The Prince’s eyes were locked on to my face. I could not meet his earnest gaze. I stared past him, out the tall windows and over the gray and billowing sea. Then I steeled myself and trod the precipice path between deadly truth and cowardly falsehood. “I was one of Galen’s students. Because of my illegitimate birth, he despised me. I learned what I could from him, but he was a cruel and unjust master to me, driving me away from the knowledge he did not wish to share with me. Under his brutal tutelage, I learned the basics of Skilling, but no more than that. I could not predictably master my talent, and so I failed. He sent me away with the other students who did not meet his standards.
“I continued to work as a servant here in the keep. When your father labored most heavily here, he had his meals brought up to him; that was my task. And it was here that we discovered, most providentially, that even though I could not Skill on my own, he could draw Skill strength from me. And later, in the brief times he was able to give me, he taught me what he could of Skilling.”
I turned to face Dutiful and waited. His dark eyes probed mine. “When he left on his quest, did you go with him?”
I shook my head and answered truthfully. “No. I was young and he forbade it.”
“And you didn’t try to follow him later?” He was incredulous, his imagination fired with what he was sure he would himself have done in my place.
It was hard to say the next words. “No one knew where he had gone, or by what paths.” I held my breath, hoping that would still his questions. I didn’t want to lie to him.
He turned away from me and looked out over the sea. He was disappointed in me. “I wonder how different things might have been if you had gone with him.”
I had often told myself that if I had, Queen Kettricken would never have survived Regal’s reign at Buckkeep. But I said, “I’ve often pondered that question myself, my prince. But there is no knowing what might have happened. I might have helped him, but looking back on those days, I think it just as likely I would have been a hindrance to him. I was very young, quick-tempered, and impetuous.” I took a breath and steered the conversation as I wished it to go. “I tell you these things to be sure you understand well that I am no Skillmaster. I have not studied all those scrolls . . . I have read only a few of them. So. In a sense we are both students here. I will do my best to educate myself from the scrolls, even as I teach you the basics of what I know. It is a hazardous path that we will tread together. Do you understand this?”
“I understand. And of the Wit?”