Fools Fate, Page 26

  “Why? You've obviously no intent of doing anything interesting with him. Why shouldn't I take him? By rights, he should be mine, just as by rights I should be Narcheska. And will be, when he takes you off to be a lesser woman in his own mothershouse. ”

  Several of the girls gasped, but Elliania's eyes only blazed hotter.

  “That is among the oldest of the lies you tell, Lestra! Your great-grandmother was the younger twin. Both midwives said so. ”

  “First out of the womb is not always oldest, Elliania. So many say. Your great-grandmother was a mewling, sickly kitten of a babe. Mine was the hearty, healthy child. Your great-grandmother had no right to be Narcheska, nor did her daughter, or her granddaughter, or you!”

  “Sickly? Indeed! Then how is it that she lives still, as Great Mother! Take back your lie, Lestra, or I will cram it down your throat. ” Elliania spoke in a flat, ugly voice. It carried well. I was not the only one who had turned to watch the quarrel. When Dutiful stepped forward, mouth open to speak, Elliania put her hand flat in the center of his chest and thrust him back. The young girls formed into a ring now around the potential combatants and he found himself outside it. He looked toward me as if for help.

  Don't intervene, I think. Elliania has made it plain that she doesn't want you to.

  I hoped my advice was good. Even as I attempted to Skill the situation to Chade, I saw Peottre. He had probably been lurking just out of my line of sight at the building's corner. He strolled over to the low wall where I sat and leaned one hip on it casually. “He should stay out of that,” he said to me casually.

  I swung my head and regarded him blearily. “Who?”

  He stared at me levelly. “Your prince. He should leave this to Elliania to settle. It's woman's business, and she won't welcome his interference. You should convey that to him, if you can. ”

  Peottre says, Step back from it. Let Elliania settle it.

  What? Dutiful demanded in consternation.

  Why is Peottre speaking to you? Chade demanded.

  I don't know!

  To Peottre, I said, “I'm just his guardsman, sir. I don't advise the Prince. ”

  “You're his bodyguard,” Peottre replied pleasantly. “Or his . . . what would it be in your language? His chaperon? As I am for Elliania. You're good, but you're not invisible. I've seen you watching him. ”

  “I'm his guardsman. I'm supposed to guard him,” I protested, letting the words slur a little. I wished I'd thought to have a glass of wine. The smell of spirits can be very convincing.

  He was no longer looking at me. I turned to stare up the hill. There was a shout behind me from the door of the mothershouse, and I heard other people emerging. The two girls had gone into a clinch. With apparent ease, Lestra threw Elliania onto the ground on her back. Even at that distance, I heard her breath whoosh out of her. Peottre made a frustrated sound and he twitched in that small way that experienced fighters do when they are watching a prized student compete. As Lestra flung herself on top of Elliania, the smaller girl suddenly drew her knees up to her chest and firmly kicked her opponent in her midsection. Lestra shot backward, landing badly. Elliania rolled to her knees and, careless of her fine gown and coiffed hair, flung herself on top of Lestra. Every muscle in Peottre's neck and arms was taut, but he did not move. I came to my feet to gain a better vantage and gawked, just as the other Buckkeep guardsmen were doing. The Outislanders who had emerged to watch the struggle were interested, but not intent. Evidently, for girls or women to wrestle in this manner was not shocking to them.

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  By sitting high on Lestra's chest, her knees on her arms, Elliania had effectively pinned the larger girl to the earth. Lestra was kicking and struggling, but the Narcheska had gripped a handful of her loose hair to fix her head to the ground. With her free hand, she rubbed a handful of dirt into Lestra's mouth. “Let honest earth cleanse the lie from your lips!” she shouted triumphantly. Dutiful stood back from them, his mouth ajar. He was aware of the wild jiggle of Elliania's bared breasts as her chest heaved with exertion. I sensed he was as horrified at his physical reaction to that as he was by the girls' struggle. All around them, the other girls leaped and yelled, encouraging the combatants.

  With a wild shriek, Lestra tore her head free of Elliania's grasp, leaving her clutching a goodly handful of hair. Elliania slapped her, hard, and then seized her by the throat. “Call me Narcheska, or you will not draw another breath!” she shouted at her.

