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  Prince Dutiful lowered his head slightly. I knew it was at Chade's suggestion, but it must have appeared to Peottre that he perhaps regretted the tenor of his earlier words. "We are pleased to accept your hospitality this night, Peottre Blackwater. And we will take passage on the Tusker tomorrow, to Wuislington." The relief that Peottre felt at Dutiful's words was palpable. "I myself will vouch for the safety of your folk while we are gone from them."

  Dutiful shook his head slowly. His mind was racing. If Peottre were seeking to separate him from his guard and advisers, he would not allow it. "My nobles will, of course, remain here. As they are not of the Farseer line, I suspect that they will not be seen as of my clan and appropriate targets for vengeance. But certain of my entourage must accompany me. My guard, and my advisers. I am sure that you understand." What of Thick? He is still very sick. I asked the question urgently.

  I cannot leave you behind, and I will not trust him to the dubious care he would receive from another. Hard as it will be for him, he must travel with us. He is a member of my Skill coterie. Besides. Think of the havoc he could wreak in our absence did he go back to his old nightmares.

  "Farseer Prince of the Six Duchies, in that I think we can accommodate you." In his eagerness to be certain of our assent, Peottre almost babbled the words.

  The conversation had moved into safer channels. In a short time, Peottre escorted them downstairs to a meal. Chade loudly observed to the Prince that they must arrange that a substantial meal be sent upstairs to Thick, to hasten his recovery. Peottre assured them that this would be done, and then I heard them leave. When they were clear of the Prince's room, I let out my pent breath, rolled my shoulders, and moved to check on Thick. He slept on, peacefully unaware that on the morrow he would be carted off to yet another miserable sea voyage. I looked down on him and sent calming thoughts into his dreams. Then I sat down by the door and awaited, without enthusiasm, whatever Outislander victuals would be sent up to me.

  Chapter 9

  Mothershouse

  Bowsrin was kaempra for the Badger Clan at that time. His ships were fleet, his warriors strong, and he raided well, bringing back brandy and silver and tools of iron. He was nearly a hero before he shamed his clan. He desired a woman of the Gull Clan. He went to her mothershouse with gifts, but she did not accept them. Her sister did, and he lay with her, but it was not enough for him. He went away and raided for a year and returned to the Badger mothershouse with much wealth, but no pride in his heart, for he was eaten up with unworthy lust.

  His warriors were good fighters but foolish in heart, for they listened to his command when he took them to raid the Gull Clan mothershouse. Their warriors were away and the women in the field when Bowsrin's ships came to their shore. Kaempra Bowsrin and his warriors killed their old men and some of their nearly grown boys, and took the women on the bare earth, despite how they fought. Some died rather than be forced. Bowsrin stayed there for seventeen days, and every day that he was there, he forced the Gull Clan daughter Serferet to accept his body. Finally she died of it. Then they left, to return to their own mothershouse. The moon changed and then the Badger mothershouse received tidings of what their kaempra had done. They were shamed. They drove their men from their lands, telling them never to return. Seventeen of their sons the women gave to the Gull Clan, to do with whatever they wished, in atonement for Bowsrin's evil. And the mothershouses of all clans banned Bowsrin and his men from the land, and any man who offered them any comfort was to share their fate.

  In less than a year, the sea ate him and his men. And Clan Gull used his forfeited sister-sons, not as slaves, but as warriors to defend their shores and as men to raise up more sons and daughters for Gull Clan. And the women of the mothershouses were at peace with one another again.

