Fools Quest, Page 30

  I said nothing to that, but nodded as I added hot water to the cup. I knew the old man would not apologize for his earlier remarks; this was his way of trying to put us back to our old foundation. I’d take it. I set the cup on the floor by Perseverance. “Let that brew for a time, and then drink it all. It won’t taste good, but it’s not about taste. ”

  “Is that elfbark?” he asked anxiously.

  “No. It’s willowbark for your fever, and valerian to take some of the pain away. How’s your shoulder?”

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  “It throbs,” he admitted. “All the way to my back and up my neck. ”

  “The tea will help. ”

  He looked up at me. “Will that other tea hurt my mother? When she remembers?”

  “I expect it will be hard for her. But the choice is to leave her alone for the rest of her life. She wouldn’t remember your father dying, but she’d never recall she’d had a son. ”

  “She’d have my aunt, and my cousins. They live down in Withy. ”

  “Boy?” It was FitzVigilant, cutting into our conversation. “I’ll be drinking it first. We’ll see what it does to me. Then you can decide about giving it to your mother. ”

  Perseverance stared up at him. “Thank you, sir,” he said doubtfully.

  Lant spoke to his father. “Is it brewed enough?”

  “We’ll see,” Chade said quietly. He poured some into a cup, looked at it, smelled it, and then filled the cup the rest of the way. He handed the cup to Lant. “Go slowly with it. Let us know if you sense a difference, or start to remember that night. ”

  Lant sat down. He looked at the tea in the cup. We were all watching him as he raised it and took a sip. He made a face. “It’s a bit too hot. And it tastes bitter. ” But almost immediately he took another sip. He lifted his eyes. “Could you not stare?” he said to me. I shifted my eyes. A moment later, he said, “It’s so quiet. ”

  Chade and I exchanged a glance. I stole a look at Lant. He was staring at the liquid in his cup. He took a breath, as if daring himself, and then drained it down. He made a pained face and then sat still, holding the cup. He closed his eyes. His brow wrinkled and then he hunched in on himself. “Oh, sweet Eda,” he groaned. “Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no!”

  Chade went to him. He set his hands on Lant’s shoulder and, with a tenderness I’d seldom seen in him, leaned down to say softly by his ear, “Let yourself remember. It’s the only way you can help her now. Remember it all. ”

  Lant bowed his face into his hands, and I suddenly saw how young he was. Not even twenty. Raised far more gently than I had been. The beating from his stepmother’s thugs might well have been the first real violence he’d experienced in his life. He’d never pulled an oar on a war galley, let alone swung an axe through a man’s midsection. Chade had already told me that Lant hadn’t been able to kill. And I’d entrusted him with Bee’s life. And Shun’s.

  “Tell me what happened,” Chade said quietly. I leaned back to sit on the edge of my desk and kept perfectly still.

  Lant’s voice was tight. “Well. We came back here after Badgerlock and the beggar went into the Skill-pillar. Me, and Shun—” His voice broke on her name. “And Bee. We didn’t understand any of what had happened in Oaksbywater, not why he killed a dog and then bought its puppies, nor why he stabbed the beggar and then took him by magic to Buckkeep. We, that is, Shun and I, were both rather angry about all of it. First he had said I was not competent to teach Bee and then he had gone off and left her completely in my care. And he had insulted Lady Shun as well!” Lant was suddenly just a youngster, pouring out his wrongs to Chade. The old man shot me a questioning look. I met his stare with a flat gaze of my own.

  “Get to the next day,” I suggested.

  At my tone, Lant straightened his back. “Yes. Well. As you might imagine, the servants, including Steward Revel, were very confused when the master of the house did not return. Shun and I assured them that we were capable of looking after Withywoods for a few days. Despite how tired we were, Shun and I sat up that night, and she undertook to plan the festivities for Winterfest. We were up very late. And so we did not rise early the next morning. I regret to say that I was late joining my students in the schoolroom. Bee was there, looking tired but otherwise fine. And when we parted that morning, Shun had said that she would speak with the staff about decorating the house and talk to the musicians who had come to see if she could not send for more entertainers. ” He looked suddenly at Chade. “You said my sister was taken, earlier. ” For two breaths, I watched the knowledge spread through him. “Shun is my sister? Truly? By blood?”

