no idea what it would have meant to me to grow up with a peer? Someone of my blood, someone closer to my own age that I could talk to? Someone who would have to shoulder a share of the responsibility for the Farseer reign, so that it wouldn’t always have had to be only on me?” He glanced aside, staring as if he could see through the wall of the cabin and gave an odd little snort. “It could be her here in this cabin, promised to an Outislander spouse instead of me. If my mother and Chade had had two Farseers to spend to buy us peace, who knows…”
The thought made my blood cold. I didn’t want to tell him that was exactly what I had tried to protect Nettle from. I did give him one truth. “It had never occurred to me to look at it from your point of view. It had never occurred to me that it would have an effect on you at all.”
“Well, it has. And it does.” He suddenly shifted his focus to Chade. “And you too have been negligent beyond all tolerance. This girl is the heir to the Farseer throne, after me. That should be documented and witnessed; it should have been done before I left port! If anything befalls me, if I die trying to chop up this frozen dragon, there will be chaos as all try to suggest who should be—”
“It has been done, my prince. Many years ago. And the documents kept safe. In that, I have not been negligent.” Chade seemed incensed that Dutiful could even think such a thing.
“It would have been nice to know that. Can either of you explain to me why it was so important to keep this information from me?” He glared from Chade to me, but his stare settled on me as he observed, “It seems to me that you have gone about for a lot of your life, making decisions for other people, doing what you thought was best without consulting them about what they wanted at all. And you aren’t always right!” I kept my temper. “That’s the trouble with making a decision. You never know if it’s right until after you’ve done it. But it is what adults are supposed to do. Make decisions. And then live with them.” He was silent for a time. Then he said, after a moment, “And if I made an adult decision to tell Nettle who she is? To right at least that much of the wrong we have done her?”