  “Narcheska! Narcheska!” the older girl shrieked, and then she began to sob wildly, more from frustration and humiliation than pain.

  Elliania put her hand flat to Lestra's face and pushed up off it as she stood. “Leave her alone!” she warned two of the girls who stepped forward to aid the loser. “Let her lie there and be glad that I didn't have my knife. I am a woman now. From now on, my knife will answer anyone who dares to dispute that I am Narcheska. From now on, my knife will answer anyone who dares to touch the man I have claimed for myself. ”

  I glanced at Peottre. His grin was hard, showing every tooth he had. Elliania reached Dutiful in two strides. He stood gawking down at his disheveled bride. As casually as I would seize a horse's mane to mount him, she reached up and gripped his warrior's tail. As she pulled his face down to hers, she commanded him, “You will kiss me now. ”

  An instant before their mouths met, he snatched his Skill-awareness away from me. Yet neither I nor any man watching needed the Skill to sense the fervor in that kiss. She locked her mouth to his, and as his arms came awkwardly around her to draw her closer, she leaned into his embrace, deliberately brushing her bared breasts against his chest. Then she broke the kiss, and while Dutiful drew an uneven breath, she met his eyes and reminded him, “Icefyre's head. On my mothers' hearth. Before you may call me wife. ” Then, from within the circle of his embrace, she looked at her old playmates and announced, “You girls may stay here and play if you wish. I'm taking my husband back inside to the feasting. ”

  She stepped clear of his arms, and took his hand again. He followed her docilely, grinning vapidly. Lestra was sitting up, alone, staring after them with fury and shame. There were approving whoops from several women and some envious groans from the watching men as she triumphantly led her prize past them. I glanced at Peottre. He looked stunned. Then his eyes came to mine. “She had to do that,” he told me sternly. “To make her point with the other girls. That's why she did it. To establish herself in their eyes as a woman, and to make clear her claim to him. ”

  “I could see that,” I agreed mildly. But I did not believe him. I suspected that something had just happened that was outside his plan for Elliania and Dutiful. It made it all the more essential for me to discover just what his true intent was.

  The rest of the evening seemed bland. Eating, drinking, and listening to Outislander bards could not compare to the claiming of power that I had just witnessed. I found a meat pie and a mug of ale and took it to a quiet corner. I pretended to be absorbed in it as I Skilled to Chade all that I had witnessed.

  This is moving more swiftly than I had dared hope, he Skilled in return. And yet I mistrust it. Does she truly want him as husband, or was it only to establish that what she claimed, no one can take from her? Does she hope lust will spur him to kill the dragon for her?

  I felt foolish as I told him, This is the first time I have realized that if she becomes his bride and moves to his house, some will say she has forfeited her place here. Lestra spoke of her becoming a “lesser woman in his mothershouse. ” What did it mean?

  Chade's reply came reluctantly. I think the idiom is the same used for a woman captured in a raid, but taken as a wife rather than a slave. Her children have no clan. It is like being a bastard, somewhat.

  Then why would she agree to this? Why would Peottre allow it? And if she is not the Narcheska when she comes to Buckkeep and remains there, do we gain any advantage by this wedding? Chade, t
his does not make sense to me.

  There is still too much that is not clear here, Fitz. I sense an unseen current in all this. Stay alert.

  And so I did, through the long evening and longer night. The sun lingered as it does in that northern clime, so that night was just a long twilight. When the time came for the bridal couple to retire, it was Dutiful who announced that he would remain below in the common room “lest any say that I have taken what I have not earned. ” It added another awkward moment to the day, and I saw a puff-lipped Lestra gloating about it with her cohorts. The couple parted at the foot of the staircase, Elliania ascending and Dutiful going off to take a seat beside Chade. This night, he would sleep within the mothershouse, as befitted a man properly wedded to a woman of the clan, but down here on the bed boards, not above with Elliania. His guards were dismissed for the night, to return to the warriors' housing or warmer welcomes, so long as their partners bedded them outside the mothershouse walls. I longed to move closer to Chade and Dutiful and have some quiet talk with them, but I knew it would look odd. Instead, I decided that it was time for me to return to my own lodgings.