  Outislander cautionary tale, from bard Ombir

  The next day we took ship for the island of Mayle. Prince Dutiful and Chade met briefly with the convened Hetgurd to announce this decision to them. The Prince gave a brief speech in which he said he had chosen to recognize the conflict as a Hetgurd matter. As a man, he could not call back the word he had given, but he would give them the chance to discuss this challenge and reach a consensus on what their will was. He spoke with dignity and calm, Chade told me later, and his willingness to concede that it was a matter only the Hetgurd could settle seemed to soothe many of the ruffled feathers. Even Eagle spoke well of it, saying that a man who was willing to face a challenge squarely was a man anyone could respect, regardless of where he was birthed. The Prince's nobles received the tidings of his departure with varying degrees of surprise and dismay. It was conveyed to them as a slight change in our schedule. Most had not planned to accompany the Prince to his fiancee's mothershouse; they had been told back in Buckkeep that such a large delegation of folk would not be easily welcomed there. They had expected to stay in Zylig and establish connections for future trade negotiations. For the most part, they were content to remain on Skyrene and court trading partners. Arkon Bloodblade, kaempra of the Boar Clan and the Narcheska's father, quietly assured us that he would remain with his warriors to ensure their stay was pleasant, and to further advance our cause with the Hetgurd. Chade told me later that he had strongly suggested to our nobles that they continue to enjoy the hospitality of the Boar stronghouse rather than investigate the hospitality of the local inns. He also suggested that they display their own heraldic devices when they went out and about amongst the Outislanders, just as the clansmen sported their animal sigils. I doubt that he told the Six Duchies nobles there would be more safety for them if they were not seen as part of the Farseer Buck Clan, as the Outislanders thought of the Prince's family. The Tusker was an Outislander vessel, far less comfortable than the Maiden's Chance had been. She bobbed more in the waves, I noted as I watched the others board, but her shallower draft was more suitable for the interisland channels that we would be navigating than the Maiden's deeper hull. Some of the channels, I was told, were barely passable at a low tide, and during certain tides that came only once or twice a year a man could walk from island to island on foot. We would traverse several of these channels before once more crossing open water to the Narcheska's home island and her village of Wuislington.

  It was a cruel thing to do to Thick. I let him sleep as long as possible before I awakened him to a hot meal of familiar foods brought from the Maiden's Chance. I urged him to eat and drink well and spoke only of pleasant things. I concealed from him that we would be embarking on yet another voyage. He was unhappy about having to wash and dress, wanting only to go back to his bed. I longed to be able to let him, for I was convinced it would have been best for his health. But we could not safely leave him behind in Zylig.

  Even when we stood on the docks with the Prince's guardsmen, his Wit coterie, Chade, and Prince Dutiful, watching the cargo of bridal gifts being loaded onto the Tusker, Thick thought we had only come out on a morning's stroll. The boat was tied alongside the dock. At least, I told myself grimly, boarding would present no problem. I was wrong. He watched the others walk up the gangway and on board with no qualms, but when it was his turn, he stopped dead beside me. "No."

  "Don't you want to see the Outislander ship, Thick? Everyone else has gone on board to look around. I've heard it is very different from our ship. Let's go and see it."

  He looked at me for a moment in silence. "No," he said. His little eyes were beginning to narrow in suspicion. Further deception was useless. "Thick, we have to go on board. It's going to sail soon, to take the Prince to the Narcheska's home. We have to go with him."

  Around us, activity on the docks had halted. All else had been in readiness, and all the others were aboard. The ship waited only for Thick and me. Men from other ships and passersby stared at Thick's strangeness avidly, with varying degrees of revulsion on their faces. Sailors from the Tusker waited to haul the planks of the walkway on board and cast off lines. They stared at us in annoyance, waiting. I sensed from them that we humiliated them by our very pres
ence. Why could not we get on board and out of sight belowdecks? Time to act. I took his upper arm firmly. "Thick, we have to get on board now."

  "No!" He bellowed the word suddenly as he slapped at me wildly, and both his fear and his fury struck me in a wild wave of Skill. I staggered aside from him, bringing a general guffaw from those who had halted to watch us. In truth, it must have looked strange to them, that the petulant slap of a half-wit had nearly driven me to my knees.

  I hate to recall what followed. I had no choice but to force him. But Thick's terror left him no choice either. We fought it out on the docks, my physical size and strength and the stoutness of my well-practiced walls against his Skill and awkward fighting abilities.