  “You are both my offspring, both Fallstars,” Chade assured him.

  Could Chade ignore the deep dismay that washed over Lant’s features? I wondered what had passed between him and Shun on the evening they had stayed up so late. I decided I never wanted to know.

  “Continue,” Chade reminded Lant. The scribe had lifted his hand to cover his mouth. When he took it away, his mouth trembled for a moment before he mastered himself. He tried to sit up straighter, then winced at his wound. Chade looked at me. “Valerian and willowbark,” he requested. I took Lant’s cup and made the requested tea while I listened.

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  “Well, I had just settled my students when we heard noises. I was not alarmed, but puzzled. I thought it might be some sort of altercation among the servants, with pot-throwing. I told my students to stay and study and went into the hallway. I soon realized the sounds were coming from the front entrance, not the kitchens. I heard Revel’s voice raised, and I ran toward the commotion. When I got to the hall, I saw Revel there and two of the serving boys. They were trying to hold the doors closed, but someone was pounding on them and shouting. I thought perhaps we had drunken tinkers at the door. Then someone shoved a sword through the crack of the door and caught one of the serving boys in the hand. I shouted at Revel to hold the door while I got help. I went to find a sword, calling to the servants to warn Shun and to arm themselves. I took the old sword that used to be there, over the mantel. And I ran back. ” He wet his lips. His gaze went distant and his breathing deepened.

  “Fitz,” Chade said quietly. “Perhaps some more elfbark in that mix. ”

  Before I could move, Perseverance was on his feet. He brought the teapot to Lant, took the cup from his hand, and added the elfbark brew. Lant was sitting very still. Chade still stood behind him. He leaned down and said quietly, “Son, take the cup. And drink it. ”

  A peculiar pang passed through me. It could not have been jealousy.

  Lant did as his father told him. This time, his expression scarcely changed as he set the cup back down. “I’ve never been a fighter. You know that. You both know that!” His admission sounded more like an accusation. Then his voice dropped. “I’m just not. A friendly bout, with practice blades, on a summer day with a friend and comparing bruises later is one thing. But when I went running back, the door had already given way. I saw Revel stagger past me, holding his gut. And one of the lads was on the floor in a pool of blood. The other youngster was trying to hold them off with his belt-knife. The first man through the door laughed, and cut his head off. And then it was only me in the hall, facing first one, then three, and then at least six of them. I tried to fight. I did. I was shouting for help and I tried to fight, but this wasn’t fencing, man against man. There were no rules! I engaged with one man, and a second stepped forward. I managed to hold my own but the entry hall is wide. The invaders just went around us, and I heard them running down the halls behind me. And I heard screams, and things breaking. And the man in front of me suddenly laughed. ”

  He looked down suddenly.

  I hazarded a guess. “A man behind you attacked you? He knocked you unconscious?”

  “No. No one touched me. I dropped my sword to the ground. And the two men I’d been fighting just stood and laughed at me. One gave me a hard pus
h as I walked by him, and I didn’t care. And I walked outside and stood in the snow in front of the manor. And I still don’t know why. ”

  Skill-suggestion? Chade’s thought brushed lightly against mine.

  I nodded, unwilling to make the effort to do more. To Skill to him, I’d have to drop my walls and let in that fog of forget, forget, forget. I would not forget. “Don’t worry about what you don’t know,” I suggested gently. “It’s obvious magic was at work. You had no way to resist it. Just tell us what you do know. ”

  “Yes,” he said unwillingly. But he was shaking his head no.

  “Do you want more of the elfbark?” Chade asked.

  “No. I remember what happened that day, and on the days since. I don’t understand it, but I recall it. I’m just ashamed to speak it aloud. ”

  “Lant, Fitz and I have both known our share of defeats. We’ve been burned, poisoned, beaten. And yes, we’ve been buffeted by Skill, made fools of, and done things we’re ashamed to admit. No matter what you did or didn’t do, we won’t think less of you. Your hands were bound, even if there was no rope you could see. If we are to rescue your sister and little Bee, you have to set your pride aside and just tell us what you know. ”

  Chade’s voice was comforting. A father’s voice. Something cynical inside me wondered if he would have been that forgiving of me, but I quenched it.