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  I had not gone far when I heard footsteps crunching on the pathway behind me. Glancing back, I saw Web. Beside him slogged a weary Swift. The tops of his cheeks were very pink and I suspected the boy had overindulged in wine. Web nodded to me, and I slackened my pace to allow them to catch up with me. “Quite an occasion,” I remarked idly to Web when he walked beside me.

  “Yes. I think the Outislanders now regard our prince as wed to their narcheska. I thought this was only to confirm the betrothal before her mother's hearth. ” There was a note of question in his statement.

  “I don't think they make any distinction between couples marrying and couples announcing that they will marry. Here, where property and children belong to the women, marriage is seen in a different light. ”

  He nodded slowly. “No woman ever has to wonder if a babe is truly hers,” he observed.

  “Does it make that great a difference that the children belong more to the woman than they do the husband?” Swift asked curiously. His words were not slurred, but when he spoke, I could smell the wine on his breath.

  “I think it depends on the man,” Web answered gravely. After that, we walked for a time in silence. Whether I would or no, my thoughts wandered to Nettle and Molly and Burrich and me. To whom did she belong now?

  As we drew near the cottage, the town around us was silent. Any folk who were not at the wedding festivities in the mothershouse were long abed. I opened the door quietly. Thick needed all the rest he could get; I did not wish to wake him. The slice of light that we admitted to the cottage showed me Riddle lying on the floor beside Thick's bed. One eye was open and his hand was on his bared blade arranged beside him. When he saw who it was, he closed his eyes and lapsed back into sleep.

  I remained standing motionless by the door. There was another intruder in the cottage, one whose presence Riddle had not noticed. Large and round as a fat cat, yet masked like a ferret, he crouched on the table, his bushy striped tail sticking straight up behind him. He looked at us with round eyes over the hunk of our cheese that he clutched in his front paws. The marks of his sharp teeth were clearly visible in it.

  “What is it?” I breathed to Web.

  “I think they call it a robber-rat, though rat it is clearly not. I've never seen the like of it before,” he replied as softly.

  The robber-rat stared past us both, his entire attention fixed on Swift. Like a whisper against my senses, I became aware of the Wit flowing between the two. There was a smile on Swift's face. He stepped forward, pushing between Web and me to do so. I lifted a hand to reach after him, but before I could do so, Web's hand fell on the boy's shoulder. He jerked Swift back, startling the robber-rat with the abruptness of his move. Aloud, he told the creature, “Take the cheese and go. ” Then, in the harshest voice I'd ever heard him use, he demanded of Swift, “What did you think you were doing? Have you not heard one word of anything I've tried to teach you?”

  Robber-rat and cheese were gone in a flicker of motion, vanishing through the open window with a flick of striped tail.

  Swift gave a cry of disappointment and tried to wrench himself free of Web's grip. The stout man's hand held him firm. The boy was angry, mostly I think in response to Web's visible anger with him. “All I did was greet him! I liked the feel of him. I could sense that we would go well together. And I wanted—”

  “You wanted him like a child wants a bright toy on a tinker's tray!” Web spoke severely and there was no mistaking the condemnation in his voice as he released Swift's shoulder. “Because he was sleek and swift and clever. And he is as young and foolish as you are. And as curious. You felt him reach back to you not because he was seeking a partner but because you intrigued him. That is not a basis for a Wit-bond. And you are not old enough or mature enough to be seeking a partner. If you attempt that again, I will punish you, just as I would punish any child who deliberately put himself or a playmate into danger. ”

  Riddle had sat up and was regarding the discussion with open-mouthed astonishment. It was no secret to anyone that both Web and Swift were part of Dutiful's Witted coterie. I shuddered to think how close I had come to betraying myself as Old Blood. Even Thick had opened one sleepy eye to scowl at the argument.

  Swift flung himself disconsolately into a chair. “Danger,” he muttered. “What danger? Is it dangerous that I might have someone that cared about me, at last?”

