“And more risk to yourself. Chade has told me that Piebalds threatened you, right at our doorstep in Buckkeep Town.”
I discovered that I hadn’t wanted her to know that. “It is a thing best handled by me. Perhaps I can tease them out into the open.”
“Well. Perhaps. But I am ashamed that you face such things seemingly alone. In truth, I hate that such bigotry still exists in the Six Duchies, and that our nobles turn a blind eye to it. I have done what I could for my Witted folk, but progress has been slow. When the Piebald postings first began to appear, they angered me. Chade urged me not to act in the heat of that anger. Now, I wonder if it would not have been wise to let my wrath be known. My second reaction was that I wished to let my Witted folk know that my justice was available to them. I wanted to send out a summons, inviting the leaders of the Witted to come to me, that together we might hammer out a shield for them against the cruelty of these Piebalds.” She shook her head.
“Again Chade intervened, telling me that the Witted had no recognized leaders, and that they would not trust the Farseers enough to come to such a meeting. We had no go-between that they would trust, and no sureties that we could offer them that this was not a plan to lure them in and destroy them. He persuaded me to abandon the idea.” Her words seemed to come more reluctantly as she added, “Chade is a good councilor, wise in politics and the ways of power. Yet I sometimes feel that he would steer us solely on the basis of what makes the Six Duchies most stable, with less care given for justice for all my people.” Her fair brow wrinkled as she added, “He says that the greater the stability of the country, the more chance for justice to prosper. Perhaps he is right. But often and often, I have longed for the way you and I used to discuss these things. There too I have missed you, FitzChivalry. I dislike that I cannot have you at my side when I wish it, but must send for you in secret. I wish that I could invite you to join Peottre and me for our game today, for I would value your opinion of him. He is a most intriguing man.”
“Your game with Peottre today?”
“I shared some talk with him last evening. In the course of discussing the chance that Dutiful and Elliania would be truly happy, other talk of ‘chance’ came up. And from there, we moved to games of chance. Do you recall a Mountain game played with cards and rune chips?”