  Both Chade and Prince Dutiful were instantly aware of my dilemma, of course. I sensed the Prince trying to reach Thick and calm him, but the red haze of his anger acted as efficiently as any Skill-wall. I could not feel Chade's presence at all; I think his effort of the day before had drained him. The first time I seized Thick with the intent of simply lifting him off his feet and carrying him aboard, his Skill flooded into me. The skin-to-skin contact left me vulnerable. It was his fear that he flung at me, and I nearly wet myself with the terror he woke in me. Ancient memories of moments when death's jaws had closed around me rushed through me. I felt the teeth of a Forged One sink into my shoulder and an arrow thudded home in my back. I had lifted him to my shoulder, and I sagged to my knees, under the weight of his terror rather than his body. This elicited a fresh roar of laughter from the onlookers. Thick broke free of me and then stood there, crying out wildly and wordlessly, at bay, unable to flee, for now a circle of jeering men ringed us.

  The mockery around us grew and battered me more effectively than Thick's flailing fists. I could not grasp hold of him without risking the integrity of my walls, nor did I dare lower my walls against Thick's onslaught to allow my own Skill to have its full effect. So I made futile efforts at herding him aboard, closing off his escape whenever he tried to dart past me down the docks. When I stepped toward him, he would step back, closer to the gangplank, and the circle of men there would give way. Then he would dart at me, hand outstretched, knowing that if he touched me, my walls would fall before him. And I would be forced to give ground to avoid his reaching hand. And all the while, men laughed and shouted to their comrades in their harsh tongue, to come and see a Duchyman who could not fight a half-wit.

  In the end, it was Web who saved me. Perhaps the excited cries of the sailors on the Tusker brought him to the railing. The bulky sailor pushed his way past the gawkers and came down the gangway toward us. "Thick, Thick, Thick," he said calmingly. "Come now, man. There's no need for this. No need at all." I had known that the Wit could be used torepel someone. Who has not leaped back from the clashing teeth of a dog or narrowly avoided the swipe of a cat's claws? It is not just the threat that forces one to give ground, but the force of the creature's anger that pushes its challenger back. I think that for a Witted one, to learn to repel is as instinctive as knowing how to flee danger. I had never stopped to think that there might be another complementary force, one that calmed and beckoned.

  I did not have a word for what Web exuded toward Thick. I was not his target, yet I was still peripherally aware of it. It settled my hackles and calmed my thundering heart. Almost without my volition, my shoulders lowered and my jaw unclenched. I saw a wondering look come over Thick's face. His mouth sagged open and his tongue, which was never completely inside it, protruded even more as his little eyes drooped almost closed. Web spoke softly. "Easy, my friend. Relax. Come now, come with me."

  There is a look a kitten gets when its mother lifts it by the nape of its neck. That look was on Thick's face as Web's big hand settled on his arm. "Don't look," Web suggested to him. "Eyes on me, now," and Thick obeyed him, looking up at Web's face as the Witmaster led him aboard the ship as easily as a lad leads a bull by the ring in its nose. I was left trembling, the sweat drying down my spine. The blood rushed to my face at the taunting of the men that accompanied my boarding of the ship. Most of them spoke Six Duchies in a rudimentary way. That they used it now was deliberate, to be sure I understood their scorn. I could not pretend to ignore them, for I could not control the blood that reddened my face with shame. I had no place I could vent my anger as I stalked after Web. I heard the planks taken up behind me as soon as I was on board. I didn't look back, but trailed after Web and Thick toward a tentlike structure on the deck of the ship. The accommodations were far cruder than those on the Maiden's Chance had been. On the foredeck, there was a permanent cabin with wooden walls, such as I was accustomed to seeing on a ship. I was to learn it was divided into two chambers. The larger of these had been given over to the Prince and Chade, and the Wit coterie crowded into the smaller one. This temporary cabin on the aft deck was for the guardsmen. The walls were made of heavy leather stretched on poles with the entire structure lashed down to pegs set in the deck. These shelters were a concession to our Six Duchies sensibilities; the Outislanders themselves preferred an open deck as best for hauling freight or fighting. A look at the faces of my fellow guardsmen persuaded me of how little welcome Thick would be amongst them. After my shameful performance on the dock, I was little higher in their regard. Web was trying to get Thick to sit down on one of the sea chests that had been brought from the Maiden's Chance.