  It took Lant a little time. He rocked in his chair once or twice, cleared his throat, and then said nothing. When he spoke again, his voice was higher and tighter. “I stood with the others out in the snow. People walked out of the manor and came and stood near me. There were a few men on horseback but I didn’t feel that they were keeping me there. I was afraid of them but mostly I was afraid to do anything except stay there with the others. No. Not afraid, not even reluctant. It just seemed that what I was doing was the only possible thing I could do. Everyone was there, milling about. Lots of people were weeping and agitated, but no one was talking to anyone else. No one resisted. Even the injured just stood and bled. ” He paused again, his mind going back.

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  Bulen tapped on the door. “Sir? I am so sorry to disappoint you. I have been down to the cottages where the stableworkers live. No one there has any recollection of a lad named Perseverance or admits to being his family. ”

  I felt like a ninny. I looked at the boy. His eyes were dark with sorrow. He spoke softly. “It’s the third cottage. There is a hedge-witch charm over the door for good luck. And my grandfather made a doorknocker out of a cart horse’s shoe. My mother’s name is Diligent. ”

  Bulen was nodding. I amended his orders. “Do not make mention of her son at all. Tell her we wish to speak to her to see if she will take on some extra tasks in the kitchen. ”

  “Oh, she’d like that,” Perseverance said quietly. “She’s always after Da to build her an oven behind the cottage so she could bake whenever she wanted. ”

  “Very well, sir. And Steward Dixon sends to tell you that the guardsmen are eating everything within sight. As our larders were not well stocked this fall …”

  Our larders had been overflowing before the raid. “Tell him to send a man and wagon to Withy and stock whatever he thinks we need for now. Next market day, he can make a trip to Oaksbywater. I will settle with the merchants later. They know we are good for it. ”

  “Very good, sir. ” Bulen cast a worried look at FitzVigilant. He had only served him for a short time, but there was already a bond between the young men. “Is there anything I can bring for Scribe Lant?”

  Lant did not even shift his eyes toward Bulen. Chade shook his head silently and the man withdrew. “Lant?” he said softly.

  FitzVigilant drew a deep breath and took up his tale as if it were a heavy burden. “We were all there. And they brought out Shun and her maid. I remember I noticed that Shun was fighting them, because no one else was. She was kicking and screaming at the man who dragged her. Then from somewhere, she had a knife and she stabbed his hand. She almost broke free. He grabbed her by the shoulder and slapped her so hard that she fell. He still had to throttle the knife out of her hand. He pushed her toward us and walked away. Then she looked all around and when she saw me, she came running to me. She was screaming, ‘Do something! Why isn’t anyone doing anything?’ She threw her arms around me, but I just stood there. Then she asked me, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ And I couldn’t think of anything wrong at all. I said we should just stand with the others. It was what I wanted to do. And she asked, ‘If it’s what they want to do, why are they moaning?’ ” He stopped and swallowed. “I listened, then. And they were. Moaning and weeping but in a disconnected way. And I realized I’d been doing it, too. ”

  Only Shun had fought back. Why? Had the training Chade had provided for her made her bolder than the others? I’d hired no servants for their skill with arms, but I was sure my stablefolk had seen a brawl or three. Yet no one had fought back. Except Shun. I looked at Chade. He didn’t meet my eyes, and I was forced to set the question aside for later.