  “Danger that you would bond with a creature you know nothing about? Has he a mate and kits at home? Would you take him from them, or remain here on this island when we sailed? What does he eat and how often? Would you stay here with him for his life span, or take him away from all others of his kind when we left here, condemning him to remain forever mateless? You took no thought for him, Swift, nor for anything beyond the connection of the moment. You're like a drunk, bedding a young girl tonight with no thoughts for the morrow. It is not a behavior I can excuse. No true Old Blood would. ”

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  Swift glared at him. Riddle spoke thoughtlessly into the tense silence. “I did not know the Witted had any rules about bonding with animals. I thought they could bond with any creature, for an hour or a year. ”

  “A false perception,” Web said heavily, “that many folk not of Old Blood have about us. It is bound to happen, when one people must keep their ways secret and unseen. But it leads to the idea that we use animals and then discard them. It makes it easier for folk to think we would bid a bear savage a man's family, or send a wolf to kill a flock of sheep. The Wit-bond is not a man taking mastery over an animal. It is a joining founded on mutual respect, for life. Do you understand that, Swift?”

  “I meant no harm,” he replied stiffly. There was no repentance or apology in his voice.

  “Neither does the child who plays with fire and burns a cottage down. Meaning no harm is not enough, Swift. If you would be Old Blood, then you must respect our rules and ways all the time, not just when it suits you. ”

  “And if I don't?” Swift asked sullenly.

  “Then call yourself a Piebald, for that is what you will be. ” Web drew in a heavy breath and then sighed it out. “Or an outcast,” he said softly. I felt that he tried not to look at me as he spoke those last words. “Why any man would wish to remain apart from his own, I do not know. ”

  Chapter 11

  WUISLINGTON

  The attachment that the women have to their clan lands is remarkable. They often refer to tales that the earth itself is made from Eda's flesh and bones while the sea belongs to El. All land belongs to the women of the clan; the men born into a clan may tend the land and help with the harvest, but the women determine the distribution of the harvest and also decree what crops will be planted and where and in what proportions. It is not merely a matter of ownership, but a ma
tter of Eda's worship.

  Men may be buried anywhere, and most often are given to the sea. But all women must be buried within their own clan fields. The graves are honored for seven years, during which time the burial field is left fallow. After that, they are plowed again, and the first harvest from such a field is served in a special feast.

  While the Outislander men are wanderers and may remain away from their home ports for years, the women tend to stay close to the lands of their birth. In marriage, they expect their husbands to reside with them. If an Outislander woman dies away from her clan lands, extraordinary efforts will be made to return her body to her clan fields. To do otherwise is both great shame and serious sacrilege for the woman's clan. The clans will willingly go to war to repatriate a woman's body to her home.

  — “AN ACCOUNT OF TRAVEL IN A BARBAROUS LAND,”

  BY SCRIBE FEDWREN

  We were guests at Wuislington at the Narcheska's mothershouse for twelve days. It was a strange hospitality they offered us. Chade and Prince Dutiful were allotted sleeping space on the benches in the lower level of the house. The Witted coterie was housed alongside the guardsmen outside the walls. Thick and I continued in our cottage, with Swift and Riddle as frequent visitors. Every day, Chade sent two of the guards into the village to purchase victuals. They brought a share to us in the cottage, some to the guards, and the rest back to the mothershouse. Although Blackwater had promised to feed us, Chade had chosen this tactic shrewdly. To be seen as dependent on the Narwhal mothershouse largesse would be seen as a weakness and a foolish lack of planning.

  There were good aspects to our extended stay. Thick began to recover his health. He still coughed and was short of breath if he went for a walk, but he slept more naturally, took an interest in his surroundings, ate and drank, and generally recovered some of his spirits. He still held it against me that I had forced him to travel there in a ship and that he would eventually have to leave in the same way. Every effort at casual conversation that I made always seemed to lead us back to that bone of contention. Sometimes it seemed easier not to speak to him at all, but then I sensed his anger for me as a simmering displeasure. I hated that things had become uncomfortable between us when I had worked so hard to gain his trust. When I said as much to Chade during one of our brief meetings, he dismissed it as necessary. “It would be far worse if he blamed it on Dutiful, you see. In this, you will have to be the whipping boy, Fitz. ” I knew it was so, and yet his words were no comfort.