Fool's Fate - Page 79/343

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 fiancée'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 presence. 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.