  “The guards on horseback started shouting at us to ‘sit down, sit down. ’ Some yelled in Chalcedean, some in our tongue. I didn’t sit, because I was already too cold and there was snow on the ground. And I felt that as long as I stayed with the others in the carriage turnaround, I was doing what I should be doing. One of the men started making threats. He was looking for someone, a pale boy, and said he would kill us all if we did not turn him over to them. I knew of no such lad, and apparently no one else did. There was Oak, who you had hired as a serving man. He was blond, but scarcely a boy. But someone said to one of the men that he was the only towhead working at Withywoods. He was standing not far from me. And the man who was asking rode his horse over to Oak, looked down on him, and then pointed. ‘Him?’ he shouted at this other man. He was dressed all in white, and though he looked like a prosperous merchant, his face was a boy’s. He shook his head and the man on the horse was suddenly very angry. ‘Not him!’ he shouted and then he leaned down and slashed Oak’s throat with his sword. And he fell into the snow, with the blood leaping from the wound. He lifted his hand to his throat, as if he could hold it back. But he couldn’t. He looked right at me until he died. Blood steams when the day is that cold. I never knew that. And I just watched.

  “But Shun didn’t. She screamed, and cursed the man on the horse, saying she would kill him. She started to run at him. And I didn’t know why, but I caught hold of her arm and tried to hold her back. I struggled with her. And a man on a horse rode over and kicked me hard in the head, so I let go of her. Then he leaned down and thrust his sword through me. And he laughed as I fell right onto Oak’s body. His blood was still warm. I remember that. ”

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  Oak. A young man hired to help serve the dinners. A smiling young man, unlearned at serving in a house, but always smiling, and so proud of his new livery. Oak, a lifeless body, seeping red into white snow. He had come to us from Withy. Did his parents wonder yet why he had not come home to visit?

  There was a noise at the door. It was Thick, coming back with a platter of little raisin cakes. He was smiling as he offered them to us. He looked puzzled when Chade and Lant and I shook our heads. Perseverance took one, but held it in his hand. Thick smiled and sat down on the hearth with the plate on his lap. He made a great show of choosing one. His simple enjoyment of a little cake rang sharply against my heart. Why could not it be my little girl, my Bee, sitting there with a whole plate of cakes to herself and no worries?

  Lant had paused, his brow furrowed. He looked up at Chade, as if to find what the old man thought of his words. Chade’s face was expressionless. “Go on,” he said in a voice both quiet and wooden.

  “I don’t remember anything after that. Not until I woke very late at night. I was alone in the carriageway. Oak’s body was gone, and it was fully dark, except for the light from the stables. They were burning. But no one was p
aying any attention to the fire. I didn’t think about any of that, then. I didn’t notice Oak’s body was gone or that the stables were burning. I got up. I felt very dizzy and the pain in my arm and shoulder was terrible, and I was so cold I was shaking all over. I staggered inside and went to my room. Bulen was there, and he said he was glad to see me. And I told him I’d been hurt. And he bandaged me and helped me to bed, and said Old Rosie the shepherd’s granny was in the manor doing some healing. And she came and saw to my shoulder. ”

  “Bulen didn’t ride to Withy to get a real healer? Or to Oaksbywater?” Chade was obviously appalled that someone’s granny had tended to his son’s sword wound.

  Lant knit his brows. “No one wanted to leave the house and grounds. And no one wanted any strangers to come in. We all agreed on that. Just as we agreed that someone must have been drunk and careless to burn the stables. But none of us really cared. I could not recall how I had been injured. Some said there had been a drunken brawl, others that there were injuries from the stable fire. But no one was clear about what had happened. And we didn’t care, really. It wasn’t something to dwell on. ” He looked up at Chade suddenly, a piercing, pleading look. “What did they do to me? How did they do that?”

  “We think they imposed a strong Skill-suggestion on you and the others. And then suggested that you keep reinforcing it with one another. You were all to refuse to remember, to not think about it, to be unwelcoming to outsiders, and to have no desire to leave the estate. It was the perfect way to cover up what had happened here. ”

  “Was it my fault? Was I weak, that they could do that to me?” There was agony in that question.

  “No. ” Chade was very certain. “It was not your fault. A person with great Skill-talent can impose his will on another and make him believe almost anything. It was one of King Verity’s best weapons against the Red Ships during the war. ” More softly he added, “I never thought to see it used like this, within Buck’s boundaries. It took tremendous strength and Skill to do this. Who has that sort of knowledge of the magic? And that sort of talent for it?”