  "No," I told him quietly. "The Prince prefers that Thick be housed close at hand to him. We should take him to the other cabin."

  "It's even more crowded than this one," Web explained, but I only shook my head.

  "The other cabin," I insisted, and he relented. Thick went with him, still with that glazed look of trust on his face. I followed, feeling as exhausted as if I'd spent a morning in sword training. It was only later that I realized it was Web's own pallet he settled Thick onto. Civil sat in the corner on a smaller pallet, his snarling cat on his lap. The minstrel Cockle was disconsolately inspecting three broken strings on a small harp. Swift was looking everywhere but at me. I could feel his dismay that this half-man had been brought right into his living space. The silence in the tiny room was thicker than butter.

  Once Thick had settled on the pallet, Web smoothed a callused hand over his sweaty brow. Thick stared up at us in puzzlement for a moment and then closed his eyes, weary as a child. His breathing was hoarse as sleep claimed him. After the buffeting he'd dealt me, I longed to join him there, but Web was taking my arm. "Come," he said. "We have to talk, you and I."

  I would have resisted him if I could, but when he set his hand on my shoulder, my defiance melted. I let him steer me out onto the deck. I heard the jesting shouts of the sailors when I reappeared, but Web chose to ignore them as he steered me to a rail. "Here," he said, and from his hip took a leather flask and unstoppered it. The scent of brandy reached me. "A bit of this down you, and then take some deep breaths. You look like a man who has bled half to death."

  I did not think I needed the brandy until I took some and felt its heat run through me.

  Fitz?

  The Prince's worried query reached me as a whisper. I realized abruptly how tightly I was still holding my walls. Gingerly I eased them down, and then reached back to Dutiful. "I'm fine. Web has Thick settled now."

  "That's right. I do. But you scarcely need to tell me that."

  Give me a moment, my Prince, to gather myself. I had not even realized that I had spoken aloud the thought I'd previously Skilled to Dutiful. "I know. I'm a bit rattled, I suppose."

  "Yes, you are. What I don't understand is why. But I have my suspicions. The simple man is very important to the Prince, isn't he? And it has something to do with how he could stop a warrior in his prime from forcing him to do a thing he didn't wish to do. What made you flinch before his touch? When I touched him, nothing happened to me."

  I handed him back his flask. "Not my secret," I said bluntly.

  "I see." He took a mouthful of his brandy. He looked aloft pensively. Risk did a lazy loop around our shi
p, waiting for us. Canvas blossomed suddenly on the mast. A moment later, it bellied in the wind and I felt our ship dip and then gather speed. "Short journey, they tell me. Three days, four at most. If we'd taken the Maiden's Chance, she would have had to sail around the whole cluster of islands, and then we would have had to put her at harbor on one of the other islands and still take another shallow-draft vessel to reach Wuislington."

  I nodded sagely to that, not knowing if it was true or not. Perhaps his bird had told him. More likely, it was sailor's gossip, gained by his own ready ears.

  As if it were a logical continuation, he asked, "If I were to guess this secret, would you tell me I'd got it right?" I gave a short sigh. Only now that the struggle was over did I realize how weary I was. And how strong Thick had been when driven by his fear and anger to apply all his strength to me. I hoped he had not burned reserves he could not afford. His sickness had already drained much of his vigor. He had thought himself in a life-or- death struggle with me; of that I had no doubt. Concern for him suddenly filled me. "Tom?" Web pressed me, and with a start I recalled his question.

  "It's not my secret," I repeated doggedly. Hopelessness was welling up in me like blood from a puncture wound. I recognized it as Thick's. That didn't help. I'd have to quell it somehow, before it could affect the rest of the people on the ship. Can you handle him for us?

  The assent I sent to the Prince was an acknowledgment of his request rather than a confirmation that I could accomplish it.

  Web was offering me his flask again. I took it, swigged from it, and then said, "I have to go back to Thick. It's not good for him to be